The Prehistoric World or Vanished races Part 11

As we have made the theoretical part of this chapter already too long, we must hurry on. We can only say that this view is founded on the fact that when a country was covered with snow and ice, it had so to speak, a great amount of cold stored up in it, so much, in fact, that it would not be removed by the sun of a new geological Summer. This ought to be acceptable to such geologists as are willing to admit the advance and retreat of the great glacier, but yet doubt the fact of the interglacial mild climate.

But now to return to the question of time about two hundred and twenty thousand years ago. Then the Northern Hemisphere, according to this theory, was in the grasp of a Glacial Age. According to Mr. Wallace, as long as the eccentricity remained high, there could be no great amelioration of climate, except along the southern border of the ice sheet, which might, for causes named, vary some distance during the Great Year. Two hundred thousand years ago the eccentricity, then very high, reached a turning point. It then steadily, though gradually, diminished for fifty thousand years; at that time the eccentricity was so small, though considerably larger than at present, that it is doubtful if it was of any service in producing a change of climate.<31> At that time, also, the Northern Hemisphere was pa.s.sing through the Summer season of the Great Year. We ought, therefore, to have had a mild interglacial season. Except in high northern lat.i.tudes the ice should have disappeared. This change we would expect to find more marked in Europe than in America.

We need only recall how strong are the evidences on this point. Nearly all European writers admit at least one such mild interval, and though not wanting evidence of such a period in America, our geologists are much less confident of its occurrence.

But from that point the eccentricity again increased. So when the long flight of years again brought secular Winter to the Northern Hemisphere, the glaciers would speedily appear, and as eccentricity was again high, they would again hold the country in their grasp. Fifty thousand years later, or one hundred thousand years ago, it pa.s.sed its turning point again; eighty thousand years ago, it became so small that it probably ceased to effect the climate. Since then it has not been very large.

Twenty-five thousand years ago it was less than it is now, but it is again growing smaller. According to this theory, then, the Glacial Age commenced about two hundred and twenty thousand years ago. It continued, with one interruption of mild climate, for one hundred and forty thousand years, and finally pa.s.sed away eighty thousand years ago.

What shall we say to these results? If true, what a wonderful antiquity is here unfolded for the human race, and what a wonderful lapse of time is included in what is known as the Paleolithic Age! How strikingly does it impress upon our minds the slow development of man! Is such an antiquity for man in itself absurd? We know no reason for such a conclusion. Our most eminent scholars nowhere set a limit to the time of man's first appearance. It is true, many of them do not think the evidence strong enough to affirm such an antiquity, but there are no bounds given beyond which we may not pa.s.s.

Without investigation some might reject the idea that man could have lived on the earth one hundred thousand years in a state of Savagism.

If endowed with the attributes of humanity, it may seem to them that he would long before that time have achieved civilization. Such persons do not consider the lowliness of his first condition and the extreme slowness with which progress must have gone forward. On this point the geologists and the sociologists agree. Says Mr. Geikie: "The time which has elapsed from the close of the Paleolithic Age, even up to the present day, can not for a moment compare with the aeons during which the men of the old stone period occupied Europe." And on this subject Mr. Morgan says: "It is a conclusion of deep importance in ethnology that the experience of mankind in Savagery was longer in duration than all their subsequent experience, and that the period of Civilization covers but a fragment of the life of the race."<32> The time itself, which seems to us so long, is but a brief s.p.a.ce as compared with the ages nature has manifestly required to work out some of the results we see before us every day. We are sure, but few of our scholars think this too liberal an estimate. All endeavor to impress on our minds that the Glacial Age is an expression covering a very long period of time.

As to the time that has elapsed since the close of the Glacial Age there is some dispute, and it may be that we will be forced to the conclusion that the close of the Glacial Age was but a few thousand years ago. Mr.

Wallace a.s.sures us, however, that the time mentioned agrees well "with physical evidence of the time that has elapsed since the cold has pa.s.sed away."<33>

Difficulties are, however, urged by other writers. We can see at once that as quick as the glaciers are removed the denuding forces of nature, which are constantly at work, would begin to rearrange the _debris_ left behind on the surface, and in the course of a few thousand years must effect great changes. Now, in some cases the amount of such change is so small that geologists are reluctant to believe a vast lapse of time has occurred since the glaciers withdrew. Mr. Geikie tells us of some moraines in Scotland that they are so fresh and beautiful "that it is difficult to believe they can date back to a period so vastly removed as the Ice Age is believed to be."<34> In our own country this same sort of evidence is brought forward, and we are given some special calculations going to show that the disappearance of the glaciers was a comparatively recent thing.<35>

It will be seen that these conclusions are somewhat opposed to the results previously arrived at. In explanation Mr. Geikie thinks the cases spoken of in Scotland were not the moraines of the great glaciers, but of a local glacier of a far later date. He thinks that the climate, while not severe enough to produce the enormous glaciers of early times, was severe enough to produce local glaciers still in Scotland.<36> It is possible that a similar explanation may be given for the evidence adduced in the United States. We can only state that, according to the difference in climate between the eastern and western sides of the Atlantic Ocean, when the climate was severe enough to produce local glaciers in Scotland, it would produce the same effect over a large part of eastern United States down to the lat.i.tude of New York City.<37> And while it is true there would not be as much difference in climate on the two sides of the Atlantic in Glacial times as at present, since the Gulf Stream, on which such difference depends would then have less force, still it was not entirely lacking, and the difference must have been considerable.<38>

Prof. Hitchc.o.c.k has made a suggestion that whereas we know a period of several months elapses after the sun crosses the equator before Summer fairly comes on, so it is but reasonable to suppose that a proportionate length of time would go by after the eccentricity of the earth's...o...b..t became small, before the Glacial Age would really pa.s.s away. He accordingly suggests it may have been only about forty thousand years since the glaciers disappeared.<39>

At the close of the Glacial Age Paleolithic man vanished from Europe.

This, therefore, brings us to the conclusion of our researches into what is probably the most mysterious chapter of man's existence on the earth.

It may not come amiss to briefly notice the main points thus far made in our investigation of the past. As to the epoch of man's first appearance, we found he could not be expected to appear until all the animals lower than he had made their appearance. This is so because the Creator of all has apparently chosen that method of procedure in the development of life on the globe. According to our present knowledge, man might have been living in the Miocene Age, and with a higher degree of probability in the Pliocene. But we can not say that the evidence adduced in favor of his existence at these early times is satisfactory to the majority of our best thinkers. All agree that he was living in Europe at the close of the Glacial Age, and we think the evidence sufficient to show that he preceded the glaciers, and that as a rude savage he lived in Europe throughout the long extended portion of time known as the Glacial Age.

We also found evidence of either two distinct races of men inhabiting Europe in the Paleolithic Age, or else tribes of the same race, widely different in time and in culture. The one people known as the men of the River Drift apparently invaded Europe from Asia, along with the species of temperate animals now living there. This people seem to have been widely scattered over the earth. The race has probably vanished away, though certain Australian tribes may be descendants of them. They were doubtless very low in the scale of humanity, having apparently never reached a higher state than that of Lower Savagism. The second race of men inhabiting Europe during the Paleolithic Age were the Cave-dwellers.

They seem to have been allied to the Eskimos of the North. They were evidently further advanced than the Drift men, but were still savages.

The Paleolithic Age in Europe seems to have terminated with the Glacial Age. But we are not to suppose it came to an end all over the earth at that time. On the contrary, some tribes of men never pa.s.sed beyond that stage. When the light of civilization fell upon them they were still in the culture of the old Stone Age. We are to notice that in such cases the tribes thus discovered were very low in the scale. The probable data for the Paleolithic Age have formed the subject of this chapter. While claiming in support of them the opinions of some eminent scholars, we freely admit that it is not a settled question, but open to very grave objections, especially the date of the close of the Glacial Age, which seems to have been comparatively recent, at least in America. We think, however, that these objections will yet be harmonized with the general results. Neither is this claimed to be an exhaustive presentation of the matter. It is an outline only--the better to enable us to understand the mystery connected with the data of Paleolithic man.

In these few chapters we have been dealing with people, manners, arid times, of which the world fifty years ago was ignorant. Many little discoveries, at first apparently disconnected, are suddenly brought into new relation, and behold, ages ago, when the great continents were but just completed, races of men, with the stamp of humanity upon them, are seen filling the earth. With them were many great animals long since pa.s.sed away. The age of animals was at an end. That of man had just begun.

The child requires the schooling of adversity and trial to make a complete man of himself, and it is even so with races of men. Who can doubt that struggling up from dense ignorance, contending against adverse circ.u.mstances, compelled to wage war against fierce animals, sustaining life in the midst of the low temperature which had loaded the Northern Hemisphere with snow and ice, had much to do in developing those qualities which rendered civilization possible.

As to the antiquity of man disclosed in these chapters, the only question that need concern us is whether it is true or not. Evidence tending to prove its substantial accuracy should be as acceptable as that disproving it. No great principle is here at stake. The truth of Divine Revelation is in no wise concerned. There is nothing in its truth or falsity which should in any way affect man's belief in an overruling Providence, or in an immortality beyond the grave, or which should render any less desirable a life of purity and honor. On the contrary, we think one of the greatest causes of thanksgiving mortals have is the possession of intellectual powers, which enable us to here and there catch a glimpse of the greatness of G.o.d's universe, which the astronomer at times unfolds to us; or, to dimly comprehend the flight of time since "The Beginning," which the geologist finds necessary to account for the stupendous results wrought by slow-acting causes.

It seems to us eminently fitting that G.o.d should place man here, granting to him a capacity for improvement, but bestowing on him no gift or accomplishment, which by exertion and experience he could acquire; for labor is, and ever has been, the price of material good. So we see how necessary it is that a very extended time be given us to account for man's present advancement. Supposing an angel of light was to come to the aid of our feeble understanding, and unroll before us the pages of the past, a past of which, with all our endeavors, we as yet know but little. Can we doubt that, from such a review, we would arise with higher ideas of man's worth? Our sense of the depths from which he has ascended is equated only by our appreciation of the future opening before him. Individually we shall soon have pa.s.sed away. Our nation may disappear. But we believe our race has yet but fairly started in its line of progress; time only is wanted. We can but think that that view which limits man to an existence extending over but a few thousand years of the past, is a belittling one. Rather let us think of him as existing from a past separated from us by these many thousand years; winning his present position by the exercise of G.o.d-given powers.

REFERENCES

(1) The ma.n.u.script of this chapter was submitted to Prof. G. F.

Wright, of Oberlin, for criticism.

(2) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 113.

(3) Nordenskiold's "American Journal of Science," vol. 110, p.

58.

(4) Wright's "Studies in Science and Religion," p. 307, where a map of this moraine is given.

(5) There is, however, a small area in the south-west part of Wisconsin where, for some reason, the ice pa.s.sed by.

(6) Dane's "Manual of Geology," p. 538.

(7) Wright's "Studies in Science and Religion," p. 308.

(8) "Men of the Drift," p. 71.

(9) Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 93.

(10) "Men of the River Drift."

(11) Abbott's "Primitive Industry," p. 545; Quoted from "Geology of Minnesota." Report, 1877, p. 37.

(12) Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 97.

(13) The astronomical theory, which we will first examine, was first enunciated by Mr. Croll, following a suggestion of the astronomer Adhemer. Mr. Croll's views were set forth in many able papers, and finally gathered into a volume ent.i.tled "Climate and Time in their Geological Relation." The ablest defense of these views is that by Mr. James Geikie, in his works "The Great Ice Age," and "Prehistoric Europe."

(14) Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 114.

(15) Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 420, Table 4.

(16) Ibid., Table 5.

(17) Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 123.

(18) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 143.

(19) Ibid., p. 124.

(20) "Geology of New Hampshire," Vol. II, p. 5.

(21) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 99.

(22) Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 103.

(23) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 149. Hitchc.o.c.k's "Geology of New Hampshire," Vol. II, p. 7, gives a map showing what immense areas in that section would be raised to the surface by a raise of three hundred feet.

(24) _American Journal of Science,_ 1871, p. 329.

(25) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 184.

(26) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 182.

(27) Ibid., p. 157 and note. Prof. Wright thinks this statement doubtful. He refers to the date of the Glacial Age in the Southern Hemisphere.

(28) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 200; Dawkins's "Early Man in Britain," p. 119; Geikie's "Great Ice Age," p. 256; Quatref.a.ges's "Human Species," p. 288.

(29) For these results, see McFarland's Calculations in "American Journal of Science," 1880, p. 105.

(30) "Island Life," p. 153.

(31) See chart, p. 124, Wallace's "Island Life."

(32) "Ancient Society," p. 39.

(33) "Island Life," p. 201.

(34) "Prehistoric Europe," p. 312.

(35) On this point consult Wright's "Studies in Science and Religion," pp. 232-347; also Prof. Lewis in "Primitive Industry," pp. 547-551.

(36) "Prehistoric Europe," p. 560.

(37) See any isothermal map.

(38) Wallace's "Island Life," p. 154, note.

(39) "Geology of New Hampshire," Vol. III, p. 327, referred to in Wright's "Studies in Science and Religion," p. 327.

Chapter VI

THE NEOLITHIC AGE IN EUROPE.<1>

Close of the first cycle--Neolithic culture connected with the present--No links between the two ages--Long lapse of time between the two ages--Swiss lake villages--This form of villages widely scattered--Irish cranogs--Fortified villages--Implements and weapons of Neolithic times--Possessed of pottery--Neolithic agriculture--Possessed of domestic animals--Danish sh.e.l.l-heaps--Importance of flint--The art of navigation--Neolithic clothing--Their modes of burial--The question of race--Possible remnants--Connection with the Turanian race--Arrival of the Celts.

In the preceding chapters we have sought to learn what we could of the Paleolithic Age. We have seen what strange people and animals occupied the land, and have caught some glimpses of a past that has been recovered to us out of the very night of time. From under the ashes of Vesuvius archaeologists have brought to light an ancient city. We gaze on it with great interest, for we there see ill.u.s.trated the state of society two thousand years ago. But other cities of that time are still in existence, and not only by the aid of tradition and song, but from the pages of history, we can learn of the civilization of the Roman people at the time of the destruction of Pompei; so that, in this case, our knowledge of the past is not confined to one source of information.

But no voice of history or tradition, or of existing inst.i.tutions, speaks to us of the Paleolithic Age. Of that remote time, the morning time of human life, we learn only from the labors of geologists and archaeologists. We are virtually dealing with a past geological age.

The long term of years thus defined drew to its close amidst scenes of almost Arctic sterility. In all probability, glaciers reflected the sun's rays from all the considerable hills and mountains of Central and Northern Europe, though forming, perhaps, but a remnant of the great glaciers of the Ice Age. The neighboring seas must have been whitened by the glistening sails of numerous icebergs. Such was the closing scene of Paleolithic life.

The first great cycle of human life, as far as we know it now, was concluded in Europe. We do not mean to say that it terminated all over the world. In other regions it survived to far later times. But, in Europe, Paleolithic animals and men had worked out their mission, and we have now to record the arrival and spread of a new race, bringing with them domestic animals, a knowledge of rude husbandry, and many simple arts and industries of which their Paleolithic predecessors were ignorant.

We recall, that the men of the Paleolithic Age seemed incapable of advancement;<2> or their progress was so slow that we scarcely notice it. But we can trace the lines of advancement from the Neolithic culture to that of the present. We have, however, to deal with people and times far removed from the light of history.