The Meeting-Place of Geology and History

CHAPTER V

Chapter 53,260 wordsPublic domain

SUBDIVISIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE

While all geologists and archæologists are agreed in the existence of the men contemporary with the mammoth and reindeer in Europe, and in the fact of two or even three races of men having existed in that period, various opinions are entertained as to the succession of events and the chronological classification of the remains. Mortillet, whose arrangement has been usually adopted in France, recognises a period of chipped stone or palæolithic period, corresponding to the palanthropic age, and a period of polished stone, corresponding to the neanthropic age. Within the former he believes that it is possible to separate different ages,[20] from the character of the implements and other remains. The first two are characterised by the presence of two elephants, the mammoth and another species (_E. antiquus_), the next two by the mammoth associated with the cave bear and reindeer, the last by the nearly entire predominance of the reindeer. Dupont is content in Belgium to recognise a mammoth age and a reindeer age, but the latter perhaps includes some deposits which are properly neanthropic.

[20] Respectively the Achulienne, Chellienne, Mousterienne, Soloutrienne, and Magdalenienne.

Carthaillac places the whole palanthropic age as quaternary, properly so-called, which he separates from the tertiary on the one hand and the modern on the other, and divides his quaternary into two stages, the first characterised by _E. antiquus_ and Mortillet's Chellean men, the second by the mammoth and reindeer--the earlier of these two periods being warm and moist, the latter cold and dry. The table appended to this chapter is modified from those of Carthaillac. Dawkins, while admitting a similar twofold division, calls the earlier men those of the river gravels, the latter those of the caves.

This twofold division of the palanthropic age requires some consideration. In the first place, there is reason to believe that the Canstadt race locally preceded that of Cro-magnon. I say locally, for no one supposes that they are distinct species, and as varietal forms they may have originated from a common intermediate ancestor, or the humbler race may be the earlier, and the higher race an improvement on it, or the lower race may have been a degraded type of the higher. Probably also there was a third, the Truchère race, and the Cro-magnon race may have been a half-breed or metis progeny.

Again, there was an undoubted change of fauna within the palanthropic age, and this dependent on or accompanied by a change of climate. The earlier elephant of the period (_E. antiquus_) and its companion animals are believed to have been suited to a warm climate, and to have entered Europe from the south-*east. With, or immediately after, them came man, and this conclusion harmonises with human physiology, for we know that man must have originated in a warm climate, and must in the first place have been a feeder on fruits and grains or other nutritious vegetable products. In this early stage he would be nearly destitute of implements and weapons. But in the succeeding cold period, one tribe after another might be obliged to resort to hunting habits, to the use of fire and of clothing, and of natural and artificial shelter. Hence the peculiarities of the cave men, who, while they advanced in art, may have also advanced in ferocity and warlike habits, under the pressure of necessity and competition. Hence also their association more and more closely with such animals as the reindeer, the hairy mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros, while the previous species had migrated to the south or perished. Thus it would appear that the men of the mammoth age may not be really the most primitive men, but a derivative from them under pressure of a severe climate. This possibility may be summed up as follows. If the early part of the post-glacial or palanthropic era was characterised by a milder climate than its later period, this may have had much to do with the change in implements and weapons. The earliest men probably subsisted merely on natural fruits and other vegetable productions. To secure these in a mild climate they would require no implements, except perhaps to dig for roots or to crack nuts. If they migrated into a colder climate, or if the climate became more severe, they might be obliged to become hunters and fishermen, and would invent new implements and weapons, not because they had advanced in civilisation, but, as Lamech has it in Genesis, 'because of the ground which the Lord had cursed,' and which would no longer yield food to them. At the same time they might contend with one another for the most sheltered and productive stations, and so war might further stimulate that very questionable advance in civilisation which consists in the improvement of weapons of destruction. We have much to learn as to these matters; but we must, if we have any regard to physiology and to natural probability, start from the idea that the most primitive men were frugivorous and fitted for a mild climate. In this case we should expect that these earliest men would leave behind them scarcely any weapons or implements except of the simplest kind, and that their apparent progress in the arts of war and the chase might in reality be evidence, up to a certain point at least, of increasing barbarism. Primitive as well as modern men present in these respects strange paradoxes.

We have to inquire in the sequel as to the cause of the final disappearance of the palæocosmic men, and as to the question whether history is cognisant of any such human period as that which has occupied us in this chapter, or whether, as has sometimes been assumed, it is altogether prehistoric.

On the subject of the correlation of the French and Belgian discoveries as to primitive man, a most interesting and important communication was made by Dupont to the Geological Society of Belgium in 1892.[21] The veteran explorer of the Belgian caves addresses himself in this paper to a careful comparison of the geological relations, animal remains and human relics in these caves, and in the gravels and 'quaternary' clays associated with them. He arrives at the conclusion, which I had already stated,[22] that these deposits are contemporaneous and show similar stages, but that the mammoth age properly so-called, in which the primitive people fed on the mammoth and its companion the woolly rhinoceros, extended to a later date in Belgium than in France, so that the mammoth age of Dupont and the reindeer age of the French archæologists overlap one another. He notes in connection with this that there is evidence of the continued existence of the mammoth in the so-called reindeer age of France, in the discovery in caves of that period of plates of ivory with the portrait of the mammoth engraved on them. It would therefore appear either that the mammoth earlier became extinct or rare in France, perhaps on account of climatal changes, or perhaps because of destruction by man, or that the habits of the French populations changed in such a way as to cause them to confine themselves to smaller game. In either case, we now find that the whole palanthropic age is one period. On the other hand, Dupont agrees with Mortillet that there is a hiatus, physical, palæontological and anthropological, between the so-called palæolithic and neolithic periods, that is, between the palanthropic and neanthropic ages.

[21] _Bulletin de la Société Belge de Géologie_, janvier 1893. This paper should be studied by all interested in the subject.

[22] _Fossil Men._

Dupont holds that the plain-dwellers (_Pedionomytes_, as he calls them) were the earliest known men, corresponding to the oldest gravel remains of Dawkins and Prestwich, and points out that their implements are in size and form, though not in material and finish, allied to those of the polished stone age, which might thus be regarded as an improved continuation or revival of this first period. This might be read to mean, as above maintained, that the earliest men were peaceful and perhaps in part agricultural, that they were succeeded by lawless, powerful, artistic and savage peoples, and when the latter were swept away that a remnant of the primitive stock repossessed the land. If this proves to be the net result, it will correspond exactly with our old historical beliefs.

I was struck in reading this paper with a remark of Dupont on the unprogressive character of the men of the mammoth age, who seem to have made so little advance in the arts of life during the period of their occupation of Europe. Perhaps he makes too great an estimate of the length of their residence, or does not sufficiently consider how long men about their stage of civilisation have remained at the same point in the historic period. Nor does he consider the possibility of the cave men belonging to ruder tribes of a race which may have inhabited better if more perishable residences elsewhere. In any case, all experience shows that to such a people any great advance in the arts could come only by missionary influence from abroad, or by the appearance of some great inventive genius among themselves; and no good fortune of this kind seems to have happened to the Canstadt or Cro-magnon men, or if it did, they rejected their opportunity, as so many others have since done.

Still, perhaps, we need not pity them too much. They lived in a young and fresh condition of the earth, enjoyed a vigorous health, and were gifted with rare strength and energy. They were bountifully provided for by nature as to food and clothing, were in slavery to no man, lived in families bound together by ties of affection, and were free to migrate over vast territories according to the exigencies of the seasons. They had some taste in dress and ornaments, and no doubt enjoyed their clever carvings on bone and ivory as much as any modern lovers of art their most finished treasures. A Cro-magnon 'brave,' tall, muscular and graceful in movement, clad in well-dressed skins, ornamented with polished shells and ivory pendants, with a pearly shell helmet, probably decked with feathers, and armed with his flint-headed lance and skull-cracker of reindeer antler handsomely carved, must have been a somewhat noble savage, and he must have rejoiced in the chase of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the bison, and the wild horse and reindeer, and in launching his curiously-constructed harpoons against the salmon and other larger fish that haunted the rivers.

Nor was he destitute of higher hopes. He laid his dead reverently in the bosom of mother earth, with such things as had been pleasant or useful in life, and his rudimentary bible, or 'book of the dead,' must have at least included the idea--'This corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal immortality.' That is the meaning of such funeral gifts in every part of the world, and has always been so, as far as we can learn. But the belief in immortality implies also a belief in a God or gods. For if there is a spiritual world for the dead, there must be a Power to care for them there. Whether these beliefs were originally implanted in him when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or were taught to him by special revelation, we do not know, but they were there as a foundation on which he could, with the aid of his sense of right and wrong, build a happy and harmless life. That he did not always do so we have some sad evidence, to be gathered even from his bones; and the testimony of tradition is that his great sin was that of inhuman violence, and it was for this that he was swept away by the Flood, and replaced by men of more peaceful mould, whom but for that catastrophe he would soon have annihilated.

Carthaillac[23] devotes a chapter to the mortuary customs of the men of the quaternary (palanthropic) age. He shows that the statement sometimes made that these men did not care for the dead is entirely incorrect, though he believes that we know comparatively little of their burials, owing to the circumstance that only those in caverns were likely to be preserved or discovered. The discoveries at Spy, in Belgium, show that even the Canstadt race, the lowest in development, and probably in art, interred the bodies of their dead, while a large number of interments of the Cro-magnon race are known. He calls attention to the fact that in all of these the body lies on its side. The hands are brought up to the head or neck, and the knees are bent, sometimes slightly, sometimes very strongly, so as to give the body a crouching posture (p. 79). The idea seems to have been to place the body in the attitude of sleep or of rest. The deceased was arrayed in the garments and ornaments worn during life, and not infrequently a quantity of red oxide of iron was buried with, or has been scattered over, the body. Flint knives and lances seem often to have been placed with the dead. It is needless to say that all this recalls the burial customs of many rude tribes of men up to modern times.

[23] _Homme Préhistorique._

There is some reason to believe that occasionally, at least, the flesh has been partially removed from the bones before interment. This reminds us of the custom of some American tribes, who were in the habit of disinterring the dead after a temporary burial, carefully cleaning the bones, and then placing them wrapped in skins in their tribal ossuaries. It would seem, however, that the primitive men when they removed the flesh did so in a recent state. Perhaps this practice was resorted to only when the body had to be kept for some time, or carried some distance for interment. If the body was disembowelled and the remaining flesh and ligaments dried, it would be reduced very nearly to the condition of the imperfect mummies of the Guanches of the Canaries and of the Peruvians. Thus we may suppose that we have here a rudimentary condition of the art of the embalmer.

Some questions still remain as to the races of men actually known to us in the palanthropic age. It has already been explained that in the earliest part of this period, that characterised by the presence of the _Elephas antiquus_ in Europe, there are evidences of the existence of man, and this in a more genial climate than that prevailing later. Of these men we have no certain osseous remains. Should these be found, we may anticipate that their characters would be peculiar, and would indicate a frugivorous rather than a carnivorous mode of life, and less of rude power than that evidenced by the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races.

Of the latter, though both are of the same faunal period, and therefore geologically contemporaneous, the former, the lower of the two in point of physical development, is apparently in Western Europe the older, and represents the earlier part of the mammoth age, when the climate had become cooler and _Elephas primigenius_ had succeeded to _E. antiquus_. The Cro-magnon race, beginning in this period, goes on to the close of the mammoth age, which, as already stated, coincides with the reindeer age of the French archæologists. This Cro-magnon race I am disposed to regard as a mixed or half breed tribe, produced by the union of the Canstadt peoples with the higher race already hinted at. This last may possibly be represented by a few skulls more resembling those of the men of the neanthropic age, which are occasionally found in the burials of the Cro-magnon people, and of which that found at Truchère has been already referred to.

We have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably mild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and carnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third, or mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the others. This is of course merely a hypothetical reading of the facts, but it is by no means improbable, and would, as we shall see, bring them into close relation with the teachings of history and tradition as to the antediluvian age.

The most careful and elaborate studies of these several types have been made by MM. Quatrefages and Hamy. The former sums up the races of fossil or 'quaternary' men as six in number, viz.: (1) The Canstadt; (2) the Cro-magnon; (3) the mesitocephalic race of Furfooz; (4) the sub-brachycephalic race of Furfooz; (5) the race of Grenelle; (6) the race of Truchère. Of these only three (namely, Nos. 1, 2, and 6) properly belong to the palanthropic age. The races of Furfooz[24] and of the upper beds of Grenelle are neanthropic, because they are found with the animal remains of that age, and they resemble in cranial characters the neanthropic peoples.

[24] Noticed later, in Chapter VII.

The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races resemble each other in being long-headed or dolichocephalic, and in having strong and coarsely-made facial bones, but the Canstadt race has a comparatively low fore-*head with strong superciliary arches, and round eye-sockets. The Cro-magnon race has a brain-case of more than ordinary capacity, a more elevated fore-*head, and eye-sockets singularly elongated horizontally. Broca has measured the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the result 1,590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the average of 125 modern Parisian skulls. The Canstadt men were of moderate stature, but strongly built and muscular. The Cro-magnon race was of great stature, some skeletons approaching to seven feet in height, and affording evidence of immense muscular development.

The race of Truchère is represented by only a single skull; but Quatrefages vouches for it as belonging to the age of the mammoth. It is a well-formed brachycephalic cranium of unusually great internal capacity, and would be regarded anywhere as indicating a race of high and refined cerebral endowment. If really of the mammoth age, it may have belonged to a straggler or captive from a higher and more cultured tribe, introduced accidentally into a sepulchre of the Cro-magnon period. It connects itself with the speculation in the preceding pages as to the existence of such a race. This skull resembles, as we should expect, the type of the neanthropic men who spread over the earth at the beginning of that later age.

Table Showing Relations of Later Cenozoic Ages in Europe

Later cenozoic