CHAPTER III

THE EARLIEST TRACES OF MAN

In the eocene, or earliest cenozoic, it is not pretended by anyone that man existed, except inferentially, on the ground that if the remains we know in the earliest caves and gravels belong to men who were developed from apes on the method of natural selection, their ancestors must have existed, at least in a semi-human form, in the eocene. But no such precursors of man are yet known to us. It would have been pleasant to believe that man arrived in time to see the beautiful forests and to enjoy the mild climate of the golden age of the miocene, and this would have agreed with some human traditions; but the probabilities are against it, as we know no one species of higher animal of the many found in the miocene that has survived to our time. The privilege of enjoying the forests of the miocene age seems to have been reserved for some large and specialised monkeys, which even Darwinians can scarcely claim as probable ancestors of man.[6] It would appear also that owing to increasing refrigeration of climate these apes were either obliged to leave Europe for warmer latitudes or became extinct in the succeeding pliocene.

[6] _Dryopithecus_ and _Mesopithecus_.

There are, however, in France two localities, one in the upper and the other in the middle miocene, which have afforded what are supposed to be worked flints.[7] The geological age of the deposits seems in both cases beyond question, but doubts have been cast, and this seemingly with some reason, on the artificial character of the flint flakes, while in the case of some examples which appear to be scrapers and borers, like those in use long afterward by semi-civilised peoples for working in bone and skin, there are grave doubts whether they actually came from the miocene beds. Lastly, it has even been suggested that these flints may be the handiwork of miocene apes, a suggestion not so unreasonable as at first sight it appears, when taken in connection with the working instincts of beavers and other animals. Monkeys, however, seem to have less of this gift as artificers than most other creatures. On the whole, we must regard the existence of miocene man as not proven, though, if it should prove to be a fact, it may be useful to some of the scoffers of these days to know that it would not be so irreconcilable with the Biblical account of creation as they seem to suppose. It might, however, prove a serious stumbling-block to orthodox Darwinians, and might raise some difficulties respecting antediluvian genealogies.

[7] Puy, Courny and Thenay.

In the pliocene of Europe there are alleged to be instances of the occurrence of human bones. One of these is that of the skull now in the museum of Florence, supposed to have been found in the pliocene of the Val d'Arno. It is, however, a skull of modern type, and may have been brought down from the surface by a landslip. But this explanation does not seem to apply to the human remains found in lower pliocene beds at Castelnedolo, near Brescia. They include a nearly entire human skeleton, and are said by good observers to have been imbedded in undisturbed pliocene beds. M. Quatrefages, who has described them, and whose testimony should be considered as that of an expert, was satisfied that the remains had not been interred, but were part of the original deposit. Unfortunately the skull of the only perfect skeleton is said to have been of fair proportions and superior to those of the ruder types of post-glacial men. This has cast a shade of suspicion on the discovery, especially on the part of evolutionists, who think it is not in accordance with theory that man should retrograde between the pliocene and the early modern period, instead of advancing. Still we may ask, why not? If men existed in the fine climates of the miocene and early pliocene, why should they not have been a noble race, suited to their environment; and when the cold of the glacial period intervened, with its scarcity and hardships, might they not have deteriorated, to be subsequently improved when better conditions supervened? This would certainly not be contradictory to experience in the case of varieties of other animals, however at variance with a hypothetical idea of necessarily progressive improvement. Let us hope that the existence of European pliocene man will be established, and that he will be found to have been not of low and bestial type, but, as the discoveries above referred to if genuine would indicate, a worthy progenitor of modern races of men.

It still remains to inquire whether man may have made his appearance at the close of the pliocene or in the early stages of the pleistocene, before the full development of the glacial conditions of that period. Perhaps the most important indications of this kind are those adduced by Dr. Mourlon, of the Geological Survey of Belgium,[8] from which it would appear that worked flints and broken bones of animals occur in deposits, the relations of which would indicate that they belong either to the base of the pleistocene or close of the pliocene. They are imbedded in sands derived from eocene and pliocene beds, and supposed to have been _remanié_ by wind action. With the modesty of a true man of science, Mourlon presents his facts, and does not insist too strongly on the important conclusion to which they seem to tend, but he has certainly established the strongest case yet on record for the existence of tertiary man. With this should, however, be placed the facts adduced in a similar sense by Prestwich in his paper on the worked flints of Ightham.[9]

[8] _Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Belgique_, 1889.

[9] _Journal of the Geological Society_, London, May 1889.

Should this be established, the curious result will follow that man must have been the witness of two great continental subsidences, or deluges, that of the early pleistocene and the early modern, the former of which, and perhaps the latter also, must have been accompanied with a great access of cold in the northern hemisphere. It seems, however, more likely that the facts will be found to admit of a different explanation.

Every reader of the scientific journals of the United States must be aware of the numerous finds of 'palæolithic' implements in 'glacial' gravels, indicating a far greater antiquity of man in America than on other grounds we have a right to imagine. I have endeavoured to show, in a work published several years ago,[10] how much doubt on geological grounds attaches to the reports of these discoveries, and how uncertain is the reference of the supposed implements to undisturbed glacial deposits, and how much such of the 'palæoliths' as appear to be the work of man resemble the rougher tools and rejectamenta of the modern Indians. But since the publication of that work, so great a number of 'finds' have been recorded, that despite their individual improbability, one was almost overwhelmed by the coincidence of so many witnesses. Now the bubble seems to have been effectually pricked by Mr. W. H. Holmes, of the American Geological Survey, who has published his observations in the _American Journal of Anthology_ and elsewhere.[11]

[10] _Fossil Man_, London, 1880.

[11] _Science_, November 1892; _Journal of Geology_, 1893.

One of the most widely-known examples was that of Trenton, on the Delaware, where there was a bed of gravel alleged to be pleistocene, and which seemed to contain enough of 'palæolithic' implements to stock all the museums in the world. The evidence of age was not satisfactory from a geological point of view, and Holmes, with the aid of a deep excavation made for a city sewer, has shown that the supposed implements do not belong to the undisturbed gravel, but merely to a talus of loose _débris_ lying against it, and to which modern Indians resorted to find material for implements, and left behind them rejected or unfinished pieces. This alleged discovery has therefore no geological or anthropological significance. The same acute and industrious observer has inquired into a number of similar cases in different parts of the United States, and finds all liable to objections on similar grounds, except in a few cases in which the alleged implements are probably not artificial. These observations not only dispose, for the present at least, of palæolithic man in America, but they suggest the propriety of a revision of the whole doctrine of 'palæolithic' and 'neolithic' implements as held in Great Britain and elsewhere. Such distinctions are often founded on forms which may quite as well represent merely local or temporary exigencies, or the _débris_ of old work-*shops, as any difference of time or culture.

For the present, therefore, we may afford to pass over with this slight notice the alleged occurrence of miocene and pliocene man, and this the rather since, if such men ever existed in the northern hemisphere, the cold and submergence of the pleistocene must have cut them off from their more modern successors in such a way that man must practically have made a new beginning at the close of the glacial age.

I do not refer here to the finds of skulls and implements in the auriferous gravels of Western America. Some of these, if genuine, might go back to the pliocene age, but in so far as the evidence now available indicates, they all belong to the modern races of Indians, and, in one way or another, by fraud or error, have had assigned to them a fabulous antiquity.

There still seems reason to believe that remains of man and his works exist in beds which are overlaid by boulders and gravel, implying a cold climate. These may indicate the last portion of the glacial period proper, in which case the beds with human remains may be called inter-glacial, or they may indicate a partial relapse to the cold conditions occurring after the glacial age had passed away, and in the early part of the modern period. My own view is, that it is most natural to draw the boundary line of the pleistocene and anthropic or modern at the point where the earliest certain evidences of man appear, and that the anthropic age will be found to include not only an early period of mild climate succeeding the glacial age, but a little later a return of cold, not comparable with that of the extreme glacial period, but sufficient seriously to affect human interests, and which almost immediately preceded those physical changes which carried away palæocosmic man, or the man of the earliest period, and many of his companion animals, and introduced the neanthropic or later human age. We shall find facts bearing on this in the sequel.

In the meantime, we may consider it as established beyond cavil that man was already in Europe immediately after the close of the glacial period, and was contemporary with the species of animals, many of them large and formidable, which at that time occupied the land. He must have entered on the possession of a world more ample and richer in resources than that which remains to us. The early post-glacial age was, like the preceding pliocene, a time of continental elevation, in which the dry land spread itself widely over the now submerged margins of the sea basins. In Europe, the British Islands were connected with the mainland, and Ireland was united to England. The Rhine flowed northward to the Orkneys, through a wide plain probably wooded and swarming with great quadrupeds, now extinct or strange to Europe. The Thames and the Humber were tributaries of the Rhine. The land of France and Spain extended out to the hundred-fathom line. The shallower parts of the Mediterranean were dry land, and that sea was divided into two parts by land connecting Italy with Africa. Possibly portions of the shallower areas of the Atlantic were so elevated as to connect Europe and America more closely than at present.

Connected with this elevation of the continents out of the sea was a great change of climate, whereby the cold of the pleistocene age passed away and a milder climate overspread the northern hemisphere, while the newly-raised land and that vacated by snow and ice became clothed with vegetation, and were occupied by a rich quadrupedal fauna, including even in the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera now confined to the warmer climates. This new and noble world was the rich heritage of primeval man.

Pictet has estimated the number of species of mammals inhabiting Europe in the palanthropic period at ninety-eight,[12] of which only fifty-seven now live there, the remainder being either wholly or locally extinct--that is, they are either not now existing in any part of the world, or are found only beyond the limits of Central, Western, and Southern Europe. The extinct species also include the largest and noblest of all. It has been remarked that the assemblage of palanthropic species in Europe and Western Asia is so great and varied that with our present experience we can scarcely imagine them to have existed contemporaneously in the same region. For example, the association of species of elephant and rhinoceros, the musk-sheep, the reindeer, the Cape hyena, and the hippopotamus seems to be incongruous.

[12] Zittel, in a recent paper (1893), gives 110 species of mammals in the pleistocene and early modern. Of these about twenty of the largest and most important are extinct.

Various theories have been proposed to remove the difficulty. Modern analogies will allow us to believe in such astounding facts if we take into account the probability of a warm climate, especially in summer, along with a wooded state of the country providing much shelter, and wide continental plains affording facilities for seasonal migrations. There were no doubt also climatal changes in the course of the age, which may have tended to the remarkable mixture of animal types in its deposits. In connection with this there is now every reason to believe that while, in its earlier part, the palanthropic age was distinguished by a warm climate, in its later portion a colder and more inclement atmosphere crept over the northern hemisphere. As an illustration of this, it is known that in the earlier part of the period a noble species of elephant named _Elephas antiquus_, and a rhinoceros (_R. Merkii_), abounded in Europe; but as the age advanced these species disappeared, and were replaced by the mammoth (_E. primigenius_) and the woolly rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), animals clothed like the musk-ox in dense wool and hair, and evidently intended for a rigorous climate. With and succeeding these last species, the reindeer becomes characteristic and abundant. It is, as we shall see, a point of much importance in what may be called the prehistoric history of man, that he was introduced in a period of genial temperature as well as of wide continental extension, and survived to find his physical environment gradually becoming less favourable, and the age ending in that great cataclysm which swept so many species of animals and tribes of men out of existence, and reduced the dry land of our continents to its present comparatively limited area.

I should, perhaps, have noticed here the worked flints found so abundantly in some parts of the south of England, which have long attracted the attention of collectors, and have in some cases been referred to glacial or pre-glacial times. I believe, however, they are all really post-glacial, though in some cases belonging to the earliest portion of that period.[13]

[13] Prestwich on 'Ightham Beds,' _Journ. Geol. Soc._, 1893; Dawkins, _Journ. Anthrop. Soc._, 1894.

We may close the present chapter by presenting to the eye in a tabular form the series of events included in the pleistocene and modern periods of the great cenozoic time.

LATER CENOZOIC, OR TERTIARY PERIOD

(_In Ascending Order, or from the Older to the Newer_)

Newer Pliocene.--A continental period of long duration, elevated land, much erosion, much volcanic action.

Pleistocene.--Irregular elevation and depression of the land, ending in wide submergence with cold climate. Glaciers on all mountains near to coasts and ice-drift over submerged plains. Glacial period, with an inter-glacial mild period in the middle and great submergence of the continents toward the close.

Anthropic.--_Palanthropic_, or post-glacial, in which the land emerges and attains a very wide extension, and is inhabited by a varied mammalian fauna. Man appears in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Terminated by a recurrence of cold and great subsidence, deluging all the lower lands. _Neanthropic._--Area of continents smaller than in the previous period. Surviving races of men and species of animals repeople the world. Modern races of men and modern animals.