Research on Early Man in Burma

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At the International Symposium on Early Man, which was held under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in March, 1937, a discussion was held on Fossil Man in Asia. It was felt at that time the geographical chronography of Early Man, which had previously been worked worked out in India, required further elucidation with special reference to an eastward extension into China and Java, so that the new data on human origins might be integrated. The greatest obstacle to such work was the lack of data, both stratigraphical and archaeological, in the regions lying between India and China on one hand and India and Java on the other. It was thought that Burma might fill this gap because of its intermediate geographical position, and also because of the recent finds of Stone Age tools and of Pleistocene terrace formations in the Irrawaddy Valley.