THE PALANTHROPIC AGE[14]
[14] Called by some 'Palæolithic,' from the use of implements like that
figured on p. 41.
We have now to inquire more particularly what we can learn as to the
earliest men known to us, those who appeared in Western Asia and Europe
at the close of the glacial period, when the cold had passed away and a
genial climate had succeeded, and when the continents of the northern
hemisphere had attained to their largest dimensions, were clothed with a
rich vegetation and tenanted by an abundant mammalian fauna, including
many large and important creatures now extinct.
We may first notice here a necessary limitation to our knowledge. The
dry land of this age was of greater dimensions than at present. A large
portion of what then was land is consequently now under the sea or
deeply buried in alluvial deposits. Hence if any men of this age lived
near the borders of the ocean, their remains must now be inaccessible,
and the relics which we find must be those of inland tribes or of those
who were driven inland by the encroachments of the waters. Our means of
information are thus limited, and we must be prepared to admit that
there may have been in this age great and populous communities of which
we can have no record, at least of a geological character. Hence if we
should find remains of only rude races of men, we should not be
justified in assuming that all the peoples of the palanthropic age were
of this character, more especially if we can find any indications that
the men whose remains are accessible to us, though rude themselves, may
have belonged to more advanced races.
[Illustration: FLINT HACHE OF THE ANCIENT OR CHELLEAN TYPE, AURILLAC
(after Carthaillac)]
The bones, implements and weapons, and _débris_ of the feasts of these
primitive peoples are to be found principally in caves of residence or
of sepulture,[15] and in the alluvia deposited by rivers, and in a few
cases in rock fissures or marine gravels, into which remains were
drifted, or in which they were deposited by water. Here, again, we have
another limitation, for it is possible that large populations may have
lived on plains or in forests in perishable structures, and, like some
modern savages, may have disposed of their dead in such a way that their
bones could not have been preserved. In such cases we can hope to
obtain, and then very rarely, only stone implements and other
imperishable relics.
[15] Caverns, in relation to this subject, may be divided into those of
residence, in which early men have lived and have left therein the
_débris_ of their food, the ashes and cinders of their fires, and
implements, &c.; those of sepulture, in which the bodies of the dead
have been deposited; and those of inundation, into which the bodies of
animals or men have been drifted by floods. The same cave may, however,
exhibit these different conditions in the deposits on its successive
floors. Thus men may have inhabited a cave for a time; it may next have
been invaded by river floods depositing mud, and it may subsequently
have been used for burial.
Notwithstanding these limitations, however, it is wonderful that so much
has been recovered from the ground by the diligence of collectors, and
that the material thus obtained has proved so fertile in information
respecting our long-perished ancestors.
Supposing, then, that we search for remains of palæocosmic men in river
alluvia, or in caves of residence or burial, or in similar repositories,
the question next arises, by what means can we distinguish their bones
from those of later times? The following criteria are available:
(1) The remains were in their present condition at least as long ago as
the date of the earliest history or tradition. This evidence is of
course of greatest value in those regions in which history extends
farthest back. Thus the remains of early men in the Lebanon caves, which
we know date much farther back than the arrival of the first Phœnicians
and Canaanites in Syria, are in a different position, in so far as
history is concerned, from those occurring in countries whose written
history goes back only a few centuries.
(2) The deposits containing these remains may underlie those holding
relics of historic times, or may indicate different physical conditions
of the districts in which they occur from those known within historic
periods. This is the case with some river beds, as those of Grenelle,
near Paris, and with the successive deposits in old caves of residence.
(3) They may be accompanied by remains of animals now extinct in the
regions in question, and whose disappearance and replacement by the
modern fauna implies great lapse of time and physical changes; as, for
instance, when we find that men have left remains of their feasts
holding bones of the extinct woolly rhinoceros and his contemporaries,
or in now temperate climates, those of the reindeer.
(4) The remains themselves may indicate a race or races of men and a
condition of the arts of life different from any known in the region in
historic times. Thus we may have skulls and skeletons indicating men
racially distinct from any now extant, and implements and weapons
different from those in use in the times of history or tradition.
We have now to consider what evidence of this kind vindicates the
assertion that man existed on our continents in the second continental
or post-glacial age, or, as others will have it, in the closing period
of the glacial age, and was contemporary with the mammoth and other
great beasts now extinct. This evidence, which has been accumulating
with great rapidity and relates to many parts of the northern
hemisphere, is too voluminous to be reproduced here.[16] But a few
examples of it may be given, more especially from parts of the old world
whose history extends farthest back and where explorations have been
most extensive.
[16] Reference may be made to Christy and Lartet, _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_;
Quatrefages, _Homme Fossile_; Dupont, _L'Homme pendant les Ages de
Pierre_; Carthaillac, _La France Préhistorique_; Dawkins, _Cave Hunting
and Early Man in Britain_; _Fossil Men_ and _Modern Science in Bible
Lands_, by the author.
My first instance shall be one originally described by Canon Tristram,
and which I had an opportunity to examine in 1884--the caverns or
rock shelters in the face of the limestone cliff of the pass of
Nahr-el-Kelb, north of Beyrout. At this place, in old caverns partly
cut away in the forming of the Roman road round the cliff, there is
a hard stalagmite, or modern limestone, produced by the calcareous
drippings from the rock. This is filled with broken bones intermixed
with flint flakes suitable for use as knives or spears or darts, and
occasional fragments of charcoal. The bones are those of large animals,
and have been broken for the extraction of the marrow; and the whole
is evidently the remnants of the cuisine of some primitive tribe of
hunters, now cemented into a somewhat hard stone by stalagmitic matter.
The bones are not those of the present animals of Syria, but principally
of an extinct species of rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), a species
of bison, and other large mammals which inhabited the region in the
pleistocene and post-glacial periods. It is farther known that these
animals had been extinct long before the early Phœnicians penetrated
into this country, perhaps 3000 B.C., and that the deposits existed in
their present state when the early Egyptian conquerors passed this way,
at least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hittites. It is also
known that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude
tribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the
Phœnicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used
flint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the
earlier cave men of the region.[17] What, then, were these earlier cave
men? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as
antediluvians.[18]
[17] See the illustration on p. 97.
[18] For more detailed description see _Modern Science in Bible Lands_;
also _Egypt and Syria_, in the _Bypaths of Bible Knowledge_, by the
author.
From the Lebanon we may pass to the west of Europe, where in France and
Belgium a vast number of interesting relics of palæocosmic man have been
discovered, and have been scientifically examined.
We may take as an illustration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding
the ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about
forty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in
post-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it
shows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by
layers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully
examined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.
On the lowest of these, or the first in order of age, were found
numerous skeletons and detached bones of the cave lion and the cave
bear; the former a possible ancestor of the lion of Western Asia, the
latter closely allied to the grizzly bear of North America, but both
entirely extinct in Europe. One of the skeletons of the lion was of
unusually large size, and so complete that when set up it forms the
principal ornament of the cave collection in the Brussels Museum.
[Illustration: CAVE OF GOYET, BELGIUM (section after Dupont)
1 to 5, layers of clay deposited in the mammoth ages]
The next surface, the second in order of time, had a greater variety of
animal remains. The lion had disappeared, and instead hyenas haunted the
cave, and had dragged in animal bones to be gnawed. These included
remains of the cave bear, wolf, rhinoceros, mammoth, wild horse, wapiti,
Irish stag, chamois, reindeer, wild ox, besides several smaller animals.
The above animals are now all unknown in the fauna of modern Europe,
except the reindeer, the chamois, and the wolf. But the most remarkable
discovery on this surface was that of a few human bones, gnawed like the
others by the hyenas. Man was thus already in the country, and
contemporary with all these animals. How the hyena obtained his bones,
whether from some neglected corpse or from some badly-constructed grave,
will never be known; but the discovery introduces us to a tribe or
family of men coming as immigrants into a region already stocked with
many great quadrupeds. They probably did not yet dwell in caves, which,
at a later and perhaps more inclement period, formed their homes. Dupont
concludes from the condition of the bones that on both the older
surfaces the cave bear was the later tenant, and had replaced the lion
on the first and the hyena on the second.
The remaining surfaces introduce us to man as a cave-dweller. On the
oldest of them are found not only abundance of _débris_ of food, but
worked flints and bones, objects of ornament, and evidences of the use
of fire. The two higher layers show works of art in more varied and
improved forms, as if a certain progress in the arts of life had taken
place during the occupancy of the cave. Among the objects in the upper
layers were red oxide of iron, showing the use of colouring matter for
the skin or garments, bone needles, proving the manufacture of clothing
by sewing, bone points for darts, skilfully-barbed bone harpoons,
ornaments made of perforated teeth of animals, and fragments of bone,
and a remarkable necklace of a hundred and twenty-four silicified shells
of the genus _Turritella_, looking like spirals of agate, with a pendant
made of another and larger shell. These shells are not known to occur
nearer to the cave than Rheims, in Champagne. It is scarcely too much to
say that this necklace might be worn by any lady of the present day. A
certain amount of imitative art is also shown in the carving of animal
and plant forms and fancy devices on pieces of reindeer antler, which
may have served for handles of weapons or implements. But objects of
much more elaborate design have been found in caverns of this age in
France. (See illustrations on pp. 59 and 68.)
[Illustration: LANCE-HEAD FORMED OF A FLINT FLAKE (CAVE OF MOUSTIER)
Similar to weapons found in the Goyet cave. The flat face shows a bulb
of percussion (after Falsan)]
The food of these people, in so far as it was of an animal nature, may
be learned from the broken bones, which show that here as elsewhere they
carried into their caves only the legs and skulls of the larger animals
they killed, leaving the carcases; though it is quite possible that,
like North American hunting Indians, they may have stripped off portions
of flesh from the back, and preserved the heart, liver, &c., which would
of course leave no remains.
Dupont gives lists of the animals in each layer. Those in the lower of
the anthropic layers consist of twenty-three species of quadrupeds and
some bones of birds. Among the former were the mammoth, the rhinoceros,
two species of bear, the horse, the reindeer, two other species of deer
and two bovine animals. Even the lion, the hyena and the wolf were eaten
by these people. It is interesting to note that the numerical
preponderance was in favour of the reindeer and the wild horse, though
remains were found indicating seven individuals of the mammoth, and four
of the rhinoceros, as having fallen a prey to the old hunters. In the
highest bed the number of species and the proportions of each one are
nearly the same, so that no material change in the fauna had occurred
during the occupancy of this cave. It may also be noted that while
Dupont calls this a cave of the mammoth age, the French archæologists
are in the habit of naming similar deposits those of the reindeer age.
The age of both animals was in reality the same, except that in France
the reindeer seems to have survived the mammoth, and indeed we know
this to be the fact from its continuing in the forests of Germany till
the Roman times.
This cave may serve as an example of the manner in which the men of the
palanthropic age make their appearance. Let it be observed also that
this is only one instance selected from many giving similar testimony,
and that Dupont adduces evidence to show that there may have been a
contemporary plain-dwelling people, of whom less is known than of the
troglodytes. Let it also be noted that there are other caves in Belgium,
to which we shall return later, which show how the neocosmic men
contemporary with the present fauna succeeded the men of the mammoth
age.
We may now inquire as to the physical characters of the men of this
period. It may be stated in answer to this question that two races of
men are known in the palanthropic age, both somewhat different from any
existing peoples, and known respectively as the Canstadt and Cro-magnon
races. As the latter is the most important and best known, we may take
it first, though the former may locally at least have been the older.
The valley of the little river Vezère, a tributary of the Dordogne, in
the south of France, abounding in overhanging rock-shelters, seems to
have been a favourite abode of the men of the mammoth and reindeer age.
The rock-shelter of Cro-magnon explored by Lartet is one of these, and
that of Laugerie Basse is on the opposite side of the same stream.
The former is a shelter or hollow under an over-*hanging ledge of
limestone, and excavated originally by the action of the weather on a
softer bed. It fronts the south-west, and, having originally been about
eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a comfortable
shelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook
from its front. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to
accommodate several families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or
shrubs in front, and may have been further completed by stones, poles,
or bark placed across the opening. It seems, however, in the first
instance to have been used only at intervals, and to have been left
vacant for considerable portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only by
hunting or war-parties. But subsequently it was permanently occupied,
and this for so long a time that in some places a foot and a half of
ashes and carbonaceous matter, with bones, implements, &c., was
accumulated. All of these, it may be remarked, belong to the
palanthropic age. By this time the height of the cavern had been much
diminished, and, instead of clearing it out for future use, it was made
a place of burial, in which five individuals were interred. Of these,
three were men, one of great age, the other two probably in the prime of
life. The fourth and fifth were a woman of about thirty or forty years
of age, and the remains of a fœtus.
These bones, with others to be mentioned in connection with them,
unquestionably belong to some of the oldest human inhabitants known in
Western Europe. They have been most carefully examined by several
competent anatomists and archæologists, and the results have been
published with excellent figures in the _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_, where
will also be found details of their characters and accompaniments, among
which last were about three hundred small shells of different species
pierced for stringing or attachment to garments. These men are,
therefore, of the utmost interest for our present purpose, and I shall
try so to divest the descriptions of anatomical details as to give a
clear notion of their character. The doubts at one time cast on the age
of these skeletons have been removed by the discovery of others at
Laugerie Basse, Mentone, &c. They are no doubt palanthropic, though not
of the earliest part of the period. The 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' was of
great stature, being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones
show that he was of the strongest and most athletic muscular
development; and the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which is
characteristic of athletic men habituated to rough walking, climbing,
and running; for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enormous
strength of the thigh-bone and the flattened condition of the leg in
this and other old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, though much less
than in this old man, in American skeletons. His skull presents all the
characters of advanced age, though the teeth had been worn down to the
sockets without being lost; which, again, is a character often observed
in rude peoples of modern times. The skull proper, or brain-case, is
very long--more so than in ordinary modern skulls--and this length is
accompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size
than in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well
developed. The face, however, presented very peculiar characters. It was
extremely broad, with projecting cheek-bones and heavy jaw, in this
resembling the coarse types of the American face, and the eye-orbits
were square and elongated laterally in a manner peculiar to the skulls
of this age. The nose was large and prominent, and the jaws projected
somewhat forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some
resemblance to the harsher type of American physiognomy, with
overhanging brows, small and transverse eyes, high cheek-bones, and
coarse mouth. He had not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for
his thigh-bone showed a depression which must have resulted from a
severe wound--perhaps from the horn of some wild animal or the spear of
an enemy.
[Illustration: OUTLINE OF THE SKULL OF THE 'OLD MAN OF CRO-MAGNON'
(after Christy and Lartet)]
The woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form
modified by her sex, and in form and visage closely resembled her
sisters of the American wilderness in the pre-Columbian times. If her
hair and complexion were suitable, she would have passed at once for an
American-Indian woman, but one of unusual size and development. Her head
bears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from
the effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has
penetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to
indicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from
the condition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its
infliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was
received in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been
driven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of
her friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, either with other
members of her family or with others who had perished in the same
skirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night
attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the
foe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her
little ones from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, as with the
American Indians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty,
not to be neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace and the
vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.
Unreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial of the dead by
palæocosmic men. The burial of men of the Cro-magnon race at that place
and at Laugerie Basse and Mentone is established by the most unequivocal
evidence; and interments of men of the Canstadt race have been found at
Spy, in Belgium. Of course, even if interment proper had not been
practised, there might have been cremation, as among the Tasmanians, or
burial on stages or in huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that
interment was practised we know, and this carries with it the certainty
that our palæocosmic men must have had some simple ideas of religion.
[Illustration: THE FIRST SKELETON FOUND IN THE MENTONE CAVES
(after Rivière)]
The skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern
Esthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is
stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller
men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the
people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient,
or of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types
of the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the
remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under
circumstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Rivière, in a
memoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful photographs, shows
that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are
similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect
identity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar
in character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an
examination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in
1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the
conclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of
them seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic
age. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Basse, was
buried under a great thickness of accumulated _débris_ of cookery, as
well as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its shell
ornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner
which would induce the belief that they had been attached to a
head-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See illustration
on p. 79.)
[Illustration: HANDLE OF A PIERCER, OR BODKIN, IN BONE, FROM LAUGERIE
BASSE, IN FORM OF A DEER
(a) Hollow for thumb; (b) hollow for finger. Reduced to one-half. From a
cast of the original]
[Illustration: Section at A.A.
FLINT FLAKE KNIFE, FOUND IN THE HAND OF THE 'GIANT' SKELETON OF MENTONE
(after Evans)]
The ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated shells from the Atlantic and
pieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated _Neritinæ_ from the
Mediterranean and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases there was
evidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of
iron, and used bodkins of bone, and long and beautifully-formed flint
knives, perhaps for dividing their food, or perhaps for sacrificial
purposes. Skulls found at Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are
described by Professor Broca and M. Fleurens as of the same general
type, and the remains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in
England, seem also to have belonged to this race. The celebrated Engis
skull from one of the Belgian caves, which is believed to have belonged
to a contemporary of the mammoth, is also of this type, though less
massive than that of Cro-magnon; and lastly, even the somewhat degraded
Neanderthal skull, found in a cave near Düsseldorf, though, like those
of Clichy, Canstadt, Spy and Gibraltar, inferior in frontal development,
is referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as
can be judged from the portion that remains, though certainly to a ruder
and more degraded variety, commonly known as the Canstadt man as
distinguished from the Engis or Cro-magnon.
[Illustration: NEANDERTHAL SKULL--TWO OUTLINES: THE OUTER GIVING THE
MORE CORRECT FORM (from _Science_)]
Let it be observed, then, that these skulls are probably the oldest
known in the world, and they are all referable to two varieties of one
race of men; and let us ask what they tell as to the position and
character of palanthropic man. The testimony is here fortunately
well-nigh unanimous. All anatomists and archæologists admit the high and
human character of the Engis and even the Neanderthal skulls.
[Illustration: SKULL OF CANSTADT TYPE FOUND AT SPY, BELGIUM, BY FRAIPONT
AND LOHEST]
Broca, who has carefully studied the Cro-magnon skulls, has the
following general conclusions: 'The great volume of the brain, the
development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile of the
anterior portion of the skull, and the orthognathous form of the upper
facial region, are incontestably evidences of superiority, which are met
with usually only in the civilised races. On the other hand, the great
breadth of face, the alveolar prognathism, the enormous development of
the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the
muscular insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles, give rise to
the idea of a violent and brutal race.'
He adds that this apparent antithesis, seen also in the limbs as well as
in the skull, accords with the evidence furnished by the associated
weapons and implements of a rude hunter-life, and at the same time of no
mean degree of taste and skill in carving and other arts. He might have
added that this is the antithesis seen in the American tribes, among
whom art and taste of various kinds, and much that is high and spiritual
even in thought, coexisted with barbarous modes of life and intense
ferocity and cruelty. The god and the devil were combined in these
races, but there was nothing of the mere brute.
Rivière remarks, with expressions of surprise, the same contradictory
points in the Mentone skeleton: its grand development of brain-case and
high facial angle--even higher apparently than in most of these ancient
skulls--combined with other characters which indicate a low type and
barbarous modes of life.
Another point which strikes us in reading the descriptions of these
skeletons is the indication which they seem to present of an extreme
longevity. The massive proportions of the body, the great development
of the muscular processes, the extreme wearing of the teeth among a
people who predominantly lived on flesh and not on grain, the
obliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with indications of slow
ossification of the ends of the long bones, point in this direction, and
seem to indicate a slow maturity and great length of life in this most
primitive race.
The picture would be incomplete did we not add that Quatrefages has
described a single skull, that of Truchère, from deposits of this age,
which shows that these gigantic men were contemporaneous with a feebler
race of smaller stature and with different cranial characters, and
inhabiting in all likelihood a more eastern region.
It is further significant that there is evidence to show that the larger
and stronger race was that which prevailed in Europe at the time of its
greatest elevation above the sea and greatest horizontal extent, and
when its fauna included many large quadrupeds now extinct. This race of
giants was thus in the possession of a greater continental area than
that now existing, and had to contend with gigantic brute rivals for the
possession of the world. It is also not improbable that this early race
became extinct in Europe in consequence of the physical changes which
occurred in connection with the subsidence that reduced the land to its
present limits, and that the feebler race which succeeded came in as the
appropriate accompaniment of a diminished land-surface and a less
genial climate in the early historic period. The older races are those
usually classed as palæolithic, and are supposed to antedate the period
of polished stone; but this may, to some extent, be a prejudice of
collectors, who have arrived at a foregone conclusion as to distinctions
of this kind. Judging from the great cranial capacity of the older race
and the small number of their skeletons found, it might be fair to
suppose that they represent rude outlying tribes belonging to nations
which elsewhere had attained to greater population and culture.
Lastly, all of these old European races were Turanian, Mongolian, or
American in their head-forms and features, as well as in their habits,
implements, and arts. In other words, their nearest affinities were with
races of men which in the modern world are the oldest and most widely
distributed.
The reader, reflecting on what he has learned from history, may be
disposed here to ask, Must we suppose Adam to have been one of these
Turanian men, like the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon'? In answer, I would say
that there is no good reason to regard the first man as having resembled
a Greek Apollo or an Adonis. He was probably of sterner and more
muscular mould. But he was probably more akin to the more delicate and
refined race represented by the solitary skull of Truchère, while the
gigantic palæocosmic men of the European caves are more likely to have
been representatives of that terrible and powerful race who filled the
antediluvian world with violence, and who reappear in postdiluvian
times as the Anakim and traditional giants, who constitute a feature in
the early history of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious
in the revelations as to the most ancient cave men than that they
confirm the old belief that there were 'giants in those days.' At the
same time we must bear in mind that the more diminutive race which
survived must have existed previously in some part of the world, and
must have furnished the survivors of the succeeding subsidence (see
illustration on p. 82).
And now let us pause for a moment to picture these so-called palæolithic
men. What could the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' have told us, had we
been able to sit by his hearth and listen understandingly to his
speech?--which, if we may judge from the form of his palate-bones, must
have resembled more that of the Americans or Mongolians than of any
modern European people. He had, no doubt, travelled far, for to his
stalwart limbs a long journey through forests and over plains and
mountains would be a mere pastime. He may have bestridden the wild
horse, which seems to have abounded at the time in France, and he may
have launched his canoe on the waters of the Atlantic. His experience
and memory might extend back a century or more, and his traditional lore
might go back to the times of the first mother of our race. Did he live
in that wide post-pliocene continent which extended westward through
Ireland? Did he know and had he visited the more cultured nations that
lived in the great plains of the Mediterranean Valley, or on that
nameless river which flowed through the land now covered by the German
Ocean? Had he visited or seen from afar the great island Atlantis, whose
inhabitants could almost see in the sunset sky the islands of the blest?
Could he have told us of the huge animals of the antediluvian world, and
of the feats of the men of renown who contended with these animal
giants? We can but conjecture all this. But, mute though they may be as
to the details of their lives, the man of Cro-magnon and his
contemporaries are eloquent of one great truth, in which they coincide
with the Americans and with the primitive men of all the early ages.
They tell us that primitive man had the same high cerebral organisation
which he possesses now, and, we may infer, the same high intellectual
and moral nature, fitting him for communion with God and headship over
the lower world. They indicate also, like the mound-builders, who
preceded the North American Indian, that man's earlier state was the
best--that he had been a high and noble creature before he became a
savage. It is not conceivable that their high development of brain and
mind could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a mere brutal and
savage life. These gifts must be remnants of a noble organisation
degraded by moral evil. They thus justify the tradition of a Golden and
Edenic Age, and mutely protest against the philosophy of progressive
development as applied to man, while they bear witness to the
similarity in all important characters of the oldest prehistoric men
with that variety of our species which is at the present day at once the
most widely extended and the most primitive in its manners and
usages.[19]
[19] Perhaps no feature of this early human age is more remarkable than
its artistic productions. Recent testimony, more especially that of the
very careful explorers of the deposits at Spy, in Belgium, seems to show
existence of the potter's art, though this until lately was denied.
These people ornamented their clothing with pearly and coloured shells,
and made beautiful necklaces. We have already noticed that found in the
cave of Goyet. At Sordes, in the Pyrenees, in a very old interment of
this period, there was a necklace of forty-three teeth of the cave lion
and cave bear, carved with figures of animals (see p. 71). The handle of
a piercer, represented on p. 59, is a marvel of skilful adaptation of an
animal form to produce a handle fitted to be firmly and conveniently
grasped by the human hand. The figure of the mammoth on p. 68 shows how
a few bold lines may produce a vigorous and truthful sketch; and
multitudes of such carvings and drawings have been found in France as
well as in Germany and Belgium. Even the chipping of flint is an art
requiring much skill to produce the fine knives, spears, &c., so
commonly found, and there is evidence that these were fitted into strong
and probably artistic handles. All this and much more testifies to the
fact that our palæocosmic men were no mean artists as well as
artificers.
[Illustration: OUTLINE OF MAMMOTH, CARVED ON A PLATE OF IVORY, FROM THE
CAVE OF LA MADELEINE]