Book Description

Excerpt from Man, Past and Present In the preface to the Ethnology, which formed the first volume of the Cambridge Geographical Series, a promise was held out that it might be followed by another dealing more systematically with the primary divisions of mankind. The present volume appears in part fulfilment of that promise. In the Ethnology were discussed those more fundamental questions which concern the human family as a whole - its origin and evolution, its specific unity, antiquity and primitive cultural stages, together with the probable cradle and area of dispersion of the four varietal divisions over the globe. Here these divisions are treated more in detail, with the primary view of establishing their independent specialisation in their several geographical zones, and at the same time elucidating the difficult questions associated with the origins and inter-relations of the chief sub-groups, and thus bridging over the breaks of continuity between "Man Past and Present." The work is consequently to a large extent occupied with that hazy period vaguely called prehistoric, when most of the now living peoples had already been fully constituted in their primeval homes, and had begun those later developments and migratory movements which followed at long intervals after the first peopling of the earth by pleistocene man. By such movements were brought about great changes, displacements, and dislocations, involving fresh ethnical groupings, with profound modifications, or even total effacements of racial or linguistic characters, and complete severance from the original seats of the parent stocks. In some cases the connecting ties are past recovery, so that the ethnical, like the geological, record must always remain to some extent a mutilated chapter in the history of the world and of humanity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.