THE METAL AGES--HISTORIC TIMES AND PEOPLES
Progress of Archaeological Studies--Sequence of the Metal Ages--The
Copper Age--Egypt, Elam, Babylonia, Europe--The Bronze Age--Egypt
and Babylonia, Western Europe, the Aegean, Ireland--Chronology of
the Copper and Bronze Ages--The Iron Age--Hallstatt, La Tene--Man
and his Works in the Metal Ages--The Prehistoric Age in the West,
and in China--Historic Times--Evolution of Writing Systems--
Hieroglyphs and Cuneiforms--The Alphabet--The Persian and other
Cuneiform Scripts--The Mas-d'Azil Markings--Alphabetiform Signs
on Neolithic Monuments--Character and Consequences of the
later historic Migrations--The Race merges in the People--The
distinguishing Characters of Peoples--Scheme of Classification.
If, as above seen, the study of human origins is largely a geological
problem, the investigation of the later developments, during the Metal
Ages and prehistoric times, belongs mainly to the field of Archaeology.
Hence it is that for the light which has in recent years been thrown
upon the obscure interval between the Stone Ages and the strictly
historic epoch, that is to say, the period when in his continuous upward
development man gradually exchanged stone for the more serviceable
metals, we are indebted chiefly to the pioneer labours of such men as
Worsaae, Steenstrup, Forchhammer, Schliemann, Sayce, Layard, Lepsius,
Mariette, Maspero, Montelius, Brugsch, Petrie, Peters, Haynes, Sir J.
Evans, Sir A. J. Evans and many others, all archaeologists first, and
anthropologists only in the second instance.
From the researches of these investigators it is now clear that copper,
bronze, and iron were successively in use in Europe in the order named,
so that the current expressions, "Copper," "Bronze," and "Iron" Ages
remain still justified. But it also appears that overlappings, already
beginning in late Neolithic times, were everywhere so frequent that in
many localities it is quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing
lines between the successive metal periods.
That iron came last, a fact already known by vague tradition to the
ancients[66], is beyond doubt, and it is no less certain that bronze of
various types intervened between copper and iron. But much obscurity
still surrounds the question of copper, which occurs in so many graves
of Neolithic and Bronze times, that this metal has even been denied an
independent position in the sequence.
But we shall not be surprised that confusion should prevail on this
point, if we reflect that the metals, unlike stone, came to remain. Once
introduced they were soon found to be indispensable to civilised man, so
that in a sense the "Metal Ages" still survive, and must last to the end
of time. Hence it was natural that copper should be found in prehistoric
graves associated, first with polished stone implements, and then with
bronze and iron, just as, since the arrival of the English in Australia,
spoons, clay pipes, penknives, pannikins, and the like, are now found
mingled with stone objects in the graves of the aborigines.
But that there was a true Copper Age[67] prior to that of Bronze, though
possibly of not very long duration, except of course in the New
World[68], has been placed beyond reasonable doubt by recent
investigations. Considerable attention was devoted to the subject by J.
H. Gladstone, who finds that copper was worked by the Egyptians in the
Sinaitic Peninsula, that is, in the famous mines of the Wadi Maghara,
from the fourth to the eighteenth dynasty, perhaps from 3000 to 1580
B.C.[69] During that epoch tools were made of pure copper in Egypt and
Syria, and by the Amorites in Palestine, often on the model of their
stone prototypes[70].
Elliot Smith[71] claims that "the full story of the coming of copper,
complete in every detail and circumstance, written in a simple and
convincing fashion that he who runs may read," has been displayed in
Egypt ever since the year 1894, though the full significance of the
evidence was not recognised until Reisner called attention to the record
of pre-dynastic graves in Upper Egypt when superintending the
excavations at Naga-ed-der in 1908[72]. These excavations revealed the
indigenous civilisation of the ancient Egyptians and, according to
Elliot Smith, dispose of the idea hitherto held by most archaeologists
that Egypt owed her knowledge of metals to Babylonia or some other
Asiatic source, where copper, and possibly also bronze, may be traced
back to the fourth millennium B.C. There was doubtless intercourse
between the civilisations of Egypt and Babylonia but "Reisner has
revealed the complete absence of any evidence to show or even to suggest
that the language, the mode of writing, the knowledge of copper ... were
imported" (p. 34). Elliot Smith justly claims (p. 6) that in no other
country has a similarly complete history of the discovery and the
evolution of the working of copper been revealed, but until equally
exhaustive excavations have been undertaken on contemporary or earlier
sites in Sumer and Elam, the question cannot be regarded as settled.
The work of J. de Morgan at Susa[73] (1907-8) shows the extreme
antiquity of the Copper Age in ancient Elam, even if his estimate of
5000 B.C. is regarded as a millennium too early[74]. At the base of the
mound on the natural soil, beneath 24 meters of archaeological layers,
were the remains of a town and a necropolis consisting of about 1000
tombs. Those of the men contained copper axes of primitive type; those
of the women, little vases of paint, together with discs of polished
copper to serve as mirrors. At Fara, excavations by Koldewey in 1902,
and by Andrae and Noeldeke in 1903 on the site of Shuruppak (the home of
the Babylonian Noah) in the valley of the Lower Euphrates, revealed
graves attributed to the prehistoric Sumerians, containing copper spear
heads, axes and drinking vessels[75].
In Europe, North Italy, Hungary and Ireland[76] may lay claim to a
Copper Age, but there is very little evidence of such a stage in
Britain. To this period also may be attributed the nest or _cache_ of
pure copper ingots found at Tourc'h, west of the Aven Valley,
Finisterre, described by M. de Villiers du Terrage, and comprising 23
pieces, with a total weight of nearly 50 lbs.[77] These objects, which
belong to "the transitional period when copper was used at first
concurrently with polished stone, and then disappeared as bronze came
into more general use[78]," came probably from Hungary, at that time
apparently the chief source of this metal for most parts of Europe. Of
over 200 copper objects described by Mathaeus Much[79] nearly all were
of Hungarian or South German _provenance_, five only being accredited to
Britain and eight to France.
The study of this subject has been greatly advanced by J. Hampel, who
holds on solid grounds that in some regions, especially Hungary, copper
played a dominant part for many centuries, and is undoubtedly the
characteristic metal of a distinct culture. His conclusions are based on
the study of about 500 copper objects found in Hungary and preserved in
the Buda Pesth collections. Reviewing all the facts attesting a Copper
Age in Central Europe, Egypt, Italy, Cyprus, Troy, Scandinavia, North
Asia, and other lands, he concludes that a Copper Age may have sprung up
independently wherever the ore was found, as in the Ural and Altai
Mountains, Italy, Spain, Britain, Cyprus, Sinai; such culture being
generally indigenous, and giving evidence of more or less characteristic
local features[80]. In fact we know for certain that such an independent
Copper Age was developed not only in the region of the Great Lakes of
North America, but also amongst the Bantu peoples of Katanga and other
parts of Central Africa. Copper is not an alloy like bronze, but a
soft, easily-worked metal occurring in large quantities and in a
tolerably pure state near the surface in many parts of the world. The
wonder is, not that it should have been found and worked at a somewhat
remote epoch in several different centres, but that its use should have
been so soon superseded in so many places by the bronze alloys.
From copper to bronze, however, the passage was slow and progressive,
the proper proportion of tin, which was probably preceded in some places
by an alloy of antimony, having been apparently arrived at by repeated
experiments often carried out with no little skill by those prehistoric
metallurgists.
As suggested by Bibra in 1869, the ores of different metals would appear
to have been at first smelted together empirically, and the process
continued until satisfactory results were obtained. Hence the
extraordinary number of metals, of which percentages are found in some
of the earlier specimens, such as those of the Elbing Museum, which on
analysis yielded tin, lead, silver, iron, antimony, arsenic, sulphur,
nickel, cobalt, and zinc in varying quantities[81].
Some bronzes from the pyramid of Medum analysed by J. H. Gladstone[82]
yielded the high percentage of 9.1 of tin, from which we must infer, not
only that bronze, but bronze of the finest quality, was already known to
the Egyptians of the fourth dynasty, _i.e._ 2840 B.C. The statuette of
Gudea of Lagash (2500 B.C.) claimed as the earliest example of bronze in
Babylonia is now known to be pure copper, and though objects from Tello
(Lagash) of earlier date contain a mixture of tin, zinc, arsenic and
other alloys, the proportion is insignificant. The question of priority
must, however, be left open until the relative chronology of Egypt and
Babylonia is finally settled, and this is still a much disputed
point[83]. Neither would all the difficulties with regard to the origin
of bronze be cleared up should Egypt or Babylonia establish her claim to
possess the earliest example of the metal, for neither country appears
to possess any tin. The nearest deposit known in ancient times would
seem to be that of Drangiana, mentioned by Strabo, identified with
modern Khorassan[84].
Strabo and other classical writers also mention the occurrence of tin in
the west, in Spain, Portugal and the Cassiterides or tin islands, whose
identity has given rise to so much speculation[85], but "though in after
times Egypt drew her tin from Europe it would be bold indeed to suppose
that she did so [in 3000 B.C.] and still bolder to maintain that she
learned from northern people how to make the alloy called bronze[86]."
Apart from the indigenous Egyptian origin maintained by Elliot Smith
(above) the hypothesis offering fewest difficulties is that the earliest
bronze is to be traced to the region of Elam, and that the knowledge
spread from S. Chaldaea (Elam-Sumer) to S. Egypt in the third millennium
B.C.[87]
There seems to be little doubt that the Aegean was the centre of
dispersal for the new metals throughout the Mediterranean area, and
copper ingots have been found at various points of the Mediterranean,
marked with Cretan signs[88]. Bronze was known in Crete before 2000 B.C.
for a bronze dagger and spear head were found at Hagios Onuphrios, near
Phaistos, with seals resembling those of the sixth to eleventh
dynasties[89].
From the eastern Mediterranean the knowledge spread during the second
millennium along the ordinary trade routes which had long been in use.
The mineral ores of Spain were exploited in pre-Mycenean times and
probably contributed in no small measure to the industrial development
of southern Europe. From tribe to tribe, along the Atlantic coasts the
traffic in minerals reached the British Isles, where the rich ores were
discovered which, in their turn, supplied the markets of the north, the
west and the south.
Even Ireland was not left untouched by Aegean influence, which reached
it, according to G. Coffey[90], by way of the Danube and the Elbe, and
thence by way of Scandinavia, though this is a matter on which there is
much difference of opinion. Ireland's richness in gold during the Bronze
Age made her "a kind of El Dorado of the western world," and the
discovery of a gold torc found by Schliemann in the royal treasury in
the second city of Troy raises the question as to whether the model of
the torc was imported into Ireland from the south[90], or whether (which
J. Dechelette[91] regards as less probable) there was already an
exportation of Irish gold to the eastern Mediterranean in pre-Mycenean
times.
Of recent years great strides have been made towards the establishment
of a definite chronology linking the historic with the prehistoric
periods in the Aegean, in Egypt and in Babylonia, and as the estimates
of various authorities differ sometimes by a thousand years or so, the
subjoined table will be of use to indicate the chronological schemes
most commonly followed; the dates are in all cases merely approximate.
It has often been pointed out that there is no reason why iron should
not have been the earliest metal to be used by man. Its ores are more
abundant and more easily reduced than any others, and are worked by
peoples in a low grade of culture at the present day[92]. Iron may have
been known in Egypt almost as early as bronze, for a piece in the
British Museum is attributed to the fourth dynasty, and some beads of
manufactured iron were found in a pre-dynastic grave at El Gerzeh[93].
But these and other less well authenticated occurrences of iron are
rare, and the metal was not common in Egypt before the middle of the
second millennium. By the end of the second millennium the knowledge had
spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean[94], and towards 900 at
latest iron was in common use in Italy and Central Europe.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
Egypt[95] Babylonia[96] Aegean[97] Greece[98] Bronze Age in
Europe[99]
3300 Dynasty I
3200
3100
3000 Dynasty of Opis ?Early ?Pre-Mycenean
2900 Dyn. of Kish Minoan I
2800 Dyn. III, Dyn. of Erech
IV Dyn. of
Akkad[100]
2700
2600 Dyn. V 2nd Dyn. of Erech
2500 Dyn. VI Gutian Early Minoan II Period I.
Domination Eneolithic
2400 Dyn. of Ur (implements
2300 Dyn. IX of stone,
2200 Dyn. of Isin Middle Minoan I copper and
2100 Dyn. XI Mid. Minoan II bronze, poor
2000 Dyn. XII 1st Dyn. Babylon Mycenean I in tin)
1900 2nd Dyn. Mid. Minoan III Period II
1800
1700 Dyn. XIII 3rd Dyn. Late Minoan I
1600 Dyn. XV Period III
1500 Dyn. XVIII Late Minoan Mycenean II
II
1400 Late Minoan III
1300 Dyn. XIX Period IV
1200 Dyn. XX Homeric Age
1100 4th Dyn.
1000 Dyn. XXI 5th to 7th Dyn. Close of Bronze Age[101]
900 Dyn. XXII 8th Dyn. Hallstatt
The introduction of iron into Italy has often been attributed to the
Etruscans, who were thought to have brought the knowledge from Lydia.
But the most abundant remains of the Early Iron Age are found not in
Tuscany, but along the coasts of the Adriatic[102], showing that iron
followed the well-known route of the amber trade, thus reaching Central
Europe and _Hallstatt_ (which has given its name to the Early Iron Age),
where alone in Europe the gradual transition from the use of bronze to
that of iron has been clearly traced. W. Ridgeway[103] believes that the
use of iron was first discovered in the Hallstatt area and that thence
it spread to Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Aegean area,
and Egypt rather than that the culture drift was in the opposite
direction. There is no difference of opinion however as to the
importance of this Central European area which contained the most famous
iron mines of antiquity. Hallstatt culture extended from the Iberian
peninsula in the west to Hungary in the east, but scarcely reached
Scandinavia, North Germany, Armorica or the British Isles where the
Bronze Age may be said to have lasted down to about 500 B.C. Over such a
vast domain the culture was not everywhere of a uniform type and
Hoernes[104] recognises four geographical divisions distinguished mainly
by pottery and fibulae, and provisionally classified as Illyrian in the
South West, or Adriatic region, in touch with Greece and Italy; Celtic
in the Central or Danubian area; with an off-shoot in Western Germany,
Northern Switzerland and Eastern France; and Germanic in parts of
Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Posen.
The Hallstatt period ends, roughly, at 500 B.C., and the Later Iron Age
takes its name from the settlement of _La Tene_, in a bay of the Lake of
Neuchatel in Switzerland. This culture, while owing much to that of
Hallstatt, and much also to foreign sources, possesses a distinct
individuality, and though soon overpowered on the Continent by Roman
influence, attained a remarkable brilliance in the Late Celtic period in
the British Isles.
That the peoples of the Metal Ages were physically well developed, and
in a great part of Europe and Asia already of Aryan speech, there can be
no reasonable doubt. A skull of the early Hallstatt period, from a grave
near Wildenroth, Upper Bavaria, is described by Virchow as long-headed,
with a cranial capacity of no less than 1585 c.c., strongly developed
occiput, very high and narrow face and nose, and in every respect a
superb specimen of the regular-featured, long-headed North
European[105]. But owing to the prevalence of cremation the evidence of
race is inadequate. The Hallstatt population was undoubtedly mixed, and
at Glasinatz in Bosnia, another site of Hallstatt civilisation, about a
quarter of the skulls examined were brachycephalic[106].
Their works, found in great abundance in the graves, especially of the
Bronze and Iron periods, but a detailed account of which belongs to the
province of archaeology, interest us in many ways. The painted
earthenware vases and incised metal-ware of all kinds enable the student
to follow the progress of the arts of design and ornamentation in their
upward development from the first tentative efforts of the prehistoric
artist at pleasing effects. Human and animal figures, though rarely
depicted, occasionally afford a curious insight into the customs and
fashions of the times. On a clay vessel, found in 1896 at Lahse in
Posen, is figured a regular hunting scene, where we see men mounted on
horseback, or else on foot, armed with bow and arrow, pursuing the
quarry (nobly-antlered stags), and returning to the penthouse after the
chase[107]. The drawing is extremely primitive, but on that account all
the more instructive, showing in connection with analogous
representations on contemporary objects, how in prehistoric art such
figures tend to become conventionalised and purely ornamental, as in
similar designs on the vases and textiles from the Ancon Necropolis,
Peru. "Most ornaments of primitive peoples, although to our eye they may
seem merely geometrical and freely-invented designs, are in reality
nothing more than degraded animal and human figures[108]."
This may perhaps be the reason why so many of the drawings of the metal
period appear so inferior to those of the cave-dwellers and of the
present Bushmen. They are often mere conventionalised reductions of
pictorial prototypes, comparable, for instance, to the characters of our
alphabets, which are known to be degraded forms of earlier pictographs.
Of the so-called "Prehistoric Age" it is obvious that no strict
definition can be given. It comprises in a general way that vague period
prior to all written records, dim memories of which--popular myths,
folklore, demi-gods[109], eponymous heroes[110], traditions of real
events[111]--lingered on far into historic times, and supplied ready to
hand the copious materials afterwards worked up by the early poets,
founders of new religions, and later legislators.
That letters themselves, although not brought into general use, had
already been invented, is evident from the mere fact that all memory of
their introduction beyond the vaguest traditions had died out before the
dawn of history. The works of man, while in themselves necessarily
continuous, stretched back to such an inconceivably remote past, that
even the great landmarks in the evolution of human progress had long
been forgotten by later generations.
And so it was everywhere, in the New World as in the Old, amongst
Eastern as amongst Western Peoples. In the Chinese records the "Age of
the Five Emperors"--five, though nine are named--answers somewhat to our
prehistoric epoch. It had its eponymous hero, Fu Hi, reputed founder of
the empire, who invented nets and snares for fishing and hunting, and
taught his people how to rear domestic animals. To him also is ascribed
the institution of marriage, and in his time Tsong Chi is supposed to
have invented the Chinese characters, symbols, not of sounds, but of
objects and ideas.
Then came other benevolent rulers, who taught the people agriculture,
established markets for the sale of farm produce, discovered the
medicinal properties of plants, wrote treatises on diseases and their
remedies, studied astrology and astronomy, and appointed "the Five
Observers of the heavenly bodies."
But this epoch had been preceded by the "Age of the Three [six] Rulers,"
when people lived in caves, ate wild fruits and uncooked food, drank the
blood of animals and wore the skins of wild beasts (our Old Stone Age).
Later they grew less rude, learned to obtain fire by friction, and built
themselves habitations of wood or foliage (our Early Neolithic Age).
Thus is everywhere revealed the background of sheer savagery, which lies
behind all human culture, while the "Golden Age" of the poets fades with
the "Hesperides" and Plato's "Atlantis" into the region of the fabulous.
Little need here be said of strictly historic times, the most
characteristic feature of which is perhaps the general use of letters.
By means of this most fruitful of human inventions, everything worth
preserving was perpetuated, and thus all useful knowledge tended to
become accumulative. It is no longer possible to say when or where the
miracle was wrought by which the apparently multifarious sounds of
fully-developed languages were exhaustively analysed and effectively
expressed by a score or so of arbitrary signs. But a comparative study
of the various writing-systems in use in different parts of the world
has revealed the process by which the transition was gradually brought
about from rude pictorial representations of objects to purely
phonetical symbols.
As is clearly shown by the "winter counts" of the North American
aborigines, and by the prehistoric rock carvings in Upper Egypt, the
first step was a _pictograph_, the actual figure, say, of a man,
standing for a given man, and then for any man or human being. Then this
figure, more or less reduced or conventionalised, served to indicate not
only the term _man_, but the full sound _man_, as in the word
_manifest_, and in the modern rebus. At this stage it becomes a
_phonogram_, or _phonoglyph_, which, when further reduced beyond all
recognition of its original form, may stand for the syllable _ma_ as in
_ma-ny_, without any further reference either to the idea or the sound
man. The phonogram has now become the symbol of a monosyllable, which is
normally made up of two elements, a consonant and a vowel, as in the
Devanagari, and other syllabic systems.
Lastly, by dropping the second or vowel element the same symbol, further
modified or not, becomes a _letter_ representing the sound _m_, that is,
one of the few ultimate elements of articulate speech. A more or less
complete set of such characters, thus worn down in form and meaning,
will then be available for indicating more or less completely all the
phonetic elements of any given language. It will be a true _alphabet_,
the wonderful nature of which may be inferred from the fact that only
two, or possibly three, such alphabetic systems are known with absolute
certainty to have ever been independently evolved by human
ingenuity[112]. From the above exposition we see how inevitably the
Phoenician parent of nearly all late alphabets expressed at first the
consonantal sounds only, so that the vowels or vowel marks are in all
cases later developments, as in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, the
Italic group, and the Runes.
In primitive systems, such as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese,
Maya-Quiche and Mexican, one or more of the various transitional steps
may be developed and used simultaneously, with a constant tendency to
advance on the lines above indicated, by gradual substitution of the
later for the earlier stages. A comparison of the Sumerian cuneiform and
Egyptian hieroglyphic systems brings out some curious results. Thus at
an extremely remote epoch, some millenniums ago, the Sumerians had
already got rid of the pictorial, and to a great extent of the
ideographic, but had barely reached the alphabetic phase. Consequently
their cuneiform groups, although possessing phonetic value, mainly
express full syllables, scarcely ever letters, and rarely complete
words. Ideographs had given place first to phonograms and then to mere
syllables, "complex syllables in which several consonants may be
distinguished, or simple syllables composed of only one consonant and
one vowel or _vice versa_[113]."
The Egyptians, on the other hand, carried the system right through the
whole gamut from pictures to letters, but retained all the intermediate
phases, the initial tending to fall away, the final to expand, while the
bulk of the hieroglyphs represented in various degrees the several
transitional states. In many cases they "had kept only one part of the
syllable, namely a mute consonant; they detached, for instance, the
final _u_ from _bu_ and _pu_, and gave only the values _b_ and _p_ to
the human leg [Hieroglyph Symbol] and to the mat [Hieroglyph Symbol].
The peoples of the Euphrates stopped half way, and admitted actual
letters for the vowel sounds _a_, _i_ and _u_ only[114]."
In the process of evolution, metaphor and analogy of course played a
large part, as in the evolution of language itself. Thus a lion might
stand both for the animal and for courage, and so on. The first essays
in phonetics took somewhat the form of a modern rebus, thus: [Hieroglyph
Symbol] = _khau_ = sieve, [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _pu_ = mat; [Hieroglyph
Symbol] = _ru_ = mouth, whence [Hieroglyph Symbol] = _kho-pi-ru_ = to
be, where the sounds and not the meaning of the several components are
alone attended to[115].
By analogous processes was formed a true alphabet, in which, however,
each of the phonetic elements was represented at first by several
different characters derived from several different words having the
same initial syllable. Here was, therefore, an _embarras de richesses_,
which could be got rid of only by a judicious process of elimination,
that is, by discarding all like-sounding symbols but one for the same
sound. When this final process of reduction was completed by the
scribes, in other words, when all the phonetic signs were rejected
except 23, _i.e._ one for each of the 23 phonetic elements, the
Phoenician alphabet as we now have it was completed. Such may be taken
as the real origin of this system, whether the scribes in question were
Babylonians, Egyptians, Minaeans, or Europeans, that is, whether the
Phoenician alphabet had a cuneiform, a hieroglyphic, a South Arabian, a
Cretan (Aegean), Ligurian or Iberian origin, for all these and perhaps
other peoples have been credited with the invention. The time is not
yet ripe for deciding between these rival claimants[116].
But whatever be the source of the Phoenician, that of the Persian system
current under the Achaemenides is clear enough. It is a true alphabet of
37 characters, derived by some selective process directly from the
Babylonian cuneiforms, without any attempt at a modification of their
shapes. Hence although simple compared with its prototype, it is clumsy
enough compared with the Phoenician script, several of the letters
requiring groups of as many as four or even five "wedges" for their
expression. None of the other cuneiform systems also derived from the
Sumerian (the Assyrian, Elamite, Vannic, Medic) appear to have reached
the pure alphabetic state, all being still encumbered with numerous
complex syllabic characters. The subjoined table, for which I have to
thank T. G. Pinches, will help to show the genesis of the cuneiform
combinations from the earliest known pictographs. These pictographs
themselves are already reduced to the merest outlines of the original
pictorial representations. But no earlier forms, showing the gradual
transition from the primitive picture writing to the degraded
pictographs here given, have yet come to light[117].
Here it may be asked, What is to be thought of the already-mentioned
pebble-markings from the Mas-d'Azil Cave at the close of the Old Stone
Age? If they are truly phonetic, then we must suppose that palaeolithic
man not only invented an alphabetic writing system, but did this right
off by intuition, as it were, without any previous knowledge of letters.
At least no one will suggest that the Dordogne cave-dwellers were
already in possession of pictographic or other crude systems, from which
the Mas-d'Azil "script" might have been slowly evolved. Yet E. Piette,
who groups these pebbles, painted with peroxide of iron, in the four
categories of numerals, symbols, pictographs, and alphabetical
characters, states, in reference to these last, that 13 out of 23
Phoenician characters were equally Azilian graphic signs. He even
suggests that there may be an approach to an inscription in one group,
where, however, the mark indicating a stop implies a script running
Semitic-fashion from right to left, whereas the letters themselves seem
to face the other way[118]. G. G. MacCurdy[119], who accepts the
evidence for the existence of writing in Azilian, if not in Magdalenian
times, notes the close similarity between palaeolithic signs and
Phoenician, ancient Greek and Cypriote letters. But J. Dechelette[120],
reviewing (pp. 234, 236) the arguments against Piette's claims, points
out in conclusion (p. 320) the impossibility of admitting that the
population of Gaul could suddenly lose so beneficial a discovery as that
of writing. Yet thousands of years elapse before the earliest appearance
of epigraphic monuments.
[Illustration: EVOLUTION OF THE SUMERIAN CUNEIFORMS.]
A possible connection has been suggested by Sergi between the Mas-d'Azil
signs and the markings that have been discovered on the megalithic
monuments of North Africa, Brittany, and the British Isles. These are
all so rudimentary that resemblances are inevitable, and of themselves
afford little ground for necessary connections. Primitive man is but a
child, and all children bawl and scrawl much in the same way.
Nevertheless C. Letourneau[121] has taken the trouble to compare five
such scrawls from "Libyan inscriptions" now in the Bardo Museum, Tunis,
with similar or identical signs on Brittany and Irish dolmens. There is
the familiar circle plain and dotted [Symbol] [Symbol], the cross in its
simplest form [Symbol], the pothook and segmented square [Symbol], all
of which recur in the Phoenician, Keltiberian, Etruscan, Libyan or
Tuareg systems. Letourneau, however, who does not call them letters but
only "signes alphabetiformes," merely suggests that, if not phonetic
marks when first carved on the neolithic monuments, they may have become
so in later times. Against this it need only be urged that in later
times all these peoples were supplied with complete alphabetic systems
from the East as soon as they required them. By that time all the
peoples of the culture-zone were well-advanced into the historic period,
and had long forgotten the rude carvings of their neolithic forefathers.
Armed with a nearly perfect writing system, and the correlated cultural
appliances, the higher races soon took a foremost place in the general
progress of mankind, and gradually acquired a marked ascendancy, not
only over the less cultured populations of the globe, but in large
measure over the forces of nature herself. With the development of
navigation and improved methods of locomotion, inland seas, barren
wastes, and mountain ranges ceased to be insurmountable obstacles to
their movements, which within certain limits have never been arrested
throughout all recorded time.
Thus, during the long ages following the first peopling of the earth by
pleistocene man, fresh settlements and readjustments have been
continually in progress, although wholesale displacements must be
regarded as rare events. With few exceptions, the later migrations,
whether hostile or peaceful, were, for reasons already stated[122],
generally of a partial character, while certain insular regions, such as
America and Australia, remained little affected by such movements till
quite recent times. But for the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere
the results were none the less far-reaching. Continuous infiltrations
could not fail ultimately to bring about great modifications of early
types, while the ever-active principle of convergence tended to produce
a general uniformity amongst the new amalgams. Thus the great varietal
divisions, though undergoing slow changes from age to age, continued,
like all other zoological groups, to maintain a distinct regional
character.
Flinders Petrie has acutely observed that the only meaning the term
"race" now can have is that of a group of human beings, whose type has
become unified by their rate of assimilation exceeding the rate of
change produced by foreign elements[123]. We are also reminded by
Gustavo Tosti that "in the actual state of science the word 'race' is a
vague formula, to which nothing definite may be found to correspond. On
the one hand, the original races can only be said to belong to
palaeontology, while the more limited groups, now called races, are
nothing but peoples, or societies of peoples, brethren by civilization
more than by blood. The race thus conceived ends by identifying itself
with nationality[124]." Hence it has been asked why, on the principle of
convergence, a fusion of various races, if isolated long enough in a
given area, may not eventually lead to a new racial type, without
leaving any trace of its manifold origin[125].
Such new racial types would be normal for the later varietal groups,
just as the old types were normal for the earlier groups, and a general
application might be given to Topinard's famous dictum that _les peuples
seuls sont des realites_[126], that is, peoples alone--groups occupying
definite geographical areas--have an objective existence. Thus, the
notion of race, as a zoological expression in the sense of a pure breed
or strain, falls still more into the background, and, as Virchow aptly
remarks, "this term, which always implied something vague, has in recent
times become in the highest degree uncertain[127]."
Hence Ehrenreich treats the present populations of the earth rather as
zoological groups which have been developed in their several
geographical domains, and are to be distinguished not so much by their
bony structure as by their external characters, such as hair, colour,
and expression, and by their habitats and languages. None of these
factors can be overlooked, but it would seem that the character of the
hair forms the most satisfactory basis for a classification of mankind,
and this has therefore been adopted for the new edition of the present
work. It has the advantage of simplicity, without involving, or even
implying, any particular theory of racial or geographical origins. It
has stood the test of time, being proposed by Bory de Saint Vincent in
1827, and adopted by Huxley, Haeckel, Broca, Topinard and many others.
The three main varieties of hair are the _straight_, the _wavy_ and the
so-called _woolly_, termed respectively _Leiotrichous_, _Cymotrichous_
and _Ulotrichous_[128]. Straight hair usually falls straight down,
though it may curl at the ends, it is generally coarse and stiff, and is
circular in section. Wavy hair is undulating, forming long curves or
imperfect spirals, or closer rings or curls, and the section is more or
less elliptical. Woolly hair is characterised by numerous, close, often
interlocking spirals, 1-9 mm. in diameter, the section giving the form
of a lengthened ellipse. Straight hair is usually the longest, and
woolly hair the shortest, wavy hair occupying an intermediate position.
SCHEME OF CLASSIFICATION.
I. ULOTRICHI (Woolly-haired).
1. The African Negroes, Negrilloes, Bushmen.
2. The Oceanic Negroes: Papuans, Melanesians in part, Tasmanians,
Negritoes.
II. LEIOTRICHI (Straight-haired).
1. The Southern Mongols.
2. The Oceanic Mongols, Polynesians in part.
3. The Northern Mongols.
4. The American Aborigines.
III. CYMOTRICHI (Curly or Wavy-haired).
1. The Pre-Dravidians: Vedda, Sakai, etc., Australians.
2. The "Caucasic" peoples:
A. Southern Dolichocephals: Mediterraneans, Hamites, Semites,
Dravidians, Indonesians, Polynesians in part.
B. Northern Dolichocephals: Nordics, Kurds, Afghans, some
Hindus.
C. Brachycephals: Alpines, including the short Cevenoles
of Western and Central Europe, and tall Adriatics or
Dinarics of Eastern Europe and the Armenians of Western
Asia.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Thus Lucretius:
"Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta,
Sed prior aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus."
[67] J. Dechelette points out that the term Copper "Age" is not
justified for the greater part of Europe, as it suggests a demarcation
which does not exist and also a more thorough chemical analysis of early
metals than we possess. He prefers the term aeneolithic (_aeneus_,
copper, [Greek: lithos], stone), coined by the Italians, to denote the
period of transition, dating, according to Montelius, from about 2500
B.C. to 1900 B.C. _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du
Bronze_, 1910, pp. 99-100, 105.
[68] _Eth._, Chap. XIII.
[69] See G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, pp. 97-8.
[70] Paper on "The Transition from Pure Copper to Bronze," etc., read at
the Meeting of the Brit. Assoc. Liverpool, 1896.
[71] _Loc. cit._ p. 3. But cf. H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the
Near East_, 1912, pp. 33 and 90 _n._ 2.
[72] G. A. Reisner, _The Early Cemeteries of Naga-ed-der_ (University of
California Publications), 1908, and _Report of the Archaeological Survey
of Nubia_, 1907-8.
[73] "Campagnes de 1907-8," _Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, 1908, p. 373.
[74] Cf. J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1,
_Age du Bronze_, 1910, pp. 53-4.
[75] Cf. L. W. King, _A History of Sumer and Akkad_, 1910, p. 26.
[76] G. Coffey, _The Bronze Age in Ireland_, 1913, p. 6.
[77] _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 526 sq. This antiquary aptly remarks
that "l'expression age de cuivre a une signification bien precise comme
s'appliquant a la partie de la periode de la pierre polie ou les metaux
font leur apparition."
[78] _L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 526 sq.
[79] In _Die Kupferzeit in Europa_, 1886.
[80] "Neuere Studien ueber die Kupferzeit," in _Zeitschr. f. Eth._ 1896,
No. 2.
[81] Otto Helm, "Chemische Untersuchungen vorgeschichtlicher Bronzen,"
in _Zeitschr. f. Eth._ 1897, No. 2. This authority agrees with Hampel's
view that further research will confirm the suggestion that in
Transylvania (Hungary) "eine Kupfer-Antimonmischung vorangegangen,
welche zugleich die Bronzekultur vorbereitete" (_ib._ p. 128).
[82] _Proc. Soc. Bib. Archaeol._ 1892, pp. 223-6.
[83] For the chronology of the Copper and Bronze Ages see p. 27.
[84] Copper and tin are found together in abundance in Southern China,
but this is archaeologically speaking an unknown land; "to search for
the birth-place of bronze in China is therefore barren of positive
results," _British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_,
1904, p. 10.
[85] T. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, 1907, pp. 483-498.
[86] _British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_, 1904,
p. 10.
[87] J. de Morgan, _Les Premieres Civilisations_, 1909, pp. 169, 337 ff.
[88] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du
Bronze_, 1910, pp. 98 and 397 ff.
[89] J. Dechelette, _loc. cit._ p. 63 _n._
[90] G. Coffey, _The Bronze Age in Ireland_, 1913, pp. V, 78.
[91] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du
Bronze_, 1910, p. 355 _n._
[92] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum),
1905, p. 2.
[93] Wainwright, "Pre-dynastic iron beads in Egypt," _Man_, 1911, p.
177. See also H. R. Hall, "Note on the early use of iron in Egypt,"
_Man_, 1903, p. 147.
[94] W. Belck attributes the introduction of iron into Crete in 1500
B.C. to the Phoenicians, whom he derives from the neighbourhood of the
Persian Gulf. He suggests that these traders were already acquainted
with the metal in S. Arabia in the fourth millennium, and that it was
through them that a piece found its way into Egypt in the fourth
dynasty. "Die Erfinder des Eisentechnik," _Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie_,
1910. See also F. Stuhlmann, _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_,
1910, p. 49 ff., who on cultural grounds derives the knowledge of iron
in Africa from an Asiatic source.
[95] E. Meyer, "Aegyptische Chronologie," _Abh. Berl. Akad._ 1904, and
"Nachtraege," _ib._ 1907. This chronology has been adopted by the Berlin
school and others, but is unsatisfactory in allowing insufficient time
for Dynasties XII to XVIII, which are known to contain 100 to 200
rulers. Flinders Petrie therefore adds another Sothic period (1461
years, calculated from Sothis or Sirius), thus throwing the earlier
dynasties a millennium or two further back. Dynasty I, according to this
computation starts in 5546 B.C. and Dynasty XII at 3779. H. R. Hall,
_The Ancient History of the Near East_, 1912, p. 23.
[96] L. W. King, _The History of Sumer and Akkad_, 1910, and
"Babylonia," Hutchinson's _History of the Nations_, 1914.
[97] C. H. Hawes and H. Boyd Hawes, _Crete the Forerunner of Greece_,
1909.
[98] J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 1, _Age du
Bronze_, 1910, p. 61.
[99] J. Dechelette, _loc. cit._ p. 105 ff. based on the work of O.
Montelius and P. Reinecke.
[100] The Dynasty of Akkad is often dated a millennium earlier, relying
on the statement of Nabonidus (556-540 B.C.) that Naram-Sin (the
traditional son of Sargon of Akkad) reigned 3200 years before him; but
this statement is now known to be greatly exaggerated. See the section
on chronology in the Art. "Babylonia," in _Ency. Brit._ 1910.
[101] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum),
1905, p. 1.
[102] Cf. J. Dechelette, _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, II. 2,
_Premier Age du Fer_, 1913, pp. 546, 562-3.
[103] _The Early Age of Greece_, 1900, pp. 594-630.
[104] "Die Hallstattperiode," _Ass. francaise p. l'av. des sciences_,
1905, p. 278, and _Kultur der Urzeit_, III. _Eisenzeit_, 1912, p. 54.
[105] "Ein Schaedel aus der aelteren Hallstattzeit," in _Verhandl. Berlin.
Ges. f. Anthrop._ 1896, pp. 243-6.
[106] _Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (British Museum),
1905, p. 8.
[107] Hans Seger, "Figuerliche Darstellungen auf schlesischen
Graebgefaessen der Hallstattzeit," _Globus_, Nov. 20, 1897.
[108] _Ibid._ p. 297.
[109] Homer's [Greek: hemitheon genos andron], _Il._ XII. 23, if the
passage is genuine.
[110] Such as the Greek _Andreas_, the "First Man," invented in
comparatively recent times, as shown by the intrusive _d_ in [Greek:
andres] for the earlier [Greek: aneres], "men." Andreas was of course a
Greek, sprung in fact from the river Peneus and the first inhabitant of
the Orchomenian plain (Pausanias, IX. 34, 5).
[111] For instance, the flooding of the Thessalian plain, afterwards
drained by the Peneus and repeopled by the inhabitants of the
surrounding mountains (rocks, stones), whence the myth of Deucalion and
Pyrrha, who are told by the oracle to repeople the world by throwing
behind them the "bones of their grandmother," that is, the "stones" of
mother Earth.
[112] Such instances as George Guest's Cherokee system, and the crude
attempt of a Vei (West Sudanese) Negro, if genuine, are not here in
question, as both had the English alphabet to work upon. A like remark
applies to the old Irish and Welsh Ogham, which are more curious than
instructive, the characters, mostly mere groups of straight strokes,
being obvious substitutes for the corresponding letters of the Roman
alphabet, hence comparable to the cryptographic systems of Wheatstone
and others.
[113] Maspero, _The Dawn of Civilisation_, 1898, p. 728.
[114] _Ibid._
[115] _Ibid._ p. 233.
[116] See P. Giles, Art. "Alphabet," _Ency. Brit._ 1910.
[117] See A. J. Booth, _The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual
Cuneiform Inscriptions_, 1902.
[118] _L'Anthr_. XV. 1904, p. 164.
[119] _Recent Discoveries bearing on the Antiquity of Man in Europe_
(Smithsonian Report for 1909), 1910, p. 566 ff.
[120] _Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique_, I. 1908.
[121] "Les signes libyques des dolmens," _Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop._ 1896, p.
319.
[122] _Eth._ Chap. XIII.
[123] _Address_, Meeting British Assoc. Ipswich, 1895.
[124] _Amer. J. of Sociology_, Jan. 1898, pp. 467-8.
[125] A. Vierkandt, _Globus_, 72, p. 134.
[126] _Elements d'Anthropologie Generale_, p. 207.
[127] _Rassenbildung u. Erblichkeit_; _Bastian-Festschrift_, 1896, p. 1.
[128] From Gk. [Greek: leios], smooth, [Greek: kuma], wave, [Greek:
oulos], fleecy, and [Greek: thrix], [Greek: trichos], hair. J. Deniker
(_The Races of Man_, 1900, p. 38) distinguishes four classes, the
Australians, Nubians etc. being grouped as _frizzy_. He gives the
corresponding terms in French and German:--straight, Fr. _droit_,
_lisse_, Germ. _straff_, _schlicht_; wavy, Fr. _onde_, Germ. _wellig_;
frizzy, Fr. _frise_, Germ. _lockig_; woolly, Fr. _crepu_, Germ. _kraus_.