Earliest Traces of Modern Man
The Culture Ages--Ancient Races--The Neanderthals--Crô-Magnon
Man--The Evolution Theory--Palæolithic Ages--The Transition
Period--Neanderthal Artifacts--Birth of Crô-Magnon
Art--Occupations of Flint-yielding Stations--Ravages of
Disease--Duration of Glacial and Inter-glacial Periods.
In 1865, Sir John Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury), writing in the
_Prehistoric Times_, suggested that the Stone Age artifacts found in
Western Europe should be classified into two main periods, to which
he applied the terms Palæolithic (Old Stone) and Neolithic (New
Stone). The foundations of the classification had previously been
laid by the French antiquaries M. Boucher de Perthes and Edouard
Lartet. It was intended that Palæolithic should refer to rough
stone implements, and Neolithic to those of the period when certain
artifacts were polished.
At the time very little was known regarding the early peoples who had
pursued the flint-chipping and polishing industries, and the science
of geology was in its infancy. A great controversy, which continued
for many years, was being waged in scientific circles regarding
the remains of a savage primitive people that had been brought to
light. Of these the most notable were a woman's skull found in 1848
in a quarry at Gibraltar, the Cannstadt skull, found in 1700, which
had long been lying in Stuttgart Museum undescribed and unstudied,
and portions of a male skeleton taken from a limestone cave in
Neanderthal, near Dusseldorf, in 1857. Some refused to believe that
these, and other similar remains subsequently discovered, were human
at all; others declared that the skulls were those of idiots or that
they had been distorted by disease. Professor Huxley contended that
evidence had been forthcoming to prove the existence in remote times
of a primitive race from which modern man had evolved.
It is unnecessary here to review the prolonged controversy. One of
its excellent results was the stimulation of research work. A number
of important finds have been made during the present century, which
have thrown a flood of light on the problem. In 1908 a skeleton was
discovered in a grotto near La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, which
definitely established the fact that during the earlier or lower
period of the Palæolithic Age a Neanderthal race existed on the
Continent, and, as other remains testify, in England as well. This
race became extinct. Some hold that there are no living descendants
of Neanderthal man on our globe; others contend that some peoples, or
individuals, reveal Neanderthaloid traits. The natives of Australia
display certain characteristics of the extinct species, but they
are more closely related to Modern Man (_Homo sapiens_). There were
pre-Neanderthal peoples, including Piltdown man and Heidelberg man.
During the Palæolithic Age the ancestors of modern man appeared in
Western Europe. These are now known as the Crô-Magnon races.
In dealing with the Palæolithic Age, therefore, it has to be borne in
mind that the artifacts classified by the archæologists represent the
activities, not only of different races, but of representatives of
different species of humanity. Neanderthal man, who differed greatly
from Modern man, is described as follows by Professor Elliot Smith:
"His short, thick-set, and coarsely built body was carried in a
half-stooping slouch upon short, powerful, and half-flexed legs
of peculiarly ungraceful form. His thick neck sloped forward
from the broad shoulders to support the massive flattened head,
which protruded forward, so as to form an unbroken curve of
neck and back, in place of the alteration of curves, which
is one of the graces of the truly erect _Homo sapiens_. The
heavy overhanging eyebrow ridges, and retreating forehead,
the great coarse face, with its large eye-sockets, broad
nose, and receding chin, combined to complete the picture of
unattractiveness, which it is more probable than not was still
further emphasized by a shaggy covering of hair over most of
the body. The arms were relatively short, and the exceptionally
large hands lacked the delicacy and the nicely balanced
co-operation of thumb and fingers, which is regarded as one of
the most distinctive of human characteristics."[4]
[4] _Primitive Man._
As Professor Osborn says: "the structure of the hand is a matter
of the highest interest in connection with the implement-making
powers of the Neanderthals". He notes that in the large and robust
Neanderthal hand, "the joint of the metacarpal bone which supports
the thumb is of peculiar form, convex, and presenting a veritable
convex condyle, whereas in the existing human races the articular
surface of the upper part of the thumb joint is saddle-shaped, that
is concave from within backward, and convex from without inward". The
Neanderthal fingers were "relatively short and robust".[5]
[5] _Men of the Old Stone Age_ (1916), pp. 240-1.
The Crô-Magnons present a sharp contrast to the Neanderthals. In all
essential features they were of modern type. They would, dressed in
modern attire, pass through the streets of a modern city without
particular notice being taken of them. One branch of the Crô-Magnons
was particularly tall and handsome, with an average height for the
males of 6 feet 1-1/2 inches, with chests very broad in the upper
part, and remarkably long shin-bones that indicate swiftness of foot.
The Neanderthals had short shins and bent knees, and their gait must
have been slow and awkward. The Crô-Magnon hand was quite like that
of the most civilized men of to-day.
It is of importance to bring out these facts in connection with
the study of the development of early civilization in our native
land, because of the prevalence of the theory that in collections
of stone implements, dating from remote Palæolithic times till the
Neolithic Age, a complete and orderly series of evolutionary stages
can be traced. "As like needs", says one writer in this connection,
"produce like means of satisfaction, the contrivances with which men
in similar stages of progress overcome natural obstacles are in all
times very much the same."[6] Hugh Miller, the Cromarty stonemason
and geologist, was one of the first to urge this view. In 1835, he
wrote in his _Scenes and Legends_, (1st edition, pp. 31, 32):
"Man in a savage stage is the same animal everywhere, and his
constructive powers, whether employed in the formation of a
legendary story or of a battleaxe, seem to expatiate almost
everywhere in the same rugged track of invention. For even the
traditions of this first stage may be identified, like its
weapons of war, all the world over."[7]
[6] _British Museum--A Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone
Age_, p. 76 (1900).
[7] Miller had adopted the "stratification theory" of Professor
William Robertson of Edinburgh University, who, in his _The
History of America_ (1777), wrote: "Men in their savage state
pass their days like the animals round them, without knowledge or
veneration of any superior power".
He had written in this vein after seeing the collection of stone
weapons and implements in the Northern Institution at Inverness. "The
most practised eye", he commented, "can hardly distinguish between
the weapons of the Old Scot and the New Zealander." Eyes have become
more practised in dealing with flints since Miller's time. Andrew
Lang remembered his Miller when he wrote:
"Now just as the flint arrowheads are scattered everywhere, in
all the continents and isles--and everywhere are much alike,
and bear no very definite marks of the special influence of
race--so it is with the habits and legends investigated by the
student of folk-lore".[8]
[8] _Custom and Myth_ (1910 edition), p. 13. Lang's views
regarding flints are worthless.
The recent discovery that the early flints found in Western
Europe and in England were shaped by the Neanderthals and the
pre-Neanderthals compels a revision of this complacent view of an
extraordinarily difficult and complex problem. It is obvious that
the needs and constructive powers of the Neanderthals, whose big
clumsy hands lacked "the delicate play between the thumb and fingers
characteristic of modern races", could not have been the same as
those of the Crô-Magnons, and that the finely shaped implements of
the Crô-Magnons could not have been evolved from the rough implements
of the Neanderthals. The craftsmen of one race may, however, have
imitated, or attempted to imitate, the technique of those of another.
There was a distinct break in the continuity of culture during the
Palæolithic Age, caused by the arrival in Western Europe of the
ancestors of Modern Man. The advent of the Crô-Magnons in Europe
"represents on the cultural side", as Professor Elliot Smith says in
_Primitive Man_, "the most momentous event in its history".
[Illustration: Mousterian type
(from Suffolk)]
[Illustration: Acheulian type
(from Suffolk)]
[Illustration: Photos. Oxford University Press
Chellean type
(from the Thames gravel)]
[Illustration:
Photo. Mansell
EXAMPLES OF LOWER PALÆOLITHIC INDUSTRIES FOUND IN ENGLAND
(British Museum)]
Some urge that the term "Palæolithic" should now be discarded
altogether, but its use has become so firmly established that
archæologists are loth to dispense with it. The first period of
human culture has, however, had to be divided into "Lower" and
"Upper Palæolithic"--Lower closing with the disappearance of
the Neanderthals, and Upper beginning with the arrival of the
Crô-Magnons. These periods embrace the sub-divisions detected during
the latter half of last century by the French archæologists, and are
now classified as follows:
Lower Palæolithic--
1. Pre-Chellean.
2. Chellean (named after the town of Chelles, east of Paris).
3. Acheulian (named after St. Acheul in Somme valley).
4. Mousterian (named after the caves of Le Moustier in the
valley of the River Vézère).
Upper Palæolithic--
1. Aurignacian (named after Aurignac, Haute Garonne).
2. Solutrean (named after Solutré, Saône-et-Loire).
3. Magdalenian (named after La Madeleine in the valley of the
River Vézère).
Then follows, in France, the Azilian stage (named after Mas d'Azil,
a town at the foot of the Pyrenees) which is regarded as the link
between Upper Palæolithic and Neolithic. But in Western Europe,
including Britain, there were really three distinct cultures during
the so-called "Transition Period". These are the Azilian, the
Tardenoisian, and the Maglemosian. These cultures were associated
with the movements of new peoples in Europe.
The pre-Chellean flints (also called Eoliths) were wrought by the
pre-Neanderthals. Chellean probably represents the earliest work
in Europe of a pre-Neanderthal type like Piltdown man. The most
characteristic implement of this phase is the _coup de poing_
or pear-shaped "hand axe", which was at first roughly shaped and
unsymmetrical. It was greatly improved during the Acheulian stage,
and after being finely wrought in Mousterian times, when it was not
much used, was supplanted by smaller and better chipped implements.
The Neanderthals practised the Mousterian industry.
[Illustration: Chellean _Coup de Poing_ or "Hand Axe" Right-hand
view shows sinuous cutting edge.]
A profound change occurred when the Aurignacian stage of culture was
inaugurated by the intruding Crô-Magnons. Skilled workers chipped
flint in a new way, and, like the contemporary inhabitants of North
Africa, shaped artifacts from bone; they also used reindeer horn, and
the ivory tusks of mammoths. The birth of pictorial art took place in
Europe after the Crô-Magnons arrived.
It would appear that the remnants of the Neanderthals in the late
Mousterian stage of culture were stimulated by the arrival of the
Crô-Magnons to imitate new flint forms and adopt the new methods
of workmanship. There is no other evidence to indicate that the
Crô-Magnons came into contact with communities of the Neanderthals.
In these far-off days Europe was thinly peopled by hunters who
dwelt in caves. The climate was cold, and the hairy mammoth and
the reindeer browsed in the lowlands of France and Germany. Italy
was linked with Africa; the grass-lands of North Africa stretched
southward across the area now known as the Sahara desert, and dense
forests fringed the banks of the River Nile and extended eastward to
the Red Sea.
Neanderthal man had originally entered Europe when the climate was
much milder than it is in our own time. He crossed over from Africa
by the Italian land-bridge, and he found African fauna, including
species of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, and the
hyæna, jackal, and sabre-tooth tiger in Spain, France, Germany.
Thousands of years elapsed and the summers became shorter, and the
winters longer and more severe, until the northern fauna began to
migrate southward, and the African fauna deserted the plains and
decaying forests of Europe. Then followed the Fourth Glacial phase,
and when it was passing away the Neanderthals, who had long been in
the Mousterian phase of culture, saw bands of Crô-Magnons prospecting
and hunting in southern Europe. The new-comers had migrated from some
centre of culture in North Africa, and appear to have crossed over
the Italian land-bridge. It is unlikely that many, if any, entered
Europe from the east. At the time the Black Sea was more than twice
its present size, and glaciers still blocked the passes of Asia Minor.
A great contrast was presented by the two types of mankind. The
short, powerfully built, but slouching and slow-footed Neanderthals
were, in a conflict, no match for the tall, active, and swift-footed
Crô-Magnons, before whom they retreated, yielding up their
flint-working stations, and their caves and grottoes. It may be,
as some suggest, that fierce battles were fought, but there is no
evidence of warfare; it may be that the Neanderthals succumbed to
imported diseases, as did so many thousands of the inhabitants of
the Amazon Valley, when measles and other diseases were introduced
by the Spaniards. The fact remains that the Neanderthals died out
as completely as did the Tasmanians before the advance of British
settlers. We do not know whether or not they resisted, for a time,
the intrusion of strangers on their hunting-grounds. It may be that
the ravages of disease completed the tragic history of such relations
as they may have had with the ancestors of Modern Man.
At this point, before we deal with the arrival in Britain of
the representatives of the early races, it should be noted that
differences of opinion exist among scientists regarding the
geological horizons of the Palæolithic culture stages. In the
Pleistocene Age there appear to have been four great glacial epochs
and two minor ones. Geological opinion is, however, divided in this
connection.
[Illustration: WESTERN EUROPE DURING THE THIRD INTER-GLACIAL EPOCH
(According to the Abbé Breuil the Strait of Gibraltar was open
and the Balearic group a great island.)]
During the First Glacial epoch the musk-ox, now found in the Arctic
regions, migrated as far south as Sussex. The Pliocene[9] mammals
were not, however, completely exterminated; many of them survived
until the First Interglacial epoch, which lasted for about 75,000
years--that is three times longer than the First Glacial epoch. The
Second Glacial epoch is believed to have extended over 25,000 years.
It brought to the southern shores of the Baltic Sea the reindeer
and the hairy mammoth. Then came the prolonged Second Interglacial
stage which prevailed for about 200,000 years. The climate of Europe
underwent a change until it grew warmer than it is at the present
day, and trees, not now found farther north than the Canary Islands,
flourished in the forests of southern France. The Third Glacial stage
gradually came on, grew in intensity, and then declined during a
period estimated at about 25,000 years. It was followed by the Third
Interglacial epoch which may have extended over at least 100,000
years. African animals returned to Europe and mingled with those
that wandered from Asia and the survivors in Europe of the Second
Interglacial fauna. The Fourth Glacial epoch, which is believed
to have lasted for about 25,000 years, was very severe. All the
African or Asiatic mammals either migrated or became extinct with the
exception of lions and hyænas, and the reindeer found the western
plains of Europe as congenial as it does the northern plains at the
present time.
[9] The last division of the Tertiary period.
During the Fourth Post-glacial epoch there were for a period of about
25,000 years[10] partial glaciations and milder intervals, until
during the Neolithic Age of the archæologists the climate of Europe
reached the phase that at present prevails.
[10] It must be borne in mind that the lengths of these periods
are subject to revision. Opinion is growing that they were not
nearly so long as here stated.
When, then, did man first appear in Europe? According to some
geologists, and especially Penck and James Geikie, the Chellean
phase of culture originated in the Second Interglacial epoch and
the Mousterian endured until the Third Interglacial stage, when
the Neanderthals witnessed the arrival of the Crô-Magnon peoples.
Boule, Breuil, and others, however, place the pre-Chellean,
Chellean, Acheulian, and early Mousterian stages of Lower (or Early)
Palæolithic culture in the Third Interglacial epoch, and fix the
extermination of Neanderthal man, in his late Mousterian culture
stage, at the close of the Fourth Glacial epoch. This view is now
being generally accepted. It finds favour with the archæologists,
and seems to accord with the evidence they have accumulated. The
Upper Palæolithic culture of Crô-Magnon man, according to some, began
in its Aurignacian phase about 25,000 years ago; others consider,
however, that it began about five or six thousand years ago, and was
contemporaneous with the long pre-Dynastic civilization of Egypt. At
the time England was connected with the Continent by a land-bridge,
and as the climate grew milder the ancestors of modern man could walk
across from France to the white cliffs of Dover which were then part
of a low range of mountains. As will be shown, there is evidence that
the last land movement in Britain did not begin until about 3000 B.C.