The Javanese man was thus already well equipped for his long migrations
round the globe. Armed with stone, wooden, bone, and other weapons that
lay at hand, and gifted with mental powers far beyond those of all other
animals, he was assured of success from the first. He certainly had no
knowledge of navigation; but that was not needed to cross inland seas,
open waters, and broad estuaries which, indeed, did not exist in
Pliocene and later times. The road was open across the Indian Ocean to
Madagascar and South Africa by the now submerged Indo-African Continent.
The Eastern Archipelago still formed part of the Asiatic mainland from
which it is separated even now by shallow waters, in many places
scarcely fifty fathoms deep. Eastwards the way was open to New Guinea,
and thence across Torres Strait to Australia and thence to the Islands
of the Pacific Ocean. In the northern hemisphere Europe could be reached
from Africa by three routes, one across the Strait of Gibraltar, another
between Tunis, Malta, Sicily and Italy, and a third from Cyrenaica
across the Ægean to Greece, and the British Isles from Europe via the
Strait of Dover and the shallow North Sea. Lastly, the New World was
accessible both from Asia across Bering Strait, and from Europe through
the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. Here
were, therefore, sufficient land connections for early man to have
gradually spread from his Javanese cradle to the uttermost confines of
the habitable globe.
[Illustration: =THE OLDEST EXTANT REMAINS OF THE HUMAN RACE=
=APE-MAN OF JAVA= (_Pithecanthropus erectus_)
as restored from the remains found by Dr. Dubois in Java in 1892. It is
estimated that he lived at least 500,000 years ago.
=PILTDOWN MAN=
of Sussex, England, whose antiquity is thought to be over 100,000 years.
This restored model indicates a marked progress in type and
intelligence.
=NEANDERTHAL MAN=
whose remains were found in central France. It is probably a type of a
hunting race existent more than 25,000 years ago.
=CRO-MAGNON MAN=
skeletons of which type were found in the grotto of Cro-Magnon, Vézère
valley, France, in 1868. Supposed antiquity, 12,000 years.]