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Under this head we propose to consider, first, the question of the existence of men older than the Biblical Adam; second, Prehistoric tribes in general.
I. Preadamic Men. — Whether men existed upon the earth before Adam is a question first made prominent in Europe by Isaac Peyrerius (La Peyrere). His reasoning in support of the affirmative is embodied ill a work published anonymously in Paris, in 1655, and entitled Praeadamitae: sive Exercitatio super versibus duodecimo, decimotertio et decimoquarto capitis quinti Epistolce S. Pauli ad Romanos, quibus inducuntur Prini honmines anzte Ademum conditi. Very soon afterwards appeared, from the same author, the following: Systema Theologicum ex Praeadamitaru Hypothesi: Pars primae. Both works are now very rare (see Solgeri Bibl. 2, 94; Freytag, Anal. p. 671; Bibl. Feuerlin, p. 588; Brunet, Manuel, et al.). The most accessible edition embraces the two works bound in one volume, 18mo, and published, without place, “anno salutis MDCLV.” A work appeared in English the next year with the following title: Man before Adam, or a Discourse upon the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans: by which are proved that the First Men were created before Adam (Lond. 1656, 18mo, pp. 351. It purports to be a “First Part”). The novel teaching of Peyrerius was at once bitterly denounced, and a considerable number of treatises were written in opposition. A list of these has been compiled by Ebert (Dictionnaire, No. 16,555). The following are the most important: Animadversiones in Librun Praecdanitarum in quibus confutatur nuperus scriptor, et primurn omnium fuisse, Adamunm defenditur, authore Eusebio Romano (Philippians Priorio, Paris, 1656, 8vo, and in Holland in the same year, sm. 12mo); Non ens Praeadamiticum: sive Confutatio van2i cujusdam somnii, quo Sacrae Scripturae preitex u incautioribus nuper imponere conatus est quidam anonymusfingens, ante Adamum primum fuisse homines in mundo; authore Ant. Hulsso (Lugd. Bat. apud Joan. Elzevir. 1656, sm. 12mo); Responsio exetastica ad tractatum cui titulus Praeadamitae libri duo, auctore J. Puthio (Lugd. Batavor. apud Johan. Elzivirium, 1656, sm. 12mo). The argument on both sides, as might be supposed, was almost wholly Biblical and dialectic. The nature of the proofs employed by Peyrerius, and of his “theological system” built upon the fundamental doctrine of preadamic men, may be condensed in the following propositions:
1. The “lone man” (Rom_5:12) by whom “sin entered into the world” was Adam, for in Rom_5:14 that sin is called “Adam's transgression.”
2. “Transgression” is a violation of “law;” therefore “the law” (Rom_5:13) signifies the law given to Adamnatural law, not that given to Moses.
3. The phrase “until the law” (Rom_5:13) implies a time before the law — that is, before Adam; and as “sin was in the world” during that time, there must have been men in existence to commit sin.
4. The sin committed before the enactment of the natural law was “material,” “actual;” the sin existing after Adam, and through him, was “imputed,” “formal,” “legal,” “adventitious,” and “after the similitude of Adam's transgression.”
5. Death entered into the world before Adam, but it was in consequence of the imputation “backwards” of Adam's prospective sin — “peccatum Adami fuisse retro imputatum primis hominibus ante Adamum conditis;” and this was necessary, that all men might partake of the salvation provided in Christ — “oportuerat primes illos homines peccavisse in Adamo, ut sanctificarentur in Christo” (Pread. cap. 19). Nevertheless, death before Adam did not “reign.” “Peccatum tune temporis erat mortuum; mors erat mortua, et nullus erat sepulchri aculeus” (ibid. cap. 12).
6. Adam was the “first man” only in the same sense as Christ was the “second man,” for Adam “was the figure of Christ” (Rom_5:14).
7. All men are of one blood in the sense of one substance — one “matter,” one “earth.” The Jews are descended from Adam, the Gentiles from Preadamites (System. Theol. lib. 2, cap. 6-11). The first chapter of Genesis treats of the origin of the Gentiles, the second of the origin of the Jews (ibid. lib. 3, cap. 1, 2). The Gentiles were created aborigines “in the beginning,” by the “word” of God, in all lands; Adam, the father of the Jews, was formed of “clay” by the “hand” of God (ibid. lib. 2, cap. 11). Genesis, after chap. 1, is a history, not of the first men, but of the first Jews (ibid., lib. 4:cap. 2).
8. The existence of Preadamites is also indicated in the Biblical account of Adam's family, especially of Cain (ibid. lib. 2, cap. 4).
9. Proved, also, by the “monuments” of Egypt and Chaldaea, and by the history of the astronomy, astrology, theology, and magic of the Gentiles (ibid. lib. 3, cap. 5-11); as well as by the racial features of remote and savage tribes, and by the recently discovered parts of the terrestrial structure (ibid. Prooem.).
10. Hence the epoch of the creation of the world does not date from that “beginning” commonly figured in Adam. “Videtur enim altius et a longissime retroactis seculis petend illud principium (ibid. Prooem.).
11. The deluge of Noah was not universal, and it destroyed only the Jews (ibid. lib. 4:cap. 7-9); nor is it possible to trace to Noah the origin of all the races of men (ibid. lib. 4:cap. 14). Some of these positions were far in advance of the age, and it ought to be said were defended with knowledge and candor which were not appreciated by the adversaries of Peyrerius.
The question of Preadamites admits of discussion in our day from quite another standpoint. Recognizing it as a question of scientific fact, we should unhesitatingly appeal to anthropology for a final answer. Ethnologists are generally agreed that the civilized nations of Europe, Northern Africa, and Western and Southern Asia belong to one race, which was designated Caucasian by Blumenbach, but which, with recent authorities, is known under the name of the Mediterranean Nations. They are recognized as constituting three groups of peoples, commonly called Ilamites, Shemites, and Indo Europeans or Japhetites. These designations are derived from the names of the three sons of Noah, to whom, through the invaluable aid of the Biblical ethnology, the learned have traced the pedigree of these three types of people. They may, therefore, be designated collectively as Noachites.
(1.) The Hamites are known to have distributed themselves through the north of Africa, the Nile valley, and the east of the continent as far as the Strait of Bat el-Mandeb. The ancient Egyptians are pure Hamites, and are generally regarded as the founders of the oldest civilization. They are still more or less perfectly represented by the Fellahin, or peasantry of the lower Nile, and especially by the Coptic Christians of the towns. The Hamitic Berbers, including Libyans, Moors, Numidians, and Gaetulians are spread, intermingled with Shemites and Europeans, through the countries south of the Mediterranean and through the Sahara. Other Hamitic nations, possessing a civilization far beyond that of any of the purely black races, occupy some of the regions about' the Nile, especially in Nubia, and are scattered in distinct tribes, united by common linguistic elements, through Abyssinia, and in one direction as far as the heart of Africa, from 80 north to 30 south, and in the other direction from near Babel-Mandeb to Juba on the Indian Ocean, The antiquity of the Hamitic civilization in Egypt is indicated by the evidence in our possession that the heliacal rising of Sirius must have been observed (apparently) as early as B.C. 4242 (Lepsius, Chronol. der Aegypter, pt. 1, p. 165 sq.).f1
(2.) The Shemites, from tile date of earliest records, have inhabited Western Asia, whence they have taken possession of parts of Eastern Africa. They are represented by the Jews, the Arabs, the Abyssinians, the Arameans, the Canaanites, and the Assyrio-Babylonians. Linguistic researches lead to the belief that the Hamiles and Shemites developed their languages in a common primeval home, and hence are nearly related. This view ks favored by Genesis, where (Shemitic) Sidon is described as the eldest son of Canaan, who was descended from Cush, and thus from Ham (Gen_10:1-15), the father of the Hamites.
(3.) The Indo-European (Japhetic) family appear to have dwelt originally, according to the conclusions of Peschel, along the slopes of the Caucasus, and through the gorge of Dariel, within reach of both the Euxine and the Caspian Sea (Races of Man, Amer. ed. p. 507). Hence a migration westward of a portion of them led to the separation into Asiatic and European Aryans. Some of the Asiatic Aryans crossed the HiduKush, according to Max Müller and others, and dispossessed the aboriginal population of the territory along the Ganges, transplanting there the religion of Brahminism, while those left behind developed the Zoroastrian religion. The European Aryans swept over Europe in successive waves. The Celts displaced in Spain and France an older population, the Basques- perhaps also Aryans-and were succeeded by the other nations of southern Aryans-Greeks, Albanians, and Italians. The northern Aryans are represented by the Letts, the Slavonians, and the Germanic nations.
f1: In our article MANETHO SEE MANETHO we have shown the untrustworthiness of many of these astronomical data as foundations for Egyptian chronology. The English Egyptologists in general reduce the beginning of the first dynasty to B.C. 2717 (Lane, Poole, Wilkinson), and even this is unnecessarily far back. There is good reason for dating the reign of Menes from B.C. 2417. — ED.
We thus discover the posterity of Noah in all their ramifications; but in this survey the Mongoloid nations and the black races do not seem to be embraced. The Mongoloids are spread widely over the earth's surface. The best modern authorities unite here the Malay tribes which are dispersed over South-eastern Asia and many of the islands of Polynesia; certain southern Asiatics, embracing Chinese, Siamese, Burmese, and races in Thibet and the Himalayas; Coreans and Japanese; the Ural-Altaic race in several European and Asiatic divisions; the tribes on both sides of Behring's Strait and the aborigines of America-including as well civilized nations of both parts of the continent as the wild hunting tribes. The Dravida, also, according to modern ethnology, should be recognized as a race distinct from the posterity of Noah. These aborigines of western India have dark skins, long, black, curly hair, somewhat intumescent lips, but nothing of the prognathism of some of the black races. They linger in some parts of Beluchistan, in the extreme south and south-west of Hindostan, and in the northern half of Ceylon. One of their languages is the Tamul, spoken by not less than ten millions, and possessing an ancient literature. Other tribes occupy a belt along the east coast of Hindostan, and even stretching into the interior. The Mongoloids and the Dravida, which may be designated as the Dusky Races, cannot be very far removed from the Noachites. Their common ancestor was an antediluvian— perhaps Seth or some one of his descendants older than Noah. It is open to conjecture that their father was Cain, the brother of Seth, or some other son of Adam. In any event, as Noah was the parent of the White Races, and as these are so closely allied to the Dusky (including copper-colored) Races, it seems quite possible that the Biblical Adam was removed sufficiently far in the past to be the progenitor of both the White and the Dusky Races.
The name Adam, signifying red, would imply that he was not the parent of the Black Races. Cain, moreover, as he went out from his native country, found other nations already in existence. The natural inference from these considerations would be that the Black Races existed before Adam.f2 Such a conclusion is sustained by other anthropological considerations. The Black Races-a term used only for present convenience maybe regarded as comprising (1) Negroes, (2) Hottentots and Bushmen, (3) Papuans, (4) Australians. They possess in common a dark or black skin and a marked degree of dolichocephalism, as well as much greater prognathismn than the White and Dusky races. They are further characterized by long thigh- bones, sometimes long arms, lean shanks, oblique pelves, and deficiency of secondary sexual characters. The Negroes are distinguished generally by short crisped hair, with a flattened section, scanty or absent beards, thick lips, flattened nose, retreating forehead, and projecting jaws; and they inhabit Africa from the southern border of the Sahara to the territory of the Hottentots and Bushmen, stretching from ocean to ocean save where the Hamites have intruded on the extreme east. The Bantmu or southern Negroes embrace the Zanzibar and Mozambique nations, and the well- known Betchuans and Kaffirs. The Soudan or northern Negroes embrace the tribes speaking a variety of languages, and stretching from the coast well into the interior. The Hottentots and Bushmen occupy the southern parts of Africa nearer the Atlantic Ocean, and are characterized by the tufted matting of their hair, and among the women by the peculiar formation known as steatopygy.
The Bushmen have a leathery-brown skin, which becomes much wrinkled with age. The Koi-Koin (Hottentot) language possesses great ethnological interest, as it has been thought by Moffat, Lepsius, Pruner Bey, Max Müller, Whitney, and Bleek to present affinities with the ancient Egyptian. Though other authorities have pronounced against any relationship, it is certain that we find among these savages linguistic elements which belong to a refined civilization, and which leave the question open whether they have lived in contact with the Egyptians or have descended from them, or from some common stock not very remotely removed. But even if it should appear probable that the Hottentots (and, inferentially, the Bushmen) are descended from the Hamitic Egyptians, we are not in possession of evidence indicating any immediate relationship between the other black races and the Adamites; so that the residual probability remains that these races are more ancient than the (perhaps Adamic) father of the White and Dusky races. The Papuans are intermingled with the population of Australia, and inhabit New Guinea, the Pelew Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands, and the Fiji Archipelago. They possess peculiarly flattened, abundant long hair, which grows in tufts surrounding the head like a crown eight inches high. The beard is abundant, the skin very dark, varying to chocolate color in New Guinea and blue-black in Fiji. The jaws are less projecting than in Negroes, and the nose is broad and aquiline, giving the features a Jewish cast. The Australians occupy the continent of Australia and the islands contiguous, including Tasmania. Their body is thickly pilose; the hair of the head is black, elliptical in section, and stands out around the head in a shaggy crown less striking than that of the Papuans. Though less gifted than the Papuans, they are higher in the psychic scale than formerly represented. They were, indeed, found living in the age of rude stone implements, and used simple tree trunks for boats; but their language reflects a considerable degree of refinement and grammatical perfection. Viewing the Black races from either a psychic, a zoological, or an archaeological standpoint, we discover evidence that they diverged from the White and Dusky races at a period which, compared with the epoch of Egyptian and Assyrian civilization, must be exceedingly remote. The conclusion is indicated, therefore, that the common progenitor of the Black and the other races was placed too far back in time to answer for the Biblical Adam. This view has been maintained by M'Causland (Adam andthe Adamite [Lond. 1872]; The Builders of Babel, ch. 5), and was recently favored by Dr. Whedon (Meth. Quar. Rev. Jan. 1871, p. 153, and July, 1872, p. 526). See also an article entitled Was Adam the First .1an? in Scribner's Monthly, Oct. 1871; and Pozzy, La Terre et le Recit Biblique de la Creation, liv. 3, c. 12. f3
f2 We call the attention of the reader to the fact that these positions of our respected contributor are inferences from the presumption that the ethnographical list in Genesis 10 is intended to specify all the posterity of Noah as now or historically known to exist on the earth, whereas it is evidently meant only as a catalogue of those triles with which the Hebrews were more or less acquainted. The black races were certainly included under the Cushites (q.v.), and this disposes at once of the argument that Noah is the progenitor of the whites only. Indeed, if anything is to be inferred from the meaning of the name Adam, it would go to make him the parent, not of the Caucasian, but of the copper-colored or Tartar tribes. — ED.
To those who think the language of the Bible contemplates Adam as “the first being who could be called a man” — not alone the progenitor of the races which figure in Biblical history — it may be conceded that such is its meaning, in case it shall appear allowable, on Biblical grounds, to carry back the advent of man sufficiently far; and provided, further, that a progenitor having the complexion which seems to be indicated by the term Adam can be reasonably regarded as the progenitor also of races of black color, and seemingly much lower in the organic and intellectual scale than the father of Seth and his civilized posterity not far removed.f4 The time- question involved is admittedly serious. In reference to the difficulty presented by the color of Adam's skin, it will be borne in mind that color alone is one of the most untrustworthy of ethnological characters (Peschel, Races of Man, p. 88). In reference to the inferior psychic and bodily endowments of the Black races, it may also be observed that degradation and deterioration of tribes are phenomena familiar to ethnology.
But there are strong objections to the assumption that the Black races represent, in general, a degeneracy. We have no knowledge of the degeneracy of entire races, but only of tribes and fragments of tribes. Nor has tribal degeneracy taken place, except where the oppression of superior tribes has driven the weaker into the midst of natural conditions unfriendly to existence. But the Black races have been free to roam over entire continents in search of the most congenial conditions. Yet, on the healthful and luxuriant tablelands of Central Africa the black man is marked by an inferiority as real and almost as great as along the pestilential borders of the west coast, or in the least- favored regions of Australia and New Guinea. The structural peculiarities of the Black races, moreover, are inheritances of lower grade rather than reminiscences of a higher. The black man is not on a descending grade, but is ascending, according to the organic and psychic law of existence. His remotest progenitor was lower rather than higher. All these considerations militate against the idea that Adam, the father of the Noachian races, was low enough in the scale of organization, and remote enough in the genealogical line, to be the father also of the Melanic races. Thus, while the conflicting nature of the insufficient evidences forbids our dogmatism, the balance of proof seems rather to sustain the apinion that the Melanic races are descendants of real Preadamites.f5
f3: Such a conclusion, however, has in our judgment a very slender foundaltion, and cannot for a moment stand in comparison with the arguments in favor of the common origin of man adduced under our article SEE ADAM.—Ed.
f4: The question rather is simply a philological one. The statemients of Scripture must stand or fall by themselves, wshen fairly expounded by the usual nlaws of exegesis, and we are not at liberty to warp them into an accommodation with discoveries in other fields. — Ed.
f5: From this conclusion we beg leave to dissent toto ecelo, and we especially disagree with the view that the Black races are in any essential point inferior to the others. We judge it far more philosophical to argue that their unfavorable surroundings have produced their present degradation, rather than to make it an evidence of inherent lack of capacity. Had the latter been the real cause, it must forever operate; whereas we know that under better auspices they have been able to surmount it.
II. Prehistoric Men. — By prehistoric peoples we commonly understand the ancestors of the historic peoples; and, in a still stricter sense, the ancestors of the Aryan nations. In fact, most that has been directly learned respecting prehistoric men concerns the predecessors of the historic nations of Europe. It should be borne in mind, however, that questions respecting primeval man-his antiquity, endowments, condition, and birthplace-are to be clearly distinguished from similar questions concerning the Caucasian race-the race with which, as we have seen, our revealed Scriptures are primarily concerned. What may be true of this race may be very wide of the truth respecting mankind at large. SEE SPECIES.
In discussing prehistoric man we are constrained to confine ourselves to the predecessors of the modern Caucasians, both because discoveries of prehistoric monuments have been chiefly restricted to Caucasian countries, and because the non- Caucasian races (especially if we except the Mongoloids) can hardly be said to possess any indigenous history; so that their prehistoric period reaches to the present. This circumstance, nevertheless, is fortunate for anthropological research, since it enables us, by comparison, to draw inferences respecting the prehistoric conditions of the Caucasian race.
1. Sources of Information. —
(1.) Caverns. — Nearly every country of Europe contains caverns in which have been discovered either the bones of human beings or the relics of their industry. More than forty of these were explored by Dr. Schmerling in Belgium (Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles decouverts dans le, Cavernes de la Province de Liege [1833-34]), and others, more recently, by M. E. Dupont (Les Temps Prehisto riques; see also Le Hon, L'Homme Fossile [2nd ed. 1877]) The most important Belgian caverns are those of Engis Engihoul, Chokier, Naulette, and Frontal (or Furnoz) Dr. Buckland published in 1823 (Reliquie Diluviacre) accounts of the contents of several English caverns; and, in later times, further details have been given by Evans (Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain [1872]), Owen (History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds [1846]), Dawkins (Cave Hunting [1875]), Lubbock (Prehistoric Times [Lond. 1865]), Lyell (The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man [4th ed. 1873]), Sanford, Falconer, Austen, Pengelly, and others whose works are scattered through the publications of the geological and palaeontological societies and periodicals. The most important English caverns are those of Kent and Brixham (near Torquay), Wokey Hole in Somersetshire, Kirkdale in Yorkshire, and those in the Gower Peninsula of South Wales. The British caverns have afforded thirty-seven species of mammals, of which eighteen are extinct. A large number of French caverns and “rock-shelters” have proved fruitful in archaeological and anthropological remains. As early as 1826 M. Tournal, and in 1829 M. Christol, had announced discoveries in the south of France. Later investigations have been made by Lartet and Christy (Reliquiae Aquitanicae [Lond. 1865-69]), Desnoyers, Mortillet. Riviere, Garrigou, and many other French and English anthropologists. Nearly a hundred bone and flint-producing caverns have been described in France, the greater number of which are situated in the Department of the Dordogne (e.g. Moustier, Eyzies, Madeleine, LaugerieHaute, and Laugerie-Basse) and the north flanks of the Pyrenees (e.g. Aurignac, Lourdes, Izeste, and Lortet). M. Garrigou states that he has explored two hundred and seventy-five caverns in the Pyrenees. Others equally important, however, occur in the departments of Herault (Pondres), Ariege (Massat, Bouicheta), Aude (Bize), Tarn-et-Garonne (Bruniquel), and on the Mediterranean coast (Mentone). The most celebrated caverns of Germany are those of Gailenreuth in Bavaria, Rabenstein in Francomia (Bav.), Eggisheim (near Colmar), and Neanderthal (near Dusseldorf [respecting the Engis, Neanderthal, and Borreby skulls, see Lyell, 1. c. pt. 1, ch. 5]). Other ossiferous caverns occur in Denmark, Switzerland (near Geneva), Italy (il the north. and along the north coast of Sicily), Spain (southern flanks of the Pyrenees), Portugal, Austria, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Australia, and other countries. Dr. Lund explored eight hundred caverns in Brazil.
Human remains occur in caverns promiscuously intermingled with the bones of wild animals. Very rarely is a human skeleton found complete. Bones are often associated with implements of stone, bone, or reindeer's horn, and with traces of ancient fires. The bones of animals useful for food are frequently marked by the teeth of carnivorous quadrupeds, and the long ones are generally split and broken, as if for the extraction of the marrow. In some cases human bones have been similarly treated. All these relics are found imbedded, sometimes in beds of stalagmitic material, and sometimes in deposits of loam and of pulverulent material known as bone-earth. The aggregate depth of the various accumulations reaches, in some cases, ten to twenty feet, or even more. The deposits in Kent's Cavern may serve as an illustration. We find here, beneath the fragments fallen from the roof
1. “Black mould,” consisting mainly of vegetable matter, and containing various articles of mediaeval, Roman, and pre-Roman date, three to twelve inches deep;
2. Stalagmite, varying from a mere film to upwards of five feet in thickness, containing fragments of limestone, a human jaw, and the remains of extinct animals;
3. A “black band.” in a certain place about thirty-two feet from the entrance, consisting mainly of charcoal, and containing bone and flint implements;
4. Red “cave earth,” with stone implements and bones and teeth of extinct animals, including the cave-lion.
5. Stalagmite, three to twelve feet, and enclosing only bones of the cave-bear;
6. Cave-earth, known as “breccia” being a dark-red sandy loam, and containing bears' bones.
Three flint implements and one flint chip have been found also in the lowest layer. Another example may be taken from the rock-shelter of Aurignac, a shallow grotto opening on a hill-side which seems to have been employed for burial. Until 1852 the opening was concealed by materials washed down the hill-slope. When uncovered, the cavity within afforded the remains of seventeen human beings. In 1860 M. Lartet discovered outside of the grotto, underneath the sloping talus, a layer containing the remains of extinct animals and some works of art; and beneath this, resting on a sloping terrace, a layer of ashes and charcoal, about six inches thick, covering an area of six or seven square yards, and terminating at the entrance of the grotto. In the midst of this were fragments of a sandstone, reddened by heat, and resting on a leveled surface of limestone, which appears to have been used as a hearth. From the ashes and the overlying layer was obtained a great variety of bones and implements, including two hundred flint articles-knives, projectiles, sling-stones, and chips, as well as a curious tool for working flints. The bone instruments embraced arrows without barbs, other tools of reindeer's horn, and a bodkin of the same. In the stratum overlying the ashes were found numerous bones of carnivora, also of reindeer, ox, rhinoceros, one hundred and sixty-eight human bones, and many fragments of sun-dried or half-baked and hand-made pottery. The extinct species found here were the cave bear, cave-lion, cave-hyena, mammoth, two-horned rhinoceros, and stag; but the remains of living species, especially of the fox, horse, reindeer, and aurochs were much more abundant. Within the grotto, after the removal of the skeletons, there remained only about two feet of earth, with a subjacent band of lighter tint, and a bottom layer of yellowish color.
(2.) River-drifts. — These are thick beds of sand and gravel lining the valleys of certain rivers, and containing a great variety of stone implements, chiefly of flint, with occasional occurrences of human bones, and more abundant remains of extinct quadrupeds of the species just cited, together with a smaller proportion of remains of living mammals; and, along the valley of the Somme, of fresh-water and marine shells, of species still living in France and along the contiguous coast. The river-valleys most celebrated for. such discoveries are those of the Somme, Seine, and Oise in France, and the Thames, Ouse, and Avon in England. The facts respecting the valley of the Somme have been chiefly developed by M. Boucher de Perthes (Antiquites Celtiques et Antediluviennes [1847]), M.M. Rigollot, Pouchet, Gandry, Hebert, and the English savans Falconer, Prestwich. Evans, and Lyell. We should mention here the delta of the Tiniere on the Lake of Geneva, investigated and described by Morlot, and more lately by Dr. Andrews of Chicago (Amer. Jour. Sci. [2] 45, 180). In the deeper parts of these deposits remains of extinct quadrupeds predominate; at higher levels, those of living quadrupeds. Rude flint implements abound below, improved forms above, and still higher occur sometimes relics of Gallo- Roman times.
(3.) Loess and Moraines. — In the loess or loam, as well as in other deposits overlying the glacial drift, have been found occasional remains of man — as at Lahr, near Strasburg; at Maestricht, where human bones were associated with those of the mammoth and other extinct -animals; at Kreuzberg, in the suburbs of Berlin; at Bournemouth, England, on the top of a sea-cliff one hundred feet high, where flints occur in gravel; in the drift-covered cliffs of Hampshire, and many other localities. At the bottom of an ancient glacier-moraine at Ravensburg, near Lake Constance, was found, in 1866, a great quantity of bones and broken instruments. Of the bones ninety-eight hundredths were those of reindeer. The moraine, therefore, dates apparently from the “second glacial epoch.”
(4.) Volcanic Tuff: — In 1844 an account was published by M. Aynard of the discovery of the remains of two human beings imbedded in a volcanic tuff ejected, during its last eruption, by the mountain of Denise, in Le Puy, Central France. In ejections of the same age have been found remains of the cave-hyena and a hippopotamus.
(5.) Peat Bogs. — The peat bogs of Denmark, ranging from tenl to thirty feet in depth, have afforded a large quantity of' human remains, mingled with those of animals contemporary with man (Morlot, Etudes Geologico archeologiques en Danemark et en Suisse). In the lowest portion of the bogs are found remains of the Scotch fir, a tree no longer growing in Denmark; and with these are associated implements of flint. Above are found remains of the common oak, now very rare in Denmark, and associated therewith implements and ornaments of bronze, as well as stone; while in the still newer peat occur remains of the existing beechen forest, mingled with relics of an age of iron. The bogs of Ireland have been similarly productive, affording, among other things, many skeletons of the great Irish elk. From the bogs of the Somme, newer than the river-drifts, many human relics have been exhumed, as well as from those in the neighborhoods of Brussels and Antwerp.
(6.) Kitchen - middens (Danish kjökkenmödding). These are heaps of earth and human relics occurring along the Baltic shore of Denmark. They vary in height from three to ten feet, and some are 150 to 200 feet wide, and 1000 feet long. They are largely made up of the shells of the oyster, cockle, and other edible mollusks, but plentifully mixed with the bones of various quadrupeds. birds, and fish, which seem to have served as food for rude sea-side inhabitants. Interspersed with the animal remains are flint knives, hatchets, and other instruments of stone, horn, wood, and bone, with fragments of coarse pottery mixed with charcoal and cinders, but never with implements of bronze or iron. The stone hatchets and knives, nevertheless, have been polished and sharpened by grinding, and are thus less rude than those of the river-drifts and many of the caverns. Kitchen- middens also occur in England, Scotland, France, the United States, and other countries.
Very similar are the refuse-heaps (“terramares”) farther inland, accumulated (according to a custom still prevailing in Ecuador, Mexico, and other Spanish countries) upon the outskirts of ancient palustrine villages in the north of Italy. They embrace, naturally, relics of everything pertaining to the life of the ancient villagers, including implements for weaving, mill-stones, and spear-heads, hatchets, and ornaments of bronze. They occur especially over the plain bounded by the Po, the Apennines, the Adda, and the Reno (Strobel and Pigorini, Les Teraramares et les Pilotages du Parmezsan, Milan, 1864). Similar palustrine settlements have recently been discovered in Moravia and Mecklenburg. They are said to exist also on the coasts of Africa and Brazil. Certain mounds along the coasts of Holland, containing Roman and Carthaginian antiquities, seem to have served as earthworks, or places of refuge.
(7.) Megaliths and Tumuli. — Rude structures of huge rough stones, whose origin is fixed in the night of prehistoric times, are known to exist in nearly all the countries of Europe, and even of Asia, and were long regarded as druidical remains. Those called ‘“dolmnens” consist of a huge more or less flattened rock, resting on stones planted upright in the ground-the supposed stone-altars of the Gauls. Sometimes a series of massive slabs rests on two lines of upright stones, so arranged as to form a covered passage. In other cases the entire dolmen is covered to the depth of several feet by earth, and thus becomes a tumulus-dolmen. Some tumuli enclose two or more stone-covered passages. The passages seem to have been burial-crypts, for we often find within them human skeletons placed originally in a sitting posture. In one tomb hundreds of skeletons were discovered. Sometimes the crypts are divided into numerous compartments, each containing a skeleton. With the skeletons were deposited weapons and implements (generally of stone) and earthen vessels. The pottery was of a finer character than that of the kitchen- middens (Leguay, Sepultures de l'Age de la Pierre, 1865). Some of the tumulusdolmens attain colossal proportions. That of Silbury Hill, England, is nearly 200 feet high. The Egyptian pyramids belong properly in this connection. SEE STONE.
The structure known as a “cromlech” is a dolmen surrounded by one or more circles of stones planted like posts in the ground. Cromlechs occur singly or in groups. These erect, roughly hewn stones are known as “menhirs,” and also occur either singly or in long parallel ranges, as at Carnac, in Brittany. Thousands of the various sorts of megalithic structures are known in Brittany and the south and south-west of France, in England, in Denmark, and, in less abundance, in all the other countries of Europe, except Southern Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Danubian principalities, and Russia.
(8.) Lake-dwellings. — The pile-habitations (Palafittes, Pjfahbauten) were cabins erected on piles in the bottoms of lakes. First discovered and most abundant in the lakes of Switzerland (Desor, Palafittes, ou Constructions Lacustres du Lac de Neuchdtel; Troyon, Habitations Lacustres des Temps anciens et modernes), they are now known in the existing and the peat- filled lakes of several other countries (the Italian lakes Varese and Mercurago are especially rich); and Herodotus (lib. 4:cap. 16) states that such habitations were anciently employed by a tribe dwelling in Paeonia, now a part of Roumelia. By dredging the lakes which contained the Swiss lake-dwellings an enormous quantity of relics has been brought to light, embracing the different varieties of stone weapons and implements, industrial and ornamental articles in bronze, remains of plaited cloth, stores of wheat and barley-in one instance baked into flat, round cakes- carbonized apples and pears, and the stones of the wild plum, and seeds of the raspberry and blackberry, together with the nuts of the beech and hazel. In a few instances implements of iron have been discovered; and in one instance bronze and silver coins and medals of Greek production, and some iron swords, but all of pre-Roman origin. The bones of twenty-four species of wild mammals have been dredged up, besides eighteen species of birds, three of reptiles, and nine of fish, all of which have lived in historic times (Rütimeyer, Die Fauna der Pjahlbauten in der Schweiz, Basel, 1861).
In some instances, as on the north bank of Lake Neuchatel, where the bottom was rocky, heaps of stones were thrown down, among which piles were fixed. The piles thus served to retain further supplies of stones, and by this means artificial islands were formed, on which cabins were built. These are designated as tenevieres. The transition from these to the “crannoges” of Ireland is easy, for the latter are simply artificial islands formed of piles, stones, and earth, or sometimes of a framework of oaken beams mortised together, and made to serve as a crib for the retention of masses of stones (Wylie, Archaeologia, vol. 38:1859). The buildings erected on these islands are now sometimes covered with peat, as in the Drumkellin bog, to the depth of fourteen feet. The Irish crannoges have afforded vast quantities of bones of domestic animals, and works of human industry in stone, bronze, and iron.
(9.) Modern Savages. — Since, beyond controversy, prehistoric man existed in a condition similar to that of rude and primitive peoples of historic times, it appears that the study of modern savages should afford important aids in the interpretation of prehistoric monuments, and the determination of the condition and capacities of prehistoric peoples. For instance, the flint arrowheads of the American Indian are fashioned precisely like some of those found in European caverns and lake- habitations. To understand the ancient lake dwellings and their occupants, we have not only the historical account of Herodotus, but D'Urville's narrative of the lake-dwellers of New Guinea. As illustrative of the kitchen- middens, we may turn to the modern shell-heaps on the north-west coast of Australia, and the city-border offal-heaps of Guayaquil and Mexico. In India some of the hill-tribes still erect cromlechs. Prehistoric monuments even receive a light shed from the accounts of early historic times. Thus “Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar” (Gen_31:45; see further, Gen_31:46-52); and at Mount Sinai, Moses erected twelve pillars- menhirs (Exo_24:4; see also Jos_4:21-22). In connection with tumuli, it may be remembered that Semiramis raised a mound over her husband; stones were piled up over the remains of Laicus; Achilles raised to Patroclus a mound more than 100 feet in diameter; Alexander erected one over the ashes of Hephaestio which cost $1,200,000; and in Roman history we meet with several similar instances. So, finally, the small bronze chariot exhumed from a tumulus of Mecklenburg recalls the wheeled structures fabricated for Solomon by Hiram of Tyre (1Ki_7:27-37).
2. Interpretation of the Facts. —
(1.) Divisions of Prehistoric Time. — The voice of all civilized nations has given expression to the belief in the existence of three great ages in the unwritten history of mankind: the ages of Stone, of Bronze, and of Iron. The concurrent indications from the relics of prehistoric times sustain this belief. In the Age of Stone the metals were unknown and all implements, weapons, utensils, and ornaments were of stone, bone, horn, shells, or molded and unbaked clay. In the Age of Bronze, arms and cutting instruments were made largely of that alloy, though stone continued long in use. In the Age of Iron that metal had superseded bronze for arms, axes, and knives, though bronze continued in use for ornaments, and often for the handles of weapons. This succession, which is confidently traced for European populations, probably holds good, modified by various circumstances, for mankind at large. It must not by any means be supposed, however, that the social condition implied by the Stone Age, or either of the others, answers to any particular period of absolute time in the history of the world. One race or nation has emerged from the condition of its Stone Age at a much earlier period than another, and some races and tribes still remain in their Stone Age. These three conditions of society are generally regarded as prehistoric, and it is certain that bronze and iron were already known to the northern nations of Europe when the Roman armies invaded them; but it appears also that the weapons used in the Trojan War, at the dawn of history, were mostly of bronze, though iron was beginning to appear, and that in the time of Joshua knives of stone were in use.
A closer examination of the relics of the Stone Age indicates a division into three epochs. In the Palaeolithic, or Rude Stone Epoch, all implements were of stone, and shaped by chipping, without grinding. In the Reindeer Epoch, bone and reindeer's horn displaced flint to a large extent: while in the Neolithic, or Polished Stone Epoch, multitudes of stone implements were ground to an edge (“Celts”). Mortillet makes the following classification, based on implements from the cairns of France:
A. Flint implements predominant (Paleolithic). (a.) Epoch of Moustier-the flints chipped only on one side, and having somewhat an almond shape. (b.) Epoch of Solutré — the flints chipped on both sides, and the extremities brought to a good point. The almond shapes wanting.
B. Bone implements predominant. (c.) Epoch of Aurignac (Early Reindeer) — the lance — and arrow-heads slit at the base, so that the tapering shaft enters the bone. (d.) Epoch of the Madeleine (Late Reindeer)— the lower extremity of the lance — or arrow-head enters the shaft. Many implements of flint still remain. Some recognize three divisions of Palaeolithic flints: (a) the type of St. Acheul — large, thick, oval, roughly chipped on both sides; (b) the type of Moustier-thinner, and wrought on one side; (c) the type of Solutré-smaller, finely wrought, with thin borders and symmetrical form.
The Palaeolithic Epoch is further characterized by a nearly complete absence of pottery and of attempts at ornamentation or artistic delineation, as also by the contemporaneous existence of several quadrupeds now extinct-especially the cave-bear, the cave-hyena, cave-lion, tichorhine rhinoceros, and hairy elephant, or mammoth. The Reindeer Epoch, with a colder climate, witnessed the disappearance of these animals, and the advent of several species now native in the north of Europe or at Alpine elevations — such especially as the reindeer, musk-ox, elk, chamois, ibex, hamster, rat, lemming, grouse, and snowy owl. With them existed the horse, the urus, the deer, and various rodents. The Neolithic Epoch was marked by the presence of many species of domesticated animals-especially the dog, sheep, goat, ox, horse, and hog. The domestic cat and fowl, and the crooked-horned sheep, did not appear till the epoch of the very latest lake-dwellings (Noville and Chavannes), generally referred to the 6th century.
The Palaeolithic Epoch is illustrated chiefly by the finds of the river- gravels, the caverns of Belgium and England, the volcanic tuff of Denise, and a few of the caverns and rock-shelters of France; the Reindeer Epoch by a majority of the French caverns and rock-shelters; and the Neolithic Epoch by a few caverns in the south of France, the kitchen-middens, crannoges, dolmens, the lowest portion of the Danish bogs, and the lake- dwellings of Eastern Switzerland. The Bronze Age is represented by the finds of the lake-dwellings of Western Switzerland, many of the tumuli and the middle portion of the Danish bogs; and the Iron Age by the upper portion of the Danish bogs, and some of the latest Swiss lakes (as Bienne and Neuchatel).
(2.) Geological Conditions. — The physical conditions of Europe have changed to a remarkable extent since the first advent of man. At the epoch of the oldest finds Europe was just emerging from a secular winter, which had buried all the mountains and plains beneath a mantle of glacier material, as far south, probably, as the Pyrenees. England and Scandinavia had been connected with the Continent; the English Channel and the German Ocean had been dry land, and the Thames had been a tributary of the Rhine. A subsidence now took place, which made Great Britain an island. An amelioration of' the climate caused a rapid melting of the glaciers; the land was extensively flooded, and the drainage of the Continent now began to mark out and excavate the river-valleys of the modern epoch. The cave-bear, mammoth, and other quadrupeds of Pliocene time still survived; and now man appeared in Europe to dispute with them the possession of the forests and the caverns. The swollen rivers flowed at elevations of twenty to fifty feet above their present levels, and the relics of the stone-folk were mingled with the deposits along their borders. The Reindeer Epoch witnessed another elevation, and a new invasion of cold. England was again joined to the Continent. The cave bear and mammoth dwindled away. The reindeer and other northern quadrupeds were driven south over the plains of Languedoc and through the valleys of Perigord. The hyena went over to England and took possession of the caverns. But the men of' Europe had made a slight advance in their industries. Next, another subsidence resulted in the isolation of England and the Scandinavian Peninsula; the climate was again ameliorated, and the reindeer and other arctic species retreated to Alpine elevations and northern latitudes. Now the modern aspects of the surface of the land began to appear, and now appeared various species of mammals destined to domestication-or, more probably, already domesticated in their Oriental home. The age of Bronze, Iron, and authentic history succeeded.f6
f6: The reader should note the conjectural character of these changes, especially of the cause of the climatic reverses; these may have been due to far more ordinary and recent vicissitudes than geological subsidence and elevation. — Ed.
(3.) Character of Prehistoric Europeans. — Physically, the men of the Palaeolithic Epoch, judging from the few skeletons and skulls discovered ill Belgium and England, were of rather short stature, and of a Mongoloid type, like modern Finns and Lapps. In the Reindeer Epoch, the remains of Southern Europe indicate men nearly six feet in stature; but the men of Belgium were still small and round-headed, and such they continued to be to the end of the Stone Age. The Neolithic men of the Swiss lakes were much like the modern Swiss. The Paleolithic men were not decidedly divergent from the Caucasian type, but a jaw-bone found at Naulette has several marks of inferiority, being somewhat thick and small in height, and having molar teeth increasing in size backwards, the wisdom teeth being largest instead of smallest, and having, moreover, five fangs instead of two, while the chin also is deficient in prominence. The famous Neanderthal skull has a low forehead and prominent brow-ridges; but the cranial capacity was seventy-five cubic inches — about the average of modern races, and “in no sense,” as Huxley says, “to be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between man and the apes.” The Engis skull exhibits no special marks of inferiority. The Cro-Magnon skull of the Reindeer Epoch had a capacity of ninety-seven cubic inches-far above the human average. There was no prominence of the jaws or the cheek-bones, but the tibia was much flattened (platycnemic), as in most primitive men. The Neolithic Borreby skull belonged to the type of Neanderthal.
Socially and intellectually, Paleolithic man, in the regions in question, seems to have existed in a most primitive condition. Dwelling in wild caverns, he hunted the beasts with the rudest stone implements, and clothed himself in their skins. We find no evidence of the use of fire, though probably known, and there are some indications that he made food of his own species (on anthropophagy, see Congrés International, d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie Prehistoriques, 1867, p. 158; Fliegier, Zur Prahistorischen Ethnologie Italiens, Wien, 1877, p. 7, 8). Few attempts at pottery have been discovered, and in these the product was rude, hand-made, and simply sun-dried. In the Reindeer Epoch fire was ill general use, and it was employed in baking (imperfectly) a better style of hand-made pottery, and in cooking food employed in funeral, and quite possibly cannibalistic, feasts. Many pieces of highly ornamented reindeer's horn, pierced with one, two, or three holes, discovered in Perigord, are regarded as staves of authority, either civil or priestly. Here also occur numerous phalangeal bones of the deer so pierced with a hole as to serve for whistles. Bone and reindeer's horn were now wrought into barbed harpoons and arrowheads. On one of the bones from the cavern of La Vache (Ariege) were graven some peculiar characters, which, as suggested, may have been a first attempt at writing, though this is very questionable. In the Neolithic Epoch cereals were cultivated, and ground into flour for cakes; cloth was formed for clothing, and bone combs for the hair; stores of fruits were preserved for winter's use; garden-tools were fashioned from stag's horn; log canoes were employed in navigation; planks and timbers of oak were made by splitting tree-trunks with stone wedges; log cabins were constructed on piles or artificial islands; fortifications were employed in war; fish-nets, well made from flaxen cords, have been dredged at Robenhausen, and the abundant debris of numerous flint-workshops, implying a degree of division of labor, have been discovered at Grand-Pressigny and other places in Belgium and France. As to intelligence and manual dexterity, a surprising amount is developed in the working of flint implements, especially in the north of Europe.
AEsthetically, Palmeolithic man had advanced no further than the use of necklaces formed of natural beads, consisting of fossil foraminifera from the chalk. Some flints from the river-drift of St. Acheul present rough sketches which, it has been conjectured, may have been prompted by the artistic feeling. Some of them bear remote resemblances to the human head, in profile, three-quarter view, and full face; also to animals, such as the rhinoceros and mammoth. If the cavern of Massat (Ariege) is Palaeolithic, it affords us the most ancient known successful attempt at portraiture, for M. Fontain found there a stone on which was graven a wonderfully expressive outline of the cave-bear. In the Reindeer Epoch the taste for personal adornment had become considerably developed. They manufactured necklaces, bracelets, and pendants, piercing for these purposes both shells and teeth, and the bony part of the ear of the horse. Amber also came into use. The aesthetic feeling was specially developed in the south. Some of the curious pieces of reindeer's horn supposed to be staves of authority are handsomely enchased. Some remarkable illustrations of primeval art belonging to this epoch are the following:
(a.) Sculptures. Handsomely wrought spoons of reindeer's horn; hilt of a dagger carved in the form of a reindeer; two ivory laggers, artistically executed, representing reindeer; a harpoon in the shape of an animal's head; the head of a staff of authority, consisting of reindeer's horn carved into a faithful representation of a pair of steers; another representing the head of a mammoth; a pair of pieces representing the chase of the aurochs- on one a rude aurochs fleeing from a man casting a lance (remarkably well done), on the other piece a figure of a bovine animal different from the first; a serpent in relief on reindeer's horn. Many of these from Laugerie- Basse.
(b.) Carvings on slate, ivory, horn, and bone. — A staff of authority, with representations of a man, two horses, and a fish; a stag graven on reindeer's horn; part of a large herbivorous animal; head of lion on a staff of authority; reindeer-fight on slate; some horned animal on reindeer's horn; slates bearing other unknown animals; a young reindeer at full gallop; a hare; a curious animal with feline characteristics; a spirited profile of a horse on bone; human head in profile on a bone spatula, in the style of a child's work; finally, the entire outline of a mammoth on ivory (Madeleine), and another on reindeer's horn, forming the hilt of a poniard (Bruniquel). Most of these from Laugerie-Basse. The Neolithic Epoch seems to have been marked by a decline of the artistic feeling. The ornamentation of the pottery is more elaborate, and the finish of the stone and bone implements more symmetrical and neat, but we discover few relics of carving and engraving.
Religiously, there is little to be affirmed or inferred of the Paleolithic tribes. Some of the curiously wrought flints may have served as religious emblems; and occasional discovery of deposits of food near the body of the dead may very naturally be regarded as evidence of a belief in the future life. In the Reindeer Epoch this class of evidences becomes very greatly augmented, as shown in the systematic and carefully provided burials in some of the tumulus-dolmens and in the traces of funeral repasts in these and the rock-shelters of Aurignac, Bruniquel, and Furfooz. The numerous specimens of bright and shining minerals found about many settlements— as of hydrated oxide of iron, carbonate of copper, fluor-spar-may have been used as amulets, and thus testify to the vague sense of the supernatural which characterizes the infancy of human society: The Neolithic people add to such indications the erection of megalithic structures, some of which, surrounded by their cemeteries, as at Abury, England, must naturally be considered as their sacred temples.
Prehistoric man, in brief, represented, in Europe, the infancy of his race. All his powers were undeveloped and uneducated. Every evidence sustains us in the conclusion that he was not inferior in psychic endowments to the average man of the highest races; but he was lacking in acquired skill, and in the results of experience accumulated through a long series of generations, and preserved from forgetfulness by the blessings of a written language.
(4.) Antiquity of Proehistoric Europeans. — In debating this question, social and intellectual considerations signify, nothing, since all conditions have existed in all ages. As to the geological antiquity of European man, we have stated that he dates from some part — probably an early part— of the Champlain period. It has been earnestly maintained, however, and is still believed by some, that man appeared in Europe before the epoch of the last general glaciation. The following are the grounds on which the opinion has been based:
(a.) Pre-glacial remains erroneously supposed human. — Some bones found at Saint-Prest (Loir-et-Cher) in stratified sand and gravel bore cuts, notches, and scratches supposed to indicate the use of flint implements. The bones, however, were associated with those of Elephas meridionalis, which ranged from the Later Pliocene to the beginning of the Quaternary age. But it was proven by experiment that very similar markings are made upon bones by porcupines; while in the beds containing the bones in question were abundant remains of a large rodent, quite capable of causing the supposed human markings. Again, the shell-marls (faluns) of Leognan, near Bordeaux, enclose bones of an extinct manatee and of certain cetaceans and cheloneans, which bear marks appearing to have been made by human implements. The manatee in question is of Miocene age. But in the same deposits occur the remains of a carnivorous fish (Sas-gus serratus) whose serrated teeth fit exactly the markings on the fossil bones. A similar explanation probably awaits the furrowed Halitherium bones of Pouancé (Maine-et-Loire), as well as the notched and scratched bones of a cetacean (Balcenotus) described from Pliocene deposits in Tuscany by Prof. Capellini (L'Uomo pliocenico in Toscana [1876]). Finally, at Thenay (Loir-et-Cher) occur flints in certain Lower Miocene limestone's, which were at first declared to be the works of human hands (Congrés International [1867], p. 67); but that opinion is scarcely entertained at present.(b.) Human remains erroneously supposed pre-glacial. — A human skeleton found in volcanic breccia near the town of Le Puy-en-Velay, in Central France, was for a time supposed to have been enclosed by the same eruption that buried, in the same neighborhood, the remains of the Pliocene Elephas neridionalis. The elephant-bearing lava, nevertheless, was of a different character; and exactly the same lava as that containing human remains was subsequently observed at another point. This enclosed the bones of the mammoth and other animals of the Champlain period, and thus demonstrated that the “man of Denise” was post-glacial. Again, the river-drifts of the Somme have been set down as glacial or pre-glacial; but that opinion is now almost wholly abandoned, for abundant localities are known in which it appears to a demonstration that the river-valley was excavated after the glacial drift was laid down; while the flint-bearing drifts have been subsequently deposited along the chalk-slopes of the valley. Examples are seen in the sections at Menchecourt and other places; and the same is shown in England at Biddenham and Summerbonn Hill, in the valley of the Ouse, and at Icklingham, in the valley of the Lark. In 1856 a human skull and numerous bones of the same skeleton were exhumed (but now mostly lost) from the Colle del Vento, in Liguria (Issel, Congrés International [1867], p. 75, 156), said to be associated with extinct species of oyster of the Pliocene age. The age of the bones is questioned by Pruner Bey; and as no naturalist saw the remains in situ, we must candidly await further investigation. Similarly, the celebrated pelvic bone of Natches, in Mississippi, once thought to have been derived from a pre-glacial deposit, is now generally believed to save fallen down the bluff from an Indian grave at the surface; and the human remains of California reported to have come from beneath a bed of Tertiary lava are perhaps not sufficiently well authenticated to form the subject of speculation (Blake, Congrés International [1867], p. 101; Whitney, Geological Survey of California, 1, 243-252). As, however, prehistoric men in America were non-Caucasian, and therefore probably of preadamic origin, we must expect to find their remains attaining a much higher antiquity than those of Europe.
As to the absolute measure of the time, which separates Paleolithic man from the present, it is likely that a medium judgment will be reached at last. (Consult on this question Southall, The Recent Origin of Man [1875]; and Andrews, Amer. Journ. of Science [2], 45, 180; Trans. of the Chicago Acad. of Science, 2, 1; Meth. Quar. Rev. Dec. 1876, and Jan. 1877.) The impression of his high antiquity has been derived from the magnitude of the geological changes which have transpired since his advent. But the time required for these, in the judgment of the writer, has by some been greatly exaggerated. The contemporaneous existence of man with animals now extinct has little bearing on the question, since it has been ascertained that extinctions have been occurring throughout historic periods, even down to the present century. The disappearance of the glaciers does not seem enormously remote when we remember that their stumps are still visible in the valleys of the Alps, in the gulches of the Sierra Nevada, and even in the ice-wells of Vermont and Wisconsin. The elevation requisite to join England to the Continent cannot be thought to require a vast period after learning the rate of oscillations in actual progress upon various shores, and the enormous changes in the hydrographical features of China within 3000 years (Pumpelly, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 15:art. 4). The calculations based on the rate of erosion of modern river-valleys, and the growth of sphagnous peat are very misleading, since it is certain that these processes went forward with indefinitely greater rapidity in the pluvial and palustrine conditions of the Champlain period. (For the results of sundry calculations, see Le Hon, L'Homme Fossile, p. 247.) Furthermore, the extreme opinions entertained within a few years on all these points have more recently been greatly modified (see King, Catastrophism and Evolution, in the Amer. Naturalist, Aug. 1877). At the same time, the evidences seem to tend towards the conclusion that the advent of man in Europe occurred from 5000 to 7000 years ago; still more, that the Oriental stock from which he had descended came first into existence more than 6000 years ago.f7 Such a conclusion would not be alarming on Biblical grounds, since it does not appear that the absolute age of Adam is stated either directly or by clear inference; and there is room to suspect that, in those singular cases in which the ages of the patriarchs as given in the Hebrew text differ as they do from the Septuagint, the integrity of the Greek text has been better preserved than that of the Hebrew, since the Jews had a direct interest in the abbreviation of the time before Christ, to make it appear that the epoch always assigned by their rabbins for the advent of the Messiah had not yet arrived.f8 Moreover, there are some indications that Palaeolithic man in Europe was not of the Adamic (Caucasian) type, though it is pretty certain that he was succeeded, probably as early as the Reindeer Epoch, by an Eastern tide of Caucasian immigration.
f7: These figures are evidently little more than guesses, not to be placed in comparison with the definite data of Bible chronology. — ET).
f8: A careful examination leads to the opposite conclusion. SEE CHRONOLOGY; SEE SEPTUAGINT.