THE COMING OF MAN.
We have watched the long succession of varied life on the earth
recorded in the rocks, and now we come to the most momentous event of
all in the history--the coming of Man. The first certain evidence of
the presence of man on the earth is found with the coming of the
Glacial Period,--unless indeed the supposed flint implements found by
Mr. Reid Moir, under the Crag in Suffolk, should prove him earlier
still. It is a rare chance that the skeleton of a land animal is
preserved; especially rare in the case of a skeleton so frail as that
of man. The best chance for the preservation of bones is in deposits
in caves, which were frequently the dens of wild beasts and the
shelters of man. But the implements used by early man were happily of
a very imperishable nature. His favourite material, if he could get
it, was flint. Flint could by dexterous blows have flake after flake
taken off, till it formed a tool or weapon with sharp point and
cutting edge. The implements, though only chipped, or flaked, were
often admirably made. They have very characteristic shapes. Moreover,
the kind of blow--struck obliquely--by which these early men made
their tools left marks which stamp them as of human workmanship. The
flake struck off shows what is called a "bulb of percussion"--a
swelling which marks the spot where the blow was struck--and from this
extends a series of ripples, producing a surface like that of a shell,
from which this mode of breaking is called conchoidal fracture. Often,
by further chipping the flake itself is worked into an implement.
Implements have also been made of chert, but it is far more difficult
to work, as it naturally breaks in an irregular way into sharp angular
fragments. Flint, on the other hand, lent itself admirably to the use
of early man, who in time acquired a perfect mastery of the material.
The working of flints is so characteristic that, once accustomed to
them, you cannot mistake a good specimen. Sea waves dashing pebbles
about will sometimes produce a conchoidal fracture, but never a series
of fractures in the methodical way in which a flint was worked by man.
And, of course, specimens may be found so worn that it is difficult to
be sure about their nature. Again early man may, especially in very
early times, have been content to use a sharp stone almost as he found
it, with only the slightest amount of knocking it into shape. So that
in such a case it will be very difficult to decide whether the stones
have formed the implements of man or not. In later times men learnt to
polish their implements, and made polished stone axes like those the
New Zealanders and South Sea Islanders used to make in modern times.
The old age of chipped or flaked implements is called the Palaeolithic;
the later age when they were ground or polished the Neolithic. (Simple
implements, as knives and scrapers, were still unpolished.) The
history of early man is a long story in itself, and of intense
interest. But we must not leave our geological story unfinished by
leaving out the culmination of it all in man. In the higher
gravels--the Plateau Gravels--no remains of man are found; but in the
lower--the Valley Gravels,--of the South of England is found abundant
evidence of the presence of man. Large numbers of flint implements
have been collected from the Thames valley and over the whole area of
the rivers which have gravel terraces along their course. Over a large
sheet of gravel at Southampton, whenever a large gravel pit is dug,
implements are found at the base of the gravel.[17] The occurrence of
the mammoth and other arctic creatures in the gravels shows that in
the Glacial Period man was contemporary with these animals. Remains in
caves tell the same story. In limestone caverns in Devon, Derbyshire,
and Yorkshire, implements made by man are found in company with
remains of the cave bear, cave hyaena, lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros,
and other animals either extinct or no longer inhabitants of this
country--remains which have been preserved under floors of stalagmite
deposited in the caves. In caves of central France men have left
carvings on bone and ivory, representing the wild animals of that
day--carvings which show a remarkable artistic sense, and a keen
observation of animal life. Among them is a drawing of the mammoth on
a piece of mammoth ivory, showing admirably the appearance of the
animal, with his long hair, as he has been found preserved in ice to
the present day near the mouths of Siberian rivers. Drawings of the
reindeer, true to life, are frequent.
Till recently very few Palaeolithic implements had been recorded as
found in the Isle of Wight. In the Memoir of the Geological Survey
(1889) only one such is recorded, found in a patch of brick earth near
Howgate Farm, Bembridge.[18] A few more implements, which almost
certainly came from this brick-earth, have been found on the shore
since. In recent years a large number of Palaeolithic implements have
been found at Priory Bay near St. Helen's. They were first observed on
the beach by Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., in 1886, and were traced to
their source in the gravel in the cliff by Miss Moseley in 1902. From
that time, and especially from 1904 onwards, many have been found by
Prof. Poulton, by R. W. Poulton (and others). Up to 1909 about 150
implements had been found, and there have been more finds since.[19]
The most important finds, besides those at Priory Bay, have been those
of Mr. S. Hazzledine Warren at Freshwater, especially in trial borings
in loam and clay below the surface soil in a depression of the High
Downs, south of Headon Hill, at a level of about 360 ft. O.D., in
which a number of Palaeolithic tools, flakes, and cores were found[20].
Isolated implements have been found in recent years in various
localities in the Island. There are references to finds of implements
at different times in the past, but the descriptions are generally too
vague to conclude certainly to what date they belong. Much of the
gravel used in the Island comes from the angular gravel on St.
Boniface Down, or the high Plateau Gravel of St. George's Down; but in
the lower gravels and associated brick earth, it is highly probable
that more remains of Palaeolithic man will yet be found in the Island,
and quite possible that such have been found in the past, but for
want of accurate descriptions of the circumstances of the finds are
lost to us.
We must pass on to the men of the Neolithic or later stone age. The
Palaeolithic age was of very great duration, much longer than all
succeeding human history. Between Palaeolithic and Neolithic times
there is in England a large gap. In France various stages have been
traced showing a continual advance in culture. In England little, if
anything, has been found belonging to the intermediate stages. Such
remains may yet be found in caves, or in lower river gravels, now
buried below the alluvium. The gap between Palaeolithic and Neolithic
is marked by the great amount of river erosion which took place in the
interval. Palaeolithic implements are found in gravels formed when the
rivers flowed some 100 feet above their present courses. Take, _e.g._,
the Itchen at Southampton. After the 100 foot gravels were deposited
the river cut down, not merely to its present level, but to an old bed
now covered up by various deposits beneath the river. After cutting
down to that bed the river laid down gravels upon it; and then--the
land standing at a higher level than to-day--the river valley and the
surrounding country were covered by a forest, which, as the climate
altered and became damper, was succeeded by the formation of peat. The
land has since sunk, and the peat, in parts 17 ft. thick, is now found
under Southampton Water, covered by estuarine silt. The Empress Dock
at Southampton was dug where a mud bank was exposed at low water. The
mud bank was formed of river silt 12 to 17 feet thick. Below this was
the peat, resting on gravel. On the gravel horns of reindeer were
found. In the peat were large horn cores of the great extinct ox, _Bos
primigenius_, also horns of red deer, and also in the peat were found
neolithic flint chips, a circular stone hammer head, with a hole bored
through for a wooden handle, and a large needle made of horn. Here, at
a great interval of time after Palaeolithic man, as we see by the
history of the river we have just traced, we come to the new race of
men, the Neolithic.
When Neolithic man appeared the land stood higher than at present,
though not so high as during great part of the Pleistocene. Britain
was divided from the Continent, but the shores were a good way out
into what is now sea round the coasts, and forests clothed these
further shores. Remains of these, known as submerged forest, are found
below the tide mark round many parts of our coast. Peat as at
Southampton Docks, is found under the estuarine mud off Netley. The
wells at the Spithead Forts show an old land surface with peat more
than 50 feet below the tide level. The old bed of the Solent river
lies much lower still--124 feet below high tide at Noman's Land Fort;
this channel was probably an estuary after the subsidence of the land
till it silted up with marine deposits to the level on which the
submerged forest grew.
When the Solent and Southampton Water were wooded valleys with rivers
flowing down the middle, the Isle of Wight rivers were tributaries to
the Solent river, and the forest, as might be expected, extended up
their valleys, and covered the low ground of the Island. Under the
alluvial flats are remains of buried forests. In digging a well at
Sandford in 1906 large trunks of hard oak were found blocking the
sinking of the well. When the land sank the sea flowed up the river
valleys, converting them into strait and estuary, and largely filling
up the channels with the silt, which now covers the peat. In the silt
of Newtown river are found bones of _Bos primigenius_, which was found
with the Neolithic remains in the peat of Southampton docks.
The remains of Neolithic man are not only found in submerged forests,
but over the present surface of the land, or buried in recent
deposits. He has left us the tombs of his chiefs, known as long
barrows--great mounds of earth covering a row of chambers made of
flat stones, such as the mounds of New Grange in Ireland, and the
cromlechs or dolmens still standing in Wales and Cornwall. These
consist of a large flat or curved stone--it may be 14 feet in
length,--supported on three or four others. Originally a great mound
of earth or stones was piled on top. These have generally been removed
since by the hand of later man. The stones have been taken for road
metal, the earth to lay on the land. The great cromlech at Lanyon in
Cornwall was uncovered by a farmer, who had removed 100 cart loads of
earth to lay on his stony land before he had any idea that it was not
a natural mound. Then he came on the great cromlech underneath.
Another form of monument was the great standing stone or menhir, one
of which, the Longstone on the Down above Mottistone still stands to
mark the tomb of some chieftain of, it may be, 4,000 years ago.
The implements of Neolithic man are found all over England, the smooth
polished axe head, commonly called a celt (Lat. _celtis_, a chisel),
the chipped arrow head, the flaked flint worked by secondary chipping
on the edge into a knife, or a scraper for skins; and much more common
than the implement, even of the simplest description, are the waste
flakes struck off in the making. Very few stone celts have been found
in the Isle of Wight. The flakes are extremely numerous, and a scraper
or knife may often be found. They are turned up by the plough on the
surface of the fields, in the earth of which they have been preserved
from rubbing and weathering. They have however, acquired a remarkable
polish, or "patina"--how is not clearly explained--which distinguishes
their surface from the waxy appearance of newly-broken flint. In
places the ground is so covered with flakes that we can have no doubt
that these are the sites of settlements. The implements were made from
the black flints fresh out of the chalk, and we can locate the
Neolithic flint workings. In our northern range of downs where the
strata are vertical the layers of flint in the Upper Chalk run out on
the top of the downs, only covered with a thin surface soil. In
places where this soil has been removed--as in digging a quarry--the
chalk is seen to be covered with flakes similar to those found on the
lower ground, save that they are weathered white from lying exposed on
the hard chalk, instead of on soft soil into which they would
gradually sink by the burrowing of worms. It is probable that these
flakes would be found more or less along the range of downs under the
surface soil.
In places on the Undercliff have been found what are known as Kitchen
Middens--heaps of shells which have accumulated near the huts of
tribes of coast dwellers, who lived on shellfish. One such was
formerly exposed in the stream below the old church at Bonchurch, and
is believed to extend below the foundations of the Church.
After a long duration of neolithic times a great step in civilisation
took place with the introduction of bronze. Bronze implements were
introduced into this country probably some time about B.C. 1800-1500;
and bronze continued to be the best material of manufacture till the
introduction of iron some two or three centuries before the visit of
Julius Caesar to these Islands. To the early bronze age belong the
graves of ancient chieftains known as round barrows, of which many are
to be seen on the Island downs. Funeral urns and other remains have
been found in these, some of which are now in the museum at
Carisbrooke Castle. Belonging to later times are the remains of the
Roman villa at Brading and smaller remains of villas in other places;
and cemeteries of Anglo-Saxon date, rich in weapons and ornaments,
which have been excavated on Chessil and Bowcombe Downs. But the study
of the remains of ancient man forms a science in itself--Archaeology.
In studying the periods of Palaeolithic and Neolithic man we have stood
on the borderland where Geology and Archaeology meet. We have seen that
vast geological changes have taken place since man appeared on earth.
We must remember that the geological record is still in process of
being written. It is not the record of a time sundered from the
present day, but continuous with our own times; and it is by the study
of processes still in operation that we are able to read the story of
the past.
[Footnote 17: Mr. W. Dale, F.S.A.]
[Footnote 18: See figure 9, p. 79.]
[Footnote 19: See account by R. W. Poulton in F. Morey's "Guide
to the Natural History of the Isle of Wight."]
[Footnote 20: Surv. Mem., I.W., 1921, p. 174.]