SUBDIVISIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE
While all geologists and archæologists are agreed in the existence of
the men contemporary with the mammoth and reindeer in Europe, and in the
fact of two or even three races of men having existed in that period,
various opinions are entertained as to the succession of events and the
chronological classification of the remains. Mortillet, whose
arrangement has been usually adopted in France, recognises a period of
chipped stone or palæolithic period, corresponding to the palanthropic
age, and a period of polished stone, corresponding to the neanthropic
age. Within the former he believes that it is possible to separate
different ages,[20] from the character of the implements and other
remains. The first two are characterised by the presence of two
elephants, the mammoth and another species (_E. antiquus_), the next two
by the mammoth associated with the cave bear and reindeer, the last by
the nearly entire predominance of the reindeer. Dupont is content in
Belgium to recognise a mammoth age and a reindeer age, but the latter
perhaps includes some deposits which are properly neanthropic.
[20] Respectively the Achulienne, Chellienne, Mousterienne,
Soloutrienne, and Magdalenienne.
Carthaillac places the whole palanthropic age as quaternary, properly
so-called, which he separates from the tertiary on the one hand and the
modern on the other, and divides his quaternary into two stages, the
first characterised by _E. antiquus_ and Mortillet's Chellean men, the
second by the mammoth and reindeer--the earlier of these two periods
being warm and moist, the latter cold and dry. The table appended to
this chapter is modified from those of Carthaillac. Dawkins, while
admitting a similar twofold division, calls the earlier men those of the
river gravels, the latter those of the caves.
This twofold division of the palanthropic age requires some
consideration. In the first place, there is reason to believe that the
Canstadt race locally preceded that of Cro-magnon. I say locally, for no
one supposes that they are distinct species, and as varietal forms they
may have originated from a common intermediate ancestor, or the humbler
race may be the earlier, and the higher race an improvement on it, or
the lower race may have been a degraded type of the higher. Probably
also there was a third, the Truchère race, and the Cro-magnon race may
have been a half-breed or metis progeny.
[Illustration: TOOTH OF CAVE BEAR, WITH ENGRAVING OF A SEAL, FROM A
COLLAR FOUND AT SORDES, PYRENEES (after Carthaillac)]
Again, there was an undoubted change of fauna within the palanthropic
age, and this dependent on or accompanied by a change of climate. The
earlier elephant of the period (_E. antiquus_) and its companion animals
are believed to have been suited to a warm climate, and to have entered
Europe from the south-*east. With, or immediately after, them came man,
and this conclusion harmonises with human physiology, for we know that
man must have originated in a warm climate, and must in the first place
have been a feeder on fruits and grains or other nutritious vegetable
products. In this early stage he would be nearly destitute of implements
and weapons. But in the succeeding cold period, one tribe after another
might be obliged to resort to hunting habits, to the use of fire and of
clothing, and of natural and artificial shelter. Hence the peculiarities
of the cave men, who, while they advanced in art, may have also advanced
in ferocity and warlike habits, under the pressure of necessity and
competition. Hence also their association more and more closely with
such animals as the reindeer, the hairy mammoth, and the woolly
rhinoceros, while the previous species had migrated to the south or
perished. Thus it would appear that the men of the mammoth age may not
be really the most primitive men, but a derivative from them under
pressure of a severe climate. This possibility may be summed up as
follows. If the early part of the post-glacial or palanthropic era was
characterised by a milder climate than its later period, this may have
had much to do with the change in implements and weapons. The earliest
men probably subsisted merely on natural fruits and other vegetable
productions. To secure these in a mild climate they would require no
implements, except perhaps to dig for roots or to crack nuts. If they
migrated into a colder climate, or if the climate became more severe,
they might be obliged to become hunters and fishermen, and would invent
new implements and weapons, not because they had advanced in
civilisation, but, as Lamech has it in Genesis, 'because of the ground
which the Lord had cursed,' and which would no longer yield food to
them. At the same time they might contend with one another for the most
sheltered and productive stations, and so war might further stimulate
that very questionable advance in civilisation which consists in the
improvement of weapons of destruction. We have much to learn as to these
matters; but we must, if we have any regard to physiology and to natural
probability, start from the idea that the most primitive men were
frugivorous and fitted for a mild climate. In this case we should
expect that these earliest men would leave behind them scarcely any
weapons or implements except of the simplest kind, and that their
apparent progress in the arts of war and the chase might in reality be
evidence, up to a certain point at least, of increasing barbarism.
Primitive as well as modern men present in these respects strange
paradoxes.
We have to inquire in the sequel as to the cause of the final
disappearance of the palæocosmic men, and as to the question whether
history is cognisant of any such human period as that which has occupied
us in this chapter, or whether, as has sometimes been assumed, it is
altogether prehistoric.
On the subject of the correlation of the French and Belgian discoveries
as to primitive man, a most interesting and important communication was
made by Dupont to the Geological Society of Belgium in 1892.[21] The
veteran explorer of the Belgian caves addresses himself in this paper to
a careful comparison of the geological relations, animal remains and
human relics in these caves, and in the gravels and 'quaternary' clays
associated with them. He arrives at the conclusion, which I had already
stated,[22] that these deposits are contemporaneous and show similar
stages, but that the mammoth age properly so-called, in which the
primitive people fed on the mammoth and its companion the woolly
rhinoceros, extended to a later date in Belgium than in France, so that
the mammoth age of Dupont and the reindeer age of the French
archæologists overlap one another. He notes in connection with this that
there is evidence of the continued existence of the mammoth in the
so-called reindeer age of France, in the discovery in caves of that
period of plates of ivory with the portrait of the mammoth engraved on
them. It would therefore appear either that the mammoth earlier became
extinct or rare in France, perhaps on account of climatal changes, or
perhaps because of destruction by man, or that the habits of the French
populations changed in such a way as to cause them to confine themselves
to smaller game. In either case, we now find that the whole palanthropic
age is one period. On the other hand, Dupont agrees with Mortillet that
there is a hiatus, physical, palæontological and anthropological,
between the so-called palæolithic and neolithic periods, that is,
between the palanthropic and neanthropic ages.
[21] _Bulletin de la Société Belge de Géologie_, janvier 1893. This
paper should be studied by all interested in the subject.
[22] _Fossil Men._
Dupont holds that the plain-dwellers (_Pedionomytes_, as he calls them)
were the earliest known men, corresponding to the oldest gravel remains
of Dawkins and Prestwich, and points out that their implements are in
size and form, though not in material and finish, allied to those of the
polished stone age, which might thus be regarded as an improved
continuation or revival of this first period. This might be read to
mean, as above maintained, that the earliest men were peaceful and
perhaps in part agricultural, that they were succeeded by lawless,
powerful, artistic and savage peoples, and when the latter were swept
away that a remnant of the primitive stock repossessed the land. If this
proves to be the net result, it will correspond exactly with our old
historical beliefs.
I was struck in reading this paper with a remark of Dupont on the
unprogressive character of the men of the mammoth age, who seem to have
made so little advance in the arts of life during the period of their
occupation of Europe. Perhaps he makes too great an estimate of the
length of their residence, or does not sufficiently consider how long
men about their stage of civilisation have remained at the same point in
the historic period. Nor does he consider the possibility of the cave
men belonging to ruder tribes of a race which may have inhabited better
if more perishable residences elsewhere. In any case, all experience
shows that to such a people any great advance in the arts could come
only by missionary influence from abroad, or by the appearance of some
great inventive genius among themselves; and no good fortune of this
kind seems to have happened to the Canstadt or Cro-magnon men, or if it
did, they rejected their opportunity, as so many others have since done.
Still, perhaps, we need not pity them too much. They lived in a young
and fresh condition of the earth, enjoyed a vigorous health, and were
gifted with rare strength and energy. They were bountifully provided
for by nature as to food and clothing, were in slavery to no man, lived
in families bound together by ties of affection, and were free to
migrate over vast territories according to the exigencies of the
seasons. They had some taste in dress and ornaments, and no doubt
enjoyed their clever carvings on bone and ivory as much as any modern
lovers of art their most finished treasures. A Cro-magnon 'brave,' tall,
muscular and graceful in movement, clad in well-dressed skins,
ornamented with polished shells and ivory pendants, with a pearly shell
helmet, probably decked with feathers, and armed with his flint-headed
lance and skull-cracker of reindeer antler handsomely carved, must have
been a somewhat noble savage, and he must have rejoiced in the chase of
the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the bison, and the wild horse and reindeer,
and in launching his curiously-constructed harpoons against the salmon
and other larger fish that haunted the rivers.
Nor was he destitute of higher hopes. He laid his dead reverently in the
bosom of mother earth, with such things as had been pleasant or useful
in life, and his rudimentary bible, or 'book of the dead,' must have at
least included the idea--'This corruptible shall put on incorruption,
this mortal immortality.' That is the meaning of such funeral gifts in
every part of the world, and has always been so, as far as we can learn.
But the belief in immortality implies also a belief in a God or gods.
For if there is a spiritual world for the dead, there must be a Power to
care for them there. Whether these beliefs were originally implanted in
him when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or were
taught to him by special revelation, we do not know, but they were there
as a foundation on which he could, with the aid of his sense of right
and wrong, build a happy and harmless life. That he did not always do so
we have some sad evidence, to be gathered even from his bones; and the
testimony of tradition is that his great sin was that of inhuman
violence, and it was for this that he was swept away by the Flood, and
replaced by men of more peaceful mould, whom but for that catastrophe he
would soon have annihilated.
Carthaillac[23] devotes a chapter to the mortuary customs of the men of
the quaternary (palanthropic) age. He shows that the statement sometimes
made that these men did not care for the dead is entirely incorrect,
though he believes that we know comparatively little of their burials,
owing to the circumstance that only those in caverns were likely to be
preserved or discovered. The discoveries at Spy, in Belgium, show that
even the Canstadt race, the lowest in development, and probably in art,
interred the bodies of their dead, while a large number of interments of
the Cro-magnon race are known. He calls attention to the fact that in
all of these the body lies on its side. The hands are brought up to the
head or neck, and the knees are bent, sometimes slightly, sometimes very
strongly, so as to give the body a crouching posture (p. 79). The idea
seems to have been to place the body in the attitude of sleep or of
rest. The deceased was arrayed in the garments and ornaments worn during
life, and not infrequently a quantity of red oxide of iron was buried
with, or has been scattered over, the body. Flint knives and lances seem
often to have been placed with the dead. It is needless to say that all
this recalls the burial customs of many rude tribes of men up to modern
times.
[23] _Homme Préhistorique._
There is some reason to believe that occasionally, at least, the flesh
has been partially removed from the bones before interment. This reminds
us of the custom of some American tribes, who were in the habit of
disinterring the dead after a temporary burial, carefully cleaning the
bones, and then placing them wrapped in skins in their tribal ossuaries.
It would seem, however, that the primitive men when they removed the
flesh did so in a recent state. Perhaps this practice was resorted to
only when the body had to be kept for some time, or carried some
distance for interment. If the body was disembowelled and the remaining
flesh and ligaments dried, it would be reduced very nearly to the
condition of the imperfect mummies of the Guanches of the Canaries and
of the Peruvians. Thus we may suppose that we have here a rudimentary
condition of the art of the embalmer.
[Illustration: THE SKELETON OF LAUGERIE BASSE, DORDOGNE, SHOWING THE
POSITION OF THE PERFORATED SHELLS ON THE LIMBS AND FOREHEAD (after
Carthaillac)]
Some questions still remain as to the races of men actually known to us
in the palanthropic age. It has already been explained that in the
earliest part of this period, that characterised by the presence of the
_Elephas antiquus_ in Europe, there are evidences of the existence of
man, and this in a more genial climate than that prevailing later. Of
these men we have no certain osseous remains. Should these be found, we
may anticipate that their characters would be peculiar, and would
indicate a frugivorous rather than a carnivorous mode of life, and less
of rude power than that evidenced by the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races.
Of the latter, though both are of the same faunal period, and therefore
geologically contemporaneous, the former, the lower of the two in point
of physical development, is apparently in Western Europe the older, and
represents the earlier part of the mammoth age, when the climate had
become cooler and _Elephas primigenius_ had succeeded to _E. antiquus_.
The Cro-magnon race, beginning in this period, goes on to the close of
the mammoth age, which, as already stated, coincides with the reindeer
age of the French archæologists. This Cro-magnon race I am disposed to
regard as a mixed or half breed tribe, produced by the union of the
Canstadt peoples with the higher race already hinted at. This last may
possibly be represented by a few skulls more resembling those of the men
of the neanthropic age, which are occasionally found in the burials of
the Cro-magnon people, and of which that found at Truchère has been
already referred to.
We have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably
mild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and
carnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third,
or mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the
others. This is of course merely a hypothetical reading of the facts,
but it is by no means improbable, and would, as we shall see, bring them
into close relation with the teachings of history and tradition as to
the antediluvian age.
The most careful and elaborate studies of these several types have been
made by MM. Quatrefages and Hamy. The former sums up the races of fossil
or 'quaternary' men as six in number, viz.: (1) The Canstadt;
(2) the Cro-magnon; (3) the mesitocephalic race of Furfooz; (4) the
sub-brachycephalic race of Furfooz; (5) the race of Grenelle; (6) the
race of Truchère. Of these only three (namely, Nos. 1, 2, and 6)
properly belong to the palanthropic age. The races of Furfooz[24] and of
the upper beds of Grenelle are neanthropic, because they are found with
the animal remains of that age, and they resemble in cranial characters
the neanthropic peoples.
[24] Noticed later, in Chapter VII.
The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races resemble each other in being
long-headed or dolichocephalic, and in having strong and coarsely-made
facial bones, but the Canstadt race has a comparatively low fore-*head
with strong superciliary arches, and round eye-sockets. The Cro-magnon
race has a brain-case of more than ordinary capacity, a more elevated
fore-*head, and eye-sockets singularly elongated horizontally. Broca has
measured the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the
result 1,590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the
average of 125 modern Parisian skulls. The Canstadt men were of
moderate stature, but strongly built and muscular. The Cro-magnon race
was of great stature, some skeletons approaching to seven feet in
height, and affording evidence of immense muscular development.
[Illustration: SKULL FROM TRUCHÈRE, SHOWING A PECULIAR PALANTHROPIC TYPE
ALLIED TO NEANTHROPIC RACES (after Quatrefages)]
The race of Truchère is represented by only a single skull; but
Quatrefages vouches for it as belonging to the age of the mammoth. It is
a well-formed brachycephalic cranium of unusually great internal
capacity, and would be regarded anywhere as indicating a race of high
and refined cerebral endowment. If really of the mammoth age, it may
have belonged to a straggler or captive from a higher and more cultured
tribe, introduced accidentally into a sepulchre of the Cro-magnon
period. It connects itself with the speculation in the preceding pages
as to the existence of such a race. This skull resembles, as we should
expect, the type of the neanthropic men who spread over the earth at the
beginning of that later age.
Table Showing Relations of Later Cenozoic Ages in Europe
Later cenozoic
______________________________________________________________
| | | |
| Geological | Geography and Climate | Fauna |
| Periods | | |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| Modern or | The actual climate | Modern quadrupeds, |
| neanthropic | and geographical | including |
| | arrangements | domestic animals |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| | Cold and dry, with | Reindeer, |
L C | | widely extended | mammoth (Elephas |
a e | | continents. Extension | primigenius), |
t n | Post-glacial or | of glaciers &c. | hairy rhinoceros |
e o | palanthropic | | (R. tichorhinus) |
r z | | | |
o | | Warm and moist, | |
i | | extended continents | Elephas antiquus |
c | | | and R. Merkii |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| Pleistocene or | Glacial period. | Arctic animals |
| glacial | Submergence and | and plants |
| | diminished continents | |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| | | Elephas |
| Pliocene | First continental | meridionalis, |
| | period. | Rhinoceros |
| | Mild climate | leptorhinus, and |
| | | other extinct |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
______________________________________________________________
| | | |
| Geological | Geography and Climate | Fauna |
| Periods | | |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| Modern or | So-called of Iron, | Recent |
| neanthropic | Bronze, and Polished | Roman |
| | Stone | Gaulish |
| | | Iberian |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | | |
| | | Magdalenian |
L C | Post-glacial or | So-called palæolithic | Soloutrian |
a e | palanthropic | or Age of | Mousterian |
t n | | Chipped Stone | Chellean |
e o | | | |
r z | | | |
o | | | |
i | | | |
c | | | |
|_________________|_______________________|____________________|
| | |
| Pleistocene or | |
| glacial | |
|_________________| No certain trace of Man |
| | |
| Pliocene | |
|_________________|____________________________________________|