The more thorough the study of European prehistory becomes, the more we realize how many advances of culture have been made and then lost. Our parents were accustomed to regard the overthrow of ancient civilization in the Dark Ages as the greatest catastrophe of mankind, but we now know that the classic period of Greece was preceded by similar dark ages caused by the Dorian invasions, that had overthrown the Homeric-Mycenæan culture, which in its turn had flourished after the destruction of its parent, the brilliant Minoan culture of Crete. Still earlier, some twelve thousand years ago, the Azilian Period of poverty and retrogression succeeded the wonderful achievements of the hunter-artists of the Upper Paleolithic. The progress of civilization becomes evident only when immense periods are studied and compared, but the lesson is always the same, namely, that race is everything. Without race there can be nothing except the slave wearing his master’s clothes, stealing his master’s proud name, adopting his master’s tongue and living in the crumbling ruins of his master’s palace. Everywhere on the sites of ancient civilizations the Turk, the Kurd and the Bedouin camp; and Americans may well pause and consider the fate of this country which they, and they alone, founded and nourished with their blood. The immigrant ditch diggers and the railroad navvies were to our fathers what their slaves were to the Romans and the same transfer of political power from master to servant is taking place to-day. Man’s place of origin was undoubtedly Asia. Europe is only a peninsula of the Eurasiatic continent and although the extent of its land area during the Pleistocene was much greater than at present, it is certain from the distribution of the various species of man, that the main races evolved in Asia, probably north of the great Himalayan range long before the centre of that continent was reduced to a series of deserts by progressive desiccation. The evidence based on man’s relatively large bulk, on the lack of the development of his fore limbs and particularly on his highly specialized foot structure all indicate that he has not been arboreal for a vast period of time, probably not since the end of the Miocene. The change of habitat from the trees to the ground may have been caused by a profound modification of climate, from moist to dry or from warm to cold, which in turn may have affected the food supply and compelled a more carnivorous diet.