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PREHISTORIC RELICS.—Within the last half century, in various countries of Europe, and in other countries, also, which have been, earlier or later, seats of civilization, there have been found numerous relics of uncivilized races, which, at periods far remote, must have inhabited the same ground. Many of these antiquities are met with in connection with remains of fossil elephants, hyenas, bears, etc.—with animals which no longer live in the regions referred to, and some of which have become wholly extinct. Dwelling-places of these far-distant peoples—such as caves and rock-shelters, and the remains of the lake-habitations that were built on piles, in Switzerland and elsewhere—sepulchers, camps, and forts, and an immense number of implements and ornaments of stone and metal, have been examined. The most ancient of these monuments carry us as far back as the era called by geologists the Quaternary or Drift period.

THE THREE STAGES.—But there are marked distinctions in the relative age of the various relics referred to. They indicate different degrees of knowledge and skill; and this proof of a succession of peoples, or of stages of development, is confirmed by geological evidence. The prehistoric time is divided into the Stone Age, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron, according as the implements in use were of one or another of these materials. But the Stone Age includes an earlier and a later sub-division. In the first and most ancient section, the weapons and utensils, mostly of flint, were very rude in their manufacture. This was the Paleolithic Age, where there are no signs of habitations constructed by the hand, or of domesticated plants and animals. Men lived in caves, and their vestments were the skins of beasts. Yet, among their implements are found fragments of bone, horn, ivory, and stone, on which are carved in outline, often with much skill, representations of the reindeer, the bear, the ox, and of other animals. In the Neolithic period, there was a decided advance. Implements are better made and polished. There were domestic animals and cultivated plants. The lake-dwellings in Switzerland were well contrived for shelter and defense. Every hut had its hearth. It is probable that most of them were furnished with a loom for weaving. Fragments of pottery are found, and flax was grown and made into cord, nettings, etc. Stalls were constructed near the huts for the ox, the goat, the horse, sheep, and pigs. The lake-dwellers cultivated wheat and barley. The Bronze Age, when implements were made of copper or of a mixture of copper and tin, exhibits proof of decided improvement in various directions; and the Age of Iron, a still more marked advance. In the Swiss remains referred to are distinct traces of a transition from the Stone Age to the Age of Bronze, and then to the Age of Iron. The kitchen-middens, or shell-mounds, of Denmark belong exclusively to the Neolithic period. Where the transition was made from the Stone Age to the Age of Bronze, it apparently occurred in some cases by degrees, and peacefully; but sometimes by the incoming of an invading people more advanced. It should be observed that the lines of division between these periods are not sharply drawn: implements of stone continued to be used after the Bronze and even the Iron periods had been introduced. Nor were these several ages in one region contemporaneous with like conditions in every other. Moreover, it is not possible to find in all countries once civilized proofs of a passage through these successive eras. In Egypt, the evidences of a Stone Age are scanty. The most ancient human remains show that man in his physical characteristics was on a level with man at present.

Dr. Daniel Wilson, speaking of the age of the Flint-folk, says: "It is of no slight importance to perceive that the interval which has wrought such revolutions in the earth" [involving great geological changes and mutations of climate] "as are recorded in the mammaliferous drift, shows man the same reasoning, tentative, and inventive mechanician, as clearly distinguished then from the highest orders of contemporary life of the Elephantine or Cave periods, as he is now from the most intelligent of the brute creation. … The oldest art-traces of the paleotechnic men of central France not only surpass those of many savage races, but they indicate an intellectual aptitude in no degree inferior to the average Frenchman of the nineteenth century." (Prehistoric Man, pp. 33, 34.)

Literature.—Wilson, Prehistoric Man, etc. (2 vols., 1876); Joly, Man before the Metals (1883); Keary, The Dawn of History. The writings of E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (2 vols.), Anthropology, Early History of Mankind; his Art. Anthropology, Encycl. Britt.; Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, and his Origin of Civilization; Argyll, The Unity of Nature (1884); J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe (1881); Lyell, The Antiquity of Man; W. E. Hearn, The Aryan Household; L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.—Science does not furnish us with the means of fixing the date of the first human inhabitants of the earth. But its various departments of investigation concur in pronouncing the interval between the creation of man and the present to be far longer than the traditional opinion has assumed. For the growth of language and its manifold ramifications; for the development of the different races of mankind, physically considered; for the geological changes since the beginning of the Stone Age in the regions where its relics are uncovered; for the rise of the most ancient civilization in Egypt as well as in Babylon and China—it is thought that periods of very long duration are indispensable.

As to the date of the Neolithic man, or of the last section of the Stone Age, Professor J. Geikie writes: "Any term of years I might suggest would be a mere guess; but I have written to little purpose, however, if the phenomena described in the preceding chapters have failed to leave the impression upon the reader, that the advent of Neolithic man in Europe must date back far beyond fifty or seventy centuries." (Prehistoric Europe, p. 558.)

The chronology gathered from Genesis has been supposed to place the date of man's creation at a point far less remote. Usher's calculation, attached to the authorized English Version of the Bible, sets this date at 4004 B.C. The discussion of these questions of Scriptural chronology belongs to theology and biblical criticism. It may be observed here, however, that of the three forms in which Genesis is handed down to us—the Hebrew text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint, or ancient Greek translation—no two agree in the numbers on which the estimate is founded. Hence Hales and Jackson, following the larger numbers in the genealogies of the Septuagint, place the date of the creation at a point about fourteen hundred years prior to that fixed upon by Usher.