Man, Past and Present Part 3

[59] _Nature_, 1898, p. 235.

[60] _Tiden for Blekings forsta bebyggande_, Karlskrona, 1895, p. 5.

[61] "Das Schweizersbild, eine Niederla.s.sung aus palaeolithischer und neolithischer Zeit," in _Nouveaux Memoires Soc. Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles_, Vol. x.x.xV. Zurich, 1896. This is described by James Geikie, _The Antiquity of Man in Europe_, 1914, pp. 85-99.

[62] _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 350.

[63] _Forum_, Feb. 1898.

[64] The party of Eskimo men and women brought back by Lieut. Peary from his Arctic expedition in 1897 were unable to endure our temperate climate. Many died of pneumonia, and the survivors were so enfeebled that all had to be restored to their icy homes to save their lives. Even for the Algonquians of Labrador a journey to the coast is a journey to the grave.

[65] W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, 1900, p. 586.

CHAPTER II

THE METAL AGES--HISTORIC TIMES AND PEOPLES

Progress of Archaeological Studies--Sequence of the Metal Ages--The Copper Age--Egypt, Elam, Babylonia, Europe--The Bronze Age--Egypt and Babylonia, Western Europe, the Aegean, Ireland--Chronology of the Copper and Bronze Ages--The Iron Age--Hallstatt, La Tene--Man and his Works in the Metal Ages--The Prehistoric Age in the West, and in China--Historic Times--Evolution of Writing Systems-- Hieroglyphs and Cuneiforms--The Alphabet--The Persian and other Cuneiform Scripts--The Mas-d'Azil Markings--Alphabetiform Signs on Neolithic Monuments--Character and Consequences of the later historic Migrations--The Race merges in the People--The distinguishing Characters of Peoples--Scheme of Cla.s.sification.

If, as above seen, the study of human origins is largely a geological problem, the investigation of the later developments, during the Metal Ages and prehistoric times, belongs mainly to the field of Archaeology.

Hence it is that for the light which has in recent years been thrown upon the obscure interval between the Stone Ages and the strictly historic epoch, that is to say, the period when in his continuous upward development man gradually exchanged stone for the more serviceable metals, we are indebted chiefly to the pioneer labours of such men as Worsaae, Steenstrup, Forchhammer, Schliemann, Sayce, Layard, Lepsius, Mariette, Maspero, Montelius, Brugsch, Petrie, Peters, Haynes, Sir J.

Evans, Sir A. J. Evans and many others, all archaeologists first, and anthropologists only in the second instance.

From the researches of these investigators it is now clear that copper, bronze, and iron were successively in use in Europe in the order named, so that the current expressions, "Copper," "Bronze," and "Iron" Ages remain still justified. But it also appears that overlappings, already beginning in late Neolithic times, were everywhere so frequent that in many localities it is quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing lines between the successive metal periods.

That iron came last, a fact already known by vague tradition to the ancients[66], is beyond doubt, and it is no less certain that bronze of various types intervened between copper and iron. But much obscurity still surrounds the question of copper, which occurs in so many graves of Neolithic and Bronze times, that this metal has even been denied an independent position in the sequence.

But we shall not be surprised that confusion should prevail on this point, if we reflect that the metals, unlike stone, came to remain. Once introduced they were soon found to be indispensable to civilised man, so that in a sense the "Metal Ages" still survive, and must last to the end of time. Hence it was natural that copper should be found in prehistoric graves a.s.sociated, first with polished stone implements, and then with bronze and iron, just as, since the arrival of the English in Australia, spoons, clay pipes, penknives, pannikins, and the like, are now found mingled with stone objects in the graves of the aborigines.

But that there was a true Copper Age[67] prior to that of Bronze, though possibly of not very long duration, except of course in the New World[68], has been placed beyond reasonable doubt by recent investigations. Considerable attention was devoted to the subject by J.

H. Gladstone, who finds that copper was worked by the Egyptians in the Sinaitic Peninsula, that is, in the famous mines of the Wadi Maghara, from the fourth to the eighteenth dynasty, perhaps from 3000 to 1580 B.C.[69] During that epoch tools were made of pure copper in Egypt and Syria, and by the Amorites in Palestine, often on the model of their stone prototypes[70].

Elliot Smith[71] claims that "the full story of the coming of copper, complete in every detail and circ.u.mstance, written in a simple and convincing fashion that he who runs may read," has been displayed in Egypt ever since the year 1894, though the full significance of the evidence was not recognised until Reisner called attention to the record of pre-dynastic graves in Upper Egypt when superintending the excavations at Naga-ed-der in 1908[72]. These excavations revealed the indigenous civilisation of the ancient Egyptians and, according to Elliot Smith, dispose of the idea hitherto held by most archaeologists that Egypt owed her knowledge of metals to Babylonia or some other Asiatic source, where copper, and possibly also bronze, may be traced back to the fourth millennium B.C. There was doubtless intercourse between the civilisations of Egypt and Babylonia but "Reisner has revealed the complete absence of any evidence to show or even to suggest that the language, the mode of writing, the knowledge of copper ... were imported" (p. 34). Elliot Smith justly claims (p. 6) that in no other country has a similarly complete history of the discovery and the evolution of the working of copper been revealed, but until equally exhaustive excavations have been undertaken on contemporary or earlier sites in Sumer and Elam, the question cannot be regarded as settled.

The work of J. de Morgan at Susa[73] (1907-8) shows the extreme antiquity of the Copper Age in ancient Elam, even if his estimate of 5000 B.C. is regarded as a millennium too early[74]. At the base of the mound on the natural soil, beneath 24 meters of archaeological layers, were the remains of a town and a necropolis consisting of about 1000 tombs. Those of the men contained copper axes of primitive type; those of the women, little vases of paint, together with discs of polished copper to serve as mirrors. At Fara, excavations by Koldewey in 1902, and by Andrae and Noldeke in 1903 on the site of Shuruppak (the home of the Babylonian Noah) in the valley of the Lower Euphrates, revealed graves attributed to the prehistoric Sumerians, containing copper spear heads, axes and drinking vessels[75].

In Europe, North Italy, Hungary and Ireland[76] may lay claim to a Copper Age, but there is very little evidence of such a stage in Britain. To this period also may be attributed the nest or _cache_ of pure copper ingots found at Tourc'h, west of the Aven Valley, Finisterre, described by M. de Villiers du Terrage, and comprising 23 pieces, with a total weight of nearly 50 lbs.[77] These objects, which belong to "the transitional period when copper was used at first concurrently with polished stone, and then disappeared as bronze came into more general use[78]," came probably from Hungary, at that time apparently the chief source of this metal for most parts of Europe. Of over 200 copper objects described by Mathaeus Much[79] nearly all were of Hungarian or South German _provenance_, five only being accredited to Britain and eight to France.

The study of this subject has been greatly advanced by J. Hampel, who holds on solid grounds that in some regions, especially Hungary, copper played a dominant part for many centuries, and is undoubtedly the characteristic metal of a distinct culture. His conclusions are based on the study of about 500 copper objects found in Hungary and preserved in the Buda Pesth collections. Reviewing all the facts attesting a Copper Age in Central Europe, Egypt, Italy, Cyprus, Troy, Scandinavia, North Asia, and other lands, he concludes that a Copper Age may have sprung up independently wherever the ore was found, as in the Ural and Altai Mountains, Italy, Spain, Britain, Cyprus, Sinai; such culture being generally indigenous, and giving evidence of more or less characteristic local features[80]. In fact we know for certain that such an independent Copper Age was developed not only in the region of the Great Lakes of North America, but also amongst the Bantu peoples of Katanga and other parts of Central Africa. Copper is not an alloy like bronze, but a soft, easily-worked metal occurring in large quant.i.ties and in a tolerably pure state near the surface in many parts of the world. The wonder is, not that it should have been found and worked at a somewhat remote epoch in several different centres, but that its use should have been so soon superseded in so many places by the bronze alloys.

From copper to bronze, however, the pa.s.sage was slow and progressive, the proper proportion of tin, which was probably preceded in some places by an alloy of antimony, having been apparently arrived at by repeated experiments often carried out with no little skill by those prehistoric metallurgists.

As suggested by Bibra in 1869, the ores of different metals would appear to have been at first smelted together empirically, and the process continued until satisfactory results were obtained. Hence the extraordinary number of metals, of which percentages are found in some of the earlier specimens, such as those of the Elbing Museum, which on a.n.a.lysis yielded tin, lead, silver, iron, antimony, a.r.s.enic, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, and zinc in varying quant.i.ties[81].

Some bronzes from the pyramid of Medum a.n.a.lysed by J. H. Gladstone[82]

yielded the high percentage of 9.1 of tin, from which we must infer, not only that bronze, but bronze of the finest quality, was already known to the Egyptians of the fourth dynasty, _i.e._ 2840 B.C. The statuette of Gudea of Lagash (2500 B.C.) claimed as the earliest example of bronze in Babylonia is now known to be pure copper, and though objects from Tello (Lagash) of earlier date contain a mixture of tin, zinc, a.r.s.enic and other alloys, the proportion is insignificant. The question of priority must, however, be left open until the relative chronology of Egypt and Babylonia is finally settled, and this is still a much disputed point[83]. Neither would all the difficulties with regard to the origin of bronze be cleared up should Egypt or Babylonia establish her claim to possess the earliest example of the metal, for neither country appears to possess any tin. The nearest deposit known in ancient times would seem to be that of Drangiana, mentioned by Strabo, identified with modern Khora.s.san[84].

Strabo and other cla.s.sical writers also mention the occurrence of tin in the west, in Spain, Portugal and the Ca.s.siterides or tin islands, whose ident.i.ty has given rise to so much speculation[85], but "though in after times Egypt drew her tin from Europe it would be bold indeed to suppose that she did so [in 3000 B.C.] and still bolder to maintain that she learned from northern people how to make the alloy called bronze[86]."

Apart from the indigenous Egyptian origin maintained by Elliot Smith (above) the hypothesis offering fewest difficulties is that the earliest bronze is to be traced to the region of Elam, and that the knowledge spread from S. Chaldaea (Elam-Sumer) to S. Egypt in the third millennium B.C.[87]

There seems to be little doubt that the Aegean was the centre of dispersal for the new metals throughout the Mediterranean area, and copper ingots have been found at various points of the Mediterranean, marked with Cretan signs[88]. Bronze was known in Crete before 2000 B.C.

for a bronze dagger and spear head were found at Hagios Onuphrios, near Phaistos, with seals resembling those of the sixth to eleventh dynasties[89].

From the eastern Mediterranean the knowledge spread during the second millennium along the ordinary trade routes which had long been in use.

The mineral ores of Spain were exploited in pre-Mycenean times and probably contributed in no small measure to the industrial development of southern Europe. From tribe to tribe, along the Atlantic coasts the traffic in minerals reached the British Isles, where the rich ores were discovered which, in their turn, supplied the markets of the north, the west and the south.

Even Ireland was not left untouched by Aegean influence, which reached it, according to G. Coffey[90], by way of the Danube and the Elbe, and thence by way of Scandinavia, though this is a matter on which there is much difference of opinion. Ireland's richness in gold during the Bronze Age made her "a kind of El Dorado of the western world," and the discovery of a gold torc found by Schliemann in the royal treasury in the second city of Troy raises the question as to whether the model of the torc was imported into Ireland from the south[90], or whether (which J. Dechelette[91] regards as less probable) there was already an exportation of Irish gold to the eastern Mediterranean in pre-Mycenean times.

Of recent years great strides have been made towards the establishment of a definite chronology linking the historic with the prehistoric periods in the Aegean, in Egypt and in Babylonia, and as the estimates of various authorities differ sometimes by a thousand years or so, the subjoined table will be of use to indicate the chronological schemes most commonly followed; the dates are in all cases merely approximate.

It has often been pointed out that there is no reason why iron should not have been the earliest metal to be used by man. Its ores are more abundant and more easily reduced than any others, and are worked by peoples in a low grade of culture at the present day[92]. Iron may have been known in Egypt almost as early as bronze, for a piece in the British Museum is attributed to the fourth dynasty, and some beads of manufactured iron were found in a pre-dynastic grave at El Gerzeh[93].

But these and other less well authenticated occurrences of iron are rare, and the metal was not common in Egypt before the middle of the second millennium. By the end of the second millennium the knowledge had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean[94], and towards 900 at latest iron was in common use in Italy and Central Europe.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

Egypt[95] Babylonia[96] Aegean[97] Greece[98] Bronze Age in Europe[99]

3300 Dynasty I 3200 3100 3000 Dynasty of Opis ?Early ?Pre-Mycenean 2900 Dyn. of Kish Minoan I 2800 Dyn. III, Dyn. of Erech IV Dyn. of Akkad[100]

2700 2600 Dyn. V 2nd Dyn. of Erech 2500 Dyn. VI Gutian Early Minoan II Period I.

Domination Eneolithic 2400 Dyn. of Ur (implements 2300 Dyn. IX of stone, 2200 Dyn. of Isin Middle Minoan I copper and 2100 Dyn. XI Mid. Minoan II bronze, poor 2000 Dyn. XII 1st Dyn. Babylon Mycenean I in tin) 1900 2nd Dyn. Mid. Minoan III Period II 1800 1700 Dyn. XIII 3rd Dyn. Late Minoan I 1600 Dyn. XV Period III 1500 Dyn. XVIII Late Minoan Mycenean II II 1400 Late Minoan III 1300 Dyn. XIX Period IV 1200 Dyn. XX Homeric Age 1100 4th Dyn.

1000 Dyn. XXI 5th to 7th Dyn. Close of Bronze Age[101]

900 Dyn. XXII 8th Dyn. Hallstatt

The introduction of iron into Italy has often been attributed to the Etruscans, who were thought to have brought the knowledge from Lydia.

But the most abundant remains of the Early Iron Age are found not in Tuscany, but along the coasts of the Adriatic[102], showing that iron followed the well-known route of the amber trade, thus reaching Central Europe and _Hallstatt_ (which has given its name to the Early Iron Age), where alone in Europe the gradual transition from the use of bronze to that of iron has been clearly traced. W. Ridgeway[103] believes that the use of iron was first discovered in the Hallstatt area and that thence it spread to Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Aegean area, and Egypt rather than that the culture drift was in the opposite direction. There is no difference of opinion however as to the importance of this Central European area which contained the most famous iron mines of antiquity. Hallstatt culture extended from the Iberian peninsula in the west to Hungary in the east, but scarcely reached Scandinavia, North Germany, Armorica or the British Isles where the Bronze Age may be said to have lasted down to about 500 B.C. Over such a vast domain the culture was not everywhere of a uniform type and h.o.e.rnes[104] recognises four geographical divisions distinguished mainly by pottery and fibulae, and provisionally cla.s.sified as Illyrian in the South West, or Adriatic region, in touch with Greece and Italy; Celtic in the Central or Danubian area; with an off-shoot in Western Germany, Northern Switzerland and Eastern France; and Germanic in parts of Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Posen.

The Hallstatt period ends, roughly, at 500 B.C., and the Later Iron Age takes its name from the settlement of _La Tene_, in a bay of the Lake of Neuchatel in Switzerland. This culture, while owing much to that of Hallstatt, and much also to foreign sources, possesses a distinct individuality, and though soon overpowered on the Continent by Roman influence, attained a remarkable brilliance in the Late Celtic period in the British Isles.

That the peoples of the Metal Ages were physically well developed, and in a great part of Europe and Asia already of Aryan speech, there can be no reasonable doubt. A skull of the early Hallstatt period, from a grave near Wildenroth, Upper Bavaria, is described by Virchow as long-headed, with a cranial capacity of no less than 1585 c.c., strongly developed occiput, very high and narrow face and nose, and in every respect a superb specimen of the regular-featured, long-headed North European[105]. But owing to the prevalence of cremation the evidence of race is inadequate. The Hallstatt population was undoubtedly mixed, and at Glasinatz in Bosnia, another site of Hallstatt civilisation, about a quarter of the skulls examined were brachycephalic[106].

Their works, found in great abundance in the graves, especially of the Bronze and Iron periods, but a detailed account of which belongs to the province of archaeology, interest us in many ways. The painted earthenware vases and incised metal-ware of all kinds enable the student to follow the progress of the arts of design and ornamentation in their upward development from the first tentative efforts of the prehistoric artist at pleasing effects. Human and animal figures, though rarely depicted, occasionally afford a curious insight into the customs and fashions of the times. On a clay vessel, found in 1896 at Lahse in Posen, is figured a regular hunting scene, where we see men mounted on horseback, or else on foot, armed with bow and arrow, pursuing the quarry (n.o.bly-antlered stags), and returning to the penthouse after the chase[107]. The drawing is extremely primitive, but on that account all the more instructive, showing in connection with a.n.a.logous representations on contemporary objects, how in prehistoric art such figures tend to become conventionalised and purely ornamental, as in similar designs on the vases and textiles from the Ancon Necropolis, Peru. "Most ornaments of primitive peoples, although to our eye they may seem merely geometrical and freely-invented designs, are in reality nothing more than degraded animal and human figures[108]."

This may perhaps be the reason why so many of the drawings of the metal period appear so inferior to those of the cave-dwellers and of the present Bushmen. They are often mere conventionalised reductions of pictorial prototypes, comparable, for instance, to the characters of our alphabets, which are known to be degraded forms of earlier pictographs.

Of the so-called "Prehistoric Age" it is obvious that no strict definition can be given. It comprises in a general way that vague period prior to all written records, dim memories of which--popular myths, folklore, demi-G.o.ds[109], eponymous heroes[110], traditions of real events[111]--lingered on far into historic times, and supplied ready to hand the copious materials afterwards worked up by the early poets, founders of new religions, and later legislators.

That letters themselves, although not brought into general use, had already been invented, is evident from the mere fact that all memory of their introduction beyond the vaguest traditions had died out before the dawn of history. The works of man, while in themselves necessarily continuous, stretched back to such an inconceivably remote past, that even the great landmarks in the evolution of human progress had long been forgotten by later generations.

And so it was everywhere, in the New World as in the Old, amongst Eastern as amongst Western Peoples. In the Chinese records the "Age of the Five Emperors"--five, though nine are named--answers somewhat to our prehistoric epoch. It had its eponymous hero, Fu Hi, reputed founder of the empire, who invented nets and snares for fishing and hunting, and taught his people how to rear domestic animals. To him also is ascribed the inst.i.tution of marriage, and in his time Tsong Chi is supposed to have invented the Chinese characters, symbols, not of sounds, but of objects and ideas.

Then came other benevolent rulers, who taught the people agriculture, established markets for the sale of farm produce, discovered the medicinal properties of plants, wrote treatises on diseases and their remedies, studied astrology and astronomy, and appointed "the Five Observers of the heavenly bodies."

But this epoch had been preceded by the "Age of the Three [six] Rulers,"

when people lived in caves, ate wild fruits and uncooked food, drank the blood of animals and wore the skins of wild beasts (our Old Stone Age).

Later they grew less rude, learned to obtain fire by friction, and built themselves habitations of wood or foliage (our Early Neolithic Age).