Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-28
Hunting for the Bones Of
Adam S Great Grandfather

HISTORY may be rewritten in the next
II five years, not the history of the pres
ent or the immediate past, but of the
dim beginning of man, millions of years ago,
concerning which so little is known today
and practically nothing was available a
century or two ago.
By far the most pretentious attempt to
pierce the veil separating us from our re-
mote ancestors has been launched recently
in Asia, alo the great Northern Plateau
where most scientists believe the human
race was Graded.
There, under the direction of Roy Chap
man Andrews, associate curator of mann
mails for the eastern hemisphere OF the
American Museum of Natural History, and
Walter Granger, associate curator of fossil
mammals, an expedition has set forth with
the official sanction and protection of the
Chinese government. With Pekin as the
base of operations, the members will pro-
coed westward into the heart of Mongolia,
spreading out wherever leads are promising.
A fund has been provided sufficient to
finance explorations for the next five years,
at the conclusion of which time it is assured
that more money will be forthcoming should
the results then obtained justify it.
A writer in the Natural History magazine
declares that scientists will watch the Mon
golian expedition with more interest than
has beer accorded any archaeological search
in history, though opinion differs widely re-
garding the results that may be obtained.
The expedition, briefly, hopes to decide the
long mooted question as to whence came the
first man. Archaeologists have long been at
issue concerning this point, with but little
evidence to guide them consisting mostly OF
the Piltsdown skull, dug up in England, ana
the Heidelberg man, fossil found in Cen
trail Europe and the so-ca4led Neanderithal
fragments.
Science has decided that one or the other
OF these remains belonged to the first man
or man-like creature, of which research
has yet given Us any record, but
opinions differ as t, which ante
dates the other in his existence on the earth.
Some authorities, however, hold that man
actually lived on the earth long before the
Heidelberg man or the Piltsdown man, and
they insist that the ancestors of even these
men emigrated to Europe from Asia.
''There are several lines of historical,
archaeologic and chrongraphic evidence, -
writes DR.. w. D. Matthew, curator of verte-
brate paleontology for the Museum of Ma
tural History, that concur in indicating the
continent of Asia as the probable cradle OF
the human race, and more probably north
than south of the Himalayas. Here, we be-
lieve, man evolved from small tree-dwelling
monkeylike ancestors, and from this central
region spread to east west and south, finally
overrunning the outlying continents and the
Islands OF the ocean. Here then, somewhere
in the great desert regions of Central Asia
we may hope to find the human remains of
the fossil bones of mans ancestors, in the
tertiary formations that may be discovered
and Explored
Whether or not the Asiatic expedition es-
tablishes the truth of this school of thought
1t is bound to prove immensely fruitful in
its findings. For Asia, unlike Europe, has
never been adequately explored by the archae-
ologist. In fact, China, though boasting
the Oldest civilization in the world, has been
an untouched field SO far as scientific explora-
tions of this nature were concerned. Along
the vast plateaus and desert lands, where
layer upon layer of ROCKS may hold the Sc
crets of ancient times, we may find much
that is now only guessed by man, much OF
which he is altogether in the dark.