Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/105

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 9 1

anthropoids of southern Asia. It is then very probable that man originated

in these regions With man begins a new geological division the

Quaternary.

The climate in relation to the dental system, the alimentary regime in a word, with the internal and external conditions has exercised, then, an incontestable influence on the evolution of the human species.

As for the great ancient civilizations, and those which have succeeded them, the same influences have continued to act, but they have followed more special and complex methods. It is necessary to reject, as inexact, the conception, still too gener- ally accepted, of the general evolution of civilizations of the Orient and Occident. The evolution has rather been from the semi-tropical zone toward the temperate zone, and from the latter more and more to the north of the equator. All the great civilizations known before our era have been north of the equator, and have continued to move in a northerly direction as is shown by the following table:

Ancient Peru: between 2 north lat. and 37 south lat.; semi-tropical zone.

Ancient Mexico : between 15 and 30 north lat., semi-tropical zone.

Egypt: between 18 and 37 north lat. (not including the tropical regions outside its own civilization).

India: between the equator and 35 north lat. (not comprising the tropical regions outside its own civilization).

Assyria and Syria: between 30" and 38 north lat.; semi-tropical zone.

China: between 20" and 40 north lat.; zone, semi-tropical and temperate.

Bactriana, Media, and Persia: between 25 and 40 north lat.; zone, semi- tropical and temperate.

Asia Minor: between 36 and 42 north lat.; temperate zone.

Greece, Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia: 36 and 42 north lat.; temperate zone.

Italy, from southern part of Sicily to the central Alps: between 36*4 and 46^ north lat.; temperate zone.

Spain: between 30 and 44 north lat.; temperate zone.

Gaul: between 44" and 52 north lat.; temperate zone.

Brittany: between 50 and 55 north lat.; temperate zone.

Germany: between 48 and 56 north lat.; temperate zone.

Scandinavian countries and Russia (European): between 45 and 70 north lat.; temperate zone.

The whole of Europe is comprised between the isotherms of