Ancient skeletons of men of the modern type have been found in many
places, e.g. Combe Capelle in Dordogne, Galley Hill in Kent, Cro-Magnon
in Périgord, Mentone on the Riviera; and they are often referred to as
"Cave-men" or "men of the Early Stone Age." They had large skulls, high
foreheads, well-marked chins, and other features such as modern man
possesses. They were true men at last--that is to say, like ourselves!
The spirited pictures they made on the walls of caves in France and
Spain show artistic sense and skill. Well-finished statuettes
representing nude female figures are also known. The elaborate burial
customs point to a belief in life after death. They made stone
implements--knives, scrapers, gravers, and the like, of the type known
as Palæolithic, and these show interesting gradations of skill and
peculiarities of style. The "Cave-men" lived between the third and
fourth Ice Ages, along with cave-bear, cave-lion, cave-hyæna, mammoth,
woolly rhinoceros, Irish elk, and other mammals now extinct--taking us
back to 30,000-50,000 years ago, and many would say much more. Some of
the big-brained skulls of these Palæolithic cave-men show not a single
feature that could be called primitive. They show teeth which in size
and form are exactly the same as those of a thousand generations
afterwards--and suffering from gumboil too! There seems little doubt
that these vigorous Palæolithic Cave-men of Europe were living for a
while contemporaneously with the men of Neanderthal, and it is possible
that they directly or indirectly hastened the disappearance of their
more primitive collaterals. Curiously enough, however, they had not
themselves adequate lasting power in Europe, for they seem for the most
part to have dwindled away, leaving perhaps stray present-day survivors
in isolated districts. The probability is that after their decline
Europe was repeopled by immigrants from Asia. It cannot be said that
there is any inherent biological necessity for the decline of a vigorous
race--many animal races go back for millions of years--but in mankind
the historical fact is that a period of great racial vigour and success
is often followed by a period of decline, sometimes leading to practical
disappearance as a definite race. The causes of this waning remain very
obscure--sometimes environmental, sometimes constitutional, sometimes
competitive. Sometimes the introduction of a new parasite, like the
malaria organism, may have been to blame.
After the Ice Ages had passed, perhaps 25,000 years ago, the Palæolithic
culture gave place to the Neolithic. The men who made rudely dressed but
often beautiful stone implements were succeeded or replaced by men who
made polished stone implements. The earliest inhabitants of Scotland
were of this Neolithic culture, migrating from the Continent when the
ice-fields of the Great Glaciation had disappeared. Their remains are
often associated with the "Fifty-foot Beach" which, though now high and
dry, was the seashore in early Neolithic days. Much is known about these
men of the polished stones. They were hunters, fowlers, and fishermen;
without domesticated animals or agriculture; short folk, two or three
inches below the present standard; living an active strenuous life.
Similarly, for the south, Sir Arthur Keith pictures for us a Neolithic
community at Coldrum in Kent, dating from about 4,000 years ago--a few
ticks of the geological clock. It consisted, in this case, of
agricultural pioneers, men with large heads and big brains, about two
inches shorter in stature than the modern British average (5 ft. 8 in.),
with better teeth and broader palates than men have in these days of
soft food, with beliefs concerning life and death similar to those that
swayed their contemporaries in Western and Southern Europe. Very
interesting is the manipulative skill they showed on a large scale in
erecting standing stones (probably connected with calendar-keeping and
with worship), and on a small scale in making daring operations on the
skull. Four thousand years ago is given as a probable date for that
early community in Kent, but evidences of Neolithic man occur in
situations which demand a much greater antiquity--perhaps 30,000 years.
And man was not young then!
[Illustration: PAINTINGS ON THE ROOF OF THE ALTAMIRA CAVE IN NORTHERN
SPAIN, SHOWING A BISON ABOVE AND A GALLOPING BOAR BELOW
The artistic drawings, over 2 feet in length, were made by the Reindeer
Men or "Cromagnards" in the time of the Upper or Post-Glacial
Pleistocene, before the appearance of the Neolithic men.]
We must open one more chapter in the thrilling story of the Ascent of
Man--the Metal Ages, which are in a sense still continuing. Metals began
to be used in the late Polished Stone (Neolithic) times, for there were
always overlappings. Copper came first, Bronze second, and Iron last.
The working of copper in the East has been traced back to the fourth
millennium B.C., and there was also a very ancient Copper Age in the New
World. It need hardly be said that where copper is scarce, as in
Britain, we cannot expect to find much trace of a Copper Age.
The ores of different metals seem to have been smelted together in an
experimental way by many prehistoric metallurgists, and bronze was the
alloy that rewarded the combination of tin with copper. There is
evidence of a more or less definite Bronze Age in Egypt and Babylonia,
Greece and Europe.
It is not clear why iron should not have been the earliest metal to be
used by man, but the Iron Age dates from about the middle of the second
millennium B.C. From Egypt the usage spread through the Mediterranean
region to North Europe, or it may have been that discoveries made in
Central Europe, so rich in iron-mines, saturated southwards, following
for instance, the route of the amber trade from the Baltic. Compared
with stone, the metals afforded much greater possibilities of
implements, instruments, and weapons, and their discovery and usage had
undoubtedly great influence on the Ascent of Man. Occasionally, however,
on his descent.