Chapter 3

NEANDERTHAL SKULL—TWO OUTLINES: THE OUTER GIVING THE MORE CORRECT FORM (fromScience)

SKULL OF CANSTADT TYPE FOUND AT SPY, BELGIUM, BY FRAIPONT AND LOHEST

Let it be observed, then, that these skulls are probably the oldest known in the world, and they are all referable to two varieties of one race of men; and let us ask what they tell as to the position and character of palanthropic man. The testimony is here fortunately well-nigh unanimous. All anatomists and archæologists admit the high and human character of the Engis and even the Neanderthal skulls.

Broca, who has carefully studied the Cro-magnon skulls, has the following general conclusions: 'The great volume of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile of the anterior portion of the skull, and the orthognathous form of the upper facial region, are incontestably evidences of superiority, which are met with usually only in the civilised races. On the otherhand, the great breadth of face, the alveolar prognathism, the enormous development of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscular insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles, give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal race.'

He adds that this apparent antithesis, seen also in the limbs as well as in the skull, accords with the evidence furnished by the associated weapons and implements of a rude hunter-life, and at the same time of no mean degree of taste and skill in carving and other arts. He might have added that this is the antithesis seen in the American tribes, among whom art and taste of various kinds, and much that is high and spiritual even in thought, coexisted with barbarous modes of life and intense ferocity and cruelty. The god and the devil were combined in these races, but there was nothing of the mere brute.

Rivière remarks, with expressions of surprise, the same contradictory points in the Mentone skeleton: its grand development of brain-case and high facial angle—even higher apparently than in most of these ancient skulls—combined with other characters which indicate a low type and barbarous modes of life.

Another point which strikes us in reading the descriptions of these skeletons is the indication which they seem to present of an extreme longevity. The massive proportions of the body, the greatdevelopment of the muscular processes, the extreme wearing of the teeth among a people who predominantly lived on flesh and not on grain, the obliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with indications of slow ossification of the ends of the long bones, point in this direction, and seem to indicate a slow maturity and great length of life in this most primitive race.

The picture would be incomplete did we not add that Quatrefages has described a single skull, that of Truchère, from deposits of this age, which shows that these gigantic men were contemporaneous with a feebler race of smaller stature and with different cranial characters, and inhabiting in all likelihood a more eastern region.

It is further significant that there is evidence to show that the larger and stronger race was that which prevailed in Europe at the time of its greatest elevation above the sea and greatest horizontal extent, and when its fauna included many large quadrupeds now extinct. This race of giants was thus in the possession of a greater continental area than that now existing, and had to contend with gigantic brute rivals for the possession of the world. It is also not improbable that this early race became extinct in Europe in consequence of the physical changes which occurred in connection with the subsidence that reduced the land to its present limits, and that the feebler race which succeeded came in as the appropriate accompaniment of a diminished land-surfaceand a less genial climate in the early historic period. The older races are those usually classed as palæolithic, and are supposed to antedate the period of polished stone; but this may, to some extent, be a prejudice of collectors, who have arrived at a foregone conclusion as to distinctions of this kind. Judging from the great cranial capacity of the older race and the small number of their skeletons found, it might be fair to suppose that they represent rude outlying tribes belonging to nations which elsewhere had attained to greater population and culture.

Lastly, all of these old European races were Turanian, Mongolian, or American in their head-forms and features, as well as in their habits, implements, and arts. In other words, their nearest affinities were with races of men which in the modern world are the oldest and most widely distributed.

The reader, reflecting on what he has learned from history, may be disposed here to ask, Must we suppose Adam to have been one of these Turanian men, like the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon'? In answer, I would say that there is no good reason to regard the first man as having resembled a Greek Apollo or an Adonis. He was probably of sterner and more muscular mould. But he was probably more akin to the more delicate and refined race represented by the solitary skull of Truchère, while the gigantic palæocosmic men of the European caves are more likely to have been representatives of that terrible and powerful race who filled the antediluvianworld with violence, and who reappear in postdiluvian times as the Anakim and traditional giants, who constitute a feature in the early history of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious in the revelations as to the most ancient cave men than that they confirm the old belief that there were 'giants in those days.' At the same time we must bear in mind that the more diminutive race which survived must have existed previously in some part of the world, and must have furnished the survivors of the succeeding subsidence (see illustration on p.82).

And now let us pause for a moment to picture these so-called palæolithic men. What could the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' have told us, had we been able to sit by his hearth and listen understandingly to his speech?—which, if we may judge from the form of his palate-bones, must have resembled more that of the Americans or Mongolians than of any modern European people. He had, no doubt, travelled far, for to his stalwart limbs a long journey through forests and over plains and mountains would be a mere pastime. He may have bestridden the wild horse, which seems to have abounded at the time in France, and he may have launched his canoe on the waters of the Atlantic. His experience and memory might extend back a century or more, and his traditional lore might go back to the times of the first mother of our race. Did he live in that wide post-pliocene continent which extended westward through Ireland? Did he know and had he visited the morecultured nations that lived in the great plains of the Mediterranean Valley, or on that nameless river which flowed through the land now covered by the German Ocean? Had he visited or seen from afar the great island Atlantis, whose inhabitants could almost see in the sunset sky the islands of the blest? Could he have told us of the huge animals of the antediluvian world, and of the feats of the men of renown who contended with these animal giants? We can but conjecture all this. But, mute though they may be as to the details of their lives, the man of Cro-magnon and his contemporaries are eloquent of one great truth, in which they coincide with the Americans and with the primitive men of all the early ages. They tell us that primitive man had the same high cerebral organisation which he possesses now, and, we may infer, the same high intellectual and moral nature, fitting him for communion with God and headship over the lower world. They indicate also, like the mound-builders, who preceded the North American Indian, that man's earlier state was the best—that he had been a high and noble creature before he became a savage. It is not conceivable that their high development of brain and mind could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a mere brutal and savage life. These gifts must be remnants of a noble organisation degraded by moral evil. They thus justify the tradition of a Golden and Edenic Age, and mutely protest against the philosophy of progressive development as applied to man, while they bearwitness to the similarity in all important characters of the oldest prehistoric men with that variety of our species which is at the present day at once the most widely extended and the most primitive in its manners and usages.[19]

[19]Perhaps no feature of this early human age is more remarkable than its artistic productions. Recent testimony, more especially that of the very careful explorers of the deposits at Spy, in Belgium, seems to show existence of the potter's art, though this until lately was denied. These people ornamented their clothing with pearly and coloured shells, and made beautiful necklaces. We have already noticed that found in the cave of Goyet. At Sordes, in the Pyrenees, in a very old interment of this period, there was a necklace of forty-three teeth of the cave lion and cave bear, carved with figures of animals (see p.71). The handle of a piercer, represented on p.59, is a marvel of skilful adaptation of an animal form to produce a handle fitted to be firmly and conveniently grasped by the human hand. The figure of the mammoth on p.68shows how a few bold lines may produce a vigorous and truthful sketch; and multitudes of such carvings and drawings have been found in France as well as in Germany and Belgium. Even the chipping of flint is an art requiring much skill to produce the fine knives, spears, &c., so commonly found, and there is evidence that these were fitted into strong and probably artistic handles. All this and much more testifies to the fact that our palæocosmic men were no mean artists as well as artificers.

OUTLINE OF MAMMOTH, CARVED ON A PLATE OF IVORY, FROM THE CAVE OF LA MADELEINE

CHAPTER V

SUBDIVISIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE

While all geologists and archæologists are agreed in the existence of the men contemporary with the mammoth and reindeer in Europe, and in the fact of two or even three races of men having existed in that period, various opinions are entertained as to the succession of events and the chronological classification of the remains. Mortillet, whose arrangement has been usually adopted in France, recognises a period of chipped stone or palæolithic period, corresponding to the palanthropic age, and a period of polished stone, corresponding to the neanthropic age. Within the former he believes that it is possible to separate different ages,[20]from the character of the implements and other remains. The first two are characterised by the presence of two elephants, the mammoth and another species (E. antiquus), the next two by the mammoth associated with the cave bearand reindeer, the last by the nearly entire predominance of the reindeer. Dupont is content in Belgium to recognise a mammoth age and a reindeer age, but the latter perhaps includes some deposits which are properly neanthropic.

[20]Respectively the Achulienne, Chellienne, Mousterienne, Soloutrienne, and Magdalenienne.

Carthaillac places the whole palanthropic age as quaternary, properly so-called, which he separates from the tertiary on the one hand and the modern on the other, and divides his quaternary into two stages, the first characterised byE. antiquusand Mortillet's Chellean men, the second by the mammoth and reindeer—the earlier of these two periods being warm and moist, the latter cold and dry. Thetableappended to this chapter is modified from those of Carthaillac. Dawkins, while admitting a similar twofold division, calls the earlier men those of the river gravels, the latter those of the caves.

This twofold division of the palanthropic age requires some consideration. In the first place, there is reason to believe that the Canstadt race locally preceded that of Cro-magnon. I say locally, for no one supposes that they are distinct species, and as varietal forms they may have originated from a common intermediate ancestor, or the humbler race may be the earlier, and the higher race an improvement on it, or the lower race may have been a degraded type of the higher. Probably also there was a third, the Truchère race, and the Cro-magnon race may have been a half-breed or metis progeny.

TOOTH OF CAVE BEAR, WITH ENGRAVING OF A SEAL, FROM A COLLAR FOUND AT SORDES, PYRENEES (after Carthaillac)

Again, there was an undoubted change of fauna within the palanthropic age, and this dependent on or accompanied by a change of climate. The earlier elephant of the period (E. antiquus) and its companion animals are believed to have been suited to a warm climate, and to have entered Europe from the south-east. With, or immediately after, them came man, and this conclusion harmonises with human physiology, for we know that man must have originated in a warm climate, and must in the first place have been a feeder on fruits and grains or other nutritious vegetable products. In this early stage he would be nearly destitute of implements and weapons. But in the succeeding cold period, one tribe after another might be obliged to resort to hunting habits, to the use of fire and of clothing, and of natural and artificial shelter. Hence the peculiarities of the cave men, who, while they advanced in art, may have also advanced in ferocity and warlike habits, under the pressure of necessity and competition. Hence also their association more and more closely with suchanimals as the reindeer, the hairy mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros, while the previous species had migrated to the south or perished. Thus it would appear that the men of the mammoth age may not be really the most primitive men, but a derivative from them under pressure of a severe climate. This possibility may be summed up as follows. If the early part of the post-glacial or palanthropic era was characterised by a milder climate than its later period, this may have had much to do with the change in implements and weapons. The earliest men probably subsisted merely on natural fruits and other vegetable productions. To secure these in a mild climate they would require no implements, except perhaps to dig for roots or to crack nuts. If they migrated into a colder climate, or if the climate became more severe, they might be obliged to become hunters and fishermen, and would invent new implements and weapons, not because they had advanced in civilisation, but, as Lamech has it in Genesis, 'because of the ground which the Lord had cursed,' and which would no longer yield food to them. At the same time they might contend with one another for the most sheltered and productive stations, and so war might further stimulate that very questionable advance in civilisation which consists in the improvement of weapons of destruction. We have much to learn as to these matters; but we must, if we have any regard to physiology and to natural probability, start from the idea that the most primitive men were frugivorous andfitted for a mild climate. In this case we should expect that these earliest men would leave behind them scarcely any weapons or implements except of the simplest kind, and that their apparent progress in the arts of war and the chase might in reality be evidence, up to a certain point at least, of increasing barbarism. Primitive as well as modern men present in these respects strange paradoxes.

We have to inquire in the sequel as to the cause of the final disappearance of the palæocosmic men, and as to the question whether history is cognisant of any such human period as that which has occupied us in this chapter, or whether, as has sometimes been assumed, it is altogether prehistoric.

On the subject of the correlation of the French and Belgian discoveries as to primitive man, a most interesting and important communication was made by Dupont to the Geological Society of Belgium in 1892.[21]The veteran explorer of the Belgian caves addresses himself in this paper to a careful comparison of the geological relations, animal remains and human relics in these caves, and in the gravels and 'quaternary' clays associated with them. He arrives at the conclusion, which I had already stated,[22]that these deposits are contemporaneous and show similar stages, but that the mammoth age properly so-called, in which the primitive people fed on the mammothand its companion the woolly rhinoceros, extended to a later date in Belgium than in France, so that the mammoth age of Dupont and the reindeer age of the French archæologists overlap one another. He notes in connection with this that there is evidence of the continued existence of the mammoth in the so-called reindeer age of France, in the discovery in caves of that period of plates of ivory with the portrait of the mammoth engraved on them. It would therefore appear either that the mammoth earlier became extinct or rare in France, perhaps on account of climatal changes, or perhaps because of destruction by man, or that the habits of the French populations changed in such a way as to cause them to confine themselves to smaller game. In either case, we now find that the whole palanthropic age is one period. On the other hand, Dupont agrees with Mortillet that there is a hiatus, physical, palæontological and anthropological, between the so-called palæolithic and neolithic periods, that is, between the palanthropic and neanthropic ages.

[21]Bulletin de la Société Belge de Géologie, janvier 1893. This paper should be studied by all interested in the subject.

[22]Fossil Men.

Dupont holds that the plain-dwellers (Pedionomytes, as he calls them) were the earliest known men, corresponding to the oldest gravel remains of Dawkins and Prestwich, and points out that their implements are in size and form, though not in material and finish, allied to those of the polished stone age, which might thus be regarded as an improved continuation or revival of this first period. This might be read to mean, as above maintained, that the earliest men werepeaceful and perhaps in part agricultural, that they were succeeded by lawless, powerful, artistic and savage peoples, and when the latter were swept away that a remnant of the primitive stock repossessed the land. If this proves to be the net result, it will correspond exactly with our old historical beliefs.

I was struck in reading this paper with a remark of Dupont on the unprogressive character of the men of the mammoth age, who seem to have made so little advance in the arts of life during the period of their occupation of Europe. Perhaps he makes too great an estimate of the length of their residence, or does not sufficiently consider how long men about their stage of civilisation have remained at the same point in the historic period. Nor does he consider the possibility of the cave men belonging to ruder tribes of a race which may have inhabited better if more perishable residences elsewhere. In any case, all experience shows that to such a people any great advance in the arts could come only by missionary influence from abroad, or by the appearance of some great inventive genius among themselves; and no good fortune of this kind seems to have happened to the Canstadt or Cro-magnon men, or if it did, they rejected their opportunity, as so many others have since done.

Still, perhaps, we need not pity them too much. They lived in a young and fresh condition of the earth, enjoyed a vigorous health, and were gifted with rare strength and energy. They were bountifullyprovided for by nature as to food and clothing, were in slavery to no man, lived in families bound together by ties of affection, and were free to migrate over vast territories according to the exigencies of the seasons. They had some taste in dress and ornaments, and no doubt enjoyed their clever carvings on bone and ivory as much as any modern lovers of art their most finished treasures. A Cro-magnon 'brave,' tall, muscular and graceful in movement, clad in well-dressed skins, ornamented with polished shells and ivory pendants, with a pearly shell helmet, probably decked with feathers, and armed with his flint-headed lance and skull-cracker of reindeer antler handsomely carved, must have been a somewhat noble savage, and he must have rejoiced in the chase of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the bison, and the wild horse and reindeer, and in launching his curiously-constructed harpoons against the salmon and other larger fish that haunted the rivers.

Nor was he destitute of higher hopes. He laid his dead reverently in the bosom of mother earth, with such things as had been pleasant or useful in life, and his rudimentary bible, or 'book of the dead,' must have at least included the idea—'This corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal immortality.' That is the meaning of such funeral gifts in every part of the world, and has always been so, as far as we can learn. But the belief in immortality implies also a belief in a God or gods. For if there is a spiritual world for the dead, there must be a Power to care forthem there. Whether these beliefs were originally implanted in him when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or were taught to him by special revelation, we do not know, but they were there as a foundation on which he could, with the aid of his sense of right and wrong, build a happy and harmless life. That he did not always do so we have some sad evidence, to be gathered even from his bones; and the testimony of tradition is that his great sin was that of inhuman violence, and it was for this that he was swept away by the Flood, and replaced by men of more peaceful mould, whom but for that catastrophe he would soon have annihilated.

Carthaillac[23]devotes a chapter to the mortuary customs of the men of the quaternary (palanthropic) age. He shows that the statement sometimes made that these men did not care for the dead is entirely incorrect, though he believes that we know comparatively little of their burials, owing to the circumstance that only those in caverns were likely to be preserved or discovered. The discoveries at Spy, in Belgium, show that even the Canstadt race, the lowest in development, and probably in art, interred the bodies of their dead, while a large number of interments of the Cro-magnon race are known. He calls attention to the fact that in all of these the body lies on its side. The hands are brought up to the head or neck, and the knees are bent, sometimes slightly, sometimes very strongly, so as to give the body acrouching posture (p.79). The idea seems to have been to place the body in the attitude of sleep or of rest. The deceased was arrayed in the garments and ornaments worn during life, and not infrequently a quantity of red oxide of iron was buried with, or has been scattered over, the body. Flint knives and lances seem often to have been placed with the dead. It is needless to say that all this recalls the burial customs of many rude tribes of men up to modern times.

[23]Homme Préhistorique.

There is some reason to believe that occasionally, at least, the flesh has been partially removed from the bones before interment. This reminds us of the custom of some American tribes, who were in the habit of disinterring the dead after a temporary burial, carefully cleaning the bones, and then placing them wrapped in skins in their tribal ossuaries. It would seem, however, that the primitive men when they removed the flesh did so in a recent state. Perhaps this practice was resorted to only when the body had to be kept for some time, or carried some distance for interment. If the body was disembowelled and the remaining flesh and ligaments dried, it would be reduced very nearly to the condition of the imperfect mummies of the Guanches of the Canaries and of the Peruvians. Thus we may suppose that we have here a rudimentary condition of the art of the embalmer.

THE SKELETON OF LAUGERIE BASSE, DORDOGNE, SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE PERFORATED SHELLS ON THE LIMBS AND FOREHEAD (after Carthaillac)

Some questions still remain as to the races of men actually known to us in the palanthropic age. It has already been explained that in the earliest part of this period, that characterised by the presence of theElephas antiquusin Europe, there are evidences of the existence of man, and this in a more genial climate than that prevailing later. Of these men we have no certain osseous remains. Should these be found, we may anticipate that their characters wouldbe peculiar, and would indicate a frugivorous rather than a carnivorous mode of life, and less of rude power than that evidenced by the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races.

Of the latter, though both are of the same faunal period, and therefore geologically contemporaneous, the former, the lower of the two in point of physical development, is apparently in Western Europe the older, and represents the earlier part of the mammoth age, when the climate had become cooler andElephas primigeniushad succeeded toE. antiquus. The Cro-magnon race, beginning in this period, goes on to the close of the mammoth age, which, as already stated, coincides with the reindeer age of the French archæologists. This Cro-magnon race I am disposed to regard as a mixed or half breed tribe, produced by the union of the Canstadt peoples with the higher race already hinted at. This last may possibly be represented by a few skulls more resembling those of the men of the neanthropic age, which are occasionally found in the burials of the Cro-magnon people, and of which that found at Truchère has been already referred to.

We have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably mild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and carnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third, or mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the others. This is of course merely a hypothetical reading of the facts,but it is by no means improbable, and would, as we shall see, bring them into close relation with the teachings of history and tradition as to the antediluvian age.

The most careful and elaborate studies of these several types have been made by MM. Quatrefages and Hamy. The former sums up the races of fossil or 'quaternary' men as six in number, viz.: (1) The Canstadt; (2) the Cro-magnon; (3) the mesitocephalic race of Furfooz; (4) the sub-brachycephalic race of Furfooz; (5) the race of Grenelle; (6) the race of Truchère. Of these only three (namely, Nos. 1, 2, and 6) properly belong to the palanthropic age. The races of Furfooz[24]and of the upper beds of Grenelle are neanthropic, because they are found with the animal remains of that age, and they resemble in cranial characters the neanthropic peoples.

[24]Noticed later, inChapter VII.

The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races resemble each other in being long-headed or dolichocephalic, and in having strong and coarsely-made facial bones, but the Canstadt race has a comparatively low forehead with strong superciliary arches, and round eye-sockets. The Cro-magnon race has a brain-case of more than ordinary capacity, a more elevated forehead, and eye-sockets singularly elongated horizontally. Broca has measured the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the result 1,590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the averageof 125 modern Parisian skulls. The Canstadt men were of moderate stature, but strongly built and muscular. The Cro-magnon race was of great stature, some skeletons approaching to seven feet in height, and affording evidence of immense muscular development.

SKULL FROM TRUCHÈRE, SHOWING A PECULIAR PALANTHROPIC TYPE ALLIED TO NEANTHROPIC RACES (after Quatrefages)

The race of Truchère is represented by only a single skull; but Quatrefages vouches for it as belonging to the age of the mammoth. It is a well-formed brachycephalic cranium of unusually great internal capacity, and would be regarded anywhere as indicating a race of high and refined cerebral endowment. If really of the mammoth age, it may have belonged to a straggler or captive from a higher and more cultured tribe, introduced accidentally into a sepulchre of the Cro-magnon period. It connects itself with the speculation in the preceding pages as to the existence of such a race. This skull resembles, as we should expect, the type of the neanthropic men who spread over the earth at the beginning of that later age.

Table Showing Relations of Later Cenozoic Ages in Europe

CHAPTER VI

END OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE

The palanthropic age came to a tragic end, and is somewhat definitely separated from that which succeeded it. This appears from several considerations which are too often overlooked by writers who have a prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by slow degrees into that by which it is followed—an exaggerated uniformitarianism beyond that of Lyell, but in harmony with the hypothesis of Darwin, to which many anthropologists appear to tie themselves hopelessly.

Three facts are here specially important. The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races are physically different from any modern races, and give place at the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them as any now existing, and who, on the other hand, while separated from the palæocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern times. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may to this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt or Cro-magnontype. These are good evidences of the unity of man through all the ages, but no race exists having all the peculiarities of these ancient peoples, which thus belong not to a distinct species but to a distinct racial variety of man.

Secondly, at the close of the palanthropic age we find a great change in land animals—a number of important species hunted by early man having disappeared, and the more meagre modern fauna having come in at once. Thus it may be affirmed that the land fauna of this primitive time was distinct from that now living. This implies either long time or a great physical break.

Thirdly, this change of fauna consists not so much in the introduction of new species as in the extinction of old forms, either absolutely or locally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since it seems to be a law of the geological succession that increasing land brings in new land animals; diminishing land area leads to extinction, and not to introduction.

Fourthly, in accordance with this we find that, at the close of the palanthropic age, the continents of the northern hemisphere experienced a subsidence from which they have only partially recovered up to the present time, and which introduced the modern geographical and climatal features. This appears from raised beaches and beds of rubble, loam and loess of modern date overlying thedébrisof the glacial period and holding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread over the wholenorthern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to high levels. An interesting illustration has recently been given by Dr. Nuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen.[25]These show an overlying deposit with 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble and loam destitute of human remains, and below this a bed containing bone implements, worked flints, and traces of cookery of the palanthropic period. The whole rests on a bed of rolled pebbles, supposed to be the upper part of the glacial deposits. This shows the interval between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods, and also the post-glacial date of man in Switzerland, and it accords with a great many other instances.

[25]Nouvelles archives des Missions, &c. vol. iii. Noticed inNatural Science, 1893.

Were these changes sudden or gradual? Experience has no answer, for no similar events have occurred in historic times, and though there are records in the geological history of many mutations in the elevation of the land, we have no information as to their rate of progress, and we know little of their causes. The changes of this kind known to us in modern times are merely local, not general, and in regard to their rate are of two kinds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake shocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic activity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible, and are often of widerdistribution. It is evident, however, that these slight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of past periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas. We have no modern instances of these almost world-wide depressions of continents under the sea, though we know that these have occurred, one of them within the human period, and it is idle to speculate as to their rate or duration in the absence of facts. We know pretty certainly, however, from the gauges of time which can be applied to the close of the glacial period, that this latest subsidence must have occurred within six thousand years of our time.

With reference to the particular movement in question, we know that the close of the palanthropic period was accompanied by a movement at least equal to the difference between the wide lands of the second continental period and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we find on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess and plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable elevation, and evidences, as in Siberia, of large herds of animals perishing on elevated lands on which they seem to have taken refuge.[26]In short, no geological fact can be better established than the post-glacial subsidence.

[26]Prestwich, 'Evidence of Submergence of Western Europe,'Trans. Royal Society, 1893; 'Possible Cause for the Origin of the Tradition of the Flood,'Trans. Vict. Inst., 1894; Dawkins,Journal Anthrop. Inst., February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (Nature, November 10, 1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to extend far upward on the Caspian plain and the Pamirs, so that all Asia must have been submerged within a very recent period. See alsoFossil Man, by the author, 1880.

Putting these facts together, we cannot doubt that the submergence at the close of the palanthropic age was very considerable, and that it was followed by a partial re-emergence. Further, there is no evidence of any serious fractures or folding of the crust taking place at the time, though it is possible that great lava ejections like some of those of Western America may belong to this period. It is therefore allowable to suppose that the cause of submergence may have been either depression of the land, or elevation of the bed of the ocean throwing its waters over the land, or possibly a combination of both. Movements of these kinds have recurred again and again in geological time. Their causes are mysterious, but their effects have been of the most stupendous character. Fortunately, they occur at rare intervals, and that to which we are now referring is the last of which we have any record, and differs from all others in having occurred at a time when man was widely spread over the world.

The geological chronometers already referred to inform us that the land of the northern hemisphere rose from the great pleistocene submergence about eight thousand to ten thousand years ago, and the second continental period with its forests and its teeming and widely-extended animal and human life, may have been established within two thousandyears of that time, or say six thousand to eight thousand years ago. How long the second continental or palanthropic period continued intact we do not know, but we can scarcely allow it less than two thousand years. Perhaps it was considerably longer. Now on historical evidence produced by Egypt, Chaldea, and other ancient countries in the Mediterranean region, we can trace the neanthropic age continuously back to, say, three thousand yearsB.C., or nearly five thousand years in all. Adding to this two thousand years for the palanthropic age, we are carried back to a time within one thousand years of the earliest we can assign on geological grounds to the termination of the great glacial period. Therefore, unless we suppose the last continental subsidence to have begun some time before the close of the palanthropic age, and to have continued to some degree into the beginning of the neanthropic, we cannot assign to it a very long time. That it could not have been sudden in the sense of being instantaneous is evident, because in that case terrestrial denudation of a stupendous character must have ensued, and no animal life except that of mountain tops and elevated table-lands could have escaped its destructive effects, but that it was by no means secular or long-continued is certain.

Thus we seem shut up to the conclusion that the close of the palanthropic age was marked by great geological vicissitudes of the character of submergence, leading primarily to vast destruction ofanimal life, and secondarily to permanent changes both in geography and climate, under which new conditions the neanthropic age was inaugurated. How this took place we have to inquire in the sequel. In the meantime we may merely remark that since the two principal races of primitive men known to us in Europe seem to have perished, we must infer that individuals of a third race beyond the limits of Europe were destined to survive, and again to replenish the earth in the new era, and that possibly these may be represented by the solitary Truchère skull. In the case of many of the more bulky and unwieldy animals inhabiting the plains the case was different. They perished, or if any survived the submergence they were unable to multiply under the new conditions.

Desperate attempts have been made in the interests of extreme uniformitarianism to discredit the abrupt change from palæocosmic to neocosmic men. It has been supposed that the latter replaced the former as conquerors—a most unlikely theory, when their relative powers are considered. It has been conjectured that as the cold decreased the old races of men followed the reindeer to the north and became Arctic peoples. But why did they not rather attack the new animals, which in that case must have come in from the south? It has even been supposed that the Esquimaux may be their descendants; but they are quite different in physical characters, and have no nearer resemblancein their arts than other rude peoples. In opposition to all this we have not only the remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal associates, but when we know that the whole geographical features of our continents have changed since the palanthropic age, and that not only are our continents reduced in size since the continental post-glacial period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as well as subsidence, and this within a short period—say eight thousand years less the historic period on the one hand and the early palanthropic on the other—it seems impossible to doubt the greatness and suddenness of the physical break that divides the anthropic age into two distinct portions. All this may be held to be certainly known as geological fact, and it would be folly to overlook it in any discussions as to primitive man, or in any comparisons of the evidence afforded by his remains with that of early human history or tradition.

But if man was a witness of and sufferer in this great catastrophe, and if any men survived it, did they preserve no tradition or memory of such a stupendous event? We may imagine this to be possible. The survivors may have belonged to the rudest and most isolated of the races of men, and may have had no means of knowing the extent of the disaster or of preserving its memory. On the other hand, they may have attained to a sufficient degree of culture to have had some means of perpetuating the memory of great events. If so, we may imagine thatthe great diluvial cataclysm which separates the human or anthropic period into two parts may have left an indelible mark in the history or tradition of mankind. We shall inquire into this in the sequel, but must first consider what geological monuments remain of the early neanthropic age in Europe.[27]

Back to Index Next