[11]

THE MEETING-PLACE

OF

Geology and History

Should this be established, the curious result will follow that man must have been the witness of two great continental subsidences, or deluges, that of the early pleistocene and the early modern, the former of which, and perhaps the latter also, must have been accompanied with a great access of cold in the northern hemisphere. It seems, however, more likely that the facts will be found to admit of a different explanation.

Every reader of the scientific journals of the United States must be aware of the numerous finds of 'palÆolithic' implements in 'glacial' gravels, indicating a far greater antiquity of man in America than on other grounds we have a right to imagine. I have endeavoured to show, in a work published several years ago, [10] how much doubt on geological grounds attaches to the reports of these discoveries, and how uncertain is the reference of the supposed implements to undisturbed glacial deposits, and how much such of the 'palÆoliths' as appear to be the work of man resemble the rougher tools and rejectamenta of the modern Indians. But since the publication of that work, so great a number of 'finds' have been recorded, that despite their individual improbability, one was almost overwhelmed by the coincidence of so many witnesses. Now the bubble seems to have been effectually pricked by Mr. W. H. Holmes, of the American Geological Survey, who has published his observations in the American Journal of Anthology and elsewhere. [11]

One of the most widely-known examples was that of Trenton, on the Delaware, where there was a bed of gravel alleged to be pleistocene, and which seemed to contain enough of 'palÆolithic' implements to stock all the museums in the world. The evidence of age was not satisfactory from a geological point of view, and Holmes, with the aid of a deep excavation made for a city sewer, has shown that the supposed implements do not belong to the undisturbed gravel, but merely to a talus of loose dÉbris lying against it, and to which modern Indians resorted to find material for implements, and left behind them rejected or unfinished pieces. This alleged discovery has therefore no geological or anthropological significance. The same acute and industrious observer has inquired into a number of similar cases in different parts of the United States, and finds all liable to objections on similar grounds, except in a few cases in which the alleged implements are probably not artificial. These observations not only dispose, for the present at least, of palÆolithic man in America, but they suggest the propriety of a revision of the whole doctrine of 'palÆolithic' and 'neolithic' implements as held in Great Britain and elsewhere. Such distinctions are often founded on forms which may quite as well represent merely local or temporary exigencies, or the dÉbris of old work-shops, as any difference of time or culture.

For the present, therefore, we may afford to pass over with this slight notice the alleged occurrence of miocene and pliocene man, and this the rather since, if such men ever existed in the northern hemisphere, the cold and submergence of the pleistocene must have cut them off from their more modern successors in such a way that man must practically have made a new beginning at the close of the glacial age.

I do not refer here to the finds of skulls and implements in the auriferous gravels of Western America. Some of these, if genuine, might go back to the pliocene age, but in so far as the evidence now available indicates, they all belong to the modern races of Indians, and, in one way or another, by fraud or error, have had assigned to them a fabulous antiquity.

There still seems reason to believe that remains of man and his works exist in beds which are overlaid by boulders and gravel, implying a cold climate. These may indicate the last portion of the glacial period proper, in which case the beds with human remains may be called inter-glacial, or they may indicate a partial relapse to the cold conditions occurring after the glacial age had passed away, and in the early part of the modern period. My own view is, that it is most natural to draw the boundary line of the pleistocene and anthropic or modern at the point where the earliest certain evidences of man appear, and that the anthropic age will be found to include not only an early period of mild climate succeeding the glacial age, but a little later a return of cold, not comparable with that of the extreme glacial period, but sufficient seriously to affect human interests, and which almost immediately preceded those physical changes which carried away palÆocosmic man, or the man of the earliest period, and many of his companion animals, and introduced the neanthropic or later human age. We shall find facts bearing on this in the sequel.

In the meantime, we may consider it as established beyond cavil that man was already in Europe immediately after the close of the glacial period, and was contemporary with the species of animals, many of them large and formidable, which at that time occupied the land. He must have entered on the possession of a world more ample and richer in resources than that which remains to us. The early post-glacial age was, like the preceding pliocene, a time of continental elevation, in which the dry land spread itself widely over the now submerged margins of the sea basins. In Europe, the British Islands were connected with the mainland, and Ireland was united to England. The Rhine flowed northward to the Orkneys, through a wide plain probably wooded and swarming with great quadrupeds, now extinct or strange to Europe. The Thames and the Humber were tributaries of the Rhine. The land of France and Spain extended out to the hundred-fathom line. The shallower parts of the Mediterranean were dry land, and that sea was divided into two parts by land connecting Italy with Africa. Possibly portions of the shallower areas of the Atlantic were so elevated as to connect Europe and America more closely than at present.

Connected with this elevation of the continents out of the sea was a great change of climate, whereby the cold of the pleistocene age passed away and a milder climate overspread the northern hemisphere, while the newly-raised land and that vacated by snow and ice became clothed with vegetation, and were occupied by a rich quadrupedal fauna, including even in the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera now confined to the warmer climates. This new and noble world was the rich heritage of primeval man.

Pictet has estimated the number of species of mammals inhabiting Europe in the palanthropic period at ninety-eight, [12] of which only fifty-seven now live there, the remainder being either wholly or locally extinct—that is, they are either not now existing in any part of the world, or are found only beyond the limits of Central, Western, and Southern Europe. The extinct species also include the largest and noblest of all. It has been remarked that the assemblage of palanthropic species in Europe and Western Asia is so great and varied that with our present experience we can scarcely imagine them to have existed contemporaneously in the same region. For example, the association of species of elephant and rhinoceros, the musk-sheep, the reindeer, the Cape hyena, and the hippopotamus seems to be incongruous.

Various theories have been proposed to remove the difficulty. Modern analogies will allow us to believe in such astounding facts if we take into account the probability of a warm climate, especially in summer, along with a wooded state of the country providing much shelter, and wide continental plains affording facilities for seasonal migrations. There were no doubt also climatal changes in the course of the age, which may have tended to the remarkable mixture of animal types in its deposits. In connection with this there is now every reason to believe that while, in its earlier part, the palanthropic age was distinguished by a warm climate, in its later portion a colder and more inclement atmosphere crept over the northern hemisphere. As an illustration of this, it is known that in the earlier part of the period a noble species of elephant named Elephas antiquus, and a rhinoceros (R. Merkii), abounded in Europe; but as the age advanced these species disappeared, and were replaced by the mammoth (E. primigenius) and the woolly rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus), animals clothed like the musk-ox in dense wool and hair, and evidently intended for a rigorous climate. With and succeeding these last species, the reindeer becomes characteristic and abundant. It is, as we shall see, a point of much importance in what may be called the prehistoric history of man, that he was introduced in a period of genial temperature as well as of wide continental extension, and survived to find his physical environment gradually becoming less favourable, and the age ending in that great cataclysm which swept so many species of animals and tribes of men out of existence, and reduced the dry land of our continents to its present comparatively limited area.

I should, perhaps, have noticed here the worked flints found so abundantly in some parts of the south of England, which have long attracted the attention of collectors, and have in some cases been referred to glacial or pre-glacial times. I believe, however, they are all really post-glacial, though in some cases belonging to the earliest portion of that period. [13]

We may close the present chapter by presenting to the eye in a tabular form the series of events included in the pleistocene and modern periods of the great cenozoic time.

LATER CENOZOIC, OR TERTIARY PERIOD

(In Ascending Order, or from the Older to the Newer)

Newer Pliocene.—A continental period of long duration, elevated land, much erosion, much volcanic action.

Pleistocene.—Irregular elevation and depression of the land, ending in wide submergence with cold climate. Glaciers on all mountains near to coasts and ice-drift over submerged plains. Glacial period, with an inter-glacial mild period in the middle and great submergence of the continents toward the close.

Anthropic.—Palanthropic, or post-glacial, in which the land emerges and attains a very wide extension, and is inhabited by a varied mammalian fauna. Man appears in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Terminated by a recurrence of cold and great subsidence, deluging all the lower lands. Neanthropic.—Area of continents smaller than in the previous period. Surviving races of men and species of animals repeople the world. Modern races of men and modern animals.

CHAPTER IV

THE PALANTHROPIC AGE [14]

We have now to inquire more particularly what we can learn as to the earliest men known to us, those who appeared in Western Asia and Europe at the close of the glacial period, when the cold had passed away and a genial climate had succeeded, and when the continents of the northern hemisphere had attained to their largest dimensions, were clothed with a rich vegetation and tenanted by an abundant mammalian fauna, including many large and important creatures now extinct.

We may first notice here a necessary limitation to our knowledge. The dry land of this age was of greater dimensions than at present. A large portion of what then was land is consequently now under the sea or deeply buried in alluvial deposits. Hence if any men of this age lived near the borders of the ocean, their remains must now be inaccessible, and the relics which we find must be those of inland tribes or of those who were driven inland by the encroachments of the waters. Our means of information are thus limited, and we must be prepared to admit that there may have been in this age great and populous communities of which we can have no record, at least of a geological character. Hence if we should find remains of only rude races of men, we should not be justified in assuming that all the peoples of the palanthropic age were of this character, more especially if we can find any indications that the men whose remains are accessible to us, though rude themselves, may have belonged to more advanced races.

The bones, implements and weapons, and dÉbris of the feasts of these primitive peoples are to be found principally in caves of residence or of sepulture, [15] and in the alluvia deposited by rivers, and in a few cases in rock fissures or marine gravels, into which remains were drifted, or in which they were deposited by water. Here, again, we have another limitation, for it is possible that large populations may have lived on plains or in forests in perishable structures, and, like some modern savages, may have disposed of their dead in such a way that their bones could not have been preserved. In such cases we can hope to obtain, and then very rarely, only stone implements and other imperishable relics.

Notwithstanding these limitations, however, it is wonderful that so much has been recovered from the ground by the diligence of collectors, and that the material thus obtained has proved so fertile in information respecting our long-perished ancestors.

Supposing, then, that we search for remains of palÆocosmic men in river alluvia, or in caves of residence or burial, or in similar repositories, the question next arises, by what means can we distinguish their bones from those of later times? The following criteria are available:

(1) The remains were in their present condition at least as long ago as the date of the earliest history or tradition. This evidence is of course of greatest value in those regions in which history extends farthest back. Thus the remains of early men in the Lebanon caves, which we know date much farther back than the arrival of the first Phoenicians and Canaanites in Syria, are in a different position, in so far as history is concerned, from those occurring in countries whose written history goes back only a few centuries.

(2) The deposits containing these remains may underlie those holding relics of historic times, or may indicate different physical conditions of the districts in which they occur from those known within historic periods. This is the case with some river beds, as those of Grenelle, near Paris, and with the successive deposits in old caves of residence.

(3) They may be accompanied by remains of animals now extinct in the regions in question, and whose disappearance and replacement by the modern fauna implies great lapse of time and physical changes; as, for instance, when we find that men have left remains of their feasts holding bones of the extinct woolly rhinoceros and his contemporaries, or in now temperate climates, those of the reindeer.

(4) The remains themselves may indicate a race or races of men and a condition of the arts of life different from any known in the region in historic times. Thus we may have skulls and skeletons indicating men racially distinct from any now extant, and implements and weapons different from those in use in the times of history or tradition.

We have now to consider what evidence of this kind vindicates the assertion that man existed on our continents in the second continental or post-glacial age, or, as others will have it, in the closing period of the glacial age, and was contemporary with the mammoth and other great beasts now extinct. This evidence, which has been accumulating with great rapidity and relates to many parts of the northern hemisphere, is too voluminous to be reproduced here. [16] But a few examples of it may be given, more especially from parts of the old world whose history extends farthest back and where explorations have been most extensive.

My first instance shall be one originally described by Canon Tristram, and which I had an opportunity to examine in 1884—the caverns or rock shelters in the face of the limestone cliff of the pass of Nahr-el-Kelb, north of Beyrout. At this place, in old caverns partly cut away in the forming of the Roman road round the cliff, there is a hard stalagmite, or modern limestone, produced by the calcareous drippings from the rock. This is filled with broken bones intermixed with flint flakes suitable for use as knives or spears or darts, and occasional fragments of charcoal. The bones are those of large animals, and have been broken for the extraction of the marrow; and the whole is evidently the remnants of the cuisine of some primitive tribe of hunters, now cemented into a somewhat hard stone by stalagmitic matter. The bones are not those of the present animals of Syria, but principally of an extinct species of rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus), a species of bison, and other large mammals which inhabited the region in the pleistocene and post-glacial periods. It is farther known that these animals had been extinct long before the early Phoenicians penetrated into this country, perhaps 3000 B.C., and that the deposits existed in their present state when the early Egyptian conquerors passed this way, at least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hittites. It is also known that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude tribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the Phoenicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used flint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the earlier cave men of the region. [17] What, then, were these earlier cave men? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as antediluvians. [18]

From the Lebanon we may pass to the west of Europe, where in France and Belgium a vast number of interesting relics of palÆocosmic man have been discovered, and have been scientifically examined.

We may take as an illustration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding the ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about forty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in post-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it shows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by layers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully examined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.

On the lowest of these, or the first in order of age, were found numerous skeletons and detached bones of the cave lion and the cave bear; the former a possible ancestor of the lion of Western Asia, the latter closely allied to the grizzly bear of North America, but both entirely extinct in Europe. One of the skeletons of the lion was of unusually large size, and so complete that when set up it forms the principal ornament of the cave collection in the Brussels Museum.

The next surface, the second in order of time, had a greater variety of animal remains. The lion had disappeared, and instead hyenas haunted the cave, and had dragged in animal bones to be gnawed. These included remains of the cave bear, wolf, rhinoceros, mammoth, wild horse, wapiti, Irish stag, chamois, reindeer, wild ox, besides several smaller animals. The above animals are now all unknown in the fauna of modern Europe, except the reindeer, the chamois, and the wolf. But the most remarkable discovery on this surface was that of a few human bones, gnawed like the others by the hyenas. Man was thus already in the country, and contemporary with all these animals. How the hyena obtained his bones, whether from some neglected corpse or from some badly-constructed grave, will never be known; but the discovery introduces us to a tribe or family of men coming as immigrants into a region already stocked with many great quadrupeds. They probably did not yet dwell in caves, which, at a later and perhaps more inclement period, formed their homes. Dupont concludes from the condition of the bones that on both the older surfaces the cave bear was the later tenant, and had replaced the lion on the first and the hyena on the second.

The remaining surfaces introduce us to man as a cave-dweller. On the oldest of them are found not only abundance of dÉbris of food, but worked flints and bones, objects of ornament, and evidences of the use of fire. The two higher layers show works of art in more varied and improved forms, as if a certain progress in the arts of life had taken place during the occupancy of the cave. Among the objects in the upper layers were red oxide of iron, showing the use of colouring matter for the skin or garments, bone needles, proving the manufacture of clothing by sewing, bone points for darts, skilfully-barbed bone harpoons, ornaments made of perforated teeth of animals, and fragments of bone, and a remarkable necklace of a hundred and twenty-four silicified shells of the genus Turritella, looking like spirals of agate, with a pendant made of another and larger shell. These shells are not known to occur nearer to the cave than Rheims, in Champagne. It is scarcely too much to say that this necklace might be worn by any lady of the present day. A certain amount of imitative art is also shown in the carving of animal and plant forms and fancy devices on pieces of reindeer antler, which may have served for handles of weapons or implements. But objects of much more elaborate design have been found in caverns of this age in France. (See illustrations on pp. 59 and 68.)

The food of these people, in so far as it was of an animal nature, may be learned from the broken bones, which show that here as elsewhere they carried into their caves only the legs and skulls of the larger animals they killed, leaving the carcases; though it is quite possible that, like North American hunting Indians, they may have stripped off portions of flesh from the back, and preserved the heart, liver, &c., which would of course leave no remains.

Dupont gives lists of the animals in each layer. Those in the lower of the anthropic layers consist of twenty-three species of quadrupeds and some bones of birds. Among the former were the mammoth, the rhinoceros, two species of bear, the horse, the reindeer, two other species of deer and two bovine animals. Even the lion, the hyena and the wolf were eaten by these people. It is interesting to note that the numerical preponderance was in favour of the reindeer and the wild horse, though remains were found indicating seven individuals of the mammoth, and four of the rhinoceros, as having fallen a prey to the old hunters. In the highest bed the number of species and the proportions of each one are nearly the same, so that no material change in the fauna had occurred during the occupancy of this cave. It may also be noted that while Dupont calls this a cave of the mammoth age, the French archÆologists are in the habit of naming similar deposits those of the reindeer age. The age of both animals was in reality the same, except that in France the reindeer seems to have survived the mammoth, and indeed we know this to be the fact from its continuing in the forests of Germany till the Roman times.

This cave may serve as an example of the manner in which the men of the palanthropic age make their appearance. Let it be observed also that this is only one instance selected from many giving similar testimony, and that Dupont adduces evidence to show that there may have been a contemporary plain-dwelling people, of whom less is known than of the troglodytes. Let it also be noted that there are other caves in Belgium, to which we shall return later, which show how the neocosmic men contemporary with the present fauna succeeded the men of the mammoth age.

We may now inquire as to the physical characters of the men of this period. It may be stated in answer to this question that two races of men are known in the palanthropic age, both somewhat different from any existing peoples, and known respectively as the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races. As the latter is the most important and best known, we may take it first, though the former may locally at least have been the older.

The valley of the little river VezÈre, a tributary of the Dordogne, in the south of France, abounding in overhanging rock-shelters, seems to have been a favourite abode of the men of the mammoth and reindeer age. The rock-shelter of Cro-magnon explored by Lartet is one of these, and that of Laugerie Basse is on the opposite side of the same stream.

The former is a shelter or hollow under an overhanging ledge of limestone, and excavated originally by the action of the weather on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west, and, having originally been about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a comfortable shelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook from its front. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to accommodate several families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs in front, and may have been further completed by stones, poles, or bark placed across the opening. It seems, however, in the first instance to have been used only at intervals, and to have been left vacant for considerable portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only by hunting or war-parties. But subsequently it was permanently occupied, and this for so long a time that in some places a foot and a half of ashes and carbonaceous matter, with bones, implements, &c., was accumulated. All of these, it may be remarked, belong to the palanthropic age. By this time the height of the cavern had been much diminished, and, instead of clearing it out for future use, it was made a place of burial, in which five individuals were interred. Of these, three were men, one of great age, the other two probably in the prime of life. The fourth and fifth were a woman of about thirty or forty years of age, and the remains of a foetus.

These bones, with others to be mentioned in connection with them, unquestionably belong to some of the oldest human inhabitants known in Western Europe. They have been most carefully examined by several competent anatomists and archÆologists, and the results have been published with excellent figures in the ReliquiÆ AquitanicÆ, where will also be found details of their characters and accompaniments, among which last were about three hundred small shells of different species pierced for stringing or attachment to garments. These men are, therefore, of the utmost interest for our present purpose, and I shall try so to divest the descriptions of anatomical details as to give a clear notion of their character. The doubts at one time cast on the age of these skeletons have been removed by the discovery of others at Laugerie Basse, Mentone, &c. They are no doubt palanthropic, though not of the earliest part of the period. The 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' was of great stature, being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones show that he was of the strongest and most athletic muscular development; and the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which is characteristic of athletic men habituated to rough walking, climbing, and running; for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enormous strength of the thigh-bone and the flattened condition of the leg in this and other old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, though much less than in this old man, in American skeletons. His skull presents all the characters of advanced age, though the teeth had been worn down to the sockets without being lost; which, again, is a character often observed in rude peoples of modern times. The skull proper, or brain-case, is very long—more so than in ordinary modern skulls—and this length is accompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size than in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well developed. The face, however, presented very peculiar characters. It was extremely broad, with projecting cheek-bones and heavy jaw, in this resembling the coarse types of the American face, and the eye-orbits were square and elongated laterally in a manner peculiar to the skulls of this age. The nose was large and prominent, and the jaws projected somewhat forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some resemblance to the harsher type of American physiognomy, with overhanging brows, small and transverse eyes, high cheek-bones, and coarse mouth. He had not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for his thigh-bone showed a depression which must have resulted from a severe wound—perhaps from the horn of some wild animal or the spear of an enemy.

The woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form modified by her sex, and in form and visage closely resembled her sisters of the American wilderness in the pre-Columbian times. If her hair and complexion were suitable, she would have passed at once for an American-Indian woman, but one of unusual size and development. Her head bears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has penetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to indicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from the condition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was received in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been driven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, either with other members of her family or with others who had perished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her little ones from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace and the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.

Unreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial of the dead by palÆocosmic men. The burial of men of the Cro-magnon race at that place and at Laugerie Basse and Mentone is established by the most unequivocal evidence; and interments of men of the Canstadt race have been found at Spy, in Belgium. Of course, even if interment proper had not been practised, there might have been cremation, as among the Tasmanians, or burial on stages or in huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that interment was practised we know, and this carries with it the certainty that our palÆocosmic men must have had some simple ideas of religion.

The skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types of the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under circumstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. RiviÈre, in a memoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful photographs, shows that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect identity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar in character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an examination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in 1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the conclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of them seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic age. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Basse, was buried under a great thickness of accumulated dÉbris of cookery, as well as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its shell ornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner which would induce the belief that they had been attached to a head-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See illustration on p. 79.)

The ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated shells from the Atlantic and pieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated NeritinÆ from the Mediterranean and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases there was evidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of iron, and used bodkins of bone, and long and beautifully-formed flint knives, perhaps for dividing their food, or perhaps for sacrificial purposes. Skulls found at Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are described by Professor Broca and M. Fleurens as of the same general type, and the remains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in England, seem also to have belonged to this race. The celebrated Engis skull from one of the Belgian caves, which is believed to have belonged to a contemporary of the mammoth, is also of this type, though less massive than that of Cro-magnon; and lastly, even the somewhat degraded Neanderthal skull, found in a cave near DÜsseldorf, though, like those of Clichy, Canstadt, Spy and Gibraltar, inferior in frontal development, is referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as can be judged from the portion that remains, though certainly to a ruder and more degraded variety, commonly known as the Canstadt man as distinguished from the Engis or Cro-magnon.

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 other hand, 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 great development 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-surface and 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 antediluvian world 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 more cultured 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 bear witness 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. 68 shows 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

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

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

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

FLINT FLAKES OF TWO TYPES FROM PALANTHROPIC AND NEANTHROPIC CAVES IN THE LEBANON

RESTORATION OF THE SEPULCHRAL CAVE OF FRONTAL, BELGIUM (after Dupont)
1. and 2. Gravel and clay of mammoth age. 3. Surface of modern accumulation of angular stones and clay. (D) Slab closing the sepulchre. (S) Platform for funeral feasts. (F) Hearth. (R) Rock forming the walls of the cavern.