The Meeting-Place of Geology and History Part 2

Notwithstanding these limitations, however, it is wonderful that so much has been recovered from the ground by the diligence of collectors, and that the material thus obtained has proved so fertile in information respecting our long-perished ancestors.

Supposing, then, that we search for remains of palaeocosmic men in river alluvia, or in caves of residence or burial, or in similar repositories, the question next arises, by what means can we distinguish their bones from those of later times? The following criteria are available:

(1) The remains were in their present condition at least as long ago as the date of the earliest history or tradition. This evidence is of course of greatest value in those regions in which history extends farthest back. Thus the remains of early men in the Lebanon caves, which we know date much farther back than the arrival of the first Phnicians and Canaanites in Syria, are in a different position, in so far as history is concerned, from those occurring in countries whose written history goes back only a few centuries.

(2) The deposits containing these remains may underlie those holding relics of historic times, or may indicate different physical conditions of the districts in which they occur from those known within historic periods. This is the case with some river beds, as those of Grenelle, near Paris, and with the successive deposits in old caves of residence.

(3) They may be accompanied by remains of animals now extinct in the regions in question, and whose disappearance and replacement by the modern fauna implies great lapse of time and physical changes; as, for instance, when we find that men have left remains of their feasts holding bones of the extinct woolly rhinoceros and his contemporaries, or in now temperate climates, those of the reindeer.

(4) The remains themselves may indicate a race or races of men and a condition of the arts of life different from any known in the region in historic times. Thus we may have skulls and skeletons indicating men racially distinct from any now extant, and implements and weapons different from those in use in the times of history or tradition.

We have now to consider what evidence of this kind vindicates the a.s.sertion that man existed on our continents in the second continental or post-glacial age, or, as others will have it, in the closing period of the glacial age, and was contemporary with the mammoth and other great beasts now extinct. This evidence, which has been acc.u.mulating with great rapidity and relates to many parts of the northern hemisphere, is too voluminous to be reproduced here.[16] But a few examples of it may be given, more especially from parts of the old world whose history extends farthest back and where explorations have been most extensive.

[16] Reference may be made to Christy and Lartet, _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_; Quatref.a.ges, _Homme Fossile_; Dupont, _L'Homme pendant les Ages de Pierre_; Carthaillac, _La France Prehistorique_; Dawkins, _Cave Hunting and Early Man in Britain_; _Fossil Men_ and _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, by the author.

My first instance shall be one originally described by Canon Tristram, and which I had an opportunity to examine in 1884--the caverns or rock shelters in the face of the limestone cliff of the pa.s.s of Nahr-el-Kelb, north of Beyrout. At this place, in old caverns partly cut away in the forming of the Roman road round the cliff, there is a hard stalagmite, or modern limestone, produced by the calcareous drippings from the rock. This is filled with broken bones intermixed with flint flakes suitable for use as knives or spears or darts, and occasional fragments of charcoal. The bones are those of large animals, and have been broken for the extraction of the marrow; and the whole is evidently the remnants of the cuisine of some primitive tribe of hunters, now cemented into a somewhat hard stone by stalagmitic matter.

The bones are not those of the present animals of Syria, but princ.i.p.ally of an extinct species of rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), a species of bison, and other large mammals which inhabited the region in the pleistocene and post-glacial periods. It is farther known that these animals had been extinct long before the early Phnicians penetrated into this country, perhaps 3000 B.C., and that the deposits existed in their present state when the early Egyptian conquerors pa.s.sed this way, at least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hitt.i.tes. It is also known that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude tribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the Phnicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used flint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the earlier cave men of the region.[17] What, then, were these earlier cave men? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as antediluvians.[18]

[17] See the ill.u.s.tration on p. 97.

[18] For more detailed description see _Modern Science in Bible Lands_; also _Egypt and Syria_, in the _Bypaths of Bible Knowledge_, by the author.

From the Lebanon we may pa.s.s to the west of Europe, where in France and Belgium a vast number of interesting relics of palaeocosmic man have been discovered, and have been scientifically examined.

We may take as an ill.u.s.tration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding the ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about forty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in post-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it shows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by layers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully examined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.

On the lowest of these, or the first in order of age, were found numerous skeletons and detached bones of the cave lion and the cave bear; the former a possible ancestor of the lion of Western Asia, the latter closely allied to the grizzly bear of North America, but both entirely extinct in Europe. One of the skeletons of the lion was of unusually large size, and so complete that when set up it forms the princ.i.p.al ornament of the cave collection in the Brussels Museum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAVE OF GOYET, BELGIUM (section after Dupont)

1 to 5, layers of clay deposited in the mammoth ages]

The next surface, the second in order of time, had a greater variety of animal remains. The lion had disappeared, and instead hyenas haunted the cave, and had dragged in animal bones to be gnawed. These included remains of the cave bear, wolf, rhinoceros, mammoth, wild horse, wapiti, Irish stag, chamois, reindeer, wild ox, besides several smaller animals.

The above animals are now all unknown in the fauna of modern Europe, except the reindeer, the chamois, and the wolf. But the most remarkable discovery on this surface was that of a few human bones, gnawed like the others by the hyenas. Man was thus already in the country, and contemporary with all these animals. How the hyena obtained his bones, whether from some neglected corpse or from some badly-constructed grave, will never be known; but the discovery introduces us to a tribe or family of men coming as immigrants into a region already stocked with many great quadrupeds. They probably did not yet dwell in caves, which, at a later and perhaps more inclement period, formed their homes. Dupont concludes from the condition of the bones that on both the older surfaces the cave bear was the later tenant, and had replaced the lion on the first and the hyena on the second.

The remaining surfaces introduce us to man as a cave-dweller. On the oldest of them are found not only abundance of _debris_ of food, but worked flints and bones, objects of ornament, and evidences of the use of fire. The two higher layers show works of art in more varied and improved forms, as if a certain progress in the arts of life had taken place during the occupancy of the cave. Among the objects in the upper layers were red oxide of iron, showing the use of colouring matter for the skin or garments, bone needles, proving the manufacture of clothing by sewing, bone points for darts, skilfully-barbed bone harpoons, ornaments made of perforated teeth of animals, and fragments of bone, and a remarkable necklace of a hundred and twenty-four silicified sh.e.l.ls of the genus _Turritella_, looking like spirals of agate, with a pendant made of another and larger sh.e.l.l. These sh.e.l.ls are not known to occur nearer to the cave than Rheims, in Champagne. It is scarcely too much to say that this necklace might be worn by any lady of the present day. A certain amount of imitative art is also shown in the carving of animal and plant forms and fancy devices on pieces of reindeer antler, which may have served for handles of weapons or implements. But objects of much more elaborate design have been found in caverns of this age in France. (See ill.u.s.trations on pp. 59 and 68.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANCE-HEAD FORMED OF A FLINT FLAKE (CAVE OF MOUSTIER)

Similar to weapons found in the Goyet cave. The flat face shows a bulb of percussion (after Falsan)]

The food of these people, in so far as it was of an animal nature, may be learned from the broken bones, which show that here as elsewhere they carried into their caves only the legs and skulls of the larger animals they killed, leaving the carcases; though it is quite possible that, like North American hunting Indians, they may have stripped off portions of flesh from the back, and preserved the heart, liver, &c., which would of course leave no remains.

Dupont gives lists of the animals in each layer. Those in the lower of the anthropic layers consist of twenty-three species of quadrupeds and some bones of birds. Among the former were the mammoth, the rhinoceros, two species of bear, the horse, the reindeer, two other species of deer and two bovine animals. Even the lion, the hyena and the wolf were eaten by these people. It is interesting to note that the numerical preponderance was in favour of the reindeer and the wild horse, though remains were found indicating seven individuals of the mammoth, and four of the rhinoceros, as having fallen a prey to the old hunters. In the highest bed the number of species and the proportions of each one are nearly the same, so that no material change in the fauna had occurred during the occupancy of this cave. It may also be noted that while Dupont calls this a cave of the mammoth age, the French archaeologists are in the habit of naming similar deposits those of the reindeer age.

The age of both animals was in reality the same, except that in France the reindeer seems to have survived the mammoth, and indeed we know this to be the fact from its continuing in the forests of Germany till the Roman times.

This cave may serve as an example of the manner in which the men of the palanthropic age make their appearance. Let it be observed also that this is only one instance selected from many giving similar testimony, and that Dupont adduces evidence to show that there may have been a contemporary plain-dwelling people, of whom less is known than of the troglodytes. Let it also be noted that there are other caves in Belgium, to which we shall return later, which show how the neocosmic men contemporary with the present fauna succeeded the men of the mammoth age.

We may now inquire as to the physical characters of the men of this period. It may be stated in answer to this question that two races of men are known in the palanthropic age, both somewhat different from any existing peoples, and known respectively as the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races. As the latter is the most important and best known, we may take it first, though the former may locally at least have been the older.

The valley of the little river Vezere, a tributary of the Dordogne, in the south of France, abounding in overhanging rock-shelters, seems to have been a favourite abode of the men of the mammoth and reindeer age.

The rock-shelter of Cro-magnon explored by Lartet is one of these, and that of Laugerie Ba.s.se is on the opposite side of the same stream.

The former is a shelter or hollow under an over-*hanging ledge of limestone, and excavated originally by the action of the weather on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west, and, having originally been about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a comfortable shelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook from its front. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to accommodate several families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs in front, and may have been further completed by stones, poles, or bark placed across the opening. It seems, however, in the first instance to have been used only at intervals, and to have been left vacant for considerable portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only by hunting or war-parties. But subsequently it was permanently occupied, and this for so long a time that in some places a foot and a half of ashes and carbonaceous matter, with bones, implements, &c., was acc.u.mulated. All of these, it may be remarked, belong to the palanthropic age. By this time the height of the cavern had been much diminished, and, instead of clearing it out for future use, it was made a place of burial, in which five individuals were interred. Of these, three were men, one of great age, the other two probably in the prime of life. The fourth and fifth were a woman of about thirty or forty years of age, and the remains of a ftus.

These bones, with others to be mentioned in connection with them, unquestionably belong to some of the oldest human inhabitants known in Western Europe. They have been most carefully examined by several competent anatomists and archaeologists, and the results have been published with excellent figures in the _Reliquiae Aquitanicae_, where will also be found details of their characters and accompaniments, among which last were about three hundred small sh.e.l.ls of different species pierced for stringing or attachment to garments. These men are, therefore, of the utmost interest for our present purpose, and I shall try so to divest the descriptions of anatomical details as to give a clear notion of their character. The doubts at one time cast on the age of these skeletons have been removed by the discovery of others at Laugerie Ba.s.se, Mentone, &c. They are no doubt palanthropic, though not of the earliest part of the period. The 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' was of great stature, being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones show that he was of the strongest and most athletic muscular development; and the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which is characteristic of athletic men habituated to rough walking, climbing, and running; for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enormous strength of the thigh-bone and the flattened condition of the leg in this and other old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, though much less than in this old man, in American skeletons. His skull presents all the characters of advanced age, though the teeth had been worn down to the sockets without being lost; which, again, is a character often observed in rude peoples of modern times. The skull proper, or brain-case, is very long--more so than in ordinary modern skulls--and this length is accompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size than in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well developed. The face, however, presented very peculiar characters. It was extremely broad, with projecting cheek-bones and heavy jaw, in this resembling the coa.r.s.e types of the American face, and the eye-orbits were square and elongated laterally in a manner peculiar to the skulls of this age. The nose was large and prominent, and the jaws projected somewhat forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some resemblance to the harsher type of American physiognomy, with overhanging brows, small and transverse eyes, high cheek-bones, and coa.r.s.e mouth. He had not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for his thigh-bone showed a depression which must have resulted from a severe wound--perhaps from the horn of some wild animal or the spear of an enemy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUTLINE OF THE SKULL OF THE 'OLD MAN OF CRO-MAGNON'

(after Christy and Lartet)]

The woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form modified by her s.e.x, and in form and visage closely resembled her sisters of the American wilderness in the pre-Columbian times. If her hair and complexion were suitable, she would have pa.s.sed at once for an American-Indian woman, but one of unusual size and development. Her head bears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has penetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to indicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from the condition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was received in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been driven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, either with other members of her family or with others who had perished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her little ones from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace and the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.

Unreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial of the dead by palaeocosmic men. The burial of men of the Cro-magnon race at that place and at Laugerie Ba.s.se and Mentone is established by the most unequivocal evidence; and interments of men of the Canstadt race have been found at Spy, in Belgium. Of course, even if interment proper had not been practised, there might have been cremation, as among the Tasmanians, or burial on stages or in huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that interment was practised we know, and this carries with it the certainty that our palaeocosmic men must have had some simple ideas of religion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST SKELETON FOUND IN THE MENTONE CAVES

(after Riviere)]

The skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatref.a.ges it is stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types of the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under circ.u.mstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Riviere, in a memoir on this skeleton, ill.u.s.trated by two beautiful photographs, shows that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect ident.i.ty of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar in character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an examination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in 1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the conclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of them seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic age. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Ba.s.se, was buried under a great thickness of acc.u.mulated _debris_ of cookery, as well as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its sh.e.l.l ornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner which would induce the belief that they had been attached to a head-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See ill.u.s.tration on p. 79.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: HANDLE OF A PIERCER, OR BODKIN, IN BONE, FROM LAUGERIE Ba.s.sE, IN FORM OF A DEER

(a) Hollow for thumb; (b) hollow for finger. Reduced to one-half. From a cast of the original]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Section at A.A.

FLINT FLAKE KNIFE, FOUND IN THE HAND OF THE 'GIANT' SKELETON OF MENTONE

(after Evans)]

The ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated sh.e.l.ls from the Atlantic and pieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated _Neritinae_ from the Mediterranean and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases there was evidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of iron, and used bodkins of bone, and long and beautifully-formed flint knives, perhaps for dividing their food, or perhaps for sacrificial purposes. Skulls found at Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are described by Professor Broca and M. Fleurens as of the same general type, and the remains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in England, seem also to have belonged to this race. The celebrated Engis skull from one of the Belgian caves, which is believed to have belonged to a contemporary of the mammoth, is also of this type, though less ma.s.sive than that of Cro-magnon; and lastly, even the somewhat degraded Neanderthal skull, found in a cave near Dusseldorf, though, like those of Clichy, Canstadt, Spy and Gibraltar, inferior in frontal development, is referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as can be judged from the portion that remains, though certainly to a ruder and more degraded variety, commonly known as the Canstadt man as distinguished from the Engis or Cro-magnon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEANDERTHAL SKULL--TWO OUTLINES: THE OUTER GIVING THE MORE CORRECT FORM (from _Science_)]

Let it be observed, then, that these skulls are probably the oldest known in the world, and they are all referable to two varieties of one race of men; and let us ask what they tell as to the position and character of palanthropic man. The testimony is here fortunately well-nigh unanimous. All anatomists and archaeologists admit the high and human character of the Engis and even the Neanderthal skulls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKULL OF CANSTADT TYPE FOUND AT SPY, BELGIUM, BY FRAIPONT AND LOHEST]

Broca, who has carefully studied the Cro-magnon skulls, has the following general conclusions: 'The great volume of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile of the anterior portion of the skull, and the orthognathous form of the upper facial region, are incontestably evidences of superiority, which are met with usually only in the civilised races. On the other hand, the great breadth of face, the alveolar prognathism, the enormous development of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscular insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles, give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal race.'

He adds that this apparent ant.i.thesis, seen also in the limbs as well as in the skull, accords with the evidence furnished by the a.s.sociated weapons and implements of a rude hunter-life, and at the same time of no mean degree of taste and skill in carving and other arts. He might have added that this is the ant.i.thesis seen in the American tribes, among whom art and taste of various kinds, and much that is high and spiritual even in thought, coexisted with barbarous modes of life and intense ferocity and cruelty. The G.o.d and the devil were combined in these races, but there was nothing of the mere brute.

Riviere remarks, with expressions of surprise, the same contradictory points in the Mentone skeleton: its grand development of brain-case and high facial angle--even higher apparently than in most of these ancient skulls--combined with other characters which indicate a low type and barbarous modes of life.

Another point which strikes us in reading the descriptions of these skeletons is the indication which they seem to present of an extreme longevity. The ma.s.sive proportions of the body, the great development of the muscular processes, the extreme wearing of the teeth among a people who predominantly lived on flesh and not on grain, the obliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with indications of slow ossification of the ends of the long bones, point in this direction, and seem to indicate a slow maturity and great length of life in this most primitive race.

The picture would be incomplete did we not add that Quatref.a.ges has described a single skull, that of Truchere, from deposits of this age, which shows that these gigantic men were contemporaneous with a feebler race of smaller stature and with different cranial characters, and inhabiting in all likelihood a more eastern region.