audience some general acquaintance with that succession of prehistoric
epochs which modern research has definitely established. Pre-history, as
distinguished from proto-history, may, in reference to Europe as a
whole, be made coextensive with the Stone Age. This divides into the Old
Stone Age and the New. The Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic Period, yields
three well-marked subdivisions, termed Early, Middle, and Late. The New
Stone Age, or Neolithic Period, includes two sub-periods, the Earlier or
Transitional, and the Later or Typical. Thus our historical survey will
fall naturally into five chapters.
There are reasons, however, why it will be more convenient to move over
the whole ground twice. The material on which our judgements must be
founded is not all of one kind. Anthropology is the joint work of two
departments, which are known as Physical Anthropology and Cultural
Anthropology respectively. The former, we may say, deals with man as an
organism, the latter with him as an organizer. Here, then, are very
different standpoints. For, in a broad way of speaking, nature controls
man through his physical organization, whereas through his cultural
organization man controls nature. From each of these standpoints in
turn, then, let us inquire how far prehistoric man can be shown to have
progressed. First, did the breed improve during the long course of the
Stone Age in Europe? Secondly, did the arts of life advance, so that by
their aid man might establish himself more firmly in his kingdom?
Did the breed improve during prehistoric times? I have said that,
broadly speaking, nature controls man as regards his physical endowment.
Now in theory one must admit that it might be otherwise. If Eugenics
were to mature on its purely scientific side, there is no reason why the
legislator of the future should not try to make a practical application
of its principles; and the chances are that, of many experiments, some
would prove successful. But that conscious breeding was practised in
prehistoric times is out of the question. The men of those days were one
and all what we are ourselves--nature's mongrels, now broken up into
varieties by casual isolation, and now by no less casual intermixture
recompounded in a host of relatively unstable forms. Whatever progress,
therefore, may have occurred in this respect has been unconscious. Man
cannot take the credit for it, except in so far as it is indirectly due
to that increase and spread of the race which have been promoted by his
achievements in the way of culture.
The barest outline of the facts must suffice. For the Early Pleistocene,
apart from the Java fossil, _Pithecanthropus erectus_, a veritable
'missing link', whom we may here disregard as falling altogether outside
our world of Europe, there are only two individuals that can with
certainty be referred to this distant period. These are the Piltdown and
the Heidelberg specimens. The former consists of a fragmentary
brain-case, thick-boned and narrow-fronted, but typically human in its
general characters, and of the greater part of a lower jaw, which, as
regards both its own elongated and curiously flanged structure, and that
of the teeth it contained, including an enormous pointed canine, is
conversely more appropriate to an ape-like being than to a man. The
latter consists only of a lower jaw, of which the teeth, even the
canines, are altogether human, whereas the jaw itself is hardly less
simian than that of the Sussex skull. If we add the Java example to the
list of very primitive forms, it is remarkable to note how, though
differing widely from each other, all alike converge on the ape.
Nevertheless, even in Pithecanthropus, the brute is passing into the
man. We note the erect attitude, to be inferred from his thigh-bone, and
the considerably enlarged, though even so hardly human, brain. The
Piltdown individual, on the other hand, has crossed the Rubicon. He has
a brain-capacity entitling him to rank as a man and an Englishman. Such
a brain, too, implies a cunning hand, which doubtless helped him greatly
to procure his food, even if his massive jaw enabled him to dispose of
the food in question without recourse to the adventitious aids of knife
and fork. For the matter of that, if our knowledge made it possible to
correlate these rare finds of bones more exactly with the innumerable
flint implements ascribable to this period (and, indeed, not without
analogies among the spoil from the Piltdown gravels), it might turn out
that even the equivalent of knife and fork was not wanting to the Early
Pleistocene supper-party, or, at any rate, that the human hand was
already advanced from the status of labourer to the more dignified
position of superintendent of the tool.
The Middle Pleistocene Epoch belongs to the men of the Neanderthal type.
Some thirty specimens, a few of them more or less complete, have come
down to us, and we can form a pretty clear notion of the physical
appearance of the race. Speaking generally, we may say that it marks a
stage of progress as compared with the Piltdown type; though, if the
jaw, heavy and relatively chinless as it is, has become less simian, the
protruding brow-ridge lends a monstrous look to the face, while the
forehead is markedly receding--a feature which turns out, however, to be
not incompatible with a weight of brain closely approaching our own
average. Whether this type has disappeared altogether from the earth, or
survives in certain much modified descendants, is an open question. The
fact remains that during the last throes of the Glacial Epoch this
rough-hewn kind of man apparently had Northern Europe as his exclusive
province; and it is by no means evident what _Homo Sapiens_, the
supposed highly superior counterpart and rival of _Homo
Neanderthalensis_, was doing with himself in the meantime. Moreover, not
only in respect of space does the population of that frozen world show
remarkable homogeneity; but also in respect of time must we allow it an
undisputed sway extending over thousands of years, during which the race
bred true. The rate of progress, whether reckoned in physical terms or
otherwise, is so slow as to be almost imperceptible. A type suffices for
an age. Whereas in the life-history of an individual there is rapid
development during youth, and after maturity a steadying down, it is the
other way about in the life-history of the race. Man, so to speak, was
born old and accommodated to a jog-trot. We moderns are the juveniles,
and it is left for us to go the pace.
Yet Late Pleistocene Period introduces us to more diversity in the way
of human types. Only one race, however, that named after the
rock-shelter of Cro-Magnon in the Dordogne, is represented by a fair
number of specimens, namely, about a dozen. At this point we come
suddenly and without previous warning on as pretty a kind of man as
ever walked this earth. In his leading characters he is remarkably
uniform. Six feet high and long-legged, he likewise possessed a head
well stocked with brains and a face that, if rather broad and short,
was furnished by way of compensation with a long and narrow nose. If
the present world can show nothing quite like him, it at least cannot
produce anything more shapely in the way of the 'human form divine'.
Apart from the Cro-Magnons, the remains of an old woman and a youth
found at the lowest level of the Grotte des Enfants at Mentone are
usually held to belong to a distinct stock known as the Grimaldi. The
physical characters of the pair are regarded as negroid, verging on
the Pygmy; but if we could study an adult male of the same stock, it
might possibly turn out not to be so very divergent from the
Cro-Magnon. Again, a single specimen does duty for the so-called
Chancelade race. The skeleton is of comparatively low stature, and is
deemed to show close affinities to the type of the modern Eskimo.
Without being unduly sceptical, one may once more wonder if the
Cro-Magnon stock may not have produced this somewhat aberrant form.
Even on such a theory, however--and it is hardly orthodox--diversity
of physical structure would seem to be on the increase. On the other
hand, there are reasons of considerable cogency for referring to the
end of this period skeletons of what Huxley termed the 'River-bed
type', the peculiarity of which consists in the fact that they are
more or less indistinguishable from the later Neolithic men and indeed
from any of those slight-built, shortish, long-headed folk who form
the majority in the crowded cities of to-day. Some authorities would
ascribe a far greater antiquity to this type, but, I venture to think,
on the strength of doubtful evidence. The notorious Galley Hill
skeleton, for instance, found more or less intact in an Early
Pleistocene bed in which the truly contemporary animals are
represented by the merest battered remnants, to my mind reeks of
modernity. Be these things as they may, however, when we come to
Neolithic times a race of similar physical characters has Europe to
itself, though it would seem to display minor variations in a way that
suggests that the reign of the mongrel has at length begun. And here
we may close our enumeration of the earliest known branches of our
family tree, since the coming of the broad-heads pertains to the
history of the Bronze Age, and hence falls outside the scope of the
present survey.
Now what is the bearing of these somewhat scanty data on the question of
progress? It is not easy to extract from them more than the general
impression that, as time went on, the breed made persistent headway as
regards both the complexity of its organization and the profusion of its
forms. After all, we must not expect too much from this department of
the subject. For one thing, beyond the limits of North-western Europe
the record is almost blank; and yet we can scarcely hope to discover the
central breeding-place of man in what is, geographically, little more
than a blind alley. In the next place, Physical Anthropology, not only
in respect to human palaeontology, but in general, is as barren of
explanations as it is fertile in detailed observations. The systematic
study of heredity as it bears on the history of the human organism has
hardly begun. Hence, it would not befit one who is no expert in relation
to such matters to anticipate the verdict of a science that needs only
public encouragement in order to come into its own. Suffice it to
suggest here that nature as she presides over organic evolution, that
is, the unfolding of the germinal powers, may be conceived as a kindly
but slow-going and cautious liberator. One by one new powers, hitherto
latent, are set free as an appropriate field of exercise is afforded
them by the environment. At first divergency is rarely tolerated. A
given type is extremely uniform. On the other hand, when divergency is
permitted, it counts for a great deal. The wider variations occur
nearest the beginning, each for a long time breeding true to itself.
Later on, such uncompromising plurality gives way to a more diffused
multiplicity begotten of intermixture. Mongrelization has set in. Not
but what there may spring up many true-breeding varieties among the
mongrels; and these, given suitable conditions, will be allowed to
constitute lesser types possessed of fairly uniform characters. Such at
least is in barest outline the picture presented by the known facts
concerning the physical evolution of man, if one observe it from outside
without attempting to explore the hidden causes of the process. Some
day, when these causes are better understood, man may take a hand in the
game, and become, in regard to the infinite possibilities still sleeping
in the transmitted germ, a self-liberator. Nature is but a figurative
expression for the chances of life, and the wise man faces no more
chances than he needs must. Scientific breeding is no mere application
of the multiplication table to a system of items. We must make
resolutely for the types that seem healthy and capable, suppressing the
defectives in a no less thorough, if decidedly more considerate, way
than nature has been left to do in the past. Here, then, along physical
lines is one possible path of human progress, none the less real because
hitherto pursued, not by the aid of eyes that can look and choose, but
merely in response to painful proddings at the tail-end.
Our remaining task is to take stock of that improvement in the arts of
life whereby man has come gradually to master an environment that
formerly mastered him. For the Early Palaeolithic Period our evidence in
respect of its variety, if not of its gross quantity, is wofully
disappointing. Not to speak of man's first and rudest experiments in the
utilization of stone, which are doubtless scattered about the world in
goodly numbers if only we could recognize them clearly for what they
are, the Chellean industry by its wide distribution leads one to suppose
that mankind in those far-off days was only capable of one idea at a
time--a time, too, that lasted a whole age. Yet the succeeding Acheulean
style of workmanship in flint testifies to the occurrence of progress in
one of its typical forms, namely, in the form of what may be termed
'intensive' progress. The other typical form I might call 'intrusive'
progress, as happens when a stimulating influence is introduced from
without. Now it may be that the Acheulean culture came into being as a
result of contact between an immigrant stock and a previous population
practising the Chellean method of stone-work. We are at present far too
ill-informed to rule out such a guess. But, on the face of it, the
greater refinement of the Acheulean handiwork looks as if it had been
literally hammered out by steadfastly following up the Chellean pattern
into its further possibilities. Explain it as we will, this evolution of
the so-called _coup-de-poing_ affords almost the sole proof that the
human world of that remote epoch was moving at all. If we could see
their work in wood, we might discern a more diversified skill or we
might not. As it is, we can but conclude in the light of our very
imperfect knowledge that in mind no less than in body mankind of Early
Palaeolithic times displayed a fixity of type almost amounting to that
of one of the other animal species.
During Middle Palaeolithic times the Mousterian culture rules without a
rival. The cave-period has begun; and, thanks to the preservation of
sundry dwelling-places together with a goodly assortment of their less
perishable contents, we can frame a fairly adequate notion of the
home-life of Neanderthal man. I have already alluded to my excavations
in Jersey, and need not enter into fuller details here. But I should
like to put on record the opinion borne in upon me by such first-hand
experience as I have had that cultural advance in Mousterian days was
almost as portentously slow as ever it had been before. The human
deposits in the Jersey cave are in some places about ten feet thick, and
the fact that they fall into two strata separated by a sterile layer
that appears to consist of the dust of centuries points to a very long
process of accumulation. Yet though there is one kind of elephant
occurring amid the bone refuse at the bottom of the bed, and another
and, it would seem, later kind at the top, one and the same type of
flint instrument is found at every level alike; and the only development
one can detect is a certain gain in elegance as regards the Mousterian
'point', the reigning substitute for the former _coup-de-poing_. Once
more there is intensive progress only, so far at least as most of the
Jersey evidence goes. One _coup-de-poing_, however, and that hardly
Acheulean in conception but exactly what a hand accustomed to the
fashioning of the Mousterian 'point' would be likely to make by way of
an imitation of the once fashionable pattern, lay at lowest floor-level;
as if to remind one that during periods of transition the old is likely
to survive by the side of the new, and may even survive in it as a
modifying element. As a matter of fact, the _coup-de-poing_ is frequent
in the earliest Mousterian sites; so that we cannot but ask ourselves
how it came to be in the end superseded. Whether the Mousterians were of
a different race from the Acheuleans is not known. Certain it is, on the
other hand, that the industry that makes its first appearance in their
train represents a labour-saving device. The Mousterian had learned how
to break up his flint-nodule into flakes, which simply needed to be
trimmed on one face to yield a cutting edge. The Acheulean had been
content to attain this result more laboriously by pecking a pebble on
both faces until what remained was sharp enough for his purpose. Here,
then, we are confronted with that supreme condition of progress, the
inventor's happy thought. One of those big-brained Neanderthal men, we
may suppose, had genius; nature, the liberator, having released some
latent power in the racial constitution. Given such a culture-hero, the
common herd was capable of carrying on more or less mechanically for an
aeon or so. And so it must ever be. The world had better make the most
of its geniuses; for they amount to no more than perhaps a single one in
a million. Anyway, Neanderthal man never produced a second genius, so
far as we can tell; and that is why, perhaps, his peculiar type of
brow-ridge no longer adorns the children of men.
Before we leave the Mousterians, another side of their culture deserves
brief mention. Not only did they provide their dead with rude graves,
but they likewise furnished them with implements and food for use in a
future life. Herein surely we may perceive the dawn of what I do not
hesitate to term religion. A distinguished scholar and poet did indeed
once ask me whether the Mousterians, when they performed these rites,
did not merely show themselves unable to grasp the fact that the dead
are dead. But I presume that my friend was jesting. A sympathy stronger
than death, overriding its grisly terror, and converting it into the
vehicle of a larger hope--that is the work of soul; and to develop soul
is progress. A religious animal is no brute, but a real man with the
seed of genuine progress in him. If Neanderthal man belonged to another
species, as the experts mostly declare and I very humbly beg leave to
doubt, we must even so allow that God made him also after his own image,
brow-ridges and all.
The presence of soul in man is even more manifest when we pass on to the
Late Palaeolithic peoples. They are cave-dwellers; they live by the
chase; in a word, they are savages still. But they exhibit a taste and a
talent for the fine arts of drawing and carving that, as it were,
enlarge human existence by a new dimension. Again a fresh power has been
released, and one in which many would seem to have participated; for
good artists are as plentiful during this epoch as ever they were in
ancient Athens or mediaeval Florence. They must have married-in somewhat
closely, one would think, for this special aptitude to have blossomed
forth so luxuriantly. I cannot here dwell at length on the triumphs of
Aurignacian and Magdalenian artistry. Indeed, what I have seen with my
own eyes on the walls of certain French caves is almost too wonderful to
be described. The simplicity of the style does not in the least detract
from the fullness of the charm. On the contrary, one is tempted to doubt
whether the criterion of complexity applies here--whether, in fact,
progress has any meaning in relation to fine art--since, whether
attained by simple or by complex means, beauty is always beauty, and
cannot further be perfected. Shall we say, then, with Plato that beauty
was revealed to man from the first in its absolute nature, so that the
human soul might be encouraged to seek for the real in its complementary
forms of truth and goodness, such as are less immediately manifest? For
the rest, the soul of these transcendently endowed savages was in other
respects more imperfectly illuminated; as may be gathered from the fact
that they carved and drew partly from the love of their art, but partly
also, and, perhaps, even primarily, for luck. It seems that these
delineations of the animals on which they lived were intended to help
them towards good hunting. Such is certainly the object of a like custom
on the part of the Australian aborigines; there being this difference,
however, that the art of the latter considered as art is wholly
inferior. Now we know enough about the soul of the Australian native,
thanks largely to the penetrating interpretations of Sir Baldwin
Spencer, to greet and honour in him the potential lord of the universe,
the harbinger of the scientific control of nature. It is more than half
the battle to have willed the victory; and the picture-charm as a piece
of moral apparatus is therefore worthy of our deepest respect. The
chariot of progress, of which the will of man is the driver, is drawn by
two steeds, namely, Imagination and Reason harnessed together. Of the
pair, Reason is the more sluggish, though serviceable enough for the
heavy work. Imagination, full of fire as it is, must always set the
pace. So the soul of the Late Palaeolithic hunter, having already in
imagination controlled the useful portion of the animal world, was more
than half-way on the road to its domestication. But in so far as he
mistook the will for the accomplished deed, he was not getting the value
out of his second horse; or, to drop metaphor, the scientific reason as
yet lay dormant in his soul. But his dream was to come true presently.
The Neolithic Period marks the first appearance of the 'cibi-cultural'
peoples. The food-seekers have become food-raisers. But the change did
not come all at once. The earlier Neolithic culture is at best
transitional. There may even have been one of those set-backs in culture
which we are apt to ignore when we are narrating the proud tale of human
advance. Europe had now finally escaped from the last ravages of an
Arctic climate; but there was cruel demolition to make good, and in the
meantime there would seem, as regards man, to have been little doing.
Life among the kitchen-middens of Denmark was sordid; and the Azilians
who pushed up from Spain as far as Scotland did not exactly step into a
paradise ready-made. Somewhere, however, in the far south-east a higher
culture was brewing. By steps that have not yet been accurately traced
legions of herdsmen and farmer-folk overspread our world, either
absorbing or driving before them the roving hunters of the older
dispensation. We term this, the earliest of true civilizations,
'neolithic', as if it mattered in the least whether your stone implement
be chipped or polished to an edge. The real source of increased power
and prosperity lay in the domestication of food-animals and food-plants.
The man certainly had genius and pluck into the bargain who first
trusted himself to the back of an unbroken horse. It needed hardly less
genius to discover that it is no use singing charms over the
seed-bearing grass in order to make it grow, unless some of the seed is
saved to be sowed in due season. Society possibly brained the
inventor--such is the way of the crowd; but, as it duly pocketed the
invention, we have perhaps no special cause to complain.