When we reflect on the magnitude of the pre-Christian Alexandrian
libraries, as well as the magnificent appointments attaching to and
lavish wealth expended upon the ancient University of the capital of
the Ptolemies, we seem almost unable to realise the fact that people
of education and intellect, until quite lately, believed that all
this intellectual and literary magnificence had reached that pitch
of excellence in the short space of less than four thousand years.
In this period of time it was believed that man had so far risen in
intellectual capacity from the absolutely ignorant condition of the
first pair as described in Genesis as to have reached that state of
mental perfection possessed by the professors in the Alexandrian,
Athenian, and Sicilian schools. We can see Professor Euclid pointing
out on the blackboard how, the sides of a rectilinear polygon all
touching a circle, the area of the polygon is equal to the rectangle
contained by the radius of the circle and the semi-perimeter of the
polygon; Professor Archimedes would be explaining the theory that, if
a force act upon a body, the measure of the force in absolute units
is numerically equal to the time-rate of change of momentum and to
the space-rate of change of kinetic energy; Professor Eratosthenes
would be impressing upon his class the importance of the knowledge
of the globular shape of the earth; and Professor Hipparchus would
be startling his hearers by stating that he would show them how the
failure of the sun to reach the same point in the same time in his
annual circuit (according to the old geocentric theory) caused the
vernal equinoxial sign to give place to the next zodiacal sign every
2,152 years.
Here was a galaxy of intellectual attainments indeed! With such
a picture before our eyes we are calmly asked to believe that so
little time as less than four thousand years had been sufficient
for the building up of this vast intellectual edifice out of such
rude materials as the man and woman of Eden, when the two thousand
years following have been productive of so little advancement,
notwithstanding the exquisite materials upon which to work that were
left for us by the Alexandrian and Athenian sages. We cannot believe
so evident an absurdity to-day; and yet it is little more than half
a century since the whole of Christendom accepted without any doubt
whatever the old traditional statement of the Church that man had only
inhabited this earth for rather less than six thousand years.
How is it, then, that we have believed the traditionary story for so
long and now reject it as absurd? People have believed the story of
the creation according to Genesis partly because it was dangerous
to do otherwise and partly because there was no absolute proof to
the contrary. In 1774, however, a German of the name of Esper made a
discovery which gave the finishing touch to the mortal wound inflicted
upon the Christian and Jewish superstitions by the previous adoption
of the Copernican system of astronomy; and, just as Copernicus, Bruno,
Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton drove the first half-dozen
nails into the coffin of the Bible, so did this discovery of Esper
drive into it the first of the last half-dozen, the remaining five
to be subsequently added by Darwin, Huxley, Lyell, Spencer, and
Carpenter. The discovery made by J. F. Esper consisted of some human
bones, mingled with remains of the Northern bear and other species
then unknown, which were lying in the famous cavern of Gailenreuth, in
Bavaria; and this was soon followed by the discovery, in 1797, by John
Frere, at Hoxne, in Suffolk, of a number of flint weapons, mixed up
with bones of extinct animals, the whole being embedded in rocks. These
and other similar discoveries made some sensation among scientific men,
which resulted in the publication, in 1823, of Dr. Buckland’s “Reliquiæ
Diluvianæ,” in which the author summed up all the facts then known
tending to the establishment of the truth that man co-existed with
animals long since extinct. Immediately after this, in 1826, Tournal,
of Narbonne, gave to the world an account of some discoveries he had
made in a cave in Aude (France), where he had found bones of the bison
and reindeer, cut and carved by the hand of man, together with remains
of edible shell-fish, which must have been brought there by some one
who dwelt there. A few years afterwards De Christol, of Montpellier,
discovered human bones and fragments of pottery, mixed with the remains
of the Northern bear, hyæna, and rhinoceros, in the caverns of Pondres
and Souvignargues. In 1833 Schmerling found in the caverns of Engis and
Enghihoul, in Belgium, two human skulls, surrounded by teeth of the
rhinoceros, elephant, bear, and hyæna, on some of which were marks of
human workmanship, and under which were flint knives and arrow-heads.
Two years afterwards Joly, a Montpellier professor, found in the cave
of Nabrigas (Lozère) the skull of a cave-bear, having upon it marks
made by an arrow, beside which were scattered fragments of pottery
bearing the imprints of human fingers. Following upon these discoveries
were those made in 1842 by Godwin Austen at Kent’s Cavern, near
Torquay, consisting of animal remains and results of man’s handiwork;
and those made in 1844, by Lund, in the caves of Brazil, consisting of
skeletons of thirty human beings, an ape, various carnivora, rodents,
pachyderms, sloths, etc. Kent’s Cavern, in 1847, was again the spot to
which all eyes were turned; for there McEnery had found, under a layer
of stalagmite, the remains of men and extinct animals. This remarkable
discovery was followed, in the same year, by the appearance of a work
by Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, in which he described the flint
tools, etc., found in the excavations made there and in the Somme
valley as far as Amiens. In 1857 the celebrated Neanderthal skull was
discovered; and in 1858 Prestwich, Falconer, and Pengelly (Englishmen)
found more flint implements in the lower strata of the Baumann cave,
in the Hartz mountains, at the same time that Gosse _fils_ obtained
from the sand-pits of Grenelle various flint implements and bones of
the mammoth; while in the following year Fontan discovered in the cave
of Massat (Ariége) utensils, human teeth, and bones of the cave-bear,
hyæna, and cave-lion. Near Bedford, about the same time, Wyatt found,
in the gravel-beds, flints similar to those found at Abbeville, and
bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, ox, horse, and deer;
which discovery was soon followed by that of the celebrated human
burial place at Aurignac, by Lartet, in 1860, in which were found human
remains, together with bones of the bear, reindeer, bison, hyæna, wolf,
mammoth, and rhinoceros, a number of flint and horn implements, and
the remaining ashes of fires. The world was at last induced to give
some heed to the new cry of man’s extreme antiquity when Boucher de
Perthes, of Abbeville, in 1863, discovered at Moulin-Quignon, at a
depth of fifteen feet, in a virgin argilo-ferruginous bed belonging to
the later Pleiocene or early Pleistocene period, the half of a human
lower jaw-bone (which had belonged to an aged person of small stature),
covered with an earthy crust, by the side of which lay a flint hatchet,
covered with the same kind of crust; and not far from which were also
buried, in the same bed, two mammoths’ teeth. After this discovery
scientific men generally subscribed to the new theory of the antiquity
of man, and all seemed eager to pursue their investigations without
delay, the result being that we are now receiving, almost day by day,
fresh evidence on the subject, and hope soon to arrive at a tolerably
accurate conclusion as to the earliest date of man’s appearance upon
earth.
Let us now look more closely at the discoveries made in the various
caves referred to above, and also see what advances had been made by
geologists in other directions during the same period, as well as what
amount of progress has been made during the last twenty years. Dr.
Schmerling, the Belgian geologist and comparative anatomist, after
exploring the Engis and other caves in the province of Liège, published
an illustrated work, giving the results of his investigations, which
were highly interesting, and contributed largely to the establishment
of the theory of man’s antiquity. In these caves Schmerling found the
bones of the cave-bear, hyæna, elephant, and rhinoceros, together with
human bones, none of which gave any evidence of having been gnawed,
from which circumstance it was inferred that these caves had not
been the dwelling-places of wild beasts; and the fact that the bones
were scattered about without any order having been observed in their
distribution pointed to the conclusion that the caves had not been used
as burying-places. Probably, therefore, these remains had been washed
into the caves from time to time, and had gradually become covered
with deposit, and thus protected and preserved. There were no complete
skeletons found; but in the Engis cave were discovered the remains of
at least three human beings, the skull of one being embedded by the
side of a mammoth’s tooth, and in such a state of disintegration that
it fell to pieces on being moved; while the skull of another, an adult,
was buried, five feet deep, by the side of a tooth of a rhinoceros,
several bones of a horse, and some reindeer bones. Besides the bones,
there were also discovered some rude flint implements, a polished bone
needle, and other products of man’s industry, all embedded in the same
layer as the bones. It follows from these facts that man lived on the
banks of the Meuse at the same time as the rhinoceros, mammoth, hyæna,
and cave-bear, extinct animals of the Pleiocene and early Pleistocene
era.
Not far from these caves are those of the Lesse Valley, in which Dupont
discovered, in 1864, three different layers of human and other remains,
the lowest of which contained the bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and
other extinct animals, together with flint instruments of the rudest
type, instruments of reindeer horn, and a human lower jaw with a marked
resemblance to the lower jaw of the higher apes. Another discovery at
some little distance away from these caves was made in 1857 in what
is called the Neanderthal Cave, in the valley of the Düssel, between
Düsseldorf and Elberfeld, which is important, not so much as an
indication of the length of time that man has lived on the earth, as
of the close resemblance existing between the skulls of human beings
in the early Pleistocene era and the skulls of apes. The discovery
consisted of a human skull and a number of human bones, together with
the bones of the rhinoceros, which latter were subsequently unearthed.
The skull was of such a character as to raise the question of whether
it was human or not, the forehead being narrow and very low and the
projection of the supra-orbital ridges enormously great. The long bones
of the skeleton agreed with those of men of the present day in respect
to length, but were of extraordinary thickness, and the ridges for the
attachment of muscles were developed in an unusual degree, showing that
the individual was possessed of great muscular strength, especially
in the thoracic neighbourhood. Drs. Schaafhausen and Fuhlrott pointed
out that the depression of the forehead was not due to any artificial
pressure, as the whole skull was symmetrical, and that the individual
must have been distinguished by an extraordinarily small cerebral
development as well as uncommon corporeal strength. Professor Huxley
considers this Neanderthal skull to be the most ape-like one he ever
beheld, and Busk, a great authority, gives valuable reasons for
supposing it to be the skull of an individual occupying a position
midway between the man and the gorilla or chimpanzee. Huxley has
carefully compared the Engis and Neanderthal skulls, and his remarks
upon them are given in their entirety in Lyell’s “Antiquity of Man.”
From these remarks we gather that the Engis skull was dolichocephalic
in form, extreme length 7.7 inches, extreme breadth not more than 5.25
inches, forehead well arched, superciliary prominences well but not
abnormally developed, horizontal circumference 20½ inches, longitudinal
arc from nasal spine to occipital protuberance 13¾ inches, transverse
arc from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the
sagittal suture, 13 inches. The Neanderthal skull is so different
from the Engis skull that Huxley says “it [Neanderthal] might well
be supposed to belong to a distinct race of mankind.” It is 8 inches
in extreme length, 5.75 inches in breadth, and only 3.4 inches from
the glabello-occipital line to the vertex; the longitudinal arc is 12
inches, and the transverse arc probably about 10¼ inches, but, owing
to incompleteness of temporal bones, this could not be correctly
ascertained; the horizontal circumference is 23 inches, which high
figure is due to the vast development of the superciliary ridges; and
the sagittal suture, notwithstanding the great length of the skull,
only 4½ inches. Huxley sums up his examination of the Neanderthal
skull in these words: “There can be no doubt that, as Professor
Schaafhausen and Mr. Busk have stated, this skull is the most brutal of
all known human skulls, resembling those of the apes, not only in the
prodigious development of the superciliary prominences and the forward
extension of the orbits, but still more in the depressed form of the
brain-case, in the straightness of the squamosal suture, and in the
complete retreat of the occiput forward and upward from the superior
occipital ridges;” and he then proceeds to clearly show that the skull
could not have belonged to an idiot. On the whole, the Engis skull more
clearly approaches the Caucasian type, while the Neanderthal differs
entirely from all known human skulls, being more nearly allied to the
chimpanzee than to the human. Both these skulls belonged to individuals
who lived in the early Pleistocene era, the Engis being probably
the older of the two, and yet the Engis is the most like the modern
European skull, which tells us plainly that in those remote times there
were existing in Belgium and the surrounding districts two different
races of men, one highly advanced in brain evolution and the other in a
wretchedly low condition of intellectual development. The Neanderthal
skull probably formed part of an individual belonging to the tail-end
of a semi-human race, while the Engis skull, in all probability,
belonged to an oriental immigrant belonging to a more advanced race. It
must be always remembered that scientific men have long since admitted
the truth of the theory that the differences in character between the
brain of the highest races of men and that of the lowest, though less
in degree, are of the same order as those which separate the human from
the ape brain, the same rule holding good in regard to the shape of the
skull.
The discoveries made in Kent’s Cavern, in the year 1842 and again
in 1847, led to a thorough investigation of the series of galleries
forming the now celebrated Brixham Caves, near Torquay, and as early as
1859 the labours of the explorers were rewarded by the discovery of a
number of flint implements in the cave-earth or loam, _underneath_ the
layer of stalagmite, which were the work of men living in Palæolithic
times, prior to the existence of the reindeer, whose antlers were found
deposited _in_ the layer of stalagmite. Previous to this time, when
McEnery, in 1826, examined Kent’s Cavern, he had stated that he had
found several teeth of _Ursus cultridens_, a huge carnivore belonging
to Tertiary formations, but now extinct; and as this monster was first
known in Meiocene deposits in France, but had never been traced in any
cavern or fluviatile Pleistocene deposits, although it had occurred in
Pleiocene formations, considerable excitement was caused on the score
that the flint implements lately found might possibly have belonged
to Meiocene, or at latest early Pleiocene men. Further investigations
were accordingly commenced for the purpose of solving this problem,
the explorations being under the superintendence of Messrs. Vivian and
Pengelley; and in 1872 they at last came upon a fine incisor of _Ursus
cultridens_ in the uppermost part of the cave-earth, which settled the
point as to man’s existence at the same time with the extinct bear
in England. The Kent’s Cavern deposits are as follows:—1. Limestone.
2. Black mould, containing articles of mediæval, Romano-British, and
pre-Roman date. 3. Stalagmite floor, from 16 to 20 inches thick,
containing a human jaw and remains of extinct animals. 4. Black
earth, containing charcoal and other evidence of fire, and also bone
and flint instruments. 5. Red cave-earth, containing Palæolithic
implements and bones and teeth of extinct animals, such as cave-lion,
mammoth, rhinoceros, and hyæna, and including the tooth of the _Ursus
cultridens_, or _Machairodus latidens_. 6. Second stalagmite floor,
from 3 to 12 feet thick, covering bones of bears only. 7. Dark red
sandy loam, containing bones of bears, three flint implements, and
one flint chip. The fact of the _Ursus cultridens_ being contemporary
in England with man is of enormous interest to geologists and
anthropologists, for it places the date of Palæolithic man as far back
as the Pleiocene age, instead of, as heretofore, in the Pleistocene.
The caves of the Dordogne Valley in south-western France have supplied
us with some very good relics of a very remote period. They are
situated in rocks of Cretaceous age, and form shelters in which
ancient huntsmen used to find dwelling-places, leaving behind them
refuse-heaps and instruments of various kinds. In the Vezère Caves,
which are included in the Dordogne series, there is one of very
ancient date, Le Moustier, in which is a bed of sand having both above
and below floors of a similar character, containing charcoal, flint
instruments, and other remains. The depth of this sandy bed is about 10
inches, having the appearance of a river deposit; and, although many
flint instruments have been found in it of a more ancient date than
those unearthed in the other caves, yet no worked bone instruments have
been discovered. In another cave, the Langerie, bronze and polished
stone objects have been found, together with various kinds of pottery,
below which, and under masses of fallen rock, covered with Palæolithic
flints and sculptured bones and antlers of reindeer, a human skeleton
was discovered lying under a block of stone. In another cave, La
Madeleine, was found a mammoth tusk, on which was rudely carved a
picture of the animal itself, proving incontestably that cave-men
lived here in mammoth times. In the Mentone cave Dr. Rivière, in 1872,
suddenly came upon the bones of a human foot, which caused him to make
a very careful examination of the deposit, the result being that he
unearthed an entire human skeleton at a depth of 20 feet, surrounded by
a large number of unpolished flint flakes and scrapers, and a fragment
of a skewer, about six inches long. No metal, pottery, or polished
flint was found; but bones of extinct mammals were scattered about,
thus suggesting a remote Palæolithic antiquity. The skeleton is 5 feet
9 inches high, the skull dolichocephalic, forehead narrow, temple
flattened, and facial angle measuring 80 to 85 degrees; the teeth
were worn flat by eating hard food, and the long bones are strong and
flattened.
No human bones have as yet been discovered in the deposit of the Somme
valley, where so many Palæolithic flints have been found; but in the
valley of the Seine, at Clichy, Messrs. Bertrand and Reboux found, in
1868, portions of human skeletons in the same beds where Palæolithic
implements had been embedded. These bones were found at a depth of
seventeen feet, and included a female skull of very inferior type,
having enormously thick frontal bone and a low, narrow roof, slanting
from before backwards. A very good specimen of human fossil is that
known as the “Denise Fossil Man,” comprising the remains of more
than one skeleton found in a volcanic breccia near Le Puy-en-Velay,
in Central France. These bones have been very carefully examined by
the members of the French Scientific Congress, as also the deposit
in which they were found, and the opinion arrived at is that the
fossils are genuine and their age early Pleistocene. Another most
interesting specimen of ancient human remains is the skeleton found
buried under four Cypress forests, superimposed one upon the other, in
the delta of the Mississippi, near New Orleans, at a depth of sixteen
feet. Dr. Dowler ascribes to this skeleton an antiquity of at least
50,000 years, reckoning by the minimum length of time that must have
elapsed during the formation of the deposits found and the sinking of
the four successive forest beds. In another part of the same delta,
near Natchez, a human bone, _os innominatum_, accompanied by bones
of the mastodon and megalonyx, was washed out of what is believed
to be a still more ancient alluvial deposit. Dr. Dickeson, in whose
possession the said bone is now, states that it was buried at a depth
of thirty feet, and geologists agree that its date is very early, some
maintaining that it is probably of a higher antiquity than any yet
discovered.
From these discoveries it is abundantly evident that man existed
on the earth contemporaneously with the mastodon and other extinct
mammals belonging to the Pleiocene and early Pleistocene eras. There
are, however, people who stoutly deny that this can be so—at any rate,
as regards Northern and Central Europe—and who rank the discoveries
at Moulin Quignon, Engis, Kent’s Cavern, etc., with late Pleistocene
remains. They maintain that the beds in which these relics were found
could not have been of Pleiocene or early Pleistocene formation,
inasmuch as they lie _above_ the till and boulder-clay which form the
glacial deposits of the time when Europe was an Arctic region—that
is to say, of late Pleistocene times. Therefore, they say, man’s
earliest existence in Europe was post-glacial or late Pleistocene.
But while the fact of the human remains having been discovered above
the boulder-clay appears to point to a post-glacial date, still
there is confronting us the perplexing anomaly of the contemporary
existence of extinct mammals belonging to a tropical fauna, which,
if we accept this theory, involves the necessity of admitting that a
tropical climate followed the last glacial epoch—a condition of things
that we know never existed at all. The fact is there have been more
periods of glaciation than one, each being followed by the deposition
of boulder-clays; and between the periods of intense Arctic cold
there were intervals of tropical or sub-tropical heat, when mammals
belonging to and requiring a tropical climate ventured as far north as
the north of England, to become extinct when the period of glaciation
supervened. The last glacial period, we know, extended its area of
influence as far as the high peaks of Switzerland and Northern Italy,
completely overwhelming the whole of Northern Europe as far south as
the latitude of 45º, and the whole of North America as far south as
the latitude of 40º; since when there has been a gradual diminution
of cold until the present temperate climate supervened. Now, if it
can be positively ascertained that all the boulder-clays found in
England and Northern Europe were deposited during and immediately
after this last glacial period, the date of man’s first appearance
in those districts, as far as we have as yet any evidence, must be
post-glacial; but in such a case it would have been impossible that a
tropical fauna and flora could have existed in the same localities,
whereas their remains have been abundantly found lying side by side
with the remains of Palæolithic man. The conclusion we must draw is
that the boulder-clays found below the remains of Palæolithic man could
not have been deposited after the last period of glaciation, but must
have followed some prior glacial condition, and that man existed in
England and Northern Europe contemporaneously with extinct mammalia
during inter-glacial or pre-glacial times, when the climate of England
was tropical or sub-tropical—that is to say, in middle Pleistocene or
late Pleiocene times. If man really existed in England in Pleiocene
times, in favour of which view there appears to be strong evidence,
he would have been in all probability the companion of the extinct
tropical mammalia found deposited in the Cromer Forest beds, and some
of which belonged to Meiocene times. This forest was in existence at
the close of the Pleiocene era, and stretched from Cromer far away into
what is now the German Ocean, uniting Norfolk and Suffolk to Holland
and Belgium; but soon after the commencement of the Pleistocene period
the North Sea gradually swept over the old continent between Britain
on the west and Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands on the east, thus
converting the old forest at Cromer into the bed of the ocean, where
the stumps of the trees may now be seen embedded in deposit at very
low tide. Immediately after the disappearance of this forest the first
period of glaciation commenced, from which moment until the close of
the glacial periods the alternations in temperature and surface level
were frequent and of enormous magnitude, the correct sequence of which
changes we have as yet no proper conception.
If we go back to the commencement of the Tertiary great division of the
geological periods, we shall find that, at the beginning of the Eocene
deposits, the Secondary cretaceous rocks had been upheaved from the
bottom of the sea, and had become the dry ground of a large continent,
of which the British Islands formed a part; so that Eocene fauna and
flora in England had free communication with continental life. The
relative positions of land and water during this first Tertiary period
were as follows: The great continent spread from North America to
Europe, uniting Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys,
Ireland, and Britain (except south-east portion), with Scandinavia
and Spitzbergen on the north-east, and with France (Brittany) and
Spain on the south. There were three seas—the North Sea, which, like
a wedge with its point downwards, separated Greenland, Iceland, and
Faroes from Spitzbergen and Scandinavia; the South-Eastern Sea, which
stretched from the top of Denmark to Boston in Lincolnshire, thence
to Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, and on to Cherbourg, covering the whole
of the east and south-east of England; and the Atlantic, which was
separated from the North Sea by Iceland, Faroes, and intermediate
lands, and from the South-Eastern Sea by the British Islands, Western
France, and intermediate lands. These Eocene seas teemed with fish
now only found in more Southern latitudes; while the inland lakes and
rivers abounded with reptilian life. On the land tropical flora and
fauna flourished, among the former being palms, cypresses, and giant
cacti, and among the latter, in Lower Eocene times, large numbers of
marsupial species, in the Middle Eocene also lion-like carnivora, and
in Upper Eocene tapir-like animals, herds of Anchitheres (ancestors
of the horse), Hyænodon (ancestors of hyæna), and Lemurs. The Miocene
period opened with a lower temperature than that of the Eocene, and
with a considerable difference of surface level in Denmark and on the
South of England, the land having been upheaved to such an extent as
to leave no part of the country under water, uniting Yorkshire with
Denmark, and dividing the South-Eastern Sea into two portions, the
Northern one stretching from Schleswig as far as a few miles from
the present Lincolnshire coast and then back to the present mouth
of the Scheldt; and the latter stretching from Boulogne-sur-Mer to
Hastings and Portland Bill, and back to Cherbourg. Otherwise the
relationship between land and water was much the same as in Eocene
times. The climate of the Meiocene period was sub-tropical, and in
the lower strata were found placental mammals, but few marsupials; in
the middle beds remains of the mastodon, rhinoceros, anthropomorphous
apes, sloths, and ant-eaters; and in the upper layers antelopes
and gazelles; but no mammalian species in any Meiocene deposit has
continued to present times, all having become extinct. When we arrive
at the Pleiocene age we have quite a different state of things; the
Atlantic and North Seas gradually united together, thus separating
Europe from Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and North America; and on the
east of Britain the North Sea slowly descended as far as the present
mouth of the Thames, thus separating Britain from Norway, Denmark, and
the Netherlands; while the two Southern seas disappeared altogether,
leaving a huge continent, the borders of which stretched from the
present west coast of Norway to Denmark, the Netherlands, across to
Essex, central Norfolk (east Norfolk and Suffolk being part of North
Sea), and up to the Shetlands, at which point a turn was made south
to a few miles west of present west coast of Ireland, and thence
southward to a few miles west of present coast of Brittany, in France,
thus leaving the British Isles, France, and the rest of Europe as one
large continent. To accomplish these enormous changes, a very long
time was required, during which the climate was gradually becoming
more temperate, being in older Pleiocene times sub-tropical and in
newer Pleiocene warm-temperate; while the fauna and flora gradually
became less tropical in kind. The older Pleiocene deposits are divided
into coralline crag and reg crag, while the newer Pleiocene consist
of Norwich crags and Weybourne sands, on a level with which latter
was the Cromer forest, submerged by the North Sea during the earlier
Pleistocene period.
At this point commence those enormous alterations in the surface level
and climate of this part of the world which produced such extraordinary
results, and during which man made his first appearance in Britain. At
the very commencement of the Pleistocene era the temperature in Britain
was lowered to such an extent as to produce a sudden disappearance
of the semi-tropical fauna and flora: the land had reached the high
elevation of 500 feet above the present level, joining Scotland and
Scandinavia, and there had appeared in the North Sea large blocks of
ice, which rapidly increased in size and quantity, and continually
pushed farther south, until at length, after a long lapse of time, the
whole of Northern Europe, Asia, and America as far as the latitude
of about 45° became like a huge ice-house, the Arctic cold driving
all life before it to a more southern latitude, those forms which had
lived in Britain during Meiocene and Pleiocene times being the first to
disappear on the earliest sign of the approaching cold, and the Arctic
flora and fauna which took their place being afterwards compelled also
to move southward, owing to the intense severity of the glaciation.
When this state of things had lasted a very considerable time the
climate became milder, the melting ice deposited its boulder-clay, and
the high continent commenced to sink again to its former level, during
which gradual submergence the climate became still warmer, until it
at length reached a more than temperate mildness, at one time being
almost tropical. Still the land continued to sink, and this submergence
lasted until the British part of the great continent had become a large
archipelago of small islands, the surface of the land being upwards
of one thousand feet below the present level. It has been calculated
that such a submergence would require at the least 88,000 years to
be completed; so that a general idea may be formed of the enormous
periods of time occupied by these glacial and inter-glacial epochs.
While the British archipelago existed, another change of climate
took place, resulting in another glacial period, but probably not of
such intensity as the previous one. At this period the upper boulder
clay was deposited in the sea, to be afterwards upheaved above the
sea level in Yorkshire and other places. After a long continuance of
this glaciation the land commenced to rise again and the climate to
improve, until, after a period of about 136,000 years (according to
careful computation), there was produced another continental condition,
the ground reaching about 600 feet higher than now, and the climate
becoming temperate once more. England, Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia,
Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and Spain once again formed a mighty
continent, the climate of which was cold-temperate, becoming milder
year by year, and the elevation of which was gradually declining, as it
has continued to do until the present time, the British islands slowly
becoming once more separated from the continent of Europe. During the
last temperate continental condition Palæolithic and Neolithic man
lived in Britain, as is clearly proved by the evidence brought forward
by various authors in support of the contention; but, as we have seen,
Palæolithic man’s remains discovered in the various deposits were
often in the company of the bones of extinct mammals belonging to a
tropical fauna, which species could not have existed in Britain with
such a climate as that which followed the last period of glaciation,
but must have lived either in pre-glacial times, or, in other words, at
the end of Pleiocene or very beginning of Pleistocene times, or else
in inter-glacial or mid-Pleistocene times; and whichever alternative
be adopted we are bound to fix the date of the Palæolithic remains at
the same period. To fix their date in the very earliest of Pleistocene,
or latest of Pleiocene times, would give them an antiquity of nearly
300,000 years; to fix it in mid-Pleistocene times, during the temperate
or inter-glacial period of submergence, would give them an antiquity
of upwards of 170,000 years; and to fix it in post-glacial times would
give them an antiquity of probably 70,000 or 80,000 years at most. The
inter-glacial theory would, on the whole, appear most likely to be the
correct one, were it not for the fact that, during the inter-glacial
period, this country was partially submerged, which would probably have
prevented any communication in those times between the islands and
the mainland. We must, however, not forget that the great submergence
commenced during the first period of glaciation, and did not cease
until the second period had been reached, so that the inter-glacial
period of warmth would take place when England and Scotland were but
little different from now in their relationship to the continent, and
long before the archipelago was formed. Whether it would have been
possible under these conditions for Palæolithic man to cross from the
continent to the British islands we cannot say; but the probability is
that the distance to travel by water would have been far too great in
such early times; in which case we have no alternative but to place the
date of man’s earliest existence in England at the latest Pleiocene
age, as indeed we are compelled to do by the fact that Palæolithic
implements have been found in Kent’s cavern side by side with teeth of
the extinct bear of that period, as well as by the discoveries made in
the Engis and other caves.
In Southern Europe and the Southern States of North America the glacial
epoch had little effect, so that man’s age upon the earth in those
districts will be better calculated than it can ever be here or in
France and Belgium; and it will not be surprising if we learn before
long that man lived in the districts surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea in early Pleiocene times. This sea, it must be recollected, was
almost dried up during the early and middle Pleistocene periods, and
there was no communication between it and the Atlantic Ocean, so that
Europe was connected both on the east and west with Africa, and was
also one continuous continent with Asia, there being then no Black
Sea and no Caspian Sea. The probability, therefore, is that man first
became a rational being, parting with his ape-like characteristics,
somewhere in Southern Asia or Northern Africa, or, more probably still,
in the now submerged continent of Lemuria, which once joined China,
India, and Africa in one continental system; after which he emigrated
in different directions, finding his way north-westwards over the
European continent as far as the very limit of the Franco-British
continental system. At what period man first existed in the districts
around the Mexican Gulf it is at present impossible to say; but the
skull found in the Mississippi beds is calculated to be at least
50,000 years old, and by some the date is fixed at 100,000 years,
which would carry us back to middle Pleistocene times at least. Man,
therefore, most probably existed in Europe long before he had made
his appearance in the new world, although it is quite possible that
further investigation may lead to the discovery of a still more
ancient stock than that to which the Mississippi skull belonged. How
long a time elapsed between the first appearance of Palæolithic man
in Northern Europe, and the subsequent advent of Neolithic man, it is
at present impossible to say with any degree of certainty; but the
interval must have been of enormous length, for we find no traces of
polished stone implements until the very close of the Pleistocene era
during the last Franco-British continental system. At this period man
had become much more civilised than his ancestors of the Palæolithic
age; his implements were more ornamental and better fitted for the
purposes for which they were intended; his mode of life had become more
settled; and he had developed primitive industries. In the ancient “hut
circles” found at Standlake and at Fisherton, near Salisbury, have
been found instruments used for spinning and weaving, which date back
to Neolithic times, also fragments of pottery and stones used for
grinding corn, side by side with the remains of domestic animals. From
this we conclude that Neolithic man was at this time a companion of
domestic animals, a keeper of flocks and herds, and an agriculturalist.
He very soon became, in addition to this, a miner, as is evident from
the remains found at Cissbury, on the South Downs, and at Grimes
Graves, near Bandon, in Suffolk. Shafts had been sunk and galleries
dug out of the ground in order to unearth a better kind of flint for
manufacturing useful implements; and in some of these galleries the
tools of the workmen have been discovered, consisting of picks made out
of stags’ antlers, polished stone celts, chisels of bone and antler,
and small cups made of chalk. With these and other primitive tools the
flint had been worked out in several places, forming deep hollows in
and near which were the remains of birds, sheep, goats, horses, pigs,
and dogs, which evidently had served as companions to and food for
the miners. Canoes, hollowed out of large trees by the use of fire
and axes, have also been discovered, together with huge paddles for
propelling them; and numerous have been the discoveries of heads of
javelins, arrows, and spears, which were probably used as weapons of
warfare, the population by this time having grown large and divided
itself into small communities more or less at enmity with each other.
Similar progress was made by Neolithic man on the continent of Europe,
as we know from the discoveries made in Switzerland. As early as 1829
very ancient piles had been discovered in the lake of Zürich, which
have since been found to be the remains of primitive lake-dwellings,
dating from Neolithic times. These peculiar habitations consisted of
wooden houses built on platforms erected on a number of wooden piles
driven into the bottom of the lake, and were, no doubt, so constructed
with the view of protecting the small colony from the raids of wild
beasts and warlike people from other parts of the country. Most of
these lake-dwellings were burnt down, their charred remains sinking
to the bottom of the lake, where they have been discovered together
with heaps of corn, pieces of woven and plaited cloth, mealing or
grinding stones, earthenware implements, nets and mats, and implements
of stone, antler, and bone. Numbers of domestic and other animals
were kept in these dwellings, such as the dog, horse, pig, sheep, and
cow; and fish appears to have been a regular article of consumption.
Similar discoveries have been made in Denmark by Professor Steenstrup
and others, which show an equal advance in civilisation and culture
during early Neolithic times. Vast accumulations of refuse matter, in
the form of oyster-shells, fish-bones, and animal remains, have been
found near the shores of the Baltic, the whole being heaped up into
mounds, evidently having formed public refuse-heaps for communities
of settlers. Scattered about were also found polished stone axes, but
no metal implements; while upon some of the stones were well-drawn
engravings, pointing to a considerable advance in culture; and the fact
that the remains of the domestic animals prove them to be of southern
and eastern origin suggests the probability that these settlers were
immigrants from the south-east of Europe, where we should expect
considerable advance to have been effected in civilisation.
It is extremely probable and generally admitted that man became
civilised in oriental countries, and made his way northwards and
westwards, gradually covering the whole of Europe; so that we should
expect the races of Egypt, Persia, and India to be far more highly
cultured than those who were establishing themselves in the west at
the same time. It would take a very long time indeed for people to
spread themselves from Egypt and Persia over the whole of Europe, and
during all this time they would naturally, owing to their wandering
habits, advance in civilisation far more slowly than those who remained
in their original homes. At the time, therefore, that Neolithic man
had become a settler in Europe and Britain we may fairly suppose that
Egypt, Persia, and India were great, powerful, and prosperous states,
well advanced in civilisation and art, and, perhaps, even the tail-end
of a mighty and prosperous civilisation that had preceded them long
ages before. It was probably from these highly-civilised centres that
the discovery of bronze was carried into Europe, which marked the
commencement of what is called the Bronze or Prehistoric Age, during
which period the use of bronze implements almost entirely superseded
that of polished stone weapons.
Before the Bronze Age had fairly commenced the last of the Pleistocene
deposits had taken place, and the recent layers of earth had begun to
distribute themselves upon the older strata; but how long a time has
actually elapsed since the completion of the Pleistocene stratification
has not been accurately ascertained. A rough approximation to the
relative length of the Pleistocene and Prehistoric periods may be
obtained from the fact that the valleys were cut down by streams
flowing through them as much as a hundred feet deep in the former
period, while the work done by the rivers during the latter period is
measured by the insignificant fluviatile deposits close to the adjacent
streams. We may, therefore, conclude that the Pleistocene era was,
beyond all calculation, of longer duration than the Prehistoric. It
must not be imagined from this that the Prehistoric period was a short
one, for there have been a series of changes in the fauna, and a series
of invasions of different races of men into Europe, which must have
required a very long time to have been brought about, judging from
similar changes recorded in history.
It is believed that, soon after the commencement of the Bronze Age, an
Aryan stream of life poured over Europe from Central Asia, and finally
invaded England, driving out the old inhabitants and re-stocking the
country with a host of Aryan Celts, who brought with them the knowledge
of bronze manufacture. The defeated natives retreated to Ireland
and the west of England and Scotland, and finally gave themselves
up to their conquerors, whom they in future served as slaves. Thus
were annihilated the Neolithic men of Britain, and thus was the use
of polished stone weapons superseded by that of bronze implements.
These Celtic invaders, like their conquered predecessors, lived upon
the flesh both of wild and domestic animals, as is evident from the
discovery made in 1867 at Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmunds, where
bronze spear-heads were found in and around large piles and blocks
of stone, together with vast quantities of the broken bones of the
stag, roe, wild boar, hare, urus, horse, ox, hog, and dog, as well
as fragments of pottery. Fire was produced by these men by striking a
flint flake against a piece of iron pyrites, as is evident from the
discovery of these articles in and around charred remains of fires;
thus a great advance was made in this direction upon the habits of the
older inhabitants, who had only been able to procure fire by rapidly
turning a piece of wood between their two hands, the point being fixed
in a hollow on another piece of wood, so that the great friction which
resulted produced heat sufficient to generate flame.
Following the Bronze Age was the Iron Age, during which period the
historic era commenced; and thus we have not only various discoveries
to prove that iron gradually supplanted bronze, but history bears
witness to the same truth. The Homeric legends abound with feats
performed by heroes who wielded bronze and iron weapons; and from
Hesiod, who wrote nearly five hundred years before Herodotus, we learn
that iron had already superseded bronze among the Greeks, and that the
archæologists of his day recognised a distinct era of the past as the
Age of Bronze. The probability is that the discovery of the mode of
separating iron from its ore and turning it into useful articles was
made in Asia, from whence it was afterwards introduced into Europe;
for we find that at the very first appearance of iron in Britain and
France there were iron coins and iron ornaments in regular use among
the people, which articles were no doubt brought by invading tribes of
oriental people. In the early or prehistoric portion of the Iron Age
the practice of burying the dead at full length first became known in
Britain, cremation having always been practised previously.
Having now arrived at historic times, our inquiry into man’s antiquity
need not be further continued. For the searcher after truth there only
now remains the task of carefully considering the facts here brought
forward and comparing the conclusions arrived at with the old orthodox
story of the creation of the world and man as found in the Bible. If
the story read in the Book of Nature be a true one, then man has lived
upon the earth several hundred thousand years, and has passed from
a state of unconscious animal existence, through innumerable stages
of savage, semi-savage, and civilised conditions, to his present
commanding position. If the story read in the so-called Book of God be
a true one, then the world and man were created less than six thousand
years ago. The reader must judge for himself which is the truth.