END OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE
The palanthropic age came to a tragic end, and is somewhat definitely
separated from that which succeeded it. This appears from several
considerations which are too often overlooked by writers who have
a prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by
slow degrees into that by which it is followed--an exaggerated
uniformitarianism beyond that of Lyell, but in harmony with the
hypothesis of Darwin, to which many anthropologists appear to tie
themselves hopelessly.
Three facts are here specially important. The Canstadt and Cro-magnon
races are physically different from any modern races, and give place
at the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them as any now
existing, and who, on the other hand, while separated from the
palæocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern
times. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may
to this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt
or Cro-magnon type. These are good evidences of the unity of man
through all the ages, but no race exists having all the peculiarities of
these ancient peoples, which thus belong not to a distinct species but
to a distinct racial variety of man.
Secondly, at the close of the palanthropic age we find a great change in
land animals--a number of important species hunted by early man having
disappeared, and the more meagre modern fauna having come in at once.
Thus it may be affirmed that the land fauna of this primitive time was
distinct from that now living. This implies either long time or a great
physical break.
Thirdly, this change of fauna consists not so much in the introduction
of new species as in the extinction of old forms, either absolutely or
locally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since
it seems to be a law of the geological succession that increasing land
brings in new land animals; diminishing land area leads to extinction,
and not to introduction.
Fourthly, in accordance with this we find that, at the close of the
palanthropic age, the continents of the northern hemisphere experienced
a subsidence from which they have only partially recovered up to the
present time, and which introduced the modern geographical and climatal
features. This appears from raised beaches and beds of rubble, loam and
loess of modern date overlying the _débris_ of the glacial period and
holding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread
over the whole northern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to
high levels. An interesting illustration has recently been given by Dr.
Nuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at
Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen.[25] These show an overlying deposit
with 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble
and loam destitute of human remains, and below this a bed containing
bone implements, worked flints, and traces of cookery of the
palanthropic period. The whole rests on a bed of rolled pebbles,
supposed to be the upper part of the glacial deposits. This shows the
interval between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods, and also the
post-glacial date of man in Switzerland, and it accords with a great
many other instances.
[25] _Nouvelles archives des Missions_, &c. vol. iii. Noticed in
_Natural Science_, 1893.
Were these changes sudden or gradual? Experience has no answer, for no
similar events have occurred in historic times, and though there are
records in the geological history of many mutations in the elevation of
the land, we have no information as to their rate of progress, and we
know little of their causes. The changes of this kind known to us in
modern times are merely local, not general, and in regard to their rate
are of two kinds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake
shocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic
activity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible,
and are often of wider distribution. It is evident, however, that these
slight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of
past periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas.
We have no modern instances of these almost world-wide depressions of
continents under the sea, though we know that these have occurred, one
of them within the human period, and it is idle to speculate as to their
rate or duration in the absence of facts. We know pretty certainly,
however, from the gauges of time which can be applied to the close of
the glacial period, that this latest subsidence must have occurred
within six thousand years of our time.
With reference to the particular movement in question, we know that the
close of the palanthropic period was accompanied by a movement at least
equal to the difference between the wide lands of the second continental
period and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we
find on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess
and plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable
elevation, and evidences, as in Siberia, of large herds of animals
perishing on elevated lands on which they seem to have taken refuge.[26]
In short, no geological fact can be better established than the
post-glacial subsidence.
[26] Prestwich, 'Evidence of Submergence of Western Europe,' _Trans.
Royal Society_, 1893; 'Possible Cause for the Origin of the Tradition of
the Flood,' _Trans. Vict. Inst._, 1894; Dawkins, _Journal Anthrop.
Inst._, February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (_Nature_, November 10,
1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to extend far upward on
the Caspian plain and the Pamirs, so that all Asia must have been
submerged within a very recent period. See also _Fossil Man_, by the
author, 1880.
Putting these facts together, we cannot doubt that the submergence at
the close of the palanthropic age was very considerable, and that it was
followed by a partial re-emergence. Further, there is no evidence of any
serious fractures or folding of the crust taking place at the time,
though it is possible that great lava ejections like some of those of
Western America may belong to this period. It is therefore allowable to
suppose that the cause of submergence may have been either depression of
the land, or elevation of the bed of the ocean throwing its waters over
the land, or possibly a combination of both. Movements of these kinds
have recurred again and again in geological time. Their causes are
mysterious, but their effects have been of the most stupendous
character. Fortunately, they occur at rare intervals, and that to which
we are now referring is the last of which we have any record, and
differs from all others in having occurred at a time when man was widely
spread over the world.
The geological chronometers already referred to inform us that the land
of the northern hemisphere rose from the great pleistocene submergence
about eight thousand to ten thousand years ago, and the second
continental period with its forests and its teeming and widely-extended
animal and human life, may have been established within two thousand
years of that time, or say six thousand to eight thousand years ago. How
long the second continental or palanthropic period continued intact we
do not know, but we can scarcely allow it less than two thousand years.
Perhaps it was considerably longer. Now on historical evidence produced
by Egypt, Chaldea, and other ancient countries in the Mediterranean
region, we can trace the neanthropic age continuously back to, say,
three thousand years B.C., or nearly five thousand years in all. Adding
to this two thousand years for the palanthropic age, we are carried back
to a time within one thousand years of the earliest we can assign on
geological grounds to the termination of the great glacial period.
Therefore, unless we suppose the last continental subsidence to have
begun some time before the close of the palanthropic age, and to have
continued to some degree into the beginning of the neanthropic, we
cannot assign to it a very long time. That it could not have been sudden
in the sense of being instantaneous is evident, because in that case
terrestrial denudation of a stupendous character must have ensued, and
no animal life except that of mountain tops and elevated table-lands
could have escaped its destructive effects, but that it was by no means
secular or long-continued is certain.
Thus we seem shut up to the conclusion that the close of the
palanthropic age was marked by great geological vicissitudes of the
character of submergence, leading primarily to vast destruction of
animal life, and secondarily to permanent changes both in geography and
climate, under which new conditions the neanthropic age was inaugurated.
How this took place we have to inquire in the sequel. In the meantime we
may merely remark that since the two principal races of primitive men
known to us in Europe seem to have perished, we must infer that
individuals of a third race beyond the limits of Europe were destined to
survive, and again to replenish the earth in the new era, and that
possibly these may be represented by the solitary Truchère skull. In the
case of many of the more bulky and unwieldy animals inhabiting the
plains the case was different. They perished, or if any survived the
submergence they were unable to multiply under the new conditions.
Desperate attempts have been made in the interests of extreme
uniformitarianism to discredit the abrupt change from palæocosmic to
neocosmic men. It has been supposed that the latter replaced the former
as conquerors--a most unlikely theory, when their relative powers are
considered. It has been conjectured that as the cold decreased the old
races of men followed the reindeer to the north and became Arctic
peoples. But why did they not rather attack the new animals, which in
that case must have come in from the south? It has even been supposed
that the Esquimaux may be their descendants; but they are quite
different in physical characters, and have no nearer resemblance in
their arts than other rude peoples. In opposition to all this we have
not only the remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal
associates, but when we know that the whole geographical features of our
continents have changed since the palanthropic age, and that not only
are our continents reduced in size since the continental post-glacial
period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as well as
subsidence, and this within a short period--say eight thousand years
less the historic period on the one hand and the early palanthropic on
the other--it seems impossible to doubt the greatness and suddenness of
the physical break that divides the anthropic age into two distinct
portions. All this may be held to be certainly known as geological fact,
and it would be folly to overlook it in any discussions as to primitive
man, or in any comparisons of the evidence afforded by his remains with
that of early human history or tradition.
But if man was a witness of and sufferer in this great catastrophe, and
if any men survived it, did they preserve no tradition or memory of such
a stupendous event? We may imagine this to be possible. The survivors
may have belonged to the rudest and most isolated of the races of men,
and may have had no means of knowing the extent of the disaster or of
preserving its memory. On the other hand, they may have attained to a
sufficient degree of culture to have had some means of perpetuating the
memory of great events. If so, we may imagine that the great diluvial
cataclysm which separates the human or anthropic period into two parts
may have left an indelible mark in the history or tradition of mankind.
We shall inquire into this in the sequel, but must first consider what
geological monuments remain of the early neanthropic age in Europe.[27]
[27] A valuable paper by Dawkins 'On the relation of the Palæolithic to
the Neolithic Period,' reaches me when correcting the proof of this
volume. (Reprint from _Journal of Anthropological Society_, February
1894.)
In the meantime I may remark that, if we take the Canstadt people to
represent the ruder tribes of the antediluvian Cainites, the feebler
folk of Truchère to represent the Sethites, and the giant race of
Cro-magnon and Mentone as the equivalent of the 'mighty men' or Nephelim
of Genesis who arose from the mixture of the two original stocks, we
shall have a somewhat exact parallel between the men of the caves and
gravels and those we have so long been familiar with in the Book of
Genesis.