CHAPTER I_Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art

MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE

THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART

HITCHCOCK LECTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF

CALIFORNIA, 1914

[Illustration: PL. I. Neanderthal man at the station of Le Moustier,

overlooking the valley of the Vézère, Dordogne. Drawing by Charles R.

Knight, under the direction of the author.]

MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE

THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART

BY HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN

SC.D. PRINCETON, HON. LL.D. TRINITY, PRINCETON,

COLUMBIA, HON. D.SC. CAMBRIDGE HON. PH.D. CHRISTIANIA

RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGIST U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,

CURATOR EMERITUS OF VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY IN THE

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ARTISTS

AND

CHARLES R. KNIGHT, ERWIN S. CHRISTMAN

AND OTHERS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1915

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published November, 1915

DEDICATED TO

MY DISTINGUISHED GUIDES THROUGH THE UPPER

PALÆOLITHIC CAVERNS OF

THE PYRENEES, DORDOGNE, AND THE CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS OF SPAIN

ÉMILE CARTAILHAC

HENRI BREUIL

HUGO OBERMAIER

PREFACE

This volume is the outcome of an ever-memorable tour through the country

of the men of the Old Stone Age, guided by three of the distinguished

archæologists of France, to whom the work is gratefully dedicated. This

Palæolithic tour[A] of three weeks, accompanied as it was by a constant

flow of conversation and discussion, made a very profound impression,

namely, of the very early evolution of the spirit of man, of the close

relation between early human environment and industry and the development

of mind, of the remote antiquity of the human powers of observation, of

discovery, and of invention. It appears that men with faculties and powers

like our own, but in the infancy of education and tradition, were living

in this region of Europe at least 25,000 years ago. Back of these

intelligent races were others, also of eastern origin but in earlier

stages of mental development, all pointing to the very remote ancestry of

man from earlier mental and physical stages.

Another great impression from this region is that it is the oldest centre

of human habitation of which we have a complete, unbroken record of

continuous residence from a period as remote as 100,000 years

corresponding with the dawn of human culture, to the hamlets of the modern

peasant of France of A. D. 1915. In contrast, Egyptian, Ægean, and

Mesopotamian civilizations appear as of yesterday.

The history of this region and its people has been developed chiefly

through the genius of French archæologists, beginning with Boucher de

Perthes. The more recent discoveries, which have come in rapid and almost

bewildering succession since the foundation of the _Institut de

Paléontologie humaine_, have been treated in a number of works recently

published by some of the experienced archæologists of England, France,

and Germany. I refer especially to the _Prehistoric Times_ of Lord

Avebury, to the _Ancient Hunters_ of Professor Sollas, to _Der Mensch der

Vorzeit_ of Professor Obermaier, and to _Die diluviale Vorzeit

Deutschlands_ of Doctor R. R. Schmidt. Thus, on receiving the invitation

from President Wheeler to lecture upon this subject before the University

of California, I hesitated from the feeling that it would be difficult to

say anything which had not been already as well or better said. On further

reflection, however, I accepted the invitation with the purpose of

attempting to give this great subject a more strictly historical or

chronological treatment than it had previously received within the limits

of a popular work in our own language, also to connect the environment,

the animal and human life, and the art.

This element of the _time_ in which the various events occurred can only

be drawn from a great variety of sources, from the simultaneous

consideration of the geography, climate, plants and animals, the mental

and bodily development of the various races, and the industries and arts

which reflect the relations between the mind and the environment. In more

technical terms, I have undertaken in these lectures to make a synthesis

of the results of geology, palæontology, anthropology, and archæology, a

correlation of environmental and of human events in the European Ice Age.

Such a synthesis was begun many years ago in the preparation of my _Age of

Mammals_, but could not be completed until I had gone over the territory

myself.

The attempt to place this long chapter of prehistory on a historical basis

has many dangers, of which I am fully aware. After weighing the evidence

presented by the eminent authorities in these various branches of science,

I have presented my conclusions in very definite and positive form rather

than in vague or general terms, believing that a positive statement has at

least the merit of being positively supported or rebutted by fresh

evidence. For example, I have placed the famous Piltdown man,

_Eoanthropus_, in a comparatively recent stage of geologic time, an

entirely opposite conclusion to that reached by Doctor A. Smith Woodward,

who has taken a leading part in the discovery of this famous race and has

concurred with other British geologists in placing it in early Pleistocene

times. The difference between early and late Pleistocene times is not a

matter of thousands but of hundreds of thousands of years; if so advanced

a stage as the Piltdown man should definitely occur in the early

Pleistocene, we may well expect to discover man in the Pliocene; on the

contrary, in my opinion even in late Pliocene times man had only reached a

stage similar to the _Pithecanthropus_, or prehuman Trinil race of Java;

in other words, according to my view, man as such chiefly evolved during

the half million years of the Pleistocene Epoch and not during the

Pliocene.

This question is closely related to that of the antiquity of the oldest

implements shaped by the human hand. Here again I have adopted an opinion

opposed by some of the highest authorities, but supported by others,

namely, that the earliest of these undoubted handiworks occur relatively

late in the Pleistocene, namely, about 125,000 years ago. Since the

Piltdown man was found in association with such implements, it is at once

seen that the two questions hang together.

This work represents the co-operation of many specialists on a single,

very complex problem. I am not in any sense an archæologist, and in this

important and highly technical field I have relied chiefly upon the work

of Hugo Obermaier and of Déchelette in the Lower Palæolithic, and of Henri

Breuil in the Upper Palæolithic. Through the courtesy of Doctor Obermaier

I had the privilege of watching the exploration of the wonderful grotto of

Castillo, in northern Spain, which affords a unique and almost complete

sequence of the industries of the entire Old Stone Age. This visit and

that to the cavern of Altamira, with its wonderful frescoed ceiling, were

in themselves a liberal education in the prehistory of man. With the Abbé

Breuil I visited all the old camping stations of Upper Palæolithic times

in Dordogne and noted with wonder and admiration his detection of all the

fine gradations of invention which separate the flint-makers of that

period. With Professor Cartailhac I enjoyed a broad survey of the Lower

and Upper Palæolithic stations and caverns of the Pyrenees region and took

note of his learned and spirited comments. Here also we had the privilege

of being with the party who entered for the first time the cavern of Tuc

d'Audoubert, with the Comte de Bégouen and his sons.

In the American Museum I have been greatly aided by Mr. Nels C. Nelson,

who has reviewed all the archæological notes and greatly assisted me in

the classification of the flint and bone implements which is adopted in

this volume.

In the study of the divisions, duration, and fluctuations of climate

during the Old Stone Age I have been assisted chiefly by Doctor Chester A.

Reeds, a geologist of the American Museum, who devoted two months to

bringing together in a comprehensive and intelligible form the results of

the great researches of Albrecht Penck and Eduard Brückner embraced in the

three-volume work, _Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter_. The temperatures and

snow-levels of the Glacial Epoch, which is contemporaneous with the Old

Stone Age, together with the successive phases of mammalian life which

they conditioned, afford the firm basis of our chronology; that is, we

must reckon the grand divisions of past time in terms of Glacial and

Interglacial Stages; the subdivisions are recorded in terms of the human

invention and progress of the flint industry. I have also had frequent

recourse to _The Great Ice Age_ and the more recent _Antiquity of Man in

Europe_ of James Geikie, the founder of the modern theory of the multiple

Ice Age in Europe.

It is a unique pleasure to express my indebtedness to the Upper

Palæolithic artists of the now extinct Crô-Magnon race, from whose work I

have sought to portray so far as possible the mammalian and human life of

the Old Stone Age. While we owe the discovery and early interpretation of

this art to a generation of archæologists, it has remained for the Abbé

Breuil not only to reproduce the art with remarkable fidelity but to

firmly establish a chronology of the stages of art development. These

results are brilliantly set forth in a superb series of volumes published

by the _Institut de Paléontologie humaine_ on the foundation of the Prince

of Monaco; in fact, the memoirs on the art and industry of _Grimaldi_,

_Font-de-Gaume_, _Altamira_, _La Pasiega_, and the Cantabrian caves of

Spain (_Les Cavernes de la Région Cantabrique_), representing the combined

labors of Capitan, Cartailhac, Verneau, Boule, Obermaier, and Breuil, mark

a new epoch in the prehistory of man in Europe. There never has been a

more fortunate union of genius, opportunity, and princely support.

In the collection of materials and illustrations from the vast number of

original papers and memoirs consulted in the preparation of this volume,

as well as in the verification of the text and proofs, I have been

constantly aided by one of my research assistants, Miss Christina D.

Matthew, who has greatly facilitated the work. I am indebted also to Miss

Mabel R. Percy for the preparation and final revision of the manuscript.

From the bibliography prepared by Miss Jannette M. Lucas, the reader may

find the original authority for every statement which does not rest on my

own observation or reflection.

Interest in human evolution centres chiefly in the skull and in the brain.

The slope of the forehead and the other angles, which are so important in

forming an estimate of the brain capacity, may be directly compared

throughout this volume, because the profile or side view of every skull

figured is placed in exactly the same relative position, namely, on the

lines established by the anatomists of the Frankfort Convention to conform

to the natural pose of the head on the living body.

In anatomy I have especially profited by the co-operation of my former

student and present university colleague Professor J. Howard McGregor, of

Columbia, who has shown great anatomical as well as artistic skill in the

restoration of the heads of the four races of _Trinil_, _Piltdown_,

_Neanderthal_, and _Crô-Magnon_. The new reconstruction of the Piltdown

head is with the aid of casts sent to me by my friend Doctor A. Smith

Woodward, of the British Museum of Natural History. The problem of

reconstruction of the Piltdown skull has, through the differences of

interpretation by Smith Woodward, Elliot Smith, and Arthur Keith, become

one of the _causes célèbres_ of anthropology. On the placing of the

fragments of the skull and jaws, which have few points of contact,

depends the all-important question of the size of the brain and the

character of the profile of the face and jaws. In Professor McGregor's

reconstruction different methods have been used from those employed by the

British anatomists, and advantage has been taken of an observation of Mr.

A. E. Anderson that the single canine tooth belongs in the upper and not

in the lower jaw. In these models, and in all the restorations of men by

Charles R. Knight under my direction, the controlling principle has been

to make the restoration as _human_ as the anatomical evidence will admit.

This principle is based upon the theory for which I believe very strong

grounds may be adduced, that all these races represent stages of advancing

and progressive development; it has seemed to me, therefore, that in our

restorations we should indicate as much alertness, intelligence, and

upward tendency as possible. Such progressive expression may, in fact, be

observed in the faces of the higher anthropoid apes, such as the

chimpanzees and orangs, when in process of education. No doubt, our

ancestors of the early Stone Age were brutal in many respects, but the

representations which have been made chiefly by French and German artists

of men with strong gorilla or chimpanzee characteristics are, I believe,

unwarranted by the anatomical remains and are contrary to the conception

which we must form of beings in the scale of rapidly ascending

intelligence.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

June 21, 1915.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

GREEK CONCEPTIONS OF MAN'S ORIGIN 1

RISE OF ANTHROPOLOGY 3

RISE OF ARCHÆOLGY 10

GEOLIGIC HISTORY OF MAN 18

GEOGRAPHIC CHANGES 34

CLIMATIC CHANGES 37

MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS 42

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY OF THE ANTHROPOID APES 49

PLIOCENE CLIMATE, FORESTS, AND LIFE 60

TRANSITION TO THE PLEISTOCENE 62

THE FIRST GLACIATION 64

THE FIRST INTERGLACIAL STAGE 66

EARLY PLEISTOCENE FAUNA 69

THE TRINIL RACE 73

EOLITHS, OR PRIMITIVE FLINTS 84

THE SECOND GLACIATION 86

THE SECOND INTERGLACIAL STAGE 90

THE HEIDELBERG RACE 95

MIGRATIONS OF THE REINDEER 102

THE THIRD GLACIATION 104

CHAPTER II

DATE OF THE PRE-CHELLEAN INDUSTRY 107

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE 116

THE RIVER-DRIFT STATIONS 119

PRE-CHELLEAN INDUSTRY 126

THE PILTDOWN RACE 130

MAMMALIAN LIFE 144

CHELLEAN INDUSTRY 148

CHELLEAN GEOGRAPHY 154

PALÆOLITHIC STATIONS OF GERMANY 159

ACHEULEAN INDUSTRY 161

THE USE OF FIRE 165

ACHEULEAN INDUSTRY 166

THE SECOND PERIOD OF ARID CLIMATE 173

LATE ACHEULEAN IMPLEMENTS 177

THE NEANDERTHAL RACE OF KRAPINA 181

CHAPTER III

CLOSE OF THE THIRD INTERGLACIAL 186

THE FOURTH GLACIAL STAGE 188

ARCTIC TUNDRA LIFE 190

ENVIRONMENT OF THE NEANDERTHAL RACE 196

MAMMALS HUNTED BY THE NEANDERTHALS 202

CAVE LIFE 211

THE NEANDERTHAL RACE 214

MOUSTERIAN INDUSTRY 244

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE NEANDERTHALS 256

CHAPTER IV

OPENING OF THE UPPER PALÆOLITHIC 260

THE GRIMALDI RACE 264

ARRIVAL OF THE CRÔ-MAGNONS 269

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC CULTURES 275

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC RACES 278

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE 279

MAMMALIAN LIFE 284

THE CRÔ-MAGNON RACE 289

BURIAL CUSTOMS 303

AURIGNACIAN INDUSTRY 305

THE BIRTH OF ART 315

ORIGIN OF THE SOLUTREAN CULTURE 330

HUMAN FOSSILS 333

THE BRÜNN RACE 334

SOLUTREAN INDUSTRY 338

SOLUTREAN ART 347

CHAPTER V

ORIGIN OF THE MAGDALENIAN CULTURE 351

MAGDALENIAN CULTURE 354

MAGDALENIAN CLIMATE 360

MAMMALIAN LIFE 364

HUMAN FOSSILS 376

MAGDALENIAN INDUSTRY 382

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ART 392

MAGDALENIAN ENGRAVINGS 396

MAGDALENIAN PAINTING 408

ART IN THE CAVERNS 409

POLYCHROME PAINTING 414

MAGDALENIAN SCULPTURE 427

EXTENT OF THE MAGDALENIAN CULTURE 434

DECLINE OF THE MAGDALENIAN CULTURE 449

CRÔ-MAGNON DESCENDANTS 451

CHAPTER VI

CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE 456

INVASION OF NEW RACES 457

MAS D'AZIL 459

FÈRE-EN-TARDENOIS 465

AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN CULTURE 466

MAMMALIAN LIFE 468

AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN INDUSTRY 470

THE BURIALS AT OFNET 475

THE NEW RACES 479

ANCESTRY OF EUROPEAN RACES 489

TRANSITION TO THE NEOLITHIC 493

NEOLITHIC CULTURE 496

NEOLITHIC FAUNA 498

PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC RACES OF EUROPE 499

CONCLUSIONS 501

APPENDIX

NOTE

I. LUCRETIUS AND BOSSUET ON THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF MAN 503

II. HORACE ON THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF MAN 504

III. ÆSCHYLUS ON THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF MAN 505

IV. 'UROCHS' OR 'AUEROCHS' AND 'WISENT' 505

V. THE CRÔ-MAGNONS OF THE CANARY ISLANDS 506

VI. THE LENGTH OF POSTGLACIAL TIME AND THE ANTIQUITY OF

THE AURIGNACIAN CULTURE 510

VII. THE MOST RECENT DISCOVERIES OF ANTHROPOID APES AND

SUPPOSED ANCESTORS OF MAN IN INDIA 511

VIII. ANTHROPOID APES DISCOVERED BY CARTHAGINIAN NAVIGATORS 511

BIBLIOGRAPHY 513

INDEX 533

ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate I. Neanderthal man at the grotto of Le Moustier

(_in tint_) _Frontispiece_

PAGE

Plate II. Discovery sites of the type specimens of human

and prehuman races (_in color_) _facing_ 19

Plate III _Pithecanthropus_, the ape-man of Java 87

Plate IV. The Piltdown man 145

Plate V. The Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints 203

Plate VI. The 'Old Man of Crô-Magnon' 273

Plate VII. Crô-Magnon artists in the cavern of Font-de-Gaume

(_in tint_) 358

Plate VIII. Bison painted by Palæolithic artists in the cavern

of Altamira (_in color_) 414

FIG.

1. Modern, Palæolithic, and chimpanzee skulls compared 8

2. Skull and brain of _Pithecanthropus_, the ape-man of Java 9

3. Three great types of flint implements 11

4. Evolution of the lance-point 15

5. Map--Type stations of Palæolithic cultures 16

6. Section--Terraces of the River Inn near Scharding 25

7. Section--Terraces of the River Rhine above Basle 26

8. Section--Terraces of the River Thames near London 28

9. Magdalenian loess station of Aggsbach in Lower Austria 29

10. Section of the site of the Neanderthal cave 31

11. Sections showing the formation of the typical limestone cavern 32

12. Map--Europe in the period of maximum continental elevation 35

13. Section showing snow-lines and sea-levels of the Glacial Epoch 37

14. Chronological chart--Great events of the Glacial Epoch 41

15. Zoogeographic map 45

16. The gibbon 50

17. The orang 51

18. The chimpanzee, walking 52

19. The chimpanzee, sitting 53

20. The gorilla 55

21. Median sections of the heads of a young gorilla and of a man 56

22. Side view of a human brain of high type 57

23. Outlines of typical human and prehuman brains (side view) 58

24. Outlines of typical human and prehuman brains (top view) 59

25. Map--Europe during the Second Glacial Stage 65

26. The musk-ox 66

27. The giant deer (_Megaceros_) 68

28. The sabre-tooth tiger (_Machærodus_) 70

29. Restoration of _Pithecanthropus_, the Java ape-man 73

30. Discovery site of _Pithecanthropus_ 74

31. Section of the volcano of Lawoe and the valley of the Solo River 75

32. Map--Solo River and discovery site of _Pithecanthropus_ 75

33. Section of the _Pithecanthropus_ discovery site 76

34. Skull-top of _Pithecanthropus_, top and side views 77

35. Head of chimpanzee, front and side views 78

36. Restoration of _Pithecanthropus_ skull, side view 79

37. Restoration of _Pithecanthropus_ skull, three views 80

38. _Pithecanthropus_, the Java ape-man, side view 81

39. _Pithecanthropus_, the Java ape-man, front view 82

40. Side view of a human brain of high type 83

41. Outlines of human and prehuman brains, side and top views 84

42. The hippopotamus and the southern mammoth 92

43. Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant 93

44. Map--Geographic distribution of Merck's rhinoceros, the

hippopotamus, and the straight-tusked elephant 94

45. Section of the Heidelberg discovery site 96

46. The sand-pit at Mauer, discovery site of the Heidelberg man 97

47. The Heidelberg jaw 98

48. Jaws of an Eskimo, of an orang, and of Heidelberg (side view) 99

49. Jaws of an Eskimo, of an orang, and of Heidelberg (top view) 100

50. Restoration of Heidelberg man 101

51. Map--Europe during the Third Glacial Stage 105

52. Chronological chart of the last third of the Glacial Epoch 108

53. Map--Pre-Chellean and Chellean stations 109

54. Map--Europe during the Third Glacial Stage 110

55. Excavation at Chelles-sur-Marne 111

56. Map--Western Europe during the Third Interglacial Stage 116

57. Three terraces on the Connecticut River 120

58. Four forms of the Chellean coup de poing 121

59. Section--Terraces on the Somme at St. Acheul 122

60. Very primitive palæoliths from Piltdown 127

61. Pre-Chellean coups de poing from St. Acheul 128

62. Pre-Chellean _grattoir_ or planing tool from St. Acheul 129

63. Discovery site of the Piltdown skull 131

64. Section of the Piltdown discovery site 133

65. Primitive worked flint found near the Piltdown skull 134

66. Eoliths found in or near the Piltdown site 135

67. Piltdown skull and skull of South African Bushman 136

68. Restoration of the Piltdown skull, three views 137

69. Section of the Piltdown skull, showing the brain 140

70. Brain outlines of the Piltdown man, of a chimpanzee, and of

modern man, compared 140

71. The Piltdown man, side view 142

72. The Piltdown man, front view 143

73. Map--Pre-Chellean and Chellean stations 149

74. Section--Middle and high terraces on the Somme at St. Acheul 150

75. Excavation on the high terrace at St. Acheul 151

76. Small Chellean implements 153

77. Map--Palæolithic stations of Germany 160

78. Entrance to the grotto of Castillo 163

79. Section--archæologic layers of the grotto of Castillo 164

80. Map--Acheulean stations 167

81. Late Acheulean station of La Micoque in Dordogne 168

82. Method of 'flaking' flint 169

83. Method of 'chipping' flint 170

84. The fracture of flint 171

85. Large Acheulean implements 173

86. Map--Valleys of the Dordogne and the Garonne 175

87. The valley of the Vézère 176

88. Acheulean implements, large and small 178

89. A Levallois flake 179

90. The grotto of Krapina 181

91. Section Valley of the Krapinica River and grotto of Krapina 182

92. Section--The grotto of Krapina 183

93. Skull from Krapina, side view 184

94. Map--Europe during the Fourth Glacial Stage 189

95. The woolly rhinoceros and the woolly mammoth 190

96. Typical tundra fauna 193

97. Map--Palæolithic stations of Germany 195

98. The type station of Le Moustier 197

99. Excavations at Le Moustier 198

100. The Mousterian cavern of Wildkirchli 200

101. Entrance to the grotto of Sirgenstein 201

102. The woolly mammoth and his hunters 208

103. The woolly rhinoceros 210

104. Map--Distribution of Pre-Neanderthaloids and Neanderthaloids 214

105. The Gibraltar skull, front view 215

106. Section of the Neanderthal discovery site 216

107. The Neanderthal skull, side view 217

108. The skull known as Spy I, side view 220

109. Discovery site of La Chapelle-aux-Saints 222

110. Entrance to the grotto of La Chapelle-aux-Saints 223

111. The skull from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, three views 224

112. Human teeth of Neanderthaloid type from La Cotte de St.

Brelade 225

113. Skulls of a chimpanzee, of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and of a

modern Frenchman, side view 227

114. Outlines of the Gibraltar skull and of a modern Australian

skull 228

115. Skull of La Chapelle-aux-Saints compared with one of high

modern type, side view 230

116. Skulls of a chimpanzee, of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, and of a

modern Frenchman, top view 231

117. Diagram comparing eleven races of fossil and living men 233

118. Section of the skull of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, showing the

brain 235

119. Brain outlines of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, of a chimpanzee,

and of modern man, compared 235

120. Brains of Lower and Upper Palæolithic races, top and side

121. Skeleton of La Chapelle-aux-Saints 238

122. Thigh-bones of the Trinil, Neanderthal, Crô-Magnon, and

modern races 240

123. The Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, side view 242

124. The Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, front view 243

125. Map--Mousterian stations 245

126. The Mousterian cave of Hornos de la Peña 246

127. Outlook from the cave of Hornos de la Peña 247

128. Typical Mousterian 'points' from Le Moustier 250

129. Mousterian 'points' and scrapers 251

130. Late Mousterian implements 255

131. Entrance to the Grotte du Prince near Mentone 262

132. Section of the Grotte des Enfants 265

133. The Grimaldi skeletons 267

134. Skull of the Grimaldi youth, front and side views 268

135. Map--Distribution of Upper Palæolithic human fossils 279

136. Chronological chart of the last third of the Glacial Epoch 280

137. 'Tectiforms' from Font-de-Gaume 283

138. Map--Distribution of the reindeer, mammoth, and woolly

rhinoceros 285

139. Section of the grotto of Aurignac 290

140. Section of the grotto of Crô-Magnon 291

141. Skull of Crô-Magnon type from the Grotte des Enfants 292

142. Head showing the method of restoration used by J. H. McGregor 293

143. The rock shelter of Laugerie Haute, Dordogne 296

144. Skeleton of La Chapelle-aux-Saints and skeleton of Crô-Magnon

type from the Grotte des Enfants, compared 297

145. Sections of normal and platycnæmic tibias 298

146. The 'Old Man of Crô-Magnon,' side view 300

147. The 'Old Man of Crô-Magnon,' front view 301

148. Brain outlines of Combe-Capelle, of a chimpanzee, and of

modern man, compared 303

149. Evolution of the _burin_, early Aurignacian to late Solutrean 307

150. Typical Aurignacian _grattoirs_, or scrapers 309

151. Evolution of the Aurignacian 'point' 311

152. Prototypes of the Solutrean 'laurel-leaf point' 312

153. Map--Aurignacian stations 314

154. Outlook from the cavern of Pindal 315

155. Mammoth painted in the cavern of Pindal 316

156. Primitive paintings of animals from Font-de-Gaume 318

157. Woolly rhinoceros painted in the cavern of Font-de-Gaume 319

158. Carved female figurine from the Grottes de Grimaldi 321

159. Female figurine in limestone from Willendorf 322

160. Female figurine in soapstone from the Grottes de Grimaldi 323

161. Superposed engravings of rhinoceros and mammoth from Le

Trilobite 324

162. Silhouettes of hands from Gargas 325

163. The rock shelter of Laussel on the Beune 326

164. Section of the industrial layers at Laussel 327

165. Bas-relief of a woman from Laussel 328

166. Bas-relief of a man from Laussel 329

167. Map--Solutrean stations 331

168. The skull known as Brünn I, discovered at Brünn, Moravia 335

169. Solutrean 'laurel-leaf points' 339

170. The type station of Solutré 342

171. Excavations at Solutré 343

172. Typical Solutrean implements 346

173. Mammoth sculptured on ivory, from Předmost, Moravia 349

174. Engraved and painted bison from Niaux 353

175. Decorated _sagaies_ or javelin points of bone 354

176. Horse's head engraved on a fragment of bone, from Brassempouy 355

177. Painting of a wolf, from Font-de-Gaume 356

178. Crude sculpture of the ibex, from Mas d'Azil 357

179. Decorated _bâtons de commandement_ 359

180. Chronological chart of the last third of the Glacial epoch 362

181. Engraved and painted reindeer from Font-de-Gaume 365

182. Four types of horse frequent in Upper Palæolithic times 367

183. Horse of Celtic type, painted on the ceiling of Altamira 368

184. Four chamois heads engraved on reindeer horn, from Gourdan 369

185. Typical alpine fauna 371

186. Typical steppe fauna 374

187. Ptarmigan or grouse carved in bone, from Mas d'Azil 375

188. The rock shelter of Laugerie Basse, Dordogne 377

189. Human skull-tops cut into bowls, from Placard 379

190. Male and female skulls of Crô-Magnon type, from Obercassel 381

191. The type station of La Madeleine 383

192. Magdalenian flint implements 386

193. Magdalenian bone harpoons 387

194. Magdalenian flint blades with denticulated edge 390

195. Bone needles from Lacave 391

196. Map--Palæolithic art stations of Dordogne, the Pyrenees, and

the Cantabrian Mountains 394

197. Primitive engravings of the mammoth from Combarelles 397

198. Preliminary engraving of painted mammoth from Font-de-Gaume 397

199. Charging mammoth engraved on ivory, from La Madeleine 398

200. Human grotesques from Marsoulas, Altamira, and Combarelles 399

201. Entrance to the cavern of Combarelles, Dordogne 400

202. Engraved cave-bear, from Combarelles 401

203. Magdalenian stone lamp, from La Mouthe 401

204. Entrance to the cavern of La Pasiega 402

205. Engraved bison from Marsoulas 403

206. Herd of horses engraved on a slab of stone, from Chaffaud 404

207. Herd of reindeer engraved on an eagle radius, from La Mairie 405

208. Reindeer and salmon engraved on an antler, from Lorthet 406

209. Engraved lioness and horses, from Font-de-Gaume 407

210. Painted horse of Celtic type, from Castillo 408

211. Galloping horse of steppe type, from Font-de-Gaume 408

212. Entrance to the cavern of Niaux 409

213. Engraved horse with heavy winter coat, from Niaux 410

214. Professor Emile Cartailhac at the entrance of Le Portel 411

215. Engraved horse and reindeer, from La Mairie 412

216. Engraved reindeer, cave-bear, and two horses, from La Mairie 413

217. Engraved wild cattle, from La Mairie 413

218. Preliminary etched outline of bison from Font-de-Gaume 414

219. Entrance to the cavern of Font-de-Gaume 415

220. Map of the cavern of Font-de-Gaume 416

221. Narrow passage known as the 'Rubicon,' Font-de-Gaume 417

222. Plan showing reindeer and procession of bison, Font-de-Gaume 419

223. Plan showing preliminary engraving and painting of the

procession of mammoths, superposed on drawings of bison,

reindeer, and horses 420

224. Example of superposition of paintings, from Font-de-Gaume 421

225. Entrance to the cavern of Altamira 422

226. Plan of paintings on the ceiling of Altamira 423

227. The ceiling of Altamira 424

228. Painting of female bison lying down, from Altamira 425

229. Royal stag engraved on the ceiling of Altamira 426

230. Statuette of a mammoth carved in reindeer horn, from Bruniquel 427

231. Entrance to the cavern of Tuc d'Audoubert 428

232. Engraved head of a reindeer from Tuc d'Audoubert 429

233. Two bison, male and female, modelled in clay, from Tuc

d'Audoubert 430

234. Horse carved in high relief, from Cap Blanc 431

235. Horse head carved on a reindeer antler, from Mas d'Azil 432

236. Statuette of horse carved in ivory, from Les Espelugues 432

237. Woman's head carved in ivory, from Brassempouy 433

238. Map--Magdalenian stations 435

239. Necklace of marine shells, from Crô-Magnon 437

240. Map--Palæolithic stations of Germany 439

241. Reindeer engraved around a piece of reindeer antler, from

Kesslerloch 441

242. Entrance to the grotto of Kesslerloch 444

243. The rock shelter of Schweizersbild 445

244. The open loess station of Aggsbach 448

245. Saiga antelope carved on a bone dart-thrower, from Mas d'Azil 449

246. Western entrance to the cavern of Mas d'Azil 460

247. Azilian harpoons of stag horn 462

248. Azilian _galets coloriés_, or painted pebbles 464

249. Tardenoisian flints 467

250. Map--Azilian-Tardenoisian stations 471

251. Azilian stone implements 473

252. Double-rowed Azilian harpoons of stag horn, from Oban 474

253. Section--Archæologic layers in the grotto of Ofnet 476

254. Burial nest of six skulls, from the grotto of Ofnet 477

255. Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls from Ofnet 478

256. Broad-headed skull of Grenelle 482

257. Entrance to the grotto of Furfooz on the Lesse 482

258. Section of the grotto of Furfooz 483

259. One of the type skulls of the Furfooz race 483

260. Restoration of the man of Grenelle 484

261. Implements and decorations from Maglemose 487

262. Ancestry of the Pre-Neolithic races 491

263. Stages in the manufacture of the Neolithic stone ax 493

264. Stone hatchet from Campigny 494

265. Stone pick from Campigny 494

266. Restoration of the Neolithic man of Spiennes 495

267. Stag hunt, painting from the rock shelter of Alpera 497

268. Map--Distribution of the types of recent man in western Europe 499

Map of Palæolithic Tour _folded at the end of the volume_

MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE

INTRODUCTION

GREEK CONCEPTIONS OF MAN'S ORIGIN--RISE OF ANTHROPOLOGY, OF

ARCHÆOLOGY, OF THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF MAN--TIME DIVISIONS OF THE

GLACIAL EPOCH--GEOGRAPHIC, CLIMATIC, AND LIFE PERIODS OF THE OLD STONE

AGE

The anticipation of nature by Lucretius[B] in his philosophical poem, _De

Rerum Natura_, accords in a broad and remarkable way with our present

knowledge of the prehistory of man:

"Things throughout proceed

In firm, undevious order, and maintain,

To nature true, their fixt generic stamp.

Yet man's first sons, as o'er the fields they trod,

Reared from the hardy earth, were hardier far;

Strong built with ampler bones, with muscles nerved

Broad and substantial; to the power of heat,

Of cold, of varying viands, and disease,

Each hour superior; the wild lives of beasts

Leading, while many a lustre o'er them rolled.

Nor crooked plough-share knew they, nor to drive,

Deep through the soil, the rich-returning spade;

Nor how the tender seedling to re-plant,

Nor from the fruit-tree prune the withered branch.

* * * * *

"Nor knew they yet the crackling blaze t'excite,

Or clothe their limbs with furs, or savage hides.

But groves concealed them, woods, and hollow hills;

And, when rude rains, or bitter blasts o'erpowered,

Low bushy shrubs their squalid members wrapped.

* * * * *

"And in their keen rapidity of hand

And foot confiding, oft the savage train

With missile stones they hunted, or the force

Of clubs enormous; many a tribe they felled,

Yet some in caves shunned, cautious; where, at night,

Thronged they, like bristly swine; their naked limbs

With herbs and leaves entwining. Nought of fear

Urged them to quit the darkness, and recall,

With clamorous cries, the sunshine and the day:

But sound they sunk in deep, oblivious sleep,

Till o'er the mountains blushed the roseate dawn.

* * * * *

"This ne'er distressed them, but the fear alone

Some ruthless monster might their dreams molest,

The foamy boar, or lion, from their caves

Drive them aghast beneath the midnight shade,

And seize their leaf-wrought couches for themselves.

* * * * *

"Yet then scarce more of mortal race than now

Left the sweet lustre of the liquid day.

Some doubtless, oft the prowling monsters gaunt

Grasped in their jaws, abrupt; whence, through the groves,

The woods, the mountains, they vociferous groaned,

Destined thus living to a living tomb.

* * * * *

"Yet when, at length, rude huts they first devised,

And fires, and garments; and, in union sweet,

Man wedded woman, the pure joys indulged

Of chaste connubial love, and children rose,

The rough barbarians softened. The warm hearth

Their frames so melted they no more could bear,

As erst, th' uncovered skies; the nuptial bed

Broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress

Of prattling children from the bosom chased

Their stern ferocious manners."[C]

This is a picture of many phases in the life of primitive man: his

powerful frame, his ignorance of agriculture, his dependence on the fruits

and animal products of the earth, his discovery of fire and of clothing,

his chase of wild beasts with clubs and missile stones, his repair to

caverns, his contests with the lion and the boar, his invention of rude

huts and dwellings, the softening of his nature through the sweet

influence of family life and of children, all these are veritable stages

in our prehistoric development. The influence of Greek thought is also

reflected in the Satires of Horace,[D] and the Greek conception of the

natural history of man, voiced by Æschylus[E] as early as the fifth

century B. C., prevailed widely before the Christian era, when it

gradually gave way to the Mosaic conception of special creation, which

spread all over western Europe.

RISE OF MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY

As the idea of the natural history of man again arose, during the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it came not so much from previous

sources as from the dawning science of comparative anatomy. From the year

1597, when a Portuguese sailor's account of an animal resembling the

chimpanzee was embodied in Filippo Pigafetta's _Description of the Kingdom

of the Congo_, the many points of likeness between the anthropoid apes and

man were treated both in satire and caricature and in serious anatomical

comparison as evidence of kinship.

The first French evolutionist, Buffon,[F] observed in 1749: "The first

truth that makes itself apparent on serious study of nature is one that

man may perhaps find humiliating; it is this--that he, too, must take his

place in the ranks of animals, being, as he is, an animal in every

material point." Buffon's convictions were held in check by clerical and

official influences, yet from his study of the orang in 1766 we can

entertain no doubt of his belief that men and apes are descended from

common ancestors.

The second French evolutionist, Lamarck,[G] in 1809 boldly proclaimed the

descent of man from the anthropoid apes, pointing out their close

anatomical resemblances combined with inferiority both in bodily and

mental capacity. In the evolution of man Lamarck perceived the great

importance of the erect position, which is only occasionally assumed by

the apes; also that children pass gradually from the quadrumanous to the

upright position, and thus repeat the history of their ancestors. Man's

origin is traced as follows: A race of quadrumanous apes gradually

acquires the upright position in walking, with a corresponding

modification of the limbs, and of the relation of the head and face to the

back-bone. Such a race, having mastered all the other animals, spreads out

over the world. It checks the increase of the races nearest itself and,

spreading in all directions, begins to lead a social life, develops the

power of speech and the communication of ideas. It develops also new

requirements, one after another, which lead to industrial pursuits and to

the gradual perfection of its powers. Eventually this pre-eminent race,

having acquired absolute supremacy, comes to be widely different from even

the most perfect of the lower animals.

The period following the latest publication of Lamarck's(1)[H] remarkable

speculations in the year 1822, was distinguished by the earliest

discoveries of the industry of the caveman in southern France in 1828, and

in Belgium, near Liége, in 1833; discoveries which afforded the first

scientific proof of the geologic antiquity of man and laid the foundations

of the science of archæology.

The earliest recognition of an entirely extinct race of men was that which

was called the 'Neanderthal,' found, in 1856, near Düsseldorf, and

immediately recognized by Schaaffhausen(2) as a primitive race of low

cerebral development and of uncommon bodily strength.

Darwin in the _Origin of Species_,(3) which appeared in 1858, did not

discuss the question of human descent, but indicated the belief that

light would be thrown by his theory on the origin of man and his history.

It appears that Lamarck's doctrine in the _Philosophie Zoologique_

(1809)(4) made a profound impression on the mind of Lyell, who was the

first to treat the descent of man in a broad way from the standpoint of

comparative anatomy and of geologic age. In his great work of 1863, _The

Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man_, Lyell cited Huxley's

estimate of the Neanderthal skull as more primitive than that of the

Australian but of surprisingly large cranial capacity. He concludes with

the notable statement: "The direct bearing of the ape-like character of

the Neanderthal skull on Lamarck's doctrine of progressive development and

transmutation ... consists in this, that the newly observed deviation from

a normal standard of human structure is not in a casual or random

direction, but just what might have been anticipated if the laws of

variation were such as the transmutationists require. For if we conceive

the cranium to be very ancient, it exemplifies a less advanced stage of

progressive development and improvement."(5)

Lyell followed this by an exhaustive review of all the then existing

evidence in favor of the great geological age of man, considering the

'river-drift,' the 'loess,' and the loam deposits, and the relations of

man to the divisions of the Glacial Epoch. Referring to what is now known

as the Lower Palæolithic of St. Acheul and the Upper Palæolithic of

Aurignac, he says that they were doubtless separated by a vast interval of

time, when we consider that the flint implements of St. Acheul belong

either to the Post-Pliocene or early Pleistocene time, or the 'older

drift.'

It is singular that in the _Descent of Man_, published in 1871,(6) eight

years after the appearance of Lyell's great work, Charles Darwin made only

passing mention of the Neanderthal race, as follows: "Nevertheless, it

must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the

famous one at Neanderthal, are well-developed and capacious." It was the

relatively large brain capacity which turned Darwin's attention away from

a type which has furnished most powerful support to his theory of human

descent. In the two hundred pages which Darwin devotes to the descent of

man, he treats especially the evidences presented in comparative anatomy

and comparative psychology, as well as the evidence afforded by the

comparison of the lower and higher races of man. As regards the

"birthplace and antiquity of man,"(7) he observes:

"... In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely

related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore

probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied

to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's

nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors

lived on the African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to

speculate on this subject; for two or three anthropomorphous apes, one the

_Dryopithecus_ of Lartet, nearly as large as a man, and closely allied to

_Hylobates_, existed in Europe during the Miocene Age; and since so remote

a period the earth has certainly undergone many great revolutions, and

there has been ample time for migration on the largest scale.

"At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, when man first

lost his hairy covering, he probably inhabited a hot country; a

circumstance favorable for the frugivorous diet on which, judging from

analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago it was when

man first diverged from the catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at

an epoch as remote as the Eocene Period; for that the higher apes had

diverged from the lower apes as early as the Upper Miocene Period is shown

by the existence of the _Dryopithecus_."

With this speculation of Darwin the reader should compare the state of our

knowledge to-day regarding the descent of man, as presented in the first

and last chapters of this volume.

The most telling argument against the Lamarck-Lyell-Darwin theory was the

absence of those missing links which, theoretically, should be found

connecting Man with the anthropoid apes, for at that time the Neanderthal

race was not recognized as such. Between 1848 and 1914 successive

discoveries have been made of a series of human fossils belonging to

intermediate races: some of these are now recognized as missing links

between the existing human species, _Homo sapiens_, and the anthropoid

apes; and others as the earliest known forms of _Homo sapiens_:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

|----|---------------------|----------------------|-------------------|

| | | jaw. | _Eoanthropus_, |

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

In his classic lecture of 1844, _On the Form of the Head in Different

Peoples_, Anders Retzius laid the foundation of the modern study of the

skull.(8) Referring to his original publication, he says: "In the system

of classification which I devised, I have distinguished just two forms,

namely, the _short_ (round or four-cornered) which I named

_brachycephalic_, and the _long_, oval, or _dolichocephalic_. In the

former there is little or no difference between the length and breadth of

the skull; in the latter there is a notable difference." The expression of

this primary distinction between races is called the _cephalic index_, and

it is determined as follows:

Breadth of skull × 100 ÷ length of skull.

In this sense the primitive men of the Old Stone Age were mostly

'dolichocephalic,' that is, the breadth of the skull was in general less

than 75 per cent of the length, as in the existing Australians, Kaffirs,

Zulus, Eskimos, and Fijians. But some of the Palæolithic races were

'mesaticephalic'; that is, the breadth was between 75 per cent and 80 per

cent of the length, as in the existing Chinese and Polynesians. The third

or 'brachycephalic' type is the exception among Palæolithic skulls, in

which the breadth is over 80 per cent of the length, as in the Malays,

Burmese, American Indians, and Andamanese.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. Outline of a modern brachycephalic skull (fine

dots), superposed upon a dolichocephalic skull (dashes), superposed upon a

chimpanzee skull (line).

_g._ _glabella_ or median prominence between the eyebrows.

_i._ _inion_--external occipital protuberance.

_g-i._ glabella-inion line.

Vertical line from _g-i_ to top of skull indicates the height of the

brain-case. Modified after Schwalbe.]

The cephalic index, however, tells us little of the position of the skull

as a _brain-case_ in the ascending or descending scale, and following the

elaborate systems of skull measurements which were built up by Retzius(9)

and Broca,(10) and based chiefly on the _outside_ characters of the skull,

came the modern system of Schwalbe, which has been devised especially to

measure the skull with reference to the all-important criterion of the

size of the different portions of the brain, and of approximately

estimating the cubic capacity of the brain from the more or less complete

measurements of the skull.

Among these measurements are the slope of the forehead, the height of the

median portion of the skullcap, and the ratio between the upper portion of

the cranial chamber and the lower portion. In brief, the seven principal

measures which Schwalbe now employs are chiefly expressions of diameters

which correspond with the number of cubic centimetres occupied by the

brain as a whole.

In this manner Schwalbe(11) confirms Boule's estimates of the variations

in the cubic capacity of the brain in different members of the Neanderthal

race as follows:

Neanderthal race--La Chapelle 1620 c.cm.

" " --Neanderthal 1408 "

" " --La Quina 1367 "

" " --Gibraltar 1296 "

Thus the variations between the largest known brain in one member of the

Neanderthal race, the male skull of La Chapelle, and the smallest brain of

the same race, the supposed female skull of Gibraltar, is 324 c.cm., a

range similar to that which we find in the existing species of man (_Homo

sapiens_).

[Illustration: FIG. 2. The skull and brain-case, showing the low,

retreating forehead, prominent supraorbital ridges, and small brain

capacity, of _Pithecanthropus_, the java ape-man, as restored by J. H.

McGregor.]

As another test for the classification of primitive skulls, we may select

the well-known _frontal angle_ of Broca, as modified by Schwalbe, for

measuring the retreating forehead. The angle is measured by drawing a line

along the forehead upward from the bony ridge between the eyebrows, with a

horizontal line carried from the _glabella_ to the _inion_ at the back of

the skull. The various primitive races are arranged as follows:

PER CENT

_Homo sapiens_, with an average forehead frontal angle 90

_Homo sapiens_, with extreme retreating forehead " " 72.3

_Homo neanderthalensis_, with the least retreating

forehead " " 70

_Homo neanderthalensis_, with the most retreating

forehead " " 57.5

_Pithecanthropus erectus_ (Trinil race) " " 52.5

Highest anthropoid apes " " 56

For instance, this illustrates the fact that in the Trinil race the

forehead is actually lower than in some of the highest anthropoid apes;

that in the Neanderthal race the forehead is more retreating than in any

of the existing human races of _Homo sapiens_.

ARCHÆOLOGY OF THE OLD STONE AGE[I]

The proofs of the prehistory of man arose afresh, and from an entirely new

source, in the beginning of the eighteenth century through discoveries in

Germany, by which the Greek anticipations of a stone age were verified.

For a century and a half the great animal life of the diluvial world had

aroused the wonder and speculation of the early naturalists. In 1750

Eccardus(17) of Braunschweig advanced the first steps toward prehistoric

chronology, in expressing the opinion that the human race first lived in a

period in which stone served as the only weapon and tool, and that this

was followed by a bronze and then by an iron period of human culture. As

early as 1700 a human skull was discovered at Cannstatt and was believed

to be of a period as ancient as the mammoth and the cave-bear.[J]

France, favored beyond all other countries by the men of the Old Stone

Age, was destined to become the classic centre of prehistoric archæology.

As early as 1740 Mahudel(18) published a treatise upon stone implements

and laid the foundations both of Neolithic and Palæolithic research. By

the beginning of the nineteenth century the problem of fossil man had

awakened wide-spread interest and research. In Buckland's(19) _Reliquiæ

diluvianæ_, published in 1824, the great mammals of the Old Stone Age are

treated as relics of the flood. In 1825 MacEnery explored the cavern of

Kent's Hole, near Torquay, finding human bones and flint flakes associated

with the remains of the cave-bear and cave-hyæna, but the notes of this

discovery were not published until 1840, when Godwin-Austen(20) gave the

first description of Kent's Hole. In 1828 Tournal and Christol(21)

announced the first discoveries in France (Languedoc) of the association

of human bones with the remains of extinct animals. In 1833-4

Schmerling(22) described his explorations in the caverns near Liége, in

Belgium, in which he found human bones and rude flint implements

intermingled with the remains of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the

cave-hyæna, and the cave-bear. This is the first published evidence of the

life of the Cave Period of Europe, and was soon followed by the

recognition of similar cavern deposits along the south coast of Great

Britain, in France, Belgium and Italy.

[Illustration: FIG. 3. Three great types of flint implements.

_A._ An eolith of accidental shape.

_B._ A palæolith of Chellean type, partly fashioned.

_C._ A Neolithic axe head, partly polished.

After MacCurdy.]

The work of the caveman, gradually revealed between 1828 and 1840, is now

known to belong to the closing period of the Old Stone Age, and it is very

remarkable that the next discovery related to the very dawn of the Old

Stone Age, namely, to the life of the 'river-drift' man of the Lower

Palæolithic.

This discovery of what is now known as Chellean and Acheulean industry

came through the explorations of Boucher de Perthes, between 1839 and

1846, in the valley of the River Somme, which flows through Amiens and

Abbeville and empties into the English Channel half-way between Dieppe and

Boulogne. In 1841 this founder of modern archæology unearthed near

Abbeville a single flint, rudely fashioned into a cutting instrument,

buried in river sand and associated with mammalian remains. This was

followed by the collection of many other ancient weapons and implements,

and in the year 1846 Boucher de Perthes published his first work, entitled

_De l'Industrie primitive, ou des Arts à leur Origine_,(23) in which he

announced that he had found human implements in beds unmistakably

belonging to the age of the 'river-drift.' This work and the succeeding

(1857), _Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes_,(24) were received with

great scepticism until confirmed in 1853 by Rigollot's(25) discovery of

the now famous 'river-drift' beds of St. Acheul, near Amiens. In the

succeeding years the epoch-making work of Boucher de Perthes was welcomed

and confirmed by leading British geologists and archæologists, Falconer,

Prestwich, Evans, and others who visited the Somme. Lubbock's(26) article

of 1862, on the _Evidence of the Antiquity of Man Afforded by the Physical

Structure of the Somme Valley_, pointing out the great geologic age of the

river sands and gravels and of the mammals which they contained, was

followed by the discovery of similar flints in the 'river-drifts' of

Suffolk and Kent, England, in the valley of the Thames near Dartford. Thus

came the first positive proofs that certain types of stone implements were

wide-spread geographically, and thus was afforded the means of comparing

the age of one deposit with another.

This led Sir John Lubbock(27) to divide the prehistoric period into four

great epochs, in descending order as follows:

The _Iron Age_, in which iron had superseded bronze for arms, axes,

knives, etc., while bronze remained in common use for ornaments.

The _Bronze Age_, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting

instruments of all kinds.

The later or polished Stone Age, termed by Lubbock the _Neolithic Period_,

characterized by weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of

stone, with no knowledge of any metal excepting gold.

Age of the Drift, termed by Lubbock the _Palæolithic Period_,

characterized by chipped or flaked implements of flint and other kinds of

stone, and by the presence of the mammoth, the cave-bear, the woolly

rhinoceros, and other extinct animals.

Edouard Lartet, in 1860, began exploring the caverns of the Pyrenees and

of Périgord, first examining the remarkable cavern of Aurignac with its

burial vault, its hearths, its reindeer and mammoth fauna, its spear

points of bone and engravings on bone mingled with a new and distinctive

flint culture. This discovery, published in 1861,(28) led to the full

revelation of the hitherto unknown Reindeer and Art Period of the Old

Stone Age, now known as the Upper Palæolithic. As a palæontologist, it was

natural for Lartet to propose a fourfold classification of the 'Reindeer

Period,' based upon the supposed succession of the dominant forms of

mammalian life, namely:

(_d_) Age of the Aurochs or Bison.

(_c_) Age of the Woolly Mammoth and Rhinoceros.

(_b_) Age of the Reindeer.

(_a_) Age of the Cave-Bear.

Lartet, in association with the British archæologist, Christy, explored

the now famous rock shelters and caverns of Dordogne--Laugerie, La

Madeleine, Les Eyzies, and Le Moustier--which one by one yielded a variety

of flint and bone implements, engravings and sculpture on bone and ivory,

and a rich extinct fauna, in which the reindeer and mammoth predominated.

The results of this decade of exploration are recorded in their classic

work, _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_.(29) Lartet, observes Breuil,(30) clearly

perceived the level of Aurignac, where the fauna of the great cave-bear

and of the mammoth appears to yield to that of the reindeer. Above he

perceived the stone culture of the Solutrean type in Laugerie Haute, and

of the Magdalenian type in Laugerie Basse. Lartet also distinguished

between the archæological period of St. Acheul (= Lower Palæolithic) and

that of Aurignac (= Upper Palæolithic).

It remained, however, for Gabriel de Mortillet, the first French

archæologist to survey and systematize the development of the flint

industry throughout the entire Palæolithic Period, to recognize that the

Magdalenian followed the Solutrean, and that during the latter stage

industry in stone reached its height, while during the Magdalenian the

industry in bone and in wood developed in a marvelous manner. Mortillet

failed to recognize the position of the Aurignacian and omitted it from

his archæological chronology, which was first published in 1869, _Essai de

classification des cavernes et des stations sous abri, fondée sur les

produits de l'industrie humaine_:(31)

(5) _Magdalénien_,[K] characterized by a number and variety of bone

implements;

(4) _Solutréen_, leaf-like lance-heads beautifully worked;

(3) _Moustérien_, flints worked mostly on one side only;

(2) _Acheuléen_, the 'langues de chat' hand-axes of St. Acheul;

(1) _Chelléen_, bold, primitive, partly worked hand-axes.

Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, Edouard Piette (b. 1827, d. 1906),

who had held the office of magistrate in various towns in the departments

of Ardennes and Aisne, France, and who was already distinguished for his

general scientific attainments, began to devote himself especially to the

evolution of art in Upper Palæolithic times, and assembled the great

collections which are described and illustrated in his classic work,

_L'Art pendant l'Age du Renne_ (1907).(32) He first established several

phases of artistic evolution in the Magdalenian stage, and only recognized

in his later years the station of Brassempouy, not comprehending that the

Aurignacian art which he found there underlay the Solutrean culture and

was separated by a long interval of time from the most ancient

Magdalenian. His distinct contribution to Palæolithic history is his

discovery of the _Étage azilien_ overlying the Magdalenian in the cavern

of Mas d'Azil.

[Illustration: FIG. 4. Evolution of the lance-point, spear, or dart head.

Note the increasing symmetry and skill in the flaking and retouch as the

types pass in ascending order through the Chellean, Acheulean, Mousterian,

and Aurignacian, into the perfected, symmetrical, double-pointed

'laurel-leaf' of the Solutrean; and into the subsequent decline in the

flint industry of the Magdalenian and Azilian stages. After de Mortillet,

Obermaier, and Hoernes.]

Henri Breuil, a pupil of Piette and of Cartailhac, exploring during the

decade, 1902-12, chiefly under the influence of Cartailhac, formed a clear

conception of the whole Upper Palæolithic and its subdivisions, and placed

the Aurignacian definitely at the base of the series.

Thus step by step the culture stages of archæological evolution have been

established and may be summarized with the type stations as follows:

ÉTAGE STATION

Tardenoisien, Fère-en-Tardenois, Aisne.

Azilien, Mas d'Azil, Ariège.

Magdalenien, La Madeleine, près Tursac, Dordogne.

Solutréen, Solutré près Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire.

Aurignacien, Aurignac, Haute-Garonne.

Moustérien, Le Moustier, commune de Peyzac, Dordogne.

Acheuléen, St. Acheul, près Amiens, Somme.

Chelléen, Chelles-sur-Marne, Seine-et-Marne.

Pre-Chelléen

(= Mesvinien, Rutot), Mesvin, Mons, Belgique.

These stages, at first regarded as single, have each been subdivided into

three or more substages, as a result of the more refined appreciation of

the subtle advances in Palæolithic invention and technique.

[Illustration: FIG. 5. The type stations of the successive stages of

Palæolithic culture from the Chellean to the Azilian-Tardenoisian.]

A new impulse to the study of Palæolithic culture was given in 1895, when

E. Rivière discovered examples of Palæolithic mural art in the cavern of

La Mouthe,(33) thus confirming the original discovery, in 1880, by

Marcelino de Sautuola of the wonderful ceiling frescoes of the cave of

Altamira, northern Spain.(34) This created the opportunity for the

establishment by the Prince of Monaco of the _Institut de Paléontologie

humaine_ in 1910, supporting the combined researches of the Upper

Palæolithic culture and art of France and Spain, by Cartailhac, Capitan,

Rivière, Boule, Breuil, and Obermaier, and marking a new epoch in the

brilliant history of the archæology of France.

It remained for the prehistory of the borders of the Danube, Rhine, and

Neckar to be brought into harmony with that of France, and this has been

accomplished with extraordinary precision and fulness through the labors

of R. R. Schmidt, begun in 1906, and brought together in his invaluable

work, _Die diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands_.(35)

To an earlier and longer epoch belongs the Prepalæolithic or Eolithic

stage. Beginning in 1867 with the supposed discovery by l'Abbé

Bourgeois(36) of a primordial or Prepalæolithic stone culture, much

observation and speculation has been devoted to the Eolithic(37) era and

the Eolithic industry, culminating in the complete chronological system of

Rutot, as follows:

LOWER QUATERNARY, OR PLEISTOCENE

Strépyian (= Pre-Chellean, in part).

Mesvinian, culture of Mesvin, near Mons, Belgium (= Pre-Chellean).

Mafflean, culture of Maffle, near Ath, Hennegau.

Reutelian, culture of Reutel, Ypres, West Flanders.

TERTIARY

Prestian, culture of St. Prest, Eure-et-Loire, Upper Pliocene.

Kentian, culture of the plateau of Kent, Middle Pliocene.

Cantalian, culture of Aurillac, Cantal, Upper Miocene or Lower

Pliocene.

Fagnian, culture of Boncelles, Ardennes, Middle Oligocene.

Only the Mesvinian stage is generally accepted by archæologists, and this

embraces the prototypes of the Lower Palæolithic culture, which among

most French authors are termed Pre-Chellean or Proto-Chellean. The

Eolithic problem has aroused the most animated controversy, in which

opinion is divided. A critical consideration of this era, however, falls

without the province of the present work.

SUCCESSION OF HUMAN INDUSTRIES AND CULTURES[L]

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

| V. _LATER IRON AGE_ EUROPE 500 B. C. to |

| (LA TÈNE CULTURE) ROMAN TIMES.|

| |

| IV. _EARLIER IRON AGE_ EUROPE 1000-500 B. C.|

| (HALLSTATT CULTURE) ORIENT 1800-1000 |

| |

|III. _BRONZE AGE_ EUROPE about 2000-1000 |

| ORIENT " 4000-1800 |

| |

| II. _NEW STONE AGE_, _NEOLITHIC_ |

| 3. _LATE NEOLITHIC_ and |

| _COPPER AGE_ |

| (TRANSITION PERIOD) EUROPE " 3000-2000. |

| |

| 2. _TYPICAL NEOLITHIC AGE_ |

| (ROBENHAUSIAN, SWISS |

| LAKE-DWELLERS) EUROPE " 7000. |

| |

| 1. _EARLY NEOLITHIC STAGES_ |

| (CAMPIGNIAN CULTURE) EUROPE |

| |

| I. _OLD STONE AGE_, _PALÆOLITHIC_ |

| |

| _UPPER PALÆOLITHIC_ EUROPE |

| 8. AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN. } " 12,000. |

| } |

| 7. MAGDALENIAN. (Close of } " 16,000. |

| Postglacial time.) } |

| } |

| 6. SOLUTREAN. } REINDEER, |

| } SHELTER, |

| 5. AURIGNACIAN. (Beginning } AND CAVE |

| of Post-Glacial Time.) } PERIOD. |

| } |

| _LOWER PALÆOLITHIC_ } |

| 4. MOUSTERIAN. (Fourth } " 40,000. |

| Glacial time.) } |

| |

| 3. ACHEULEAN. (Transition } |

| to shelters.) } RIVER- |

| } DRIFT |

| 2. CHELLEAN. } AND " 100,000. |

| } TERRACE |

| 1. PRE-CHELLEAN (MESVINIAN.) } PERIOD. |

| } |

| _EOLITHIC._ |

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF MAN

Man emerges from the vast geologic history of the earth in the period

known as the Pleistocene, or Glacial, and Postglacial, the 'Diluvium' of

the older geologists. The men of the Old Stone Age in western Europe are

now known through the latter half of Glacial times to the very end of

Postglacial times, when the Old Stone Age, with its wonderful environment

of mammalian and human life, comes to a gradual close, and the New Stone

Age begins with the climate and natural beauties of the forests, meadows,

and Alps of Europe as they were before the destroying hand of economic

civilization fell upon them.

[Illustration: PL. II. "Throughout this long epoch western Europe is to be

viewed as a peninsula, surrounded on all sides by the sea and stretching

westward from the great land mass of eastern Europe and of Asia, which was

the chief theatre of evolution both of animal and human life." 1-8.

Discovery sites of the type specimens of human and prehuman races.]

It is our difficult but fascinating task to project in our imagination the

extraordinary series of prehistoric natural events which were witnessed by

the successive races of Palæolithic men in Europe; such a combination and

sequence never occurred before in the world's history and will never occur

again. They centred around three distinct and yet closely related groups

of causes. First, the formation of the two great ice-fields centring over

the Scandinavian peninsula and over the Alps; second, the arrival or

assemblage in western Europe of mammals from five entirely different

life-zones or natural habitats; third, the arrival in Europe of seven or

eight successive races of men by migration, chiefly from the great

Eurasiatic continent of the East.

Throughout this long epoch western Europe is to be viewed as a peninsula,

surrounded on all sides by the sea and stretching westward from the great

land mass of eastern Europe and of Asia, which was the chief theatre of

evolution both of animal and human life. It was the 'far west' of all

migrations of animals and men. Nor may we disregard the vast African land

mass, the northern coasts of which afforded a great southern migration

route from Asia, and may have supplied Europe with certain of its human

races such as the 'Grimaldi.'

These three principal phenomena of the ice-fields, the mammals, and the

human life and industry, together establish the chronology of the Age of

Man. In other words, there are four ways of keeping _prehistoric time_:

that of geology, that of palæontology, that of anatomy, and that of human

industry. Geologic events mark the grander divisions of time;

palæontologic and anatomic events mark the lesser divisions; while the

successive phases of human industry mark the least divisions. The geologic

chronology deals with such immense periods of time that its ratio to the

animal and to the human chronology is like that of years to hours and to

minutes of our own solar time.

The Glacial Epoch when first revealed by Charpentier(39) and Agassiz,(40)

between 1837 and 1840, was supposed to correspond to a single great

advance and retreat of the ice-fields from various centres. The vague

problem of the antiquity of Pliocene man and Diluvial man soon merged into

the far more definite chronology of _glacial_ and _interglacial man_. As

early as 1854, Morlot discovered near Dürnten, on the borders of the lake

of Zürich, a bed of fossil plants indicating a period of south temperate

climate intervening between two great deposits of glacial origin. This led

to the new conception of cold glacial stages and warm interglacial stages,

and Morlot(41) himself advanced the theory that there had been three

glacial stages separated by two interglacial stages. Other discoveries

followed both of fossil plants and mammals adapted to warmer periods

intervening between the colder periods. Moreover, successive glacial

moraines and 'drifts,' and successive river 'terraces' were found to

confirm the theory of multiple glacial stages. The British geologist,

James Geikie (1871-94) marshalled all the evidence for the extreme

hypothesis of a succession of six glacial and five interglacial stages,

each with its corresponding cold and warm climates. Strong confirmation of

a theory of four great glaciations came through the American geologists,

Chamberlin,(42) Salisbury,(43) and others, in the discovery of evidence of

four chief glacial and three interglacial stages in northern portions of

our own continent. Finally, a firm foundation of the quadruple glacial

theory in Europe was laid by the classic researches of Penck and

Brückner(44) in the Alps, which were published in 1909. Thus the

exhaustive research of Geikie, of Chamberlin and Salisbury, of Penck and

Brückner, and finally of Leverett(45) has firmly established eight

subdivisions or stages of Pleistocene time, namely, four glacial, three

interglacial, and one postglacial. These not only mark the great eras of

European time but also make possible the synchrony of America with

Europe.

PLACE OF THE OLD STONE AGE IN THE EARTH'S HISTORY

(Indicated in =heavy-face letter=.)

Compare Schuchert's Table, 1914.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

|-----------|--------------------------|------------------|-------------|

| | | | | |

| | . . . . . . | . . . . . .|Industry in iron, |Iron, Bronze,|

| | | | | |

| | or | | | of the |

|-----------|-------------|------------|------------------|-------------|

| |-------------|Late |------------------| |

| |-------------|------------|------------------| |

|TERTIARY. |-------------| | life. | AND |

| |-------------| |------------------| |

|-----------|-------------|------------|------------------|-------------|

| |Cretaceous. |------------|------------------| |

| |-------------|------------|------------------| |

| | | |Rise of flowering | OF |

|-----------|-------------|------------|------------------| REPTILES. |

|EARLY |-------------|------------|------------------| |

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Since most of the skeletal and cultural remains of man can now be

definitely attributed to certain glacial, interglacial, or postglacial

stages, vast interest attaches to the very difficult problem of the

duration of the whole Ice Age and the relative duration of its various

glacial and interglacial stages. The following figures set forth the wide

variations in opinion on this subject and the two opposite tendencies of

speculation which lead to greatly expanded or greatly abbreviated

estimates of Pleistocene time:

DURATION OF THE ICE AGE

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

|1863. Charles Lyell,(46) _Principles of Geology_ 800,000 years. |

|1874. James D. Dana,(47) _Manual of Geology_ 720,000 " |

|1893. Charles D. Walcott,(48) _Geologic Time as |

| Indicated by the Sedimentary Rocks of |

| North America_ 400,000 " |

|1893. W. Upham,(49) _Estimates of Geologic Times, |

| Amer. Jour. Sci._, vol. XLV 100,000 " |

|1894. A. Heim,(50) _Ueber das absolute Alter der |

| Eiszeit_ 100,000 " |

|1900. W. J. Sollas,(51) _Evolutional Geology_ 400,000 " |

|1909. Albrecht Penck,(52) _Die Alpen im |

| Eiszeitalter_ 520,000-840,000|

|1914. James Geikie,(53) _The Antiquity of Man in |

| Europe_ 620,000 (min.) |

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

We may adopt for the present work the more conservative estimate of Penck,

that since the first great ice-fields developed in Scandinavia, in the

Alps, and in North America west of Hudson Bay a period of time of not less

than 520,000 years has elapsed. The relative duration of the subdivisions

of the Glacial Epoch is also studied by Penck in his _Chronologie des

Eiszeitalters in den Alpen_.(52) These stages are not in any degree

rhythmic, or of equal length either in western Europe or in North America.

The unit of glacial measurement chosen by Penck is the time which has

elapsed since the close of the fourth and last great glaciation; this is

known as the _Würm_ in the Alpine region and as the _Wisconsin_ in

America. While more limited than the ice-caps of the second glaciation,

those of the fourth glaciation were still of vast extent in Europe and in

this country, so that an estimate of 20,000 to 34,000 years for the unit

of the entire _Postglacial_ stage is not extreme. Estimating this unit at

25,000 years and accepting Reeds's(54) estimate of the relative length of

time occupied by each of the preceding glacial and interglacial stages, we

reach the following results (compare Fig. 14, p, 41):

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

|--------------------------------------|-----|--------|-------|---------|

| Brünn races) | 1 | 25,000| 25,000| |

| | | | | |

| culture, Neanderthal race) | 1 | 25,000| 50,000| 1,200 |

| pre-Neanderthaloid races) | 4 | 100,000|150,000| |

| | | | | |

| Illinoian). | 1 | 25,000|175,000| 1,250 |

| (= Mindel-Riss, Yarmouth) | 8 | 200,000|375,000| |

| | | | | |

| II. GLACIAL STAGE (= Mindel, Kansan) | 1 | 25,000|400,000| 1,300 |

| (= Günz-Mindel, Aftonian) | 3 | 75,000|475,000| |

| | | | | |

| I. GLACIAL STAGE (= Günz, Nebraskan)| 1 | 25,000|500,000| 1,200 |

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Postglacial time divisions are dated by three successive advances of

the ice-caps, which broadly correspond with Geikie's fifth and sixth

glaciations; they are known in the Alpine region as the _Bühl_,

_Gschnitz_, and _Daun_. These three waves of cold and humid climate, each

accompanied by glacial advances, finally terminated with the retreat of

the snow and ice in the Alpine region, the same conditions prevailing as

with the present climate. The minimum time estimates of these Postglacial

stages and the corresponding periods of human culture, as calculated by

Heim,(50) Nüesch,(55) Penck,(52) and many others, are summarized in the

Upper Palæolithic (p. 281).

GEOLOGIC AND HUMAN CHRONOLOGY

There are four ways in which the lesser divisions and sequence of human

chronology may be dated through geologic or earth-forming events. First,

through the age of the culture stations or human remains, as indicated by

the 'river-drifts' and 'river terraces' in or upon which they occur;

second, through the age of the open 'loess' stations which are found both

on the 'older terraces' and on the plateaus between the river valleys;

third, through the age of the shelters and caverns in which skeletal and

cultural remains occur; fourth, through the age of the 'loam' deposits,

which have drifted down on the 'terraces' from the surrounding meadows and

hills. The men of the Old Stone Age were attracted to these natural camps

and dwelling-places both by the abundance of the raw flint materials from

which the palæoliths were fashioned and by the presence of game.

In more than ninety years of exploration only three skeletal relics of man

have been found in the ancient 'river-drifts'; these are the 'Trinil,' the

'Heidelberg,' and the 'Piltdown'; in each instance the human remains were

buried accidentally with those of extinct animals, after drifting for some

distance in the river or stream beds. It is only in late Acheulean times

that human burial rites or interments begin and that skeletal remains are

found. Owing to the less perishable nature of flint, relics of the

quarries and stations are infinitely more common; they are found both in

the river sands and gravels, in the 'river terraces,' and in the 'loess'

stations of the plateaus and uplands. Thus prehistoric chronology is based

on observations of the geologist, who in turn is greatly aided by the

archæologist, because the evolution stages of each type of implement are

practically the same all over western Europe, with the exception of

unimportant local inventions and variations. In brief, the large divisions

of time are determined by the amount of work done by geologic agencies;

the comparative age of the various camp sites is determined by their

geologic succession, by the mammals and plants which occur in them, and

finally by the cultural type of any industrial remains that may be found.

TIMES OF THE 'HIGH' AND 'LOW' RIVER 'TERRACES'

The so-called 'terrace' chronology is to be used by the prehistorian with

caution, for it is obvious that the 'terraces' in the different

river-valleys of western Europe were not all formed at the same time; thus

the testimony of the 'terraces' is always to be checked off by other

evidence.

[Illustration: FIG. 6. Terraces on either side of the valley of the River

Inn, Scharding, Austria, formed by sand and gravel deposits partly covered

with loess. After Brückner.

_Ib._ Very broad river deposits of First Glaciation, on the first erosion

level, covered with the 'Upper Loess' of the Second Interglacial Stage.

_IIb._ Somewhat narrower river deposits of Second Glaciation on the second

erosion level.

_IIIb._ Still narrower river terraces of the Third Glaciation on the third

erosion level, covered with the 'Lower Loess' of the Third Interglacial

Stage.

_IVb._ Fourth or lowest terrace of the Fourth Glaciation on the fourth

erosion level.

_Va._ Erosion terraces, Achen.

_VIa._ Post-Bühl erosion.

_Loess′_, 'Upper Loess' of Second Interglacial. _Loess″_, 'Lower Loess' of

Third Interglacial.]

As to the origin of the sands and gravels which compose the 'terraces' we

know that the glacial stages were periods of the wearing away of vast

materials from the summits and sides of the mountains, which were

transported by the rivers to the valleys and plains. These vast deposits

of glacial times spread out over the very broad surfaces of the pristine

river-bottoms, which in many valleys it is important to note were from 100

to 150 feet above the present levels. The diminished and contracted

streams of interglacial times cut into these ancient river beds, forming

narrower channels into which they transported their own materials. Thus,

as the successive 'river terraces' were formed, a descending series of

steps was created along the sides of the valleys. In many valleys there

are four of these 'terraces,' which may correspond with several glacial

stages; in other valleys there are only three; in others, again, like the

valley of the River Inn which flows past Innsbruck in the Tyrol (Fig. 6),

there are five 'terraces,' while in the valley of the Rhine above Basle

there are six, corresponding, it is believed, with the materials brought

down by the four great glaciations and with the river levels of

Postglacial times. In general, therefore, the 'high terraces' are the

oldest ones, that is, they are composed of materials brought down during

the pluvial periods of the First, Second, and Third Glacial Stages, while

the 'lower terraces' and the 'lowest terraces' in the alpine regions are

composed of materials borne by the great rivers of the Fourth Glacial and

Postglacial Stages. In the region around the Alps the 'higher terraces'

are products chiefly of the third glaciation; in the valley of the Rhine

they are visible near Basle. On the upper Rhine the 'low terraces' are

products of the fourth glaciation; they cover vast surfaces and contain

remains of the woolly mammoth (_E. primigenius_), an animal distinctive of

Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times.

[Illustration: FIG. 7. Cross-section through the terraced Pleistocene

formations of the Rhine valley above Basle, Switzerland. After Penck.

_Ib._ Outwash of the First Glaciation--Günz--Deposits on the first erosion

level.

_IIb._ Outwash of the Second Glaciation--Mindel--Deposits on the second

erosion level.

_IIIb._ Outwash of the Third Glaciation--Riss--Deposits on the third

erosion level.

_IVb._ Outwash of the Fourth Glaciation--Würm--Deposits on the fourth

erosion level.

_Va._ Erosion terrace, Achen oscillation--fifth erosion level.

_VIa._ } Post-Bühl erosion--sixth and seventh erosion levels.

_VIIa._ }

_IIIc._ Moraine of the Third Glaciation--Riss.

The section of the Rheinfelder Hill lies 3 km. west from the Möliner

Field.]

More remote from the glacial regions, but equally subject to the

inundations of glacial times are the 'high terraces' along the River

Seine, which are ninety feet above the present level of the river and

contain the remains of mammals characteristic of the First Interglacial

Stage, such as the southern elephant (_E. meridionalis_), while the 'low

terraces' along the Seine are only fifteen feet above the present level of

the river and contain mammals belonging to the Third Interglacial Stage.

Similarly, the 'high terraces' of the River Eure contain mammals of First

Interglacial times, such as the southern elephant (_E. meridionalis_) and

Steno's horse (_E. stenonis_); these fossils occur in coarse river sands

and gravels which were deposited by a broad stream that flowed at least

ninety feet above the present waters of the Eure.

The human interest which attaches to these dry facts of geology appears

especially in the valleys of the Somme and the Marne in northern France;

here again we find 'high terraces,' 'middle terraces,' and 'low terraces';

the latter are still subject to flooding. In the deep gravels upon each of

these terraces we find the first proofs of human residence, for here occur

the earliest Pre-Chellean and Chellean implements associated with the

remains of the hippopotamus, of Merck's rhinoceros, and of the

straight-tusked elephant (_E. antiquus_), together with mammals which are

characteristic both of Second and Third Interglacial times.

This raises a very important distinction, which is often misunderstood;

namely, between the materials _composing_ the original terraces and those

subsequently _deposited upon_ the terraces. It appears to be in the latter

that human artifacts are chiefly, if not exclusively, found.

TIMES OF THE LOAM STATIONS

The 'loam' which washes down over the original sand and gravel 'terraces'

from the surrounding hills and meadows is of much later date than the

'terraces' themselves, and the archæologist in the valley of the Somme as

well as in that of the Thames may well be deceived unless he clearly

distinguishes between the newer deposits of gravels and of loams and the

far older gravels and river sands which compose the original 'terraces.'

This is well illustrated by the observations of Commont on the section of

St. Acheul.(56) The loams and brick-earth are of much more recent age than

the original gravels and sands of the 'terraces' which they overlap and

conceal; the lowest and oldest 'loam' (_limon fendillé_) contains

Acheulean flints, while the overlying 'loam' contains Mousterian flints.

Although occurring on the 'higher terraces,' these flints are of somewhat

later date than the primitive Chellean flints which occur in the coarse

gravels and sands that have collected upon the very _lowest levels_ (Fig.

59).

A similar prehistoric inversion doubtless occurs in the 'terraces' of the

Thames, for materials on the 'highest terrace' (Fig. 8) contain Acheulean

flints, while materials on the 'lowest terrace' belong to a much more

recent age.

[Illustration: FIG. 8. Section--Four terraces indicated in the valley of

the Thames at Galley Hill, near London. Site of the discovery of the

'Galley Hill Man' in deposits overlying one of the high terraces. Site

also of Gray's Thurrock, a deposit of Third Interglacial times containing

mammals and flints of Chellean age. A typical camping station of

'river-drift man.' Drawn by Dr. C. A. Reeds.]

We have no record of a single Palæolithic station found in the true

original sands and gravels of the 'higher terraces' in any part of Europe;

only eoliths are found on the 'high terrace' levels, as at St. Prest.

The earliest palæoliths occur in the gravels on both the 'middle' and

'upper terraces' of the Somme and the Marne, proving that the gravels were

deposited long subsequent to the cutting of the original terraces.

Geikie,(57) moreover, is of the opinion that the valley of the Somme has

remained as it is since early Pleistocene times, and that even the 'lowest

terrace' here was completed at that period; this is contrary to the view

of Commont, who considers that this 'lowest terrace' belongs to Third

Interglacial times; a restudy of the stations along the Thames may throw

light upon this very important difference of opinion.

TIMES OF THE 'LOESS' STATIONS

The glacial stages were generally times of relatively great humidity, of

heavy rain and snow fall, of full rivers charged with gravels and sands,

and with loam the finest product of the erosive action of ice upon the

rocks. This loam on the barren wastes left bare by the glaciers or on the

river borders and overflow basins was retransported by the winds and laid

down afresh in layers of varying thickness known as 'loess.' There was no

'loess' formation either in Europe or America during the humid climate of

First Interglacial times, but during the latter part of the Second

Interglacial Stage, again toward the close of the Third Interglacial

Stage, and finally during Postglacial times there were periods of arid

climate when the 'loess' was lifted and transported by the prevailing

winds over the 'terraces' and plateaus and even to great heights among

the mountain valleys. As observed by Huntington(58) in his interesting

book _The Pulse of Asia_, even at the present time there are districts

where we find 'loess' dust filling the entire atmosphere either during the

heated months of summer or during the cold months of winter.

[Illustration: FIG. 9. Magdalenian loess station of Aggsbach, in Lower

Austria. A quarry camping station of the open-plains type. This typical

Postglacial loess deposit contains flints of early Magdalenian age. After

Obermaier.]

In Pleistocene Europe there were at least three warm or cold arid periods,

accompanied in some phases by prevailing westerly winds,(59) in which

'loess' was widely distributed over northern Germany, covering the 'river

terraces,' plateaus, and uplands bordering the Rhine and the Neckar. These

'loess' periods can be dated by the fossil remains of mammals which they

contain, also by the stations of the flint quarries in different culture

stages. Thus we find late Acheulean implements in drifts of 'loess' at

Villejuif, south of Paris. Among the most famous stations of late

Acheulean times is that of Achenheim, west of Strasburg, and not far

distant is the 'loess' station of Mommenheim, of Mousterian times; both

belong to the period of the fourth glaciation. An Aurignacian 'loess'

station is that of Willendorf, Austria.

TIMES OF THE LIMESTONE SHELTERS AND CAVERNS

Beginning in the late or cold Acheulean period, the Palæolithic hunters

commenced to seek the warm or sheltered side of deepened river-valleys,

also the shelter afforded by overhanging cliffs and the entrances of

caverns. It is quite probable that during the warm season of the year they

still repaired to their open flint quarries along the rivers and on the

uplands; in fact, the river Somme was a favorite resort through Acheulean

into Mousterian times.

In general, however, the open rivers and plateaus were abandoned, and all

the regions of limestone rock favorable to the formation of shelter

cliffs, grottos, and caverns were sought out by the early Palæolithic men

from Mousterian times on; and thus from the beginning of the Mousterian to

the close of the Upper Palæolithic their lines of migration and of

residence followed the exposures of the limestones which had been laid

down by the sea in bygone geologic ages from Carboniferous to Cretaceous

times. The upper valleys of the Rhine and Danube traversed the white

Jurassic limestones which are again exposed in a broad band along the

foot-hills of the Pyrenees, extending far west to the Cantabrian Alps of

modern Spain. In Dordogne the great horizontal plateau of Cretaceous

limestone had been dissected by branching rivers, such as the Vézère, to a

depth of two hundred feet. Under overhanging cliffs long rock shelters

were formed, such as that of the Magdalenian station at La Madeleine.

[Illustration: FIG. 10. Ideal section of the bluff overlying the Düssel

River, near Düsseldorf, showing the mode of formation of the famous

Neanderthal Cave, where the original type of the Neanderthal race was

discovered in 1856. A typical resort of the 'cave man.' After Lyell.

_c._ Entrance of percolating waters from above.

_f._ Exit from the grotto.

_a-b._ Interior of the cavern.]

Many caverns were formed, some of them in early Pleistocene times, by

water percolating from above and (Fig. 11) resulting in subterranean

streams which issued at the entrance; this formed the expanded grotto,

sometimes a chamber of vast dimensions, such as the _Grotte de Gargas_.

Outside of this, again, may be an _abri_ or shelter of overhanging rock.

In other cases the rock shelter is found quite independent of any cave.

Where the glaciers or ice-caps passed over the summits of the hills the

subglacial streams penetrated the limestone of the mountain and formed

vast caverns, such as that of Niaux, near the river Ariège. Here a nearly

horizontal cavern was formed, extending half a mile into the heart of the

mountain. The material with which the floors of the caverns are covered

is either a fine cave loam or the insoluble remainder of the limestone

forming a brown or gray clayey substance. The Magdalenian artists produced

drawings on these soft clays and, in rare instances, used them for

modelling purposes, as in the Tuc d'Audoubert. The sands and gravels were

also swept in from the streams above and carried by strong currents along

the wall surfaces, smoothing and polishing the limestone in preparation

for the higher forms of Upper Palæolithic draughtsmanship and painting.

[Illustration: FIG. 11. Formation of the typical limestone cavern. After

Gaudry.

_V._ Vertical section of limestone cliff showing (_S_) waters percolating

from above; (_A-O_) interior of the cavern; and (_G_) grotto entrance,

original exit of the cavern waters. _H._ Horizontal section of the same

cavern showing the (_G_) grotto entrance and (_A_, _G_, _O_, _B_) the

ramifications of the cavern.]

It would appear that the majority of the caverns were formed in pluvial

periods of early glacial times; the formation had been completed, the

subterranean streams had ceased to flow, and the interiors were relatively

dry and free from moisture in Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times, when

man first entered them. There is no evidence, however, that the cavern

depths were generally inhabited, for the obvious reason that there was no

exit for the smoke; the old hearths are invariably found close to or

outside of the entrance, the only exception being in the entrance to the

great cavern of Gargas, where there is a natural chimney for the exit of

smoke. There was no cave life, strictly speaking--it was grotto life; the

deep caves and caverns were probably penetrated only by artists and

possibly also by magicians or priests. It is in the _abris_ or shelters in

front of the grottos and in the floors of the caverns that remarkable

prehistoric records are found from late Acheulean times to the very close

of the Palæolithic, as in the wonderful grotto in front of the cave at

Castillo, near Santander. Thus, as Obermaier(60) observes: "In Chellean

times primitive man was a care-free hunter wandering as he chose in the

mild and pleasant weather, and even the colder climate of the arid 'loess'

period of the late Acheulean was not sufficient to overcome his love of

the open; he still made his camp on the plains at the edge of the forest,

or in the shelter of some overhanging cliff." Only in rare instances, as

at Castillo, were the Acheulean hearths brought within the entrance line

of the grotto.

DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AS TO THE GEOLOGIC AGE OF THE PALÆOLITHIC CULTURE

STAGES

The right-hand column represents the theory adopted in this volume.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|---------------|-----------------|

|----------------------|------------|Pre-Chellean |-----------------|

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

Interpretation of these four kinds of evidence as to the antiquity of

human culture in western Europe still leads to widely diverse opinions. On

the one hand, we have the high authority of Penck(61) and Geikie(62) that

the Chellean and Acheulean cultures are as ancient as the second long warm

interglacial period. An extreme exponent of the same theory is

Wiegers,(63) who would carry the Pre-Chellean back even into First

Interglacial times. On the other side, Boule,(64) Schuchardt,(65)

Obermaier,(66) Schmidt,(67) and the majority of the French archæologists

place the beginning of the Pre-Chellean culture in Third Interglacial

times.

In favor of the latter theory is the strikingly close succession of the

Lower Palæolithic cultures in the valley of the Somme, followed by an

equally close succession from Acheulean to Magdalenian times, as, for

example, in the station of Castillo. It does not appear possible that a

vast interval of time, such as that of the third glaciation, separated the

Chellean from the Mousterian culture.

On the other hand, in favor of the greater antiquity of the Pre-Chellean

and Chellean cultures may be urged their alleged association in several

localities with very primitive mammals of early Pleistocene type, namely,

the Etruscan rhinoceros, Steno's horse, and the saber-tooth tiger, as

witnessed in Spain and in the deposits of the Champs de Mars, at

Abbeville.

It is true, moreover, that at points distant from the great ice-fields,

like the valley of the Somme and that of the Marne, we have no other means

of separating glacial from interglacial times than that afforded by the

deposition and erosion of the 'terraces'; in fact, the interpretation of

the age of the cultures may be similar to that applied to the age of the

mammalian fauna. There are no proofs of periods of severe cold in western

Europe in any country remote from the glaciers until the very cold

steppe-tundra climate immediately preceding the fourth glaciation swept

the entire land and drove out the last of the African-Asiatic mammals.

GEOGRAPHIC CHANGES

The migrations of mammals and of races of men into western Europe from the

Eurasiatic continent on the east and from Africa on the south were favored

or interrupted by the periods of elevation or of subsidence of the coastal

borders of the Ægean, Mediterranean, and North Seas, and also of the

Iberian and British coast-lines. The maximum period of elevation of the

coastal borders, as represented in the accompanying map (Fig. 12), never

occurred in all portions of the continent of Europe at the same time,

because there were oscillations both on the northern and southern coasts

of Europe and Africa. The early Pleistocene, especially the period of the

First Interglacial Stage, was one of elevation remarkable for the broad

land bridges which brought the animal life of Europe, Africa, and Asia

together. The Mediterranean coast rose 300 feet. Land bridges from Africa

were formed at Gibraltar and over to the island of Sicily, so that for the

time there was a free migration of mammalian life north and south. It is

to this that western Europe owes the majestic mammals of Asiatic and

African life which dominated the native fauna.

[Illustration: FIG. 12. Europe in the period of maximum continental

elevation, in which the coast-lines are widely extended, connecting Africa

and Europe--including Great Britain and Ireland--in a single vast

peninsula, and affording free migration routes for animal and human races

north and south, as well as east and west. The ocean boundaries are more

remote and the interior seas are greatly reduced in area. After

Obermaier.]

In general, the _elevation_ of the continent took place during

interglacial, the _subsidence_ during glacial times, but Great Britain

appears to have been almost continuously elevated and a part of the

continent, and was certainly so during the Third Interglacial, Fourth

Glacial, and Postglacial Stages, because there was a free migration of

animal life and of human culture. The Lower Palæolithic peoples of

Pre-Chellean and Chellean times wandered at will from the valley of the

Somme to the not far distant valley of the Thames, interchanging their

weapons and inventions. The close proximity of these stations is well

illustrated in the admirable map (Fig. 56) prepared under the direction of

Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock). The relation which _elevation_ and

_subsidence_ respectively bear to the glacial and interglacial stages is

believed to be as follows:

ELEVATION, emergence of the coast-lines from the sea, broad land

connections facilitating migration, retreat of the glaciers, deepening of

the river-valleys, and cutting of terraces. Arid continental climate and

deposition of 'loess.'

SUBSIDENCE, submergence of the coast-lines and advance of the sea,

interruption of land connections and of migration routes, advance of the

glaciers, filling of the river-valleys with the products of glacial

erosion, the sand and gravel materials of which the 'terraces' are

composed, and subglacial erosion of the loam, from which in arid periods

the 'loess' is derived.

Subsidence was the great feature of closing glacial times both in Europe

and America. During the Fourth Glacial and Postglacial Stages the Black

and Caspian Seas and the eastern portion of the Mediterranean were deeply

depressed, while the British Isles were still connected with France, but

by a narrower isthmus than that of early interglacial times. The scattered

stations of Upper Palæolithic culture found in the British Isles include

one Aurignacian, one Solutrean, two Magdalenian, and two Azilian; this

shows that travel communication with the continent continued throughout

that period, in all probability by means of a land connection. In late

Neolithic times the English Channel was formed, Great Britain became

isolated from Europe, and Ireland lost its land connection first with

Wales and then with Scotland.

CHANGES OF CLIMATE

Penck(68) estimates the intensity of the cold and of the humidity which

prevailed during the glacial stages by the _descent_ of the snow-line in

the Alps, which in the two periods of greatest glaciation reached from

1,200 m. (3,937 ft.) to 1,500 m. (4,921 ft.) below the present snow-level,

with the consequent formation of vast ice-caps hung with glaciers which

flowed great distances down the valleys of the Rhône and of the Rhine and

left their moraines at very distant points. The moraines and drifts of the

lesser glaciations, such as the first and fourth, stand considerably

within the boundaries of these outer moraines and drift fields. On the

contrary, the warmer climates of interglacial times are indicated by the

sun-loving plants found at Hötting, along the valley of the Inn, in the

Tyrol, which are proofs of a temperature higher than the present and of

the _ascent_ of the snow-line 300 m. (984 ft.) above the existing

snow-level of the Alps.

[Illustration: SNOW LINES OF THE FOUR PRINCIPAL GLACIAL EPOCHS OF THE

PLEISTOCENE PERIOD

A-B Profile across Europe along the line A-B of map

5 Present snow line

4 Snow line of the Fourth (Würm) Glacial Epoch

3 " " " " Third (Riss) " "

2 " " " " Second (Mindel) " "

1 " " " " First (Günz) " "

FIG. 13. An ideal earth section from the North Cape across the

Scandinavian plateau, through the North Sea, Swiss Alps, Pyrenees, and

Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa, along the

line indicated on the map (Fig. 25, p. 65), illustrating the sea-level at

the time of the greatest elevation of the continent during the Second

Glacial Stage, as compared with the present sea-level; also the successive

lines of descent of the region of perpetual snow during the four great

glacial advances, as compared with the present snow-line. From studies by

Dr. C. A. Reeds.]

The alternation of the cold climates of the glacial stages with the warm

temperate climates of the interglacial stages formed great oscillations of

temperature (Figs. 13, 14). The fossil plant life indicates that during

the periods of the First, Second, and Third Interglacial Stages the

climate of western Europe was cooler than it had been during the preceding

Pliocene Epoch and somewhat warmer than it is at the present time in the

same localities. During the First, Second, and Third Glacial Stages there

was certainly a marked lowering of temperature in the regions bordering

the great glacial fields. This is indicated by the arrival in the northern

glacial border regions of animals and plants adapted to arctic and

subarctic climates.

It has been generally believed that the whole of western Europe was

extremely cold during these glacial stages, and that the heat-loving

animals, the southern elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami, were

driven to the south, to return only with the renewed warmth of the next

interglacial stage.

There is, however, no proof of the departure of these supposedly less

hardy mammals nor of the spread over Europe of the more hardy arctic and

steppe types until the advent of the Fourth Glacial Stage. Then, for the

first time, all western Europe north of the Pyrenees experienced a general

fall of temperature, and conditions of climate prevailed such as are now

found in the arctic tundra regions of the north and in the high steppes of

central Asia, which are swept by dry and cold winter winds. Fluctuations

of temperature, of moisture, and of aridity in Pleistocene time, are

evidenced not only by the rise and fall of the snow-line and the advance

and retreat of the ice-caps but also by the appearance of plant and animal

life in the periods of the 'loess' deposition, indicating the following

cycles of climatic change as witnessed from beginning to end of the Third

Interglacial Stage:

IV. Glacial maximum, cold and moist climate, arctic and cold steppe

fauna and flora.

Cool and dry steppe climate, wide-spread deposition of 'loess.'

Interglacial maximum, a long period of warm temperate forest and

meadow conditions.

Glacial retreat, cool and moist climate bordering the glacial regions.

III. Glacial maximum, cold and humid climate bordering the glaciers,

favorable to arctic and subarctic plant and animal life.

That great fields of ice and advancing glaciers alone do not constitute

proof of very low temperatures is shown at the present time in

southeastern Alaska, where very heavy snowfall or precipitation causes the

accumulation of vast glaciers, although the mean annual temperature is

only 10° Fahr. (5.56° C.) lower than that of southern Germany. Neumayr(69)

estimated that during the Ice Age there was a general lowering of

temperature in Europe of not more than 6° C. (10.8° Fahr.), and held that

even during the glacial advances a comparatively mild climate prevailed in

Great Britain. Martins(70) estimated that a lowering of the temperature to

the extent of 4° C. (7.2° Fahr.) would bring the glaciers of Chamonix down

to the level of the plain of Geneva. Penck estimates that, all the

atmospheric conditions remaining the same as at present, a fall of

temperature to the extent of 4° to 5° C. would be sufficient to bring back

the Glacial Epoch in Europe. These moderate estimates entirely agree with

our theory that animals of African and Asiatic habit flourished in western

Europe to the very close of the Third Interglacial Stage, and that then

for the first time the warm fauna, or _faune chaude_, gradually

disappeared.

Similarly the hypothesis of extremely warm or subtropical conditions

prevailing in interglacial times as far north as Britain, which originated

with the discovery of the northerly distribution of the hippopotami and

rhinoceroses, animals which we now associate with the torrid climate of

Africa, is not supported by the study either of the plant life of

interglacial stages or by the history of the animals themselves. It is

quite probable that both the hippopotami and the rhinoceroses of the 'warm

fauna' were protected by hairy covering, although not by the thick

undercoating of wool which protected the woolly rhinoceros and woolly

mammoth, animals favoring the borders of glaciers and flourishing during

the last very cold glacial and Postglacial periods.

The combined evidence from all these great events in western Europe leads

us to conclusions somewhat different from those reached by Penck as to the

chronology of human culture. In the chart (Fig. 14) on the opposite page,

prepared by Dr. C. A. Reeds in collaboration with the author, a new

correlation of geologic, climatic, human, industrial, and faunal events is

presented. The great waves of glacial advance and retreat (oblique

shading) are based upon Penck's estimates of the rise and fall of the

snow-line (vertical dotted lines) in the Swiss Alps. (Compare Fig. 13.)

The length of these waves corresponds with the relative duration of the

glacial and interglacial stages as estimated by the varying amounts of

erosion and deposition of materials. The entire Palæolithic or Old Stone

Age is thus seen to occupy not more than 125,000 years, or only the last

quarter of the Glacial Epoch, which is estimated as extending over a

period of 525,000 years. The present opinion of the leading archæologists

of France and Germany, which is shared by the author, is that the

Pre-Chellean industry is not older than the Third Interglacial Stage. As

the Piltdown man was found in deposits containing Pre-Chellean implements,

he probably lived in the last quarter of the Glacial Epoch, and not in

early Pleistocene times as estimated by some British geologists. This

causes us to regard the Piltdown remains as more recent than the jaw of

Heidelberg, which all authorities agree is probably of Second Interglacial

Age. According to our estimates the Heidelberg man is nearly twice as

ancient as the Piltdown man, while _Pithecanthropus_ (Trinil Race) is four

times as ancient. Yet the Piltdown man must still be regarded as of very

great antiquity, for he is four times as ancient as the final type of

Neanderthal man belonging to the Mousterian industrial stage. The various

archæologic and palæontologic evidences for this general correlation

theory of the Glacial Epoch are fully discussed in the succeeding chapters

of this volume.

[Illustration: FIG. 14. Great events of the Glacial Epoch. To the left the

relation of glacial and interglacial stages in Europe and North America,

with the author's theory regarding the divisions of time, the beginning of

the Old Stone Age, and the successive appearance in Europe of different

branches of the human race. To the right the prolonged warm temperate

period in Europe in the non-glaciated regions, followed by the relatively

brief cold period during the past 70,000 years. Prepared by Dr. C. A.

Reeds, in co-operation with the author.]

MAMMALS OF FIVE DISTINCT GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

(Compare Color Map, Pl. II, and Fig. 15)

As we have already observed, during the whole history of mammalian life in

various parts of the world never did there prevail conditions so unusual

and so complex as those which surrounded the men of the Old Stone Age in

Europe. The successive races of Palæolithic men in Europe were all flesh

eaters, depending upon the chase. The mammals, first pursued only for

food, utensils, and clothing, finally became subjects of artistic

appreciation and endeavor which resulted in a remarkable æsthetic

development.

From the beginning to the end of Palæolithic times the various races of

man witnessed the assemblage in Europe of animals indigenous to every

continent on the globe except South America and Australia and adapted to

every climatic life-zone, from the warm and dry plains of southern Asia

and northern Africa to the temperate forests and meadows of Eurasia; from

the heights of the Alps, Himalayas, Pyrenees, and Altai Mountains to the

high, arid, dry steppes of central Asia with their alternating heat of

summer and cold of winter; from the tundras or barren grounds of

Scandinavia, northern Europe, and Siberia to the mild forests and plains

of southern Europe.(71) Members of all these highly varied groups of

animals had been evolving in various parts of the northern hemisphere from

the Eocene Epoch onward. In Pliocene times they had become thoroughly

adapted to their various habitats. Throughout early Pleistocene times,

with the increasing cold extending southward from the arctic circle, such

mammals as the elephant, rhinoceros, musk-ox, and reindeer had become

thoroughly adapted to the climate of the extreme north. There is every

reason to believe that when these tundra quadrupeds first arrived in

Europe, during early mid-glacial stages, they had already acquired the

heavy coat of hair and undercoating of wool, such as now characterizes

the musk-ox, one of the living representatives of this northern fauna.

MIGRATIONS AND EXTINCTIONS OF MAMMALIAN LIFE DURING THE FOUR GLACIAL,

THREE INTERGLACIAL, AND POSTGLACIAL STAGES

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

|RECENT Return of the Alpine Mammals to the } PERIOD OF |

| PREHISTORIC. Mountains. } RECENT |

| Wide dispersal of Forest and Meadow } ANIMALS. |

| Mammals over the Northern } |

| Hemisphere. |

|-------------------------------------------------------- |

| |Retreat of the Tundra and Steppe } |

| | Mammals to the North and East. } |

| | } |

|POSTGLACIAL. |Mingling in the lowlands of France } REINDEER |

| Severe | and Germany of the Reindeer-Mammoth } PERIOD |

| climate. | fauna, the Alpine fauna, the Steppe } IN |

| | Mammals, and the hardy Eurasiatic } WESTERN |

| | Forest and Meadow Mammals. } EUROPE. |

| | } |

|IV. GLACIAL. |Arrival of the Tundra Mammals from } |

| Cold Steppe | the North. } |

| climate. | } |

| |Arrival of the Steppe Mammals from } |

| | Western Asia. } |

| | |

| |Southward migration and extinction of } |

| | all the African-Asiatic Mammals } |

| | except the lions and hyænas. } |

| | } |

|3d INTERGLACIAL.|Mingled African-Asiatic and Eurasiatic} |

| Warm climate. | Mammals in different parts of the } |

| | non-glaciated regions, the } PERIOD |

| | hippopotamus, southern mammoth, } OF THE |

| | straight-tusked elephant, Merck's } HIPPOPOTAMUS,|

| | broad-nosed rhinoceros, lion, hyæna,} RHINOCEROS, |

| | jackal, sabre-tooth tiger. } AND |

|--------------------------- } ELEPHANT. |

| Reindeer and } ALSO |

| Woolly Mammoth } OF THE |

|III. GLACIAL. in North } STAG |

| Germany and } AND |

| the Alps. } BISON |

|---------------------------- } IN |

|2d INTERGLACIAL. Also the stag, giant deer,} WESTERN |

|---------------------------- bison, wild cattle, } EUROPE. |

| Reindeer and forest horse, boar, } |

|II. GLACIAL. Woolly Mammoth wolf, fox, lynx, } |

| in Northern wildcat, several species} |

| Germany. of bear. } |

|---------------------------- } |

| 1st INTERGLACIAL. Survival of many Pliocene } |

|---------------------------- African-Asiatic Mammals,} |

| Musk-ox in mingled with Pliocene } |

|I. GLACIAL. Sussex, and recent Eurasiatic } |

| England. Forest and Meadow } |

| Mammals. } |

|======================================================================|

| ______ _____ ______________ _____________| PERIODS. |

| \ / \ / | |

| REGIONS NEAR MORE SHELTERED | |

| THE ICE-FIELDS NON-GLACIATED REGIONS | |

| AND GLACIAL REMOTE FROM THE GLACIAL | |

| BORDERS. BORDERS AND ICE-FIELDS. | |

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

The five great sources of mammalian migration into western Europe in

Pleistocene times were accordingly as follows:

1. WARM PLAINS of northern Africa and of southern Asia.

"African-Asiatic" fauna--hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant.

2. TEMPERATE MEADOWS AND FORESTS of Europe and Asia. "Eurasiatic"

fauna--deer, bison, horse.

3. HIGH, COOL MOUNTAIN RANGES--Alps, Pyrenees, Caucasus, Urals.

Fauna--chamois, ibex, ptarmigan. (See Fig. 185.)

4. STEPPES AND DESERTS. Dry, elevated plateaus and steppes of eastern

Europe and central Asia. Fauna--desert ass and horse, saiga antelope,

jerboa. (See Fig. 186.)

5. TUNDRAS AND BARREN GROUNDS within or near the arctic circle.

Fauna--reindeer, musk-ox, arctic fox. (See Figs. 95 and 96.)

(Compare Figs. 14 and 15.)

In the warm plains, forests, and rivers of southern Asia and northern

Africa there developed the elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, lions,

hyænas, and jackals, which, taken together, may be known as the

_African-Asiatic_ fauna. It contains altogether fourteen species of

mammals. The great geographic area from the far east to the far west over

which ranged similar or identical species of these pachyderms and

carnivores is indicated by the oblique lines in the geographic chart (Fig.

15).

The north temperate belt of Asia and Europe, with its hardy forests and

genial meadows, was the home of the even more highly varied _Eurasiatic

Forest and Meadow_ fauna. This includes twenty-six or more species. Of

these the red deer, or stag, was most characteristic of the forests and

the bison and wild cattle[M] of the meadows. Even at the very beginning of

Pleistocene times there appear the stag, the wild boar, and the roe-deer

with their natural pursuers, the wolf and the brown bear. From the

northern woods came the moose and the wolverene. Most of these mammals

were so similar to existing forms that the older naturalists placed them

in existing species, but the tendency now is to separate them or place

them in distinct subspecies. Mingled with these forest and meadow mammals

were a few others which have since become extinct, such as the giant deer

(_Megaceros_), the giant beaver (_Trogontherium_), and the primitive

forest and meadow horses. From this region also there developed the

cave-bear (_Ursus spelæus_). Certainly it is astonishing to find the

remains of these mammals mingled with those from southern Asia and Africa,

as is frequently the case. In early glacial times the bison and wild

cattle mingled freely with the hippopotami and rhinoceroses, but in late

glacial and Postglacial times they occurred as companions of the mammoth

and the woolly rhinoceros. In prehistoric times they survived with the

mammals brought from the Orient by the Neolithic agriculturists.

[Illustration: FIG. 15. Zoogeographic map. Range of the large mammals of

Africa and southern Asia in Pliocene and Pleistocene times until nearly

the close of the Lower Palæolithic (oblique lines). Range of the forest

and meadow fauna of Europe and Asia from early Pleistocene to prehistoric

times; stag and bison fauna (horizontal lines). Present range of the

tundra or barren-ground mammals (dots) which wandered south during the

fourth glaciation, expelling the large Asiatic mammals. Present range of

mammals of the deserts and steppes of eastern Europe and southern Asia,

which also invaded western Europe during the glacial and Postglacial

stages (vertical lines). The alpine mammals dwelt in the high mountain

regions and invaded the plains and lowlands during Fourth Glacial and

Postglacial times.]

During a great glaciation, but especially during the severe climate of

late Pleistocene times, the _Alpine_ mammals were driven down from the

heights into the plains and among the lower mountains and foot-hills. Thus

the ibex, chamois, and argali sheep from the Altai Mountains are

represented both in drawing and in sculpture by the men of the Reindeer

Period.

Still more remarkable is the arrival in Europe of the _Steppe Fauna_ of

Russia and of western Siberia, mammals which now survive in the vast

Kirghiz steppes, east of the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains, where the

climate is one of hot, dry summers and prolonged cold winters, with

sweeping dust and snow storms. These animals are very hardy, alert, and

swift of foot, such as the jerboa, the saiga antelope, the wild asses, and

the wild horses, including the Przewalski type, which still survives in

the desert of Gobi. From this region also came the Elasmothere (_E.

sibiricum_), with its single giant horn above the eyes. Very distinctive

of the fauna frequenting the caverns are the small rodents, including the

dwarf pikas, the steppe hamsters, and the lemmings. These animals were

attracted into Europe during the 'steppe' and 'loess' periods of cold, dry

climate.

The advance of the great Scandinavian glaciers from the north crowded to

the south the _Tundra or Barren Ground_ fauna of the arctic circle. The

herald of this fauna during the First Glacial Stage was the musk-ox, which

appears in Sussex, and then came the reindeer of the existing Scandinavian

type. These animals are followed by the woolly mammoth (_E. primigenius_)

and the woolly rhinoceros (_D. antiquitatis_) with their panoply of hair

and wool which had long been developing in the north. Finally in the

Fourth Glacial Stage arrived the lemming of the river Obi, also the more

northern banded lemming, the arctic fox, the wolverene, and the ermine, as

well as the arctic hare. These tundra mammals for a short period mingled

in places with survivors of the _African-Asiatic_ fauna, such as Merck's

rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant (_E. antiquus_). In general,

they swept southward as far as the Pyrenees over country which had long

been enjoyed by the African-Asiatic mammals, while the hippopotami and the

southern elephants retreated still farther south and became extinct.

The only survivors of the great _African-Asiatic_ fauna in Fourth Glacial

and Postglacial times were the hyænas (_H. crocuta spelæa_) and the lions

(_Felis leo spelæa_). The lion frequently appears in the drawings of the

cavemen.

The various species belonging to these five great faunæ apparently succeed

each other, and wherever their remains are mingled with the palæoliths, as

along the rivers Somme, Marne, and Thames, or in the hearths of the

shelters and caverns, they become of extreme interest both in their

bearing on the chronology of man and on the development of human culture,

art, and industry. They also tell the story of the sequence of climatic

conditions both in the regions bordering the glaciers and in the more

temperate regions remote from the ice-caps. Thus they guide the

anthropologist over the difficult gaps where the geologic record is

limited or undecipherable. The general succession of these great faunæ is

illustrated in Fig. 14 and also in the above table.

(=1=) Lamarck, 1815.1.

(=2=) Schaaffhausen, 1858.1.

(=3=) Darwin, C., 1909.2.

(=4=) Lamarck, 1809.1.

(=5=) Lyell, 1863.1, pp. 84-89.

(=6=) Darwin, C., 1871.1, p. 146.

(=7=) Darwin, C., 1909.1, p. 158.

(=8=) Retzius, A., 1864.1, p. 27.

(=9=) _Op. cit._, p. 166.

(=10=) Broca, 1875.1.

(=11=) Schwalbe, G., 1914.1, p. 592.

(=12=) Cartailhac, 1903.1.

(=13=) Déchelette, 1908.1, vol. I.

(=14=) Reinach, S., 1889.1.

(=15=) Schmidt, 1912.1.

(=16=) Avebury, 1913.1.

(=17=) Eccardus, 1750.1.

(=18=) Mahudel, 1740.1.

(=19=) Buckland, 1824.1.

(=20=) Godwin-Austen, 1840.1.

(=21=) Christol, 1820.1.

(=22=) Schmerling, 1833.1.

(=23=) Boucher de Perthes, 1846.1.

(=24=) _Op. cit._

(=25=) Rigollot, 1854.1.

(=26=) Lubbock, 1862.1.

(=27=) Avebury, 1913.1, pp. 2, 3.

(=28=) Lartet, 1861.1.

(=29=) Lartet, 1875.1.

(=30=) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 165.

(=31=) de Mortillet, 1869.1.

(=32=) Piette, E., 1907.1.

(=33=) Rivière 1897.1.

(=34=) de Sautuola, 1880.1.

(=35=) Schmidt, 1912.1.

(=36=) Bourgeois, 1867.1.

(=37=) Schmidt, _op. cit._, p. 5.

(=38=) Obermaier, 1912.1, pp. 170-174; 316-320; 332, 545.

(=39=) Charpentier, 1841.1.

(=40=) Agassiz, 1837.1; 1840.1; 1840.2.

(=41=) Morlot, 1854.1.

(=42=) Chamberlin, 1895.1; 1905.1, vol. III, chap. XIX, pp. 327-516.

(=43=) Salisbury, 1905.1.

(=44=) Penck, 1909.1.

(=45=) Leverett, 1910.1.

(=46=) Lyell, 1867.1, vol. I, pp. 293-301; 1877.1, vol. I, p. 287.

(=47=) Dana, 1875.1, p. 591.

(=48=) Walcott, 1893.1.

(=49=) Upham, 1893.1, p. 217.

(=50=) Heim, 1894.1.

(=51=) Sollas, 1900.1.

(=52=) Penck, 1909.1, vol. III, pp. 1153-1176.

(=53=) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 302.

(=54=) Reeds, 1915.1.

(=55=) Nüesch, 1902.1.

(=56=) Geikie, _op. cit._, pp. 111-114.

(=57=) _Op. cit._, p. 108.

(=58=) Huntington, 1907.1.

(=59=) Leverett, 1910.1.

(=60=) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 132.

(=61=) Penck, 1908.1; 1909.1.

(=62=) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 312.

(=63=) Wiegers, 1913.1.

(=64=) Boule, 1888.1.

(=65=) Schuchardt, 1913.1, p. 144.

(=66=) Obermaier, 1909.2; 1912.1.

(=67=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 266.

(=68=) Penck, 1909.1, vol. III, p. 1168, Fig. 136.

(=69=) Neumayr, 1890.1, vol. II, p. 621.

(=70=) Martins, 1847.1, pp. 941, 942.

(=71=) Osborn, 1910.1, pp. 386-427.

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY OF THE ANTHROPOID APES--PLIOCENE CLIMATE, FORESTS, AND LIFE

OF WESTERN EUROPE--TRANSITION TO THE PLEISTOCENE, OR AGE OF MAN--THE

FIRST GLACIATION, ITS EFFECTS ON CLIMATE, FORESTS, AND ANIMAL

LIFE--THE PREHUMAN TRINIL RACE OF JAVA--THE EOLITHS OR PRIMITIVE

FLINTS--THE SECOND GLACIATION--THE HEIDELBERG, EARLIEST KNOWN HUMAN

RACE--THE THIRD GLACIATION

The partly known ancestors of the anthropoid apes and the unknown

ancestors of man probably originated among the forests and flood-plains of

southern Asia and early began to migrate westward into northern Africa and

western Europe.

As early as Oligocene times a forerunner of the great apes

(_Propliopithecus_), most nearly resembling the gibbons, appears in the

desert bordering the Fayum in northern Egypt. Early in Miocene times true

tree-living gibbons found their way into Europe and continued throughout

the Pliocene in the forms known as _Pliopithecus_ and _Pliohylobates_, the

latter being a true gibbon in its proportions; it ranged northward into

the present region of Germany. Another ape which early reached Europe is

the _Dryopithecus_; it is found in Miocene times in southern France; the

grinding-teeth suggest those of the orang, the jaw is deep and in some

ways resembles that of the Piltdown man. A third ape (_Neopithecus_)

occurs in the Lower Pliocene near Eppelsheim, in Germany, and is known

only from a single lower molar tooth, which recalls the dentition of

_Dryopithecus_ and more remotely that of _Homo_. In the Pliocene of the

Siwalik hills of Asia is found _Palæopithecus_, a generalized form which

is believed to be related to the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the gibbon;

the upper premolars resemble those of man.

None of these fossil anthropoids either of Europe or of Asia can be

regarded as ancestral to man, although both _Neopithecus_ and

_Dryopithecus_ have been placed in or near the line of human ancestry by

such high authorities as Branco and Gaudry. When _Dryopithecus_ was first

discovered by Lartet, Gaudry(1) considered it to be by far the most

manlike of all the apes, even attributing to it sufficient intelligence

for the working of flints, but fuller knowledge of this animal has shown

that some of the living anthropoids are more manlike than _Dryopithecus_.

This animal is closely related to the ancestral stock of the chimpanzee,

gorilla, and orang. The jaw, it is true, resembles that of the Piltdown

man (_Eoanthropus_), but the grinding-teeth are much more primitive and

there is little reason to think that it is ancestral to any human type.[N]

[Illustration: FIG. 16. The gibbon is primitive in its skull and

dentition, but extremely specialized in the adaptation of its limbs to

arboreal life. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.]

Among these fossil anthropoids, as well as among the four living forms, we

discover no evidence of direct relationship to man but very strong

evidence of descent from the same ancestral stock. These proofs of common

ancestry, which have already been observed in the existing races of man,

become far more conspicuous in the ancient Palæolithic races; in fact, we

cannot interpret the anatomy of the men of the Old Stone Age without a

survey of the principal characters of the existing anthropoid apes, the

gibbon, the orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla.

[Illustration: FIG. 17. The orang has a high rounded skull and long face.

Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.]

The gibbon is the most primitive of living apes in its skull and

dentition, but the most specialized in the length of its arms and its

other extreme adaptations to arboreal life. As in the other anthropoids,

the face is abbreviated, the narial region is narrow, _i. e._, catarrhine,

and the brain-case is widened, but the top of the skull is smooth, and the

forehead lacks the prominent ridges above the orbits; thus the profile of

the skull of the gibbon (Fig. 16) is more human than that of the other

anthropoid apes. When on the ground the gibbon walks erect and is thus

afforded the free use of its arms and independent movements of its

fingers. In the brain there is a striking development of the centres of

sight, touch, and hearing. It is these characteristics of the modern

gibbon which preserve with relatively slight changes the type of the

original ancestor of man, as noted by Elliot Smith.(2)

[Illustration: FIG. 18. The chimpanzee. This figure illustrates the

walking powers of the chimpanzee, the great length of the arms, and the

abbreviation of the legs. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.]

The limbs of the orang are less elongated and less extremely specialized

for arboreal life than those of the gibbon but more so than those of the

chimpanzee and the gorilla. The skull is rounded and of great vertical

height, with broad, bony ridges above the orbits and a great median crest

on top of the skull in old males. The lower jaw of the orang is stout and

deep, and, although used as a fighting weapon, the canine tusks are much

less prominent than in either the gibbon, chimpanzee, or gorilla. Of all

anthropoids this jaw most nearly resembles that of the Piltdown man.

[Illustration: FIG. 19. The Chimpanzee. This figure shows certain facial

characteristics which are preserved in the Neanderthal race of men. Note

also the shortening of the thumb and the enlargement of the big toe.

Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.]

In the chimpanzee we observe the very prominent bony ridges above the

eyes, like those in the Trinil and Neanderthal races of men. The

prognathous or protruding tooth rows and receding chin suggest those in

the Heidelberg, Piltdown, and Neanderthal races. When the chimpanzee is

walking (Fig. 18) the arms reach down below the level of the knees,

whereas in the higher races of man they reach only half-way down the

thighs. Thus, the fore limb, although much shorter than that of the

gibbon, is relatively longer than that of any human race, recent or

ancient. We observe also in the walking chimpanzee (Fig. 18) that the

upper part of the leg, the thigh-bone, or femur, is relatively long, while

the lower part, the shin-bone, or tibia, is relatively short. Indeed, both

in the arm and in the leg the upper bones are relatively long and the

lower bones are relatively short. These proportions, which are

inheritances of arboreal life, are in very marked contrast to those

observed in the arms and legs of the Neanderthal race of men, in which the

limbs are of the terrestrial or walking type.

[Illustration: ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE ANTHROPOID APES AND OF MAN

EXISTING GIBBON. MAN CHIMPANZEE. GORILLA. ORANG.

APES AND Asia. (_Homo sapiens_). Africa. Africa. Asia.

MAN. | Asia, Europe. | | |

| | | |

| _Crô-Magnon_ and | / /

| other races | / /

| | / /

| More primitive | / /

| species, human | / /

| and prehuman. | / /

GLACIAL OR | | | / Macaque

PLEISTOCENE | | | | of

AGE. | _Neanderthal race._ | | | Europe.

| | | | |

| | | | |

| | | | |

AGE. | _Trinil race_ | | | |

Primitive Ancestral anthro- | Macaques

Gibbon of poids of Asia. | of Asia

Europe | | / and

(_Pliohylobates_). | / / Europe.

| | / / |

| Unknown Pliocene | / / |

| ancestors of man. | / / |

| | | / / |

MIOCENE | | Primitive anthropoids /

AGE. Earliest Gibbons | of Asia and Europe. /

of Europe. | | / /

(_Pliopithecus_). | / / /

| | / / /

+--------------+---------------------- /

| /

OLIGOCENE. Ancestral anthropoids Small monkeys

of Egypt of Egypt.

(_Propliopithecus_). /

| /

+-----------+----------------

Unknown ancestral stock

of the Old World primates,

including man.

From the unknown and ancestral stock of the anthropoid apes and man the

GIBBON was the first to branch off in Oligocene times; the ORANG then

branched off in a widely different direction. The stem of the CHIMPANZEE

and of the GORILLA branched off at a more recent date and is more nearly

allied to that of man. Five early human races have been found in Europe in

Glacial or Pleistocene times, but no traces of other primates except the

macaques, which are related to the lower division of the baboons, have

been found in Europe in Pleistocene times. Modified after Gregory. (For

latest discovery see Appendix, Note VII.)]

[Illustration: FIG. 20. The Gorilla. An immature female, about three years

of age, showing none of the adult male characteristics. Photograph from

the New York Zoological Park.]

We observe also in the chimpanzee a contrast between the grasping power of

the big toe, which is a kind of thumb, and the lack of that power in the

hand, in which the thumb is nearly useless; in all apes this function is

characteristic of the foot, in man of the hand alone. The _opposable

thumb_, with its power of bringing the thumb against each of the fingers,

is the one character which is lacking in every one of the anthropoid apes

and which was early developed among the ancestors of man.

The skull of the chimpanzee is longer than that of the orang, the most

prominent feature in the top view being the extreme protuberance of the

orbits, which are surrounded by a supraorbital and circumorbital bony

ridge, which is also strongly developed in the Neanderthal skull as well

as in the _Pithecanthropus_ or Trinil skull but, so far as we know, is

entirely lacking in that of Piltdown. As in the orang and the gorilla, a

crest develops along the middle of the top of the skull for the insertion

of the powerful muscles of the jaws, a crest which is wholly wanting in

the gibbon and probably wanting in all the true ancestors of man.

[Illustration: FIG. 21. Contrast of the projecting face (prognathism),

retreating forehead, and small brain-case of a young gorilla, as compared

with the vertical face, prominent nose, high forehead, and large

brain-case of a high race of man. After Klaatsch.]

The gorilla illustrates in the extreme the specializations which are begun

in the chimpanzee, and which are attributable to a life partly arboreal,

partly terrestrial, with the skull and jaws used as powerful fighting

organs. The head is lengthened by the forward growth of the muzzle into an

extreme prognathism. The limbs and body of the gorilla show a departure

from the primitive, slender-limbed, arboreal type of apes and are partly

adapted to a bipedal, ground-dwelling habit.

As regards psychic evolution,(3) Elliot Smith observes that the arboreal

mode of life of the early ancestors of man developed quick, alert, and

agile movements which stimulated the progressive development of the

posterior and lateral portions of the brain. The sense of smell had been

well developed in a previous terrestrial life, but once these creatures

left the earth and took to the trees, guidance by the olfactory sense was

less essential, for life amidst the branches of the trees is most

favorable to the high development of the senses of vision, touch, and

hearing. Moreover, it demands an agility and quickness of movement that

necessitate efficient motor centres in the brain to co-ordinate and

control such actions as tree life calls for. The specialization of sight

awakens curiosity to examine objects with greater minuteness and guides

the hands to more precise and skilled movements.

[Illustration: FIG. 22. Side view of a human brain of high type, showing

the chief areas of muscular control and of the sensory impressions of

sight and hearing, also the prefrontal area in which the higher mental

faculties are centred. Modified after M. Allen Starr.]

The anatomy of man is full of remote reminders of this original arboreal

existence, which also explains the very large and early development of the

posterior portions of the brain, in which the various senses of sight,

touch, and hearing are located.

The first advance from arboreal to terrestrial life is marked by the power

of walking more or less erect on the hind limbs and thus releasing the

arms; this power is developed to a greater or less degree in all the

anthropoid apes; with practice they become expert walkers. The additional

freedom which the erect attitude gives to the arms and to the movements of

the hands and the separate movements of the fingers is especially

noticeable in the gibbon. The cultivation of the powers of the hand reacts

upon the further growth and specialization of the brain; thus the brain

and the erect attitude react upon each other. In the gibbon there is a

marked increase in the size of those portions of the brain which supply

the centres of touch, vision, and hearing.

[Illustration: FIG. 23. The evolution of the brain. Outlines (side view)

of typical human and prehuman brains, showing the early development of the

posterior portions of the brain and the relatively late development of the

anterior portions, the seat of the higher mental faculties.]

Discussion as to how the ancestors of man were fashioned has chiefly dealt

with the rival claims of four lines of structural evolution: first, the

assumption of the _erect attitude_; second, the development of the

_opposable thumb_; third, the _growth of the brain_; and fourth, the

acquisition of the _power of speech_. The argument for the erect attitude

suggested by Lamarck, and ably put by Munro(4) in 1893, indicates that the

cultivation of skill with the hands and fingers lies at the root of man's

mental supremacy. Elliot Smith's argument that the steady growth and

specialization of the brain itself has been the chief factor in leading

the ancestors of man step by step upward indicates that such an advance as

the erect attitude was brought about because the brain had made possible

the skilled movements of the hands.

[Illustration: FIG. 24. The evolution of the brain. Outlines (top view) of

typical human and prehuman brains, showing the narrow forebrain of the

primitive type and the successive expansion of the seat of the higher

mental faculties in the successive races.]

The true conception of prehuman evolution, which occurred during Miocene

and Pliocene times, is rather that of the coincident development of these

four distinctively human powers. It appears from the limb proportions in

the Neanderthal race that the partly erect attitude and walking gait were

assumed much earlier in geologic time than we formerly imagined. The

intimate relation between the use of the opposable thumb and the

development of the higher mental faculties of man is sustained to-day by

the discovery that one of the best methods of developing the mind of the

child is to insist upon the constant use of the hands, for the action and

reaction between hand and brain is found to develop the mind. A similar

action and reaction between foot and brain developed the erect gait which

released the hand from its locomotive and limb-grasping function, and by

the resultant perfecting of the motion of thumbs and fingers turned the

hand into an organ ready for the increasing specialization demanded by the

manufacture of flint implements.

This is the stage reached, we believe, in late Pliocene times in which the

human ancestor emerges from the age of mammals and enters the age of man,

the period when the prehistory of man properly begins. The attitude is

erect, the hand has a well-developed opposable thumb, the centres of the

brain relating to the higher senses and to the control of all the motions

of the limbs, hands, and fingers are well developed. The power of speech

may still be rudimentary. The anterior centres of the brain for the

storing of experience and the development of ideas are certainly very

rudimentary.

CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT IN EUROPE

Considering that the origin and development of any creature are best

furthered by a struggle for existence sufficiently severe to demand the

full and frequent exercise of its powers of mind and body, it is

interesting to trace the sequence of natural events which prepared western

Europe for the entrance of the earliest branches of the human race. The

forests and plants portray even more vividly than the animals the changing

conditions of the environment and temperature which marked the approach

and various vicissitudes of the great Ice Age.

The forests of central France in Pliocene times, as well as those of the

valley of the Arno in northern Italy, were very similar to the forests of

the middle United States at the present time, comprising such trees as the

sassafras, the locust, the honey-locust, the sumach, the bald cypress, and

the tulip. Thus the regions which harbored the rich forest and meadow

fauna of northern Italy in Upper Pliocene times abounded in trees familiar

to-day in North and South Carolina, including even such distinctively

American forms as the sweet gum (_Liquidambar styraciflua_), the sour gum

(_Nyssa sylvatica_), and the bay, beside those above mentioned. To the

south, along the Mediterranean, there also flourished trees incident to a

more tropical climate, the bamboo, the sabal palm, and the dwarf fan-palm;

most interesting is the presence of the sabal, which now flourishes in the

subtropical rain forests of central Florida. The sequoia also was

abundant. Toward the close of the Pliocene the first indications of the

coming Glacial Epoch were a lowering of the temperature, and, in the

higher mountainous areas perhaps, a beginning of the glacial stages.

The ancestors of the modern forests of Europe predominated in central

France: the oak, the beech, the poplar, the willow, and the larch. It is

these forests, which survived the vicissitudes of glacial times, that gave

descent to the forests of Postglacial Europe, while all the purely

American types disappeared from Europe and are now found only in the

temperate regions of the United States.(5)

We have seen that anthropoid apes have not been discovered either in the

Middle or Upper Pliocene of Europe; the gibbon-ape line disappears with

the _Pliohylobates_ of the Upper Pliocene. These animals are, however,

rarely found in fossil form, owing to their retreat to the trees in times

of flood and danger, so that we need not necessarily assume that the

anthropoids had actually become extinct in France. The primates which are

found in the Upper Pliocene belong to the lower types of the Old World

monkeys, related to the living langur of India and to the macaque and

baboon. The evidence, as far as it goes, indicates that the ancestors of

man were at this time evolving in Asia and not in Europe. This evidence,

nevertheless, would be completely offset if it could be proven that the

eoliths, or primitive flints, found in various parts of Europe from

Oligocene to Pleistocene times are really artifacts of human or prehuman

origin.

The mammals of Europe in Pliocene times were derived by very remote

migrations from North America and, more directly, from southern Asia. The

Oriental element is very strong, including types of rhinoceroses now

peculiar to Sumatra and southern Asia, numerous mastodons very similar to

the south Asiatic types of the times, gazelles and antelopes, including

types related to the existing elands, and primitive types of horses and of

tapirs. Among the carnivores in Europe similar to south Asiatic species

were the hyænas, the dog bears (_Hyænarctos_), the civets, and the pandas

(_Ailurus_); there were also the sabre-tooth tigers and numerous other

felines. In the trees were found the south Asiatic and north African

monkeys; and in the forests the axis deer, now restricted to Asia. But the

most distinctive African-Asiatic animal of this period was found in the

rivers; namely, the hippopotamus, which arrived in Italy in the early

Pliocene and ranged south by way of the Sicilian land bridge into northern

Africa and east along the southern shores of the Black Sea to the Siwalik

hills of India. Thus, many of the ancestors of what we have termed the

African-Asiatic mammal group of Pleistocene times had already found their

way into Europe early in Pliocene times. In middle and late Pliocene times

there arrived three very important types of mammals which played a great

rôle in the early Pleistocene. These are:

The true horses (_Equus stenonis_) of remote North American origin.

The first true cattle (_Leptobos elatus_), originating in southern

Asia.

The true elephants, first _Elephas planifrons_ and later _E.

meridionalis_, better known as the southern mammoth, both originating

in Asia.

The forests and river borders of the valley of the Arno, near Florence,

contained all these African-Asiatic animals in Upper Pliocene times. Here

they received their names which remind us of this region of Italy as it is

to-day, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros (_Dicerorhinus etruscus_), the

Florentine macaque (_Macacus florentinus_), Steno's horse (_Equus

stenonis_), the Etruscan cattle (_Leptobos etruscus_), which was the

earliest ox to reach Europe.

In Italy and France these African-Asiatic mammals were mingled with

ancestors of the more hardy Eurasiatic forest and meadow group. Of these

the most graceful were a variety of deer with very elaborate or

many-branched antlers, hence known as the 'polycladine' deer. In the

forests roamed the wild boars of Auvergne (_Sus arvernensis_), also the

bears of Auvergne (_Ursus arvernensis_), lynxes, foxes, and wildcats. In

the rivers swam the otter and the beaver, closely allied to existing

forms. Among the rocks of the high hills were the pikas or tailless hares

(_Lagomys_), also hamsters, moles, and shrews.

Many of the most characteristic animals of the dry modern plateaus of

Africa had disappeared from Europe before the close of Pliocene times,

namely, species of gazelles, antelopes, and the hipparion horses, all of

which were adapted to the dry uplands or deserts of Africa. In the

remaining _faune Pliocène récente_ of French authors we find evidence that

the Pliocene in all of western Europe closed with a moist, warm, temperate

climate, with wide-spread forests and rivers interspersed with meadows

favorable to the life of a great variety of browsing deer as well as of

grazing elephants, horses and cattle. The flora of the Middle Pliocene as

found at Meximieux indicates a mean annual temperature of 62° to 63° Fahr.

One of the proofs of the gradual lowering of temperature toward the close

of Pliocene times in Europe is the southward retreat and disappearance of

the apes and monkeys; the Upper Miocene gibbon is found as far north as

Eppelsheim, near Worms, Germany; in Lower Pliocene times the monkeys and

apes are found only in the forests of the south of France; in Upper

Pliocene times they are recorded only in the forests of northern Italy;

the evidence, so far as it goes, indicates a gradual retreat toward the

south.

Finally, at the end of the Pliocene there existed very close geographic

relations eastward with the mammalian life of India by way of what was

then the isthmus of the Dardanelles and southward with the mammalian life

of Africa by way of the Sicilian land bridge. This would indicate that the

long lines of _eastward_ and _westward_ migration were open and favorable

to the arrival in western Europe of new migrants from the far east,

including perhaps the most primitive races of man. _There is not the least

evidence that Pliocene man or ancestors of man existed in Europe_,

excepting such as may be afforded by the problematic eoliths, or most

primitive flints.

THE FIRST GLACIATION

In Upper Pliocene times cold marine currents(6) from the north began to

flow along the southeastern coast of England, with indications of a

gradually lowering temperature culminating at a time when the sea abounded

in the arctic mollusks, which have been preserved in the 'Weybourn Crags,'

a geologic formation along the coast of Norfolk. This arctic current was

the herald of the First Glacial Stage.

It does not appear that a glacial cap of any considerable extent was

formed in Great Britain at this stage, but about this time the first great

ice-cap was formed in British North America west of Hudson Bay, which sent

its ice-sheets as far south as Iowa and Nebraska. In the latter State

forests of spruce and other coniferous species indicate the appearance of

a cool temperate flora in advance of the glaciation. In the Swiss Alps the

snow descended 1,200 meters below the present snow-line, and in

Scandinavia and northern Germany the first great ice-sheets were formed

from which flowed the glaciers and rivers conveying the 'Old Diluvium,' or

the 'oldest drift.' Accompanying the cold wave along the eastern coast of

England we note, in the famous fossil deposits known as the 'Forest Bed of

Cromer,' which overlie the Weybourn Crags, the arrival from the north of

the fir-tree (_Abies_). This is most significant, because it had hitherto

been known only in the arctic region of Grinnell Land, and this was its

first appearance in central Europe. Another herald of northern conditions

was the first occurrence of the musk-ox in England, which is attributed(7)

to the 'Forest Bed' deposits.

[Illustration: FIG. 25. The First (_Günz_) Glacial Stage was far less

extensive than that in the above map, which shows Europe in the Second

Glacial Stage, during the greatest extension of the ice-fields and

glaciers (dots), a period of continental depression in which the

Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas were connected. The line from

Scandinavia to the Atlas Mountains corresponds with the section shown in

Fig. 13, p. 37. Drawn by C. A. Reeds, after James Geikie and Penck.]

While Great Britain was less affected at this time than other regions,

there is no doubt as to the vast extent of the First Glacial Stage in

British America, in Scandinavia, and in the Alps; in the latter region it

has been termed 'the _Günz_ stage' by Penck and Brückner. The 'drift'

deposits have a general thickness of 98-1/2 feet (30 m.), but they are

largely covered and buried by those of the far more extensive Second

Glacial Stage. The Scandinavian ice-sheet(8) not only occupied the basin

of the Baltic but overflowed Scania--the southern part of Sweden--and

extended as far south as Hamburg and Berlin. In the Alps the glaciers

passed down all the great mountain valleys to the low grounds of the

foreland, implying a depression of the snow-line to 4,000 feet below its

present level.

[Illustration: FIG. 26. The musk-ox, belonging to the tundra region of the

arctic circle, which is reported to have migrated as far south as the

southern coast of England during the First (_Günz_) Glacial Stage.]

THE FIRST INTERGLACIAL STAGE. EOLITHS

Proofs that a prolonged cool wave passed over Britain during the first

glaciation are seen in its after effects, namely, in the modernization of

the forests and in the disappearance both in Britain and France of a very

considerable number of animals which were abundant in Upper Pliocene

times. Yet by far the greater part of the Pliocene mammal life survived, a

fact which tends to show that, while very cold conditions of climate and

great precipitation of moisture may have characterized the regions

immediately surrounding the ice-fields, the remainder of western Europe at

most passed through a prolonged cool period during the climax of the

First Glacial Stage. This was followed during the First Interglacial by

the return of a period somewhat warmer than the present.

This First Interglacial Stage is known as the _Norfolkian_, from the fact

that it was first recognized in Europe in the deposits known as the

'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk, which contain rich records not only of

the forests of the period, but of the noble forms of mammals which roamed

over Great Britain and France in _Norfolkian_ times. The forests of

Norfolk, in latitude 52° 40' N. mainly abounded in trees still indigenous

to this region, such as the maple, elm, birch, willow, alder, oak, beech,

pine, and spruce, a forest flora closely corresponding to that of the

Norfolk and Suffolk coasts of England at the present time, although we

find in this fossil flora several exotic species which give it a slightly

different character.(9) From this tree flora Reid concludes that the

climate of southeastern England was nearly the same as at present but

slightly warmer.

We note especially that a very great change had taken place in the entire

disappearance in these forests of the trees which in Pliocene times were

common to Europe and America, as described above; in other words, the

flora of Europe was greatly impoverished during the first cold wave.

In southern France, as at the present time, the interglacial climatic

conditions were milder, for we find numerous species of plants, which are

now represented in the Caucasus, Persia, southern Italy, Portugal, and

Japan. Thus the First Interglacial Stage, which was a relatively short

one, enjoyed a temperature now belonging about 4° of latitude farther

south.

This First Interglacial Stage is also known as the _St.-Prestien_, because

among the many localities in France and Italy which preserve the plant and

mammal life of the times that of St. Prest, in the Paris basin, is the

most famous. Here in 1863 Desnoyers(10) first reported the discovery of a

number of mammal bones with incision lines upon them, which he considered

to be the work of man. These deposits were regarded at the time as of

Pliocene age, and this gave rise immediately to a wide-spread theory of

the appearance of man as early as the Pliocene. The human origin of the

incisions discovered by Desnoyers has long been a matter of dispute and is

now regarded as very improbable. Similar lines may be of animal origin,

namely, marks left by claws or teeth, or due to accidental pressure of

sharp cutting surfaces. However, we do not pretend to express an opinion

of any value as to the cause of these incisions. Supposed confirmation of

the evidence of Desnoyers of the existence of Pliocene man was the alleged

finding by Abbott of several worked flints, two _in situ_, in the 'Forest

Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk. Many years later in similar deposits at St. Prest

were discovered the supposed 'eoliths' which have been referred to the

_Étage Prestien_ by Rutot. The age of the St. Prest deposits is,

therefore, a matter of the very highest interest and importance.

[Illustration: FIG. 27. The giant deer (_Megaceros_), which first appears

in western Europe during the First Interglacial Stage, probably as a

migrant from the forested regions of Eurasia. After a painting by Charles

R. Knight, in the American Museum of Natural History.]

St. Prest is not Pliocene; it is rather the most ancient Pleistocene

deposit in the basin of Paris,(11) and these incised mammal bones probably

date from the First Interglacial Stage. The bed which has yielded the

incised bones and the rich series of fossils consists of coarse river

sands and gravels, forming part of a 'high terrace,' 98-1/2 feet (30 m.)

above the present level of the river Eure. This, like other 'high

terraces,' contains a characteristic First Interglacial fauna, including

the southern mammoth (_E. meridionalis_), and Steno's horse (_E.

stenonis_). We also find here other very characteristic early Pleistocene

mammals, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros (_D. etruscus_), the giant

hippopotamus of early Pleistocene times (_H. major_), the giant beaver of

the early Pleistocene (_Trogontherium_), three forms of the common beaver

(_Castor_), and one of the bison (_Bison antiquus_). This mammalian life

of St. Prest is very similar to that of Norfolk, England; to that of

Malbattu in central France, Puy-de-Dôme; of Peyrolles, near the mouth of

the Rhône, in southern France; of Solilhac near Puy; of Durfort, Gard; of

Cajarc, Lot-et-Garonne; and finally to that of the valley of the Arno, in

northern Italy.

One reason why certain authors, such as Boule and Depéret, have placed

this stage in the Upper Pliocene is that the mammals include so many

surviving Pliocene forms, such as the sabre-tooth tigers (_Machærodus_),

the 'polycladine' deer with the elaborate antlers (_C. sedgwicki_), the

Etruscan rhinoceros, and the primitive Steno's horse. But we have recently

discovered that, with the exception of the 'polycladine' deer, these

mammals certainly survived in Europe as late as the _Second_ Interglacial

Stage, and there is said to be evidence that some even persisted into the

_Third_ Interglacial Stage.

It is, therefore, the extinction or disappearance from Europe of many of

the animals very abundant even in late Pliocene times which marks this

fauna as early Pleistocene. Anthropoid apes are no longer found; indeed,

there is no evidence of the survival of any of the primates, except

macaques, which survive in the Pyrenees to late Pleistocene times; the

tapir has entirely disappeared from the forests of Europe; but the most

significant departure is that of the mastodon, which is believed to have

lingered in north Africa and which certainly survived in America into very

late Pleistocene times. The animal life of western Europe, like the plant

life, has lost one part of its Pliocene aspect while retaining another

part, both in its mammalian fauna and in its forest flora.

[Illustration: FIG. 28. The sabre-tooth tiger (_Machærodus_), which

survives from the Upper Pliocene and is widely distributed over western

Europe until the Middle Pleistocene. After a painting by Charles R.

Knight, in the American Museum of Natural History.]

The living environment as a whole, moreover, takes on a novel aspect

through the arrival, chiefly from the north, of the more hardy animals and

plants which had been evolving for a very long period of time in the

temperate forests and meadows of Eurasia to the northeast and northwest.

From this Eurasiatic region came the stag, or red deer (_Cervus elaphus_),

also the giant deer (_Megaceros_), and from the northerly swamps the

broad-headed moose (_Alces latifrons_). The presence of members of the

deer family (_Cervidæ_) in great numbers and representing many different

lines of descent is one of the most distinctive features of First

Interglacial times. Beside the new northerly forms mentioned above, there

was the roe-deer (_Capreolus_), which still survives in Europe, but there

is no longer any record of the beautiful axis deer (_Axis_), which has

now retreated to southern Asia. The 'polycladine' deer, first observed in

the valley of the Arno, is represented in First Interglacial times by

Sedgwick's deer (_C. sedgwicki_), in Norfolk, and by the species _C.

dicranius_ of northern Italy, where there also occurs the 'deer of the

Carnutes' (_C. carnutorum_).

We observe that browsing, forest-living, and river-living types

predominate. Among the forest-frequenting carnivores were the wolverene,

the otter, two kinds of bear, the wolf, the fox, and the marten; another

forest dweller was a wild boar, related to the existing _Sus scrofa_ of

Europe.

Thus in the very beginning of Pleistocene times the forests of Europe were

full of a wild life very similar to that of prehistoric times, mingled

with which was the Oriental element, the great elephants, rhinoceroses,

and hippopotami connecting Europe with the far east. Among these eastern

migrants in the early Pleistocene were two new arrivals, the primitive

wild cattle (_Bos primigenius_), and the first of the bison (_Bison

priscus_).

The theoretical map of western Europe during First Interglacial times

(Fig. 12, also Fig. 56) enables us to understand these migrations from the

northeast and from the Orient. As indicated by the sunken river channels

discovered on the old continental shelf, the coast-line extended far to

the west to the borders of the continental plateau which is now sunk deep

beneath the ocean; the British Isles were separated from France not by the

sea but by a broad valley, while the Rhine, with the Thames as a western

tributary flowed northward over an extensive flood-plain, which is the

present floor of the North Sea basin.(12) It is not improbable that the

rich mammalian life deposits in the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk, were

washed down by tributaries of this ancient Rhine River.

In all the great rivers of this enlarged western Europe occurred the

hippopotami, and along the river borders and in the forests browsed the

Etruscan rhinoceros. Among the grazing and meadow-living forms of the

Norfolk country of Britain were species of wild cattle (_Bos_,

_Leptobos_), together with two species of horses, including a lighter

form resembling Steno's horse (_E. stenonis cocchi_) of the Val d'Arno and

a heavier type probably belonging to the forests. The giant elephant of

this period is the southern mammoth (_E. meridionalis trogontherii_), a

somewhat specialized descendant of the Pliocene southern mammoth of the

valley of the Arno; this animal is best known from a superb specimen

discovered at Durfort (Fig. 42) and preserved in the Paris Museum. It is

said to have attained a height of over 12 feet as compared with 11 feet 3

inches, the height of the largest existing African elephants. It is

probable that all these south Asiatic migrants into Europe were partially

or wholly covered with hair, in adaptation to the warm, temperate climate

of the summers and the cool winters. To the south, in the still milder

climate of Italy, the arrival of another great species, known as the

'ancient' or 'straight-tusked elephant' (_E. antiquus_), is recorded. This

animal had not yet reached France or Britain.

Preying upon the defenseless members of this heterogeneous fauna were the

great machærodonts, or sabre-tooth tigers, which ranged over Europe and

northern Africa and into Asia. It does not appear that the true lions

(_Felis leo_) had as yet entered Europe.

An intercommunication of life over a vast area extending 6,000 miles from

the Thames valley on the west to India on the southeast is indicated by

the presence of six or more similar or related species of elephants and

rhinoceroses. Twenty-five hundred miles southeast of the foot-hills of the

Himalayas similar herds of mammals, but in an earlier stage of evolution,

roamed over the island of Java, which was then a part of the Asiatic

mainland.

THE TRINIL RACE OF JAVA

The human interest in this great life throng lies in the fact that the

migration routes opened by these great races of animals may also have

afforded a pathway for the earliest races of men. Thus the discovery of

the Trinil race in central Java, amidst a fauna closely related to that

of the foot-hills of the Himalayas and more remotely related to that of

southern Europe, has a more direct bearing upon our subject than would at

first appear.

[Illustration: FIG. 29. Restoration of _Pithecanthropus_, the Java

ape-man, modelled by the Belgian artist Mascré, under the direction of

Professor A. Rutot, of Brussels, Belgium.]

[Illustration: FIG. 30. The Solo or Bengawan River in central Java. Scene

of the discovery of the type specimen of _Pithecanthropus erectus_ in

1894. After Selenka and Blanckenhorn. Compare map (Fig. 32, p. 75).]

On the Bengawan River in central Java, a Dutch army surgeon, Eugen Dubois,

had been excavating for fossils in the hope of finding prehuman remains.

In the year 1891 he found near Trinil a deposit of numerous mammal bones,

including a single upper molar tooth which he regarded as that of a new

species of ape. On carefully clearing away the rock the top of a skull

appeared at about a meter's distance from the tooth. Further excavation at

the close of the rainy season brought to light a second molar tooth and a

left thigh-bone about 15 meters from the spot where the skull was found,

imbedded and fossilized in the same manner. These scattered parts were

described by Dubois(13) in 1894 as the type of _Pithecanthropus

erectus_,[O] a term signifying the upright-standing ape-man. The specific

term _erectus_ refers to the thigh-bone, of which the author observes: "We

must therefore conclude that the femur of _Pithecanthropus_ was designed

for the same mechanical functions as that of man. The two articulations

and the mechanical axis correspond so exactly to the same parts in man

that the law of perfect harmony between the form and function of a bone

will necessitate the conclusion that this fossil creature had the same

upright posture as man and likewise walked on two legs.... From this it

necessarily follows that the creature had the free use of the upper

extremities--now superfluous for walking--and that these last were no

doubt already far advanced in that line of differentiation which developed

them in mankind into tools and organs of touch.... From a study of the

femur and skull it follows with certainty that this fossil cannot be

classified as simian.... And, as with the skull, so also with the femur,

the differences that separate _Pithecanthropus_ from man are less than

those distinguishing it from the highest anthropoid.... Although far

advanced in the course of differentiation, this Pleistocene form had not

yet attained to the human type. _Pithecanthropus erectus_ is the

transition form between man and the anthropoids which the laws of

evolution teach us must have existed. He is the ancestor of man."

Thus the author placed _Pithecanthropus_ in a new family, of the order

Primates, which he named the Pithecanthropidæ.

[Illustration: FIG. 31. Geological section of the volcano of Lawoe in the

Solo River basin. Drawn by C. A. Reeds.]

[Illustration: FIG. 32. Map of the Solo River, showing the

_Pithecanthropus_ discovery site, also two excavations (Pit No. 1, Pit No.

2) in the ancient gravel of the river-bottom, made by the

Selenka-Blanckenhorn expedition of 1907. After Selenka and Blanckenhorn.]

The geologic age of the bones referred to is a matter of first importance.

The remains of _Pithecanthropus_ lay in a deposit about one meter in

thickness, consisting of loose, coarse, tufaceous sandstones, below this a

stratum of hard, blue-gray clay, and under that marine breccia. Above the

_Pithecanthropus_ layer were the 'Kendeng' strata, a many-layered

tufaceous sandstone, about 15 meters in thickness. This geologic series

was considered by Dubois and others to be of late Tertiary or Pliocene

age; _Pithecanthropus_ accordingly became known as the long-awaited

'Pliocene ape-man.' Subsequent researches by expert geologists have tended

to refer the age to the early Pleistocene.(17) According to Elbert(18) the

Kendeng strata overlying the _Pithecanthropus_ layer correspond to an

early pluvial period of low temperature and, in point of time, to the Ice

Age of Europe. For even in Java one can distinguish three divisions of the

Pleistocene period, including the first period of low temperature to which

the _Pithecanthropus_ layer is referred.

[Illustration: FIG. 33. Section corresponding to line _A-B_ in Fig. 32,

showing the river-drift gravels and sands at the point where the skull-top

of _Pithecanthropus_ was found. Drawn by C. A. Reeds.

Recent 7 River wash, blue-black clay.

{ 6 Light-colored sandstone, like tuff.

{ 5 Gray tuff with balls of clay, fresh-water shells.

{ 4 White streaked sandstone resembling tufa.

Pleistocene { 3 Blue-black clay with plant remains.

{ 2 Bone-bearing stratum. _Pithecanthropus._

{ 1 Lahar conglomerate.]

The fossil mammals contained in the _Pithecanthropus_ layer have also been

thoroughly studied,(19) and they tend to confirm the original reference to

the uppermost Pliocene. They yield a very rich fauna similar to that of

the Siwalik hills of India, including the porcupine, pangolin, several

felines, the hyæna, and the otter. Among the primates beside

_Pithecanthropus_ there is a macaque. Among the larger ungulates are two

species of rhinoceros related to existing Indian forms, the tapir, the

boar, the hippopotamus, the axis and rusa deer, the Indian buffalo, and

wild cattle. It is noteworthy that three species of late Pliocene

elephants, all known as _Stegodon_, and especially the species _Stegodon

ganeza_, occur, as well as _Elephas hysudricus_, a species related to _E.

antiquus_, or the straight-tusked elephant, which entered Europe in early

Pleistocene times. Fossils of the same animals are found in the foot-hills

of the Himalayas of India, about 2,500 miles distant to the northwest. The

India deposits are considered of uppermost Pliocene age,(20) for this is

the closing life period of the upper Siwaliks of India.

Certainly Java was then a part of the Asiatic continent, and similar herds

of great mammals roamed freely over the plains from the foot-hills of the

Himalaya Mountains to the borders of the ancient Trinil River, while

similar apes inhabited the forests. At this time the orang may have

entered the forests of Borneo, which are at present its home; it is the

only ape thus far found in the uppermost Pliocene of India. We may,

therefore, anticipate the discovery, at any time, in India of a race

similar to _Pithecanthropus_.

The geologic age of the Trinil race is, therefore, to be considered as

late Pliocene or early Pleistocene.

[Illustration: FIG. 34. The top (1) and side (1_a_) views of the skull-top

of _Pithecanthropus erectus_. After Dubois. One-third life size.]

This great discovery of Dubois aroused wide-spread and heated discussion,

in which the foremost anatomists and palæontologists of the world took

part. Some regarded the skull as that of a giant gibbon, others as

prehuman, and still others as a transition form. We may form our own

opinion, however, from a fuller understanding of the specimens themselves,

always keeping in mind that it is a question whether the femur and the

skull belong to the same individual or even to the same race. First, we

are struck by the marked resemblance which the top of the skull bears,

both on viewing it from the side and from above, to that of the

Neanderthal race. This fully justifies the opinion of the anatomist

Schwalbe(21) that the skull of _Pithecanthropus_ is nearer to that of

Neanderthal man than to that of even the highest of the anthropoid apes.

As measured by Schwalbe, the index of the height of the cranium

(_Kalottenhöheindex_) may be compared with others as follows:

Lowest human race 52 per cent.

Neanderthal man 40.4 per cent.

_Pithecanthropus_, or Trinil race 34.2 per cent.

[Illustration: FIG. 35. Head of chimpanzee--front and side

views--exhibiting a head of somewhat similar shape to that of

_Pithecanthropus_, with prominent eyebrow ridges, but much smaller brain

capacity. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.]

This accords with the estimate of the brain capacity[P] of 855 c.cm.

(Dubois) as compared with 1,230 c.cm., the smallest brain capacity found

in a member of the Neanderthal race. Second, as seen from above, we are

struck with the great length of the calvarium as compared with its

breadth, the cephalic index or ratio of breadth to length being 73.4 per

cent (Schwalbe) as compared with 73.9 per cent in the Neanderthal type

skull; this dolichocephaly accords with the fact that all of the earliest

human races thus far found are long-headed, although according to

Schwalbe(22) all anthropoids are broad-headed. This is a very important

distinction. The third feature is the prominence and width of the bony

eyebrow ridges above the orbits, which are almost as great as in the

chimpanzee and greatly exceed those of the Neanderthal race and of the

modern Australian. The profile of the Trinil head restored by McGregor

(Fig. 38) exhibits this prominent bony ridge and the low, retreating

forehead. In the latest opinion of Schwalbe(23) _Pithecanthropus_ may be

regarded as one of the direct ancestors of Neanderthal man and even of the

highest human species, _Homo sapiens_. He also considers that when the

lower jaw of the Trinil race becomes known, it will be found to be very

similar to that of the Heidelberg man, the final conclusion being that

_Pithecanthropus_ and the nearly allied Heidelberg man may be regarded as

the common ancestors of the Neanderthal race, on the one hand, and of the

higher races on the other. There are, however, reasons for excluding

_Pithecanthropus_ from the direct ancestral line of the higher races of

man.

[Illustration: FIG. 36. Profile of the skull of _Pithecanthropus_, as

restored by J. H. McGregor. 1914. One-third life size.]

This prehuman stage has, none the less, a very great significance in the

developmental history of man. In our opinion it is the very stage which,

theoretically, we should anticipate finding in the dawn of the

Pleistocene. A similar view is taken by Büchner,(24) who presents in an

admirable diagram (Fig. 117) the result of his comparison of twelve

different characters in the skulls of _Pithecanthropus_, the Neanderthals,

the Australians, and the Tasmanians. One of the main objects of Büchner's

research was a very detailed comparison of the Trinil skull with that of

the lowly and now extinct Tasmanian race, which, we observe in the

diagram, occupies a position only a little higher than that of the

Spy-Neanderthal race.

[Illustration: FIG. 37. Three views of the skull of _Pithecanthropus_, as

restored by J. H. McGregor, showing the original (shaded) and restored

(black lines) portions. About one-quarter life size.]

If the femur belongs with the skull, the Trinils were a tall race,

reaching a height of 5 feet 7 inches as compared with 5 feet 3 inches in

the Neanderthals. The thigh-bone (Fig. 122) has a very slight curvature as

compared with that of any of the apes or lemurs, and in this respect is

more human; it is remarkably elongate (455 mm.), surpassing that of the

Neanderthals; the shin-bone (tibia) was probably correspondingly short.

The two upper grinding-teeth preserved are much more human than those of

the gibbon, but they do not resemble those of man closely enough to

positively confirm the prehuman theory. Dubois observes:(25) "That the

tooth belongs to some hominid form needs no further demonstration. Aside

from its size and the greater roughness of the grinding surface, it

differs from the human grinder in that the less developed cusp of

_Pithecanthropus_ is the posterior cusp next the cheek, while in man it is

generally the posterior cusp next the tongue. The simplification of the

crown and the root of the Trinil grinder is quite as extensive as it

usually is in man."

[Illustration: FIG. 38. Profile view of the head of _Pithecanthropus_, the

Java ape-man, after a model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.]

Various efforts have been made to supplement the scattered and scanty

materials collected by Dubois. The Selenka expedition of 1907-8 brought

back a human left lower molar as the only result of an express search for

more _Pithecanthropus_ remains. Dubois is also said to possess the

fragment of a primitive-looking lower jaw from the range known as the

Kendeng Hills, at the southern base of which lies the village of Trinil.

It remains for us to consider the stage of psychic evolution attained by

the Trinil race, and this naturally turns upon the erect attitude and what

little is known of the size and proportions of the brain.

[Illustration: FIG. 39. Front view of the head of _Pithecanthropus_, the

Java ape-man, after a model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.]

The assumption of the erect attitude is not merely a question of learning

to balance the body on the hinder extremities.(26) It involves changes in

the interior of the body, the loss of the tail, the freeing of the arms,

and the establishment of the diaphragm as the chief muscle of respiration.

The thigh-bone of _Pithecanthropus_ is so much like that of man as to

support the theory that the erect position may have been assumed by the

ancestors of man as early as Oligocene times. It would appear that

_Pithecanthropus_ had free use of the arms and it is possible that the

control of the thumb and fingers had been cultivated, perhaps in the

fashioning of primitive implements of wood and stone. The discovery of the

use of wood as an implement and weapon probably preceded that of the use

of stone.

Elliot Smith describes this stage of development as follows:(27) "... The

emancipation of the hands from progression threw the whole responsibility

upon the legs, which became more efficient for their purpose as supports

once they lost their prehensile powers and became elongated and

specialized for rapid progression. Thus the erect attitude became

stereotyped and fixed and the limbs specialized, and these upright simians

emerged from their ancestral forests in societies, armed with sticks and

stones and with the rudiments of all the powers that eventually enabled

them to conquer the world. The greater exposure to danger which these more

adventurous spirits encountered once they emerged in the open, and the

constant struggles these first semihuman creatures must have had in

encounters with definite enemies, no less than with the forces of Nature,

provided the factors which rapidly weeded out those unfitted for the new

conditions and by natural selection made real men of the survivors."

[Illustration: FIG. 40. Side view of brain of high type, illustrating the

contrast between the motor, sensory, and ideational centres in a high type

of modern brain; and Elliot Smith's characterization of the probable

centres in the _Pithecanthropus_ type of brain. Modified after M. Allen

Starr.]

The undeveloped forehead of _Pithecanthropus_ and the diminutive frontal

area of the brain indicate that the Trinil race had a limited faculty of

profiting by experience and accumulated tradition, for in this prefrontal

area of the brain are located the powers of attention and of control of

the activities of all other parts of the brain. In the brain of the ape

the sensory areas of touch, taste, and vision predominate, and these are

well developed in _Pithecanthropus_. The central area of the brain, which

is the storehouse of the memories of actions and of the feelings

associated with them, is also well developed, but the prefrontal area,

which is the seat of the faculty of profiting by experience or of

recalling the consequences of previous responses to experience, is

developed to a very limited degree.(28) Thus, while the brain of

_Pithecanthropus_ is estimated at 855-900 c.cm., as compared with 600

c.cm. of the largest simian brain, and 930 c.cm. of the smallest brain

recorded in the lower members of the human race, it indicates a very low

stage of intelligence.

[Illustration: FIG. 41. Diagram showing the side (lower figure) and top

(upper figure) views of the outline of the _Pithecanthropus_ brain as

compared with that of the chimpanzee and the higher human types of the

Piltdown, Neanderthal, and modern races.]

ABSENCE OF PALÆOLITHS AND PRESENCE OF EOLITHS IN WESTERN EUROPE

Returning to First Interglacial conditions in Europe, we observe that the

river courses flowed through the same valleys as at present but that in

early glacial times the channels were far broader and were elevated from

100 to 150 feet above the present relatively narrow river levels. The vast

floods of the succeeding glaciation filled these valleys, but some of the

'high terraces' were already formed. It is extremely important to note

that Pre-Chellean flints or true palæoliths have never been found in the

sands or gravels of these 'high terraces.'

Eoliths found on this 'high-terrace' level at St. Prest belong to the

Prestien culture of Rutot,(29) who regards this station as of Upper

Pliocene age. These, like other supposed Eolithic flints, are very rough,

but, rude as they are, they generally exhibit one part shaped as if to be

grasped by the hand, while the other part is edged or pointed as for

cutting. It is generally admitted that these flints are mostly of

accidental shapes, and there has been little or no proof of their being

fashioned by human hands. On this point Boule(30) observes: "As to the

eoliths, I have combated the theory not only because it seems to me

improbable but because a long geological experience has shown me that it

is often impossible to distinguish stones split, cut, or retouched by

purely physical agents from certain products of rudimentary workmanship."

On the other side, it is interesting at this point to quote the words of

MacCurdy:(31) "My opinion, based on personal experience, ... is that the

existence of a primitive industry, antedating what is commonly accepted as

Palæolithic, has been established. This industry occurs as far back as the

Upper Miocene and continues on through the Upper Tertiary into and

including the Lower Quaternary. The distinguishing characters of the

industry remain but little changed throughout the entire period, the

subdivision of the period into epochs being based on stratigraphy

[geologic stages] and not on industrial characters. The requirements in

the way of tools being very simple and the supply of material in the way

of natural flakes and fragments of flint being very plentiful, the

inventive powers of the population remained dormant for ages. Hammer and

knife were the original tools. Both were picked up ready-made. A

sharp-edged, natural flake served for one, and a nodule or fragment served

for the other. When the edge of the flake became dulled by use, the piece

was either thrown away or the edge was retouched for further use. If

hammer or flake did not admit of being held comfortably in the hand, the

troublesome points or edges were removed or reduced by chipping. The stock

of tools increased slowly with the slowly growing needs. As these

multiplied and the natural supply of raw material diminished, the latter

was supplemented by the manufacture of artificial flakes. When the lesson

of associating definite forms of implements with definite uses was

learned, special types arose, notably the amygdaloid implement and the

poniard. Then came the transition from the Eolithic to the Palæolithic, a

stage that has been so thoroughly investigated by Rutot."

It is not improbable that the Trinil race was in a stage of Eolithic

culture; it is highly probable that the prehuman races of this very remote

geologic age used more than one weapon of wood and stone.

THE GREAT SECOND GLACIATION

(Fig. 25, p. 65)

In early Pleistocene times a general _elevation_ of southern Europe united

the islands of the Mediterranean with Europe on the north and with Africa

on the south, forming broad land connections between the two continents

which afforded both northward and southward migration routes. At this time

certain characteristically African mammals, such as the straight-tusked

elephant and the lion, were probably finding their way north; Sicily at

this time gained its large fauna of elephants and hippopotami, and the

island of Malta was connected with the mainland, as well as the easterly

islands of Cyprus and Crete. It appears probable that the connection

between the Italian mainland and Malta was renewed more than once.

The approach of the second glaciation is indicated along the southeast

coast of Great Britain by the _subsidence_ of the land and the rise of the

sea, accompanied by a fresh arctic current, bringing with it an invasion

of arctic mollusks which were deposited in a layer of marine beds directly

over those which contain the rich warm fauna and flora of the 'Forest

Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk.(32) It also appears probable that a cold northern

current swept along the western coasts of Europe, and Geikie estimates

that a lowering of temperature occurred of not less than 20° Fahr., a

change as great as is now experienced in passing from the south of England

to the North Cape.

[Illustration: PL. III. _Pithecanthropus erectus_, the ape-man of Java.

Antiquity estimated at 500,000 years. After the restoration modelled by J.

H. McGregor. It is not improbable that the prehuman races of this remote

geologic age used more than one natural weapon of wood or stone, the

latter of the accidental 'Eolithic' type.]

The second glaciation was by far the greatest both in Europe and America.

In the region of the Pyrenees, which at the very much later period of the

Third Interglacial Stage became a favorite country with Palæolithic man,

there were glaciers of vast extent. This is realized by comparison with

present conditions. The largest of the present glaciers of the Pyrenees is

only 2 miles in length and terminates at a height of 7,200 feet above the

sea. During the greatest glaciation the snow appears to have descended

4,265 feet below its present level. From the Pyrenees through the Gallego

valley into Spain there flowed a glacier 38 miles in length, while to the

north the glacier in the valley of the Garonne flowed for a distance of 45

miles to a point near Montréjeau. Even in its lower reaches this glacier

was over half a mile in thickness. To the east was a glacier 38 miles in

length, filling the valley of the Ariège and covering the sites of such

great Palæolithic caverns as that of Niaux; it is probable that at this

time the formation of this cavern began. That these glaciers were all

prior to the period of the Lower Palæolithic Acheulean culture is proven

by the fact that Acheulean implements are frequently met with lying on the

surface of the moraines laid down by these ancient ice-floes.(33)

To the north was the vast Scandinavian ice-field, which swept over Great

Britain and beyond the valleys of the Rhine, Elbe, and Vistula, reaching

nearly to the Carpathians. Even the lesser mountain chains were capped

with glaciers, including the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa.

In North America from the great centre west of Hudson Bay the ice-cap

extended its drift southward into Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska,

beyond the limits of earlier and subsequent glaciations.

The materials of the chief 'high terraces' of the great river-valleys of

western Europe were deposited at this time.

LIFE OF THE WARM SECOND INTERGLACIAL STAGE

The long warm period which followed the great glaciation is remarkable in

presenting the first proofs of the presence of man in western Europe. It

is the period of the Heidelberg race of man (_Homo heidelbergensis_),

known only from a single jaw discovered by Schoetensack in the Mauer sands

near Heidelberg, in 1907. No other proofs of the existence of man have

been found in any of the deposits which took place during this vast

interval of geologic time, unless we accept the theory of Penck and of

Geikie that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean quarries of the River Somme

belong in the Second Interglacial Stage.

The vast duration of this interglacial time is evidenced both in Europe

and America by the deep cutting and wearing away of the 'drifts' brought

down by the second glaciation. Penck believes that this 'long warm stage'

represents a greater period of time than the entire interval between the

third glaciation and the present time. The climate immediately following

the retreat of the glaciers was cool and moist in the glaciated regions,

but this was followed by such a prolonged period of heat and dryness that

the glaciers on the Alps withdrew to a point far above their present

limits.

In one of the old 'high terraces' of the River Inn, in the north Tyrol, is

a deposit containing the prevailing forest flora of the period, from which

Penck concludes that the climate of Innsbruck was 2° C. higher than it is

at the present time. Corresponding with this the snow-line stood 1,000

feet above its present level, and the Alps, save for the higher peaks,

were almost completely denuded of ice and snow. A characteristic plant is

the Pontic alpine rose (_Rhododendron ponticum_), which flourishes now in

an annual temperature of 57°-65° Fahr.,(34) indicating that the climate of

Innsbruck was as genial as that of the Italian slopes of the Alps to-day.

This rhododendron is now found in the Caucasus. Other southern species of

the time were a buckthorn, related to a species now living in the Canary

Islands, and the box. There were also more hardy plants, including the fir

(_Pinus sylvestris_), spruce, maple, willow, yew, elm, beech, and

mountain-ash. The forests of the same period in Provence were, for the

most part, similar to those now found in that region; out of thirty-seven

species twenty-nine still occur in this part of southern France. On the

whole, the aspect of southern France at this time was surprisingly modern.

The forests included oaks, elms, poplars, willows, lindens, maples,

sumachs, dogwood, and hawthorn. Among the climbing plants were the vine

and the clematis. Here also were some forms which have since retreated to

the south, such as species of the sweet bay and laurel which are now

confined to the Canary Islands. The great humidity of the time is

indicated by the presence of certain species of conifers which require

considerable moisture. As in First Interglacial times, the presence of the

fig indicates mild winters.

It is difficult to imagine forests of this modern character, which farther

northward included a number of still more temperate and hardy species, as

the setting of the great African and Asiatic life that roamed all over

western Europe at this time. It was the presence of hippopotami,

elephants, and rhinoceroses which gave to Lyell, Evans, and other early

observers the impression that a tropical temperature and vegetation were

characteristic of this long life period. These animals were formerly

regarded as proofs of an almost tropical climate, but the more trustworthy

evidence of the forests, strengthened by that of the presence of very

numerous hardy types of forest and meadow animals, has set aside all the

early theories as to extremely warm temperatures during Second

Interglacial times.

The remains of what is still conveniently known as the '_faune chaude_,'

or warm fauna, are chiefly found in the sands and gravels of the ancient

beds of the Neckar, Garonne, and Thames, and other rivers of the north and

south, also in Essex, England. The most surprising fact is that the mammal

life of western Europe remained entirely unchanged by the vast second

glaciation just described; the few extinctions which occurred as well as a

number of new arrivals may be attributed to new geographical connections

with Africa on the south and to the steady progress of migration from the

far east.

[Illustration: FIG. 42. The hippopotamus (_H. major_) and the southern

mammoth (_E. meridionalis trogontherii_), a pair of mammals which enjoyed

a similar range over western Europe from the close of the Pliocene until

the middle of Third Interglacial times, when their remains are found

associated with flints of Pre-Chellean, Chellean, and early Acheulean age.

One-sixtieth life size. Drawn by Erwin S. Christman.]

There were four very important and distinctive new arrivals from the

African-Asiatic world, namely, the straight-tusked or ancient elephant

(_E. antiquus_), the broad-nosed rhinoceros (_D. merckii_), the African

lion (_Felis leo_), and the African hyæna (_H. striata_), which bespeak

close geographical connections with northern Africa. Of these the ancient

elephant and the broad-nosed rhinoceros were close companions; they

enjoyed the same regions and the same temperatures, their remains are very

frequently found together, and they survived to the very end of the great

life stage of western Europe, which closed with the advent of the fourth

glaciation. They are in contrast to the other pair of great mammals which

was already present in Europe in Pliocene and First Interglacial times,

namely, the southern mammoth, at this stage known as _Elephas

trogontherii_, which had a preference for the companionship of the

hippopotamus (_H. major_); it would seem that these animals were less

hardy because both disappeared from Europe a little earlier than the

ancient elephant and Merck's rhinoceros.

[Illustration: FIG. 43. The other and hardier pair of large

African-Asiatic mammals, namely, the broad-nosed or Merck's rhinoceros

(_R. merckii_) and the straight-tusked or ancient elephant (_E.

antiquus_), which entered western Europe in Second Interglacial times and

survived until Third Interglacial times, when their remains are found

intermingled with flints of the Acheulean and early Mousterian cultures.

These mammals were doubtless hunted by men of the early Neanderthal races.

One-sixtieth life size. Drawn by Erwin S. Christman.]

The African lion would appear to have been a competitor of the sabre-tooth

tiger, for the latter animal now becomes less abundant, although there is

reason to believe that it survived until the Third Interglacial Stage.

With the ancient Pliocene type of the sabre-tooth were also found the

Etruscan rhinoceros, the primitive bear of Auvergne (_Ursus arvernensis_),

and the giant beaver (_Trogontherium cuvieri_).

[Illustration: FIG. 44. Map showing the wide geographic distribution

(horizontal lines) of Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant,

which first entered western Europe during the First Interglacial Stage and

survived until nearly the close of the Third Interglacial Stage. The

hippopotamus, which entered Europe in Pliocene times, survived until after

the middle of the Third Interglacial Stage and had a more limited

distribution. After Boule.]

The northern forests of the time were frequented by the broad-faced moose,

the giant deer, and the roe-deer, as well as by noble specimens of the

stag (_Cervus elaphus_). In the open forests and meadows the wild cattle

(_Bos primigenius_) began to be more numerous and the bison (_Bison

priscus_) also occurred. Among the meadow or forest frequenting forms were

horses of larger size, such as the horses of Mosbach and of Süssenborn. In

this assemblage of northern and southern types it is noteworthy that the

Eurasiatic forest and meadow types of mammals greatly predominate in

numbers and in variety over the African-Asiatic types; this, together with

the flora, is an indication that the climate was of a temperate character;

it is probable, therefore, that all the mammals were well protected with a

hairy covering and adapted to a temperate climate. The fact that the fauna

as a whole remained practically unchanged throughout the second glaciation

is a proof not that it migrated to the south and then returned but that

the non-glaciated regions of western Europe were temperate rather than

cold.

THE HEIDELBERG RACE

Heidelberg man.

Ancient elephant.

Etruscan rhinoceros.

Mosbach horse.

Wild boar.

Broad-faced moose.

Red deer, or stag.

Roe-deer.

Primitive bison (wisent).

Primitive ox (Aurochs, urus).

Auvergne bear.

Deninger's bear.

Lion.

Wildcat.

Wolf.

Beaver.

To us by far the most interesting mammalian life is that found south of

the mouth of the Neckar along the ancient stream Elsenz, where were

deposited the lower 'sands of Mauer,' containing the lower jaw of the

Heidelberg man and the remains of many animals of the period. The

enumeration of this entire fauna is very important, as indicating the

temperate climatic conditions which surrounded the first true species of

man which has thus far been discovered in Europe. The discoverer,

Schoetensack,(35) referred these mammals and the Heidelberg man to the

First Interglacial Stage, and a similar opinion has recently been

expressed by Geikie. The presence of the Etruscan rhinoceros would appear

to point to such great antiquity, but the evidence afforded by this

primitive animal is overborne by that of three mammals which are highly

characteristic of Second Interglacial times; these are the straight-tusked

or ancient elephant (_E. antiquus_), the lion, and the Mosbach horse.

Excepting only the Etruscan rhinoceros, all these species frequenting the

ancient stream Elsenz and deposited with the 'sands of Mauer' occurred

also in the forests and meadows of the region now known as Baden, where

the fossil mammal deposits of Mosbach near the Neckar are found. A similar

mammalian life of a somewhat more recent time occurs in the river gravels

of Süssenborn, near Weimar. The horses of Mauer, of Mosbach, and of

Süssenborn[Q] were of much larger size and of more specialized character

than Steno's horse of First Interglacial times.

[Illustration: FIG. 45. Section of the valley of the stream Elsenz, near

Heidelberg, showing the location of the Mauer sand-pit in which the

Heidelberg jaw was discovered. An ancient layer of river-drift. Drawn by

C. A. Reeds.]

Thus the Heidelbergs, the first human race recorded in western Europe,

appear in northern Germany early in Second Interglacial times, in the

midst of a most imposing mammalian fauna of northern aspect and containing

many forest-living species, such as bear, deer, and moose; in the meadows

and forests browsed the giant, straight-tusked elephant (_E. antiquus_),

which from the simple structure of its grinding-teeth is regarded as

similar in habit to the African elephant now inhabiting the forests of

central Africa; the presence of this animal indicates a relatively moist

climate and well-forested country. The Etruscan rhinoceros differed from

the larger Merck's form in the possession of relatively short-crowned

grinding-teeth, adapted to browsing habits and a forested country; on the

head were borne two horns; it was a long-limbed, rapidly moving type; the

herds of bison and of wild cattle (urus) which roamed over the plains

were now subject to the attack of the lion.

[Illustration: FIG. 46. Sand-pit at Mauer, near Heidelberg, discovery site

of the jaw of Heidelberg man. After Schoetensack.

_a-b._ 'Newer loess,' either of Third Interglacial or of Postglacial

times.

_b-c._ 'Older loess' (sandy loess) of the close of Second Interglacial

times.

_c-f._ The 'sands of Mauer.'

_d-e._ An intermediate layer of clay.

The white cross (X) indicates the spot at the base of the 'sands of Mauer'

at which the jaw of Heidelberg was discovered.]

[Illustration: FIG. 47. The Heidelberg jaw, type of _Homo

heidelbergensis_. About two-thirds life size. After Schoetensack.]

The discovery in 1907 of a human lower jaw in the base of the 'Mauer

sands' is one of the most important in the whole history of anthropology.

The find was made at a depth of 79 feet (24.10 m.) from the upper surface

of a high bluff (Fig. 46), in ancient river sands which had long been

known to yield the very old mammalian fauna described above. For years the

workmen had been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for human remains. The

jaw had evidently drifted down with the river sands and had become

separated from the skull, but it remained in perfect preservation. The

author's description may first be quoted.(36) The mandible shows a

combination of features never before found in any fossil or recent man.

The protrusion of the lower jaw just below the front teeth which gives

shape to the human chin is entirely lacking. Had the teeth been absent it

would have been impossible to diagnose it as human. From a fragment of the

symphysis of the jaw it might well have been classed as some gorilla-like

anthropoid, while the ascending ramus resembles that of some large variety

of gibbon. The absolute certainty that these remains are human is based on

the form of the teeth--molars, premolars, canines, and incisors are all

essentially human and, although somewhat primitive in form, show no trace

of being intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes but rather of

being derived from some older common ancestor. The teeth, however, are

somewhat small for the jaw; the size of the border would allow for the

development of much larger teeth; we can only conclude that no great

strain was put on the teeth, and therefore the powerful development of the

bones of the jaw was not designed for their benefit. The conclusion is

that the jaw, regarded as unquestionably human from the nature of the

teeth, ranks not far from the point of separation between man and the

anthropoid apes. In comparison with the jaws of Neanderthal races, as

found at Spy, in Belgium, and at Krapina, in Croatia, we may consider the

Heidelberg jaw as pre-Neanderthaloid; it is, in fact, a generalized type.

[Illustration: FIG. 48. Side view of Heidelberg jaw (centre) compared with

that of an orang (right) and of an Eskimo (left); the latter an individual

of exceptionally large proportions.]

In a conservative spirit, Schoetensack named the type represented by this

jaw _Homo heidelbergensis_. Other authors have regarded it as of distinct

generic rank; thus it has been termed _Palæoanthropus heidelbergensis_ by

Bonarelli.(37) The jaw itself is extremely massive; the canine teeth,

unlike those of the anthropoid apes and of the Piltdown race, do not

project beyond the line of the other teeth and were therefore not used as

weapons of offense and defense as in the anthropoids, in which these

teeth are prominently developed as tusks. As noted by Schoetensack, the

teeth are not very massive in proportion to the jaw itself, which is the

most powerful human jaw known, even exceeding the largest Eskimo jaw and

indicating a skull of very massive and primitive character. It resembles

that of the ape in the recession of the chin, hence it has been termed

_amentalis_. There is a large development of the coronoid process of the

mandible for the attachment of the temporal muscle. This jaw may well have

been used as a tool in the last stages of the preparation of hides, as is

the practice of the Eskimo races. We observe that the powerful bony

branches of the jaw, when regarded from above, close in upon the space

left for the tongue; in fact, the bone closes in to such an extent as to

interfere seriously with the free use of the tongue in articulate speech.

[Illustration: FIG. 49. The jaws shown in Fig. 48 seen from above. A

massive Eskimo jaw (above), the Heidelberg jaw (centre), the jaw of an

orang (below).]

It would seem that in the jaw, and probably in all other characters of the

skull, as they become known, the Heidelberg race will be found to be a

Neanderthal in the making, that is, a primitive, more powerful, and more

ape-like ancestral form. In the matter of the retreating chin, the true

Neanderthals of Spy, Malarnaud, Krapina, and La Chapelle rank exactly

half-way between the most inferior races of recent man and the anthropoid

apes.

[Illustration: FIG. 50. Restoration of the Man of Heidelberg by the

Belgian artist Mascré, under the direction of Professor A. Rutot, of

Brussels. This restoration presents an advance upon the _Pithecanthropus_

type. In our opinion the Heidelberg man was more human and less ape-like

in appearance.]

Not only among the Eskimos, but generally throughout the savage races of

Australia and of other countries, the jaws are used as tools; among the

Australians the teeth are very much worn down but are in admirable

preservation. When seen from above, we observe that the 'Heidelberg'

grinding-teeth form a perfect arch, or horseshoe-shaped arrangement,

whereas in all the apes the two lines of grinding-teeth are almost

parallel with each other. Thus, while there may be wide differences of

opinion as regards the relationships of the Heidelberg man, all agree that

Schoetensack's discovery affords us one of the great missing links or

types in the chain of human development.

The typical mammalian life of Second Interglacial times as found at

Mosbach and Süssenborn belongs perhaps to a somewhat more recent stage of

Second Interglacial times than that of the 'Mauer sands,' for in these

localities the Etruscan rhinoceros is wanting and the more specialized

broad-nosed rhinoceros is abundant; this animal differs from the Etruscan

form in the possession of relatively long-crowned grinding-teeth, which

were better adapted to grazing habits. On the head were borne two horns. A

variety of the southern mammoth (_E. trogontherii_) is so highly

characteristic of Second Interglacial times that Pohlig refers to this

life period as the _E. trogontherii_ stage. From the structure of its

grinding-teeth it is regarded as similar in habit to the Asiatic elephant,

which now inhabits the forests of India, but it has the peculiar concave

forehead distinctive of the mammoth and quite unlike the convex forehead

of the Indian elephant. The bears of this period belong to the primitive

species _U. deningeri_ and _U. arvernensis_, for so far there is no

certain record of the presence of the true brown bear of Europe (_U.

arctos_). The sabre-tooth tiger of this time is preserved in the caverns

of the Pyrenees near Montmaurin, associated with the remains of the

striped hyæna (_H. striata_), a species which was widely distributed over

western Europe in early Pleistocene times. This species was contemporary

with, and later replaced by, the spotted hyæna (_H. crocuta_), from which

the very hardy cave-hyæna (_H. crocuta spelæa_) of the 'Reindeer Period,'

descended. We observe that the 'polycladine' deer of Upper Pliocene and

First Glacial times has disappeared from western Europe; nor are there any

traces of the axis deer. The hippopotamus is still represented by the

giant species, _H. major_.

EARLY NORTHERN MIGRATIONS OF THE REINDEER

The animals that we have described belong in the warmer and more temperate

regions of Europe. In the regions near the glaciers the reindeer was

already to be found; in fact, this characteristically northern animal is

recorded in the gravels of Süssenborn, near Weimar.

There is evidence of a succession of climatic changes in the region of

Heidelberg. The Heidelberg jaw with its temperate mammalian fauna occurred

at the very base of the Mauer bluff, but higher up the bluff (Fig. 46) on

a corresponding level are found the remains of mammals which indicate a

marked lowering of temperature and which are referred by some authorities

to the period of chilling climate that characterized northern Europe

toward the close of Second Interglacial times. The reindeer also occurs in

the 'high terrace' gravels of the River Murr, near Steinheim; thus, at

Mauer, at Süssenborn, and at Steinheim, we find proof that the reindeer

had begun to spread over the colder regions of Europe, and there is some

ground for belief that it found its way even as far south as the Pyrenees.

The evidence of the first cold, arid period which for the time greatly

affected the climate of western Europe is also found in the layer of

so-called 'ancient loess' which lies in the bluff above the 'sands of

Mauer.' This loess covers the warm mammalian deposits of the 'sands of

Mosbach' as well as the 'high terraces' of many of the ancient

river-valleys. Both in Europe and America the climatic sequence of the

Second Interglacial Stage from moist to dry appears to have been the same.

Thus, after the recession of the ice-fields of the second glaciation, the

climate was at first cold and moist; then followed a long warm stage,

favorable to the spread of forests; this was finally succeeded by a period

of aridity in which the most ancient 'loess' deposits occurred. In Russia,

also, the third glaciation was preceded by an arid and steppe-like climate

with high winds favorable to the transportation of 'loess.'

No palæoliths or other proofs of human occupation have been found in this

cold, dry period, for there is no evidence in any part of Europe of

camping stations in this 'ancient loess' such as we find in the 'loess'

which was deposited during the similar arid period toward the close of

Third Interglacial and again during Postglacial times. Nor have we any

record of the mammalian life in this 'ancient loess' of Europe.

THE THIRD GLACIATION[R]

This arid period in northern Europe and in North America was followed by

the moist, cool climate of the third glaciation. It is estimated by Penck

that the advance of these new ice-fields began 120,000 years ago and that

the period of advance and retreat of the glaciers was not less than 20,000

years. In the Alps the snow-line descended 1,250 metres below the present

level; consequently this glaciation was more severe than the first but

somewhat less severe than the second. In northern Europe the Scandinavian

ice-field did not cover so wide an area as during the second glaciation,

although Britain and Scandinavia were again deeply buried by ice; the

glacial cap and glaciers flowed in a westerly and southwesterly direction

across Denmark and the southern portion of the basin of the Baltic into

Holland and northern Germany. In the Alps the third glaciation sent vast

ice-floes along the valley of the Rhine, into eastern France, and into the

valley of the Po, where this glaciation was even more extensive than the

second. But the greatest glacier of this time was that of the Isar, a

southern tributary of the Danube, which rises in the Bavarian Alps.(38)

During the Third Glacial Stage certain of the 'middle terraces' along the

Rhine and other rivers flowing from the Alps were formed. In Britain,(39)

whereas during the second glaciation the ice-fields extended as far south

as the Thames, during the third glaciation they did not extend beyond the

midlands; yet an arctic climate prevailed over southern England, with

tundra conditions and temperature, as indicated by the plant deposits at

Hoxne(40) in Suffolk. Even before the third glaciation began in Europe a

great ice-cap had formed over Labrador, on the eastern coast of North

America, and the ice-sheets flowing to the south and southwest extended as

far as Illinois, depositing the great Illinoian 'drifts.'

[Illustration: _EUROPE DURING THE THIRD GLACIAL EPOCH. (RISS) (AFTER JAMES

GEIKIE) A-B Line of Profile_

FIG. 51. The ice-fields and glaciers of the Third Glacial Stage are seen

to be much less extensive than those of the Second Glacial Stage, shown in

Fig. 25, p. 65. The continental depression and invasion of the sea is also

believed to have been less extensive. At this stage there are broad areas

free from ice between the Scandinavian, the Alpine, and the Pyrenean

ice-caps. Drawn by C. A. Reeds, after James Geikie. (Compare Fig. 13.)]

Along the borders of these great ice-fields in both countries a cold and

moist climate prevailed, for a prime condition of glaciation is the heavy

precipitation of snow. In northern Europe, between the great Alpine and

Scandinavian ice-fields of the third glaciation a cold climate undoubtedly

prevailed; in the region of the Neckar River, near Cannstatt, is found a

deposit known as 'mammoth loam,' which Koken believed to be

contemporaneous with the period of the third glaciation, although the

evidence is certainly not convincing.(41) Here are found fossil remains of

the Scandinavian reindeer, also of two very important new arrivals in

Europe from the tundra regions of the far northeast, animals which had

wandered along the southern borders of the Scandinavian ice-sheet from the

tundras of northern Russia and Siberia. This is the first appearance in

western Europe of the woolly mammoth (_E. primigenius_) and the woolly

rhinoceros (_D. antiquitatis_). In this 'mammoth loam' there also occur

two species of horse, the giant deer (_Megaceros_), the stag, the wisent,

and the Aurochs. If the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros actually

entered eastern Germany at this time, they certainly retreated to the

north with the approach of the warm temperate climate of the Third

Interglacial Stage, because no trace of these animals has been found again

in Europe until the advent of the fourth glaciation.

(=1=) Gaudry, 1890.1.

(=2=) Smith, G. E., 1912.1, p. 582.

(=3=) _Op. cit._

(=4=) Munro, 1893.1.

(=5=) Osborn, 1910.1, pp. 306, 307.

(=6=) Geikie, J., 1894.1, pp. 329-336; 1914.1, p. 227.

(=7=) Dawkins, 1883.1, pp. 576-579.

(=8=) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 248.

(=9=) Reid, C., 1908.1.

(=10=) Desnoyers, 1863.1.

(=11=) Haug, 1911.1, p. 1807.

(=12=) Geikie, J., 1894.1, p. 682; 1914.1, p. 250.

(=13=) Dubois, 1894.1.

(=14=) Fischer, 1913.1.

(=15=) Schwalbe, 1899.1; 1914.1.

(=16=) Büchner, 1914.1.

(=17=) Volz, 1907.1.

(=18=) Elbert, 1908.1.

(=19=) Selenka, 1911.1.

(=20=) Pilgrim, 1913.1.

(=21=) Schwalbe, 1899.1, pp. 227, 228.

(=22=) _Op. cit._, p. 223.

(=23=) Schwalbe, 1914.1, pp. 601-606.

(=24=) Büchner, 1914.1, p. 129.

(=25=) Dubois, 1894.1, p. 14.

(=26=) Keith, 1912.1.

(=27=) Smith, G. E., 1912.1, p. 595.

(=28=) _Op. cit._

(=29=) Rutot, 1907.1.

(=30=) Boule, 1913.1, pp. 266, 267.

(=31=) MacCurdy, 1905.1, pp. 468, 469.

(=32=) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 251.

(=33=) _Op. cit._, p. 255.

(=34=) _Op. cit._, p. 238.

(=35=) Schoetensack, 1908.1.

(=36=) _Op. cit._, pp. 25-43.

(=37=) Bonarelli, 1909.1.

(=38=) Penck, 1909.1.

(=39=) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 258.

(=40=) _Op. cit._, pp. 257-262.

(=41=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 181.