ABSTRACT
HAVE attempted to sketch in the preceding chapters the physical characters of the chief peoples of Asia. Such a sketch must necessarily be brief if it is to present the facts in broad outline and to avoid the pitfall of superabundant detail. It must also be somewhat in the nature of a stocktaking, showing where we have abundant information and where at present there is a dearth of scientific observations. It will have been seen that, though from the anatomical study of the various peoples there is abundant reason to believe that environment has played an important part in fashioning man’s form, yet when the inhabitants of the various areas are described the local groups seem to show relationships which can more readily be correlated with their history and their migrations than with their present environment. We have found marked differences of form among tribes who live under what appears to be exactly similar conditions. On the other hand, if the distribution of a type is plotted on a map, it often seems to retain its constancy in spite of immense divergencies of environment. Yet certain features, as I have tried to show, do seem, as far as can be judged, to be correlated with environment. The material for such study is accumulating, and it becomes almost daily easier to compile the tables on which such a research must be based.
