Ernst Haeckel's Map of Lemurian Human Origins

Ernst Haeckel's Map of Lemurian Human Origins

Map showing humans originating on the hypothetical lost continent of Lemuria. This map is a version of an illustration from Ernst Haeckel's The History of Creation 1876. While Darwin correctly suspected an African origin for mankind, Haeckel hypothesized a lost continent of Lemuria from which the various races of mankind had spread. Though there seemed little basis in geology for this supposition, it suited his own racial ideologies and would help him explain the (then) rarity of human fossils (on account of them being lost on a drowned continent). It also helped explain the anomalous distribution of Lemurs (hence the name) in the seemingly disconnected realms of Africa, Madagascar, India and Asia. We now have many early hominid fossils from Africa and explain lemur distributions with continental drift. The print shows a map of earth placing the origins of human beings at "Paradise" on the sunken continent of "Lemuria" in the Indian Ocean between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and showing the migration routes across the entire globe; the extent of the routes are indicated by shading and numbers which correspond to a key in the lower left corner, with additional keys across the top, identifying the "First Ruling Race" and the "Second Ruling Race".

CHARLES DARWIN

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7265 x 4438 px | 92.2 MB

61.5 x 37.6 cm | 24.2 x 14.8 in (300 dpi)