THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
UNDER this head several questions arise:
1. _Is the human family older than the Adam of Scripture history?_
2. _How far back really is the date of Adam?_ _i. e._ How many years
intervened from Adam to the flood and how many to the Christian era?
Subsidiary questions are――
(a.) Were there one or more races of primeval men pre-Adamic but now
extinct?
(b.) Have there been various “_head-centers_” of the existing human
family; or only one and that Adam? Or (the same question in another
form) are all the living varieties of race lineally descended from Adam
and all from Noah?
The special interest of these questions will hinge upon their relation
to the Scriptures――_i. e._ their supposed or real bearing upon the
truth of the Scripture history――the friends of the Bible desiring to
know whether any well sustained facts exist to affect its credit, or
to modify its currently received interpretation: and on the other hand,
men whose sympathies are not with the Bible, being inquisitive to see
if by any means its authority can be impugned or impaired.――――It is
obvious that this sort of special interest, for or against the Bible,
is liable to affect the candor and fairness of the investigation on
either side. The friends of the Bible, however, have really not the
least occasion to fear for its stability. It is indeed possible that
our interpretation of its chronology may require modification――but
always and only toward truth. Also we may have erred in supposing the
Bible to have taught what it never intended to teach. But the real word
of God can have nothing to fear from the advance of human science――that
is to say, from the real knowledge of actual facts.――――With the utmost
composure, therefore, we welcome all candid investigation, subjecting
every new theory to appropriate scrutiny, sifting the evidence on which
it rests with no prejudice for or against the conclusions to which it
may compel us.
1. _The high antiquity_ claimed for man is fitly the first question in
order. Here the evidence comes and of necessity must come
(1.) From _traces of man_ upon the crust of the earth, _i. e._ in the
rock-strata, the drift-deposits, or in caves and lake-dwellings, or in
monuments of human labor and skill:
And (2.) from the traditions of the most ancient nations and the high
antiquity of their existence, civilization, and monuments.
Under the first head the traces are either
(A.) _Remains of the human skeleton_; or
(B.) _Remains of man’s work and of his tools._
(A.) As to the _remains of the human skeleton_.
By universal admission these remains are not found in the rocks that
bear in abundance the fossil vegetables of the third great epoch of
creation; nor in those yet higher strata that contain the oldest forms
of animal life whose home is in the waters; nor is man found with the
reptiles, say of the fifth day of creation; nor indeed until we come to
deposits of the most recent date, of a kind at least similar to those
which are known to be forming within the historic age of man.
From these admitted facts I make this special point, viz. that if man
had lived on the earth contemporary with the oldest animal species,
we ought to find not merely one skeleton or half a skeleton buried
along-side of myriads of fossil sea-shells and fishes, but a fair show
of specimens, so many at least as to leave no question as to his being
a joint occupant with them of the earth as it then was. One or two,
or even a dozen skeletons, gathered from every explored portion of the
earth’s surface, are too few for the base of a theory like this because
such scattered cases, in number so meager, are always subject, more or
less, to abatement from the following possibilities:
(a.) The human family in all ages have buried their dead, and often,
during the earlier ages, in rock-hewn sepulchers or in natural caves;
(b.) In all ages of the world men have been liable to fall into
rock-fissures and ravines and to die there; and to leave their
skeletons to become fossil there, particularly in calcareous and
similar rocks where decomposition or solution in water and new deposits
are in progress;
(c.) Men have been wont to frequent caves for shelter, for safety
in war or from persecution, and consequently might leave their bones
there; or
(d.) Their bones may have been dragged into caverns by flesh-eating
animals or borne into strange positions by underground currents of
water; or again,
(e.) Since the historic Adam, drift deposits have in some circumstances
been forming under water, in which waters men have been liable to be
drowned and their skeletons to become imbedded in those deposits.
Changes of elevation may bring such deposits to view.
Such possibilities must practically nullify confidence in the proof
of man’s high antiquity from his bones so long as the specimens are so
exceedingly few and even these few found only quite near the surface.
This argument will be appreciated by those who duly consider, on the
one hand, that if man were on the earth in those pre-Adamic ages, it is
in the highest degree improbable that his population ranged at a dozen
for the area of all France, and a few hundreds only to a continent――for
what should forbid him as well as the lower animals to “be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth”? Besides, a population so sparse and
consequently weak could have made no stand against armies of hyenas,
leopards, bears and lions.――――On the other hand, the occurrence of
human bones, in numbers so very few and so remote from each other,
will be much more rationally accounted for by the possibilities above
indicated.
Yet let it be understood:――The way is open for any extent of further
investigation. We have no occasion to fear the result of the search.
Let the rocks be torn up and examined; let mountains be tunneled and
canals be dug; let railroad grading go where it will; if the human
skeleton should be found where none of these or similar possibilities
admit its date since Adam, we will certainly give the case all due
consideration and weight.
(B.) Next is the argument _from man’s work and from his tools_.
Here a larger field opens. My limits scarcely allow me to do more
than indicate briefly the present state of the question.――――Thus far
explorations have been mostly restricted to Northern and Western Europe,
say north of the Alps and of ancient Greece, in the regions anciently
known as Gaul, Germany, Scandinavia and Britain. The supposed remains
of man’s tools and work are found chiefly in caves and lake-dwellings,
or under drift, and only to a small extent in monuments above the
present surface. The lake-dwellings specially referred to are in
Switzerland, where during the very dry winter of 1853–4 several
remarkable villages were found built on piles below, the present
average watermark, which were once without doubt the abodes of men,
with quite abundant traces indicating their modes of life, civilization,
implements, and the contemporary animal races.[13]
The various stages of civilization developed in these ancient remains
have been usually classified under three heads:
1. The _Stone age_, in which man’s cutting implements, working tools
and weapons of war, were of stone. This age is sometimes subdivided,
the older part being called “Palaeolithic” [old stone], and the more
recent, “Neolithic” [new stone].
2. The _Bronze age_, its implements being chiefly of copper or brass.
3. The _Iron age_, where iron first appears.
Now the great question――the only one that comes within our range of
inquiry――is the _date_ of these traces of ancient men. When did the men
of the Stone age and of the Bronze and the Iron age live?
In the outset, it can not be assumed reasonably that this stone-age
civilization, apparent in Northern and Western Europe, was _necessarily
universal at that time over all the earth_. It may have been coeval
with the very high civilization of Egypt and even of Babylonia,
Phenicia, Etruria. We must consider that large portions of the world in
those early times were unknown to each other, even as interior Africa
has been unknown to the civilized world almost to this very hour. It
is therefore entirely an open question――Was this stone-age civilization
pre-Adamic? Was it anterior to Noah; or shall its place in the ages be
found contemporaneous with the early civilized nations of known history?
It is important here to premise yet further that the earth’s surface
has at no very remote period experienced considerable elevations and
depressions and changes of temperature. Especially there are proofs
of an extraordinary period of glaciers and icebergs, by means of
which huge bowlders have been transported from their ancient beds
and scattered afar, and vast masses of debris, rocks ground down and
pulverized, mixed with sand, gravel, and small stones, have been heaped
up along the line of the glaciers and spread over their track. It is
not easy to conceive the full measure of _utility_ resulting from this
great ice-flood and glacier movement, in grinding the surface of the
rocky strata and mixing this finely pulverized matter with decomposed
vegetable elements to prepare soil for our earth’s surface.
The opinion is becoming general that man was not placed upon the earth
until _after_ this glacial and ice-bound age. He could not have lived
here then: certainly not in portions reached by glacial action and ice
floods; the earth was not ready for him till afterwards. No decisive
traces of his presence at an earlier period have been found. Such
traces appear shortly after.
The problem of the _time_ of man’s first appearance upon the earth
is for the most part one _of estimates_; and these estimates in the
department of geology are comprised, at least chiefly, under these five
heads:
(1.) The time required for the _alluvial deposits_ underneath which his
remains or implements have been found.
(2.) The time required for the _growth of the peat_ under which we find
man or his works.
(3.) The time required for the succession of forest growths since his
first appearance.
(4.) The age of the animal races, extinct or living, whose remains are
found associated with his.
(5.) We have next and last another source of testimony which is mainly
free from the uncertainties of estimate, viz. the question of
commercial relations between the barbarous stone-age, bronze-age, or
iron-age tribes, and the civilized nations of the early historic ages.
The estimates on these several points demand distinct consideration.
(1.) The estimate of the time required for the alluvial deposits along
the banks of rivers, has been extremely various. Lyell, having visited
the delta of the Mississippi river in person, estimated its time-period
of accumulation at one hundred thousand years.[14] But a careful
examination made by gentlemen of the Coast Survey and other United
States officers, reduces this time-period to four thousand and four
hundred years.[15] Again, Mr. Lyell estimates that 220,000 years are
necessary to account for changes now going on upon the coast of Sweden.
Later geologists reduce the time to one-tenth of that estimate. A piece
of pottery was discovered deeply buried under the deposits at the mouth
of the Nile. It was confidently asserted that the deposits could not
have been made during the historic period, until it was proved that
the article in question was of Roman manufacture.[16] Such diversities
suffice to show at least that somebody has blundered. Some of these
high estimates are gratuitously extravagant. All estimates from the
drift deposits, bearing on the antiquity of man, ought in reason to be
made with careful reference to these two modifying considerations:
(a.) That drift deposits may have been, and with the utmost probability
were, much more rapid in the earlier ages than at present. At the close
of the glacial and ice period vast masses of loose matter were ready
to be swept rapidly as drift by river freshets. Any farmer may have
an illustration of this if he will plow his side-hill field, running
his furrows up and down the hill. He will find that the first powerful
shower will bring down far more drift than the fortieth. It would be
very short-sighted in him to take the drift of the tenth year after the
said plowing for his rate of annual deposition and estimate the whole
period from this data. But on this mistaken principle some geologists
have made their time estimates for the drift simply monstrous.
(b.) Human remains and tools may in many ways get far below the
surface of the drift. They may have been buried under it after
its deposition. While the drift lay under water, (soft and pliable
therefore,) flints, arrow-heads, knives, or human bones, may have
sunk in the mire.――――These and similar considerations may demand large
abatement from the time-estimates built upon the amount of drift found
above the remains of man.
We may apply these modifying considerations to the case given by Lyell
(Antiquity of Man, pp. 27, 28) of the drift deposits near the Lake of
Geneva. Here are five inches in thickness deposited since the Roman
period (known by its enclosed memorials) which we safely put at 1800
years. Next below is a strata of six inches depth, marked by bronze
implements, which he estimates to reach back from the present time,
3000 to 4000 years. Similarly, the next strata (seven inches) indicated
as the Stone age, he counts at 5000 to 7000 years old. But if the
depositions were much more rapid in the early than in the later ages of
our world, these estimates for the ages of bronze and of stone must be
materially shortened, and may reasonably be brought within the historic
period of man.
(2.) The time required for the formation of _peat beds_ has been
usually estimated upon its observed growth and accumulation at
the present day. Yet in the case of peat-growth as in the case of
drift-deposits, it is at least possible and would seem highly probable
that its growth and deposition were much more rapid during the
earlier ages of our race than at present. The virgin soil was richer;
the climatic influences may have been more propitious. It should
be considered also here (as in the case of drift) that the remains
of man and his implements, instead of resting invariably upon the
surface of the peat, may by various means have gone down much below
the surface. The time of man’s presence, therefore, as measured by the
time estimated to be necessary for the deposit of the peat found above
him, may be quite overestimated.
The peat beds of Denmark are put by Lyell (Antiquity of Man, p. 17) at
a minimum of 4000 years. In the valley of the Somme (France) they are
found 30 feet deep; and in its upper strata there are Romish and Celtic
memorials, showing that its depositions continued a considerable time
after the historic age of Rome.
(3.) The time required for the succession of forest growths since the
appearance of man.
Geologists find in Denmark, earliest, a growth of Scotch fir; next,
of oak; last, coming down to the present, of the beech. The age of
civilization known as the Stone age synchronizes nearly with the fir;
the Bronze age with the oak; the historic period with iron implements
answers to the beech.[17] Now the problem is――How much time is
required for one species of forest growths to run its course and become
supplanted by another?――――Obviously this problem must depend not on
time alone, but on climatic changes. Moreover, one kind of trees may
require less time than another to exhaust the soil of the elements
specially congenial to its health, vigor and stability. I do not see
that any reliable measure of time can be found for estimating the
life-period of different species of forest growths.
(4.) Attempts have been made to estimate the antiquity of man from
the animal races with which his remains have been found associated.
The animals brought into this estimate have been chiefly the mammals,
quadrupeds, most nearly related, by anatomical structure, to man. Great
account has been made of the fact that the remains of man (his bones
or his tools) have been found in connection with the remains of land
animals now extinct. The uncertain element in all such calculations
is the date at which the said animal species became extinct. This is
perhaps fully as doubtful as the age at which man began to live on
the earth. So far as is known, some species have disappeared within
the present century; _e. g._ the Great Auk, or Northern Penguin
(alca impennis), last seen alive in 1844. Several species, once quite
prominent for their hugeness or other qualities, are supposed to have
disappeared within the historic period of man; _e. g._ the mammoth,
the mastodon, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave-bear, etc. But precisely
_when_ they severally became extinct, no existing data suffice to show.
Of course it avails little to prove that man was coeval with a few
animal races now extinct.
(5.) Far more important in my view is the light thrown upon the
antiquity of the Bronze and Iron ages of civilization in Northern and
Western Europe by the traces of commercial relations between those
respective peoples and the civilized nations of the known historic
ages. In this case, the elements of uncertainty common to the preceding
estimates are mostly if not wholly eliminated. When among the relics of
the Bronze age, say in Switzerland or in Denmark, we find art-specimens,
valuable for use or beauty, which manifestly came from Phenicia,
Etruria, or Egypt, bearing unmistakably the stamp of their civilization,
and specifically, of their art, we need no further proof that the
old Bronze age lay _in time_ along-side of the reign of Etrurian or
Egyptian art and civilization. On this subject the British Quarterly
(Oct., 1872) on “The present Phase of Pre-historic Archeology”
discusses the question whether the Bronze civilization in Central and
Northern Europe was introduced by an invading people from the East, or
by peaceful commerce with the peoples contiguous to the Mediterranean,
viz. the Phenicians of Palestine, the Etrurians of Italy, and the
Egyptians. The argument is strongly in favor of the latter alternative.
“The beautiful bronze swords, spear-heads, axes, knives, razors, etc.,
which lie scattered over Northern and Central Europe are remarkable
for the singular beauty of their form and ornamentation”――all bearing
so much unity of design as to prove a common origin from the same
source. “The double spirals, and dotted circles and spirals and zigzag
ornaments which are so common on the bronze articles of France, Germany,
Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia _are identical with the designs which
are found in Etruscan tombs_. Some of the bronze swords and spear-heads
are also identical; and the peculiar spuds and bronze axes, used by the
Etruscans, are similar to those which are found in Northern Europe.”
(pp. 247, 248).――――The limits of my plan forbid a full presentation
of this argument. Suffice it to say briefly that very great progress
has been made within the last fifty years toward disentombing the
pre-historical ages of Central and Northern Europe, and bringing out
their relation to the early historic civilization of Egypt, Phenicia,
and Etruria. The results thus far seem to identify the oldest race of
man as known by his remains (_i. e._ they of the earlier Stone age)
with the Esquimaux of Lapland; the men of the later Stone age, with
the Iberian or Basque people of Spain; after whom were the Celts
and the Belgæ who were on the field at the period where Roman history
touches Britain and Gaul.――――How far back in time those Esquimau
tribes lie, it seems yet impossible to determine; but the next wave of
population――they of the later Stone age――falls far within the period
of scripture chronology――not necessarily older than the Phenicians,
Assyrians, and Egyptians. Inasmuch as Phenician art and commerce were
in their glory during the reigns of David and Solomon, we may at least
provide a considerable interval of time for the Esquimau tribes of
the older Stone age before we encounter the deluge of Noah, and much
more still, before we come up to Adam. It is a fact of no trifling
importance that the oldest race detected by the explorers of the
earth’s crust can be so clearly identified with the Esquimaux now
occupying the highest northern latitudes inhabited by man.
More abundant still are the proofs which bring the Bronze and Iron ages
of Northern Europe within what were the historic times of the nations
on the borders of the Mediterranean.――――The estimates made by some
geologists and antiquarians which carry the later Stone, the Bronze,
and the Iron peoples back into the mighty Past anywhere from 10,000 to
100,000 years seem to me extremely fanciful and unscientific. Thorough
investigation into all the facts bearing on the case coupled with sober
estimates of the time which they indicate, will at no distant day bring
this problem of the antiquity of man to a satisfactory solution. It
does not become us to fear any revelations which come legitimately from
well ascertained facts.
* * * * *
Another argument for the high antiquity of man has been drawn _from the
traditions of the most ancient nations_――China and India; also _from
the great population, the early civilization, and the art-monuments of
Egypt_.
On the point of the traditions and chronologies of the ancient nations
of the East, the first problem is to ascertain what they are and what
they claim. If they run up their figures (as sometimes said) to 20,000
years, the extravagance of the claim vitiates its credibility.[18] We
put it to the account of fancy and fiction, or of national pride, and
rule it out from the realm of historic science. But if as estimated
by Bailly (Kitto; Chronology, p. 434) the years from the Christian
era back to the creation are put in Chinese chronology at 6157; in the
Babylonian, at 6158; and in the Indian (by Gentil) at 6174, we give
these chronologies our respectful attention. The fact that the extreme
difference in these three is but seventeen years is certainly striking,
and indicates either a common origin of authority or an approximation
toward the truth; perhaps both. We shall soon have occasion to compare
these figures with the latest and most approved results of Biblical
chronology.
* * * * *
As to the age of Egyptian art, civilization, and political power, the
time allowed for its development in harmony with Usher’s chronology
(the one usually indicated in editions of the English Bible) must
be admitted to be short――almost incredibly short. Here I submit that
the primary question should be――the correctness of Usher. Let the
Bible system of chronology be rigidly scanned――not for the purpose
of making it tally with Egyptian claims, or with any other system of
chronology not sacred; but for the purpose of arriving at the truth
as ascertainable from the Bible itself.