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GREEK CONCEPTIONS OF MAN'S ORIGIN—RISE OF ANTHROPOLOGY, OF ARCHÆOLOGY, OF THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF MAN—TIME DIVISIONS OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH—GEOGRAPHIC, CLIMATIC, AND LIFE PERIODS OF THE OLD STONE AGE

The anticipation of nature by Lucretius[B] in his philosophical poem, De Rerum Natura, accords in a broad and remarkable way with our present knowledge of the prehistory of man:

"Things throughout proceed

In firm, undevious order, and maintain,

To nature true, their fixt generic stamp.

Yet man's first sons, as o'er the fields they trod,

Reared from the hardy earth, were hardier far;

Strong built with ampler bones, with muscles nerved

Broad and substantial; to the power of heat,

Of cold, of varying viands, and disease,

Each hour superior; the wild lives of beasts

Leading, while many a lustre o'er them rolled.

Nor crooked plough-share knew they, nor to drive,

Deep through the soil, the rich-returning spade;

Nor how the tender seedling to re-plant,

Nor from the fruit-tree prune the withered branch.

········ "Nor knew they yet the crackling blaze t'excite, Or clothe their limbs with furs, or savage hides. But groves concealed them, woods, and hollow hills; And, when rude rains, or bitter blasts o'erpowered, Low bushy shrubs their squalid members wrapped. ········ "And in their keen rapidity of hand And foot confiding, oft the savage train With missile stones they hunted, or the force Of clubs enormous; many a tribe they felled, Yet some in caves shunned, cautious; where, at night, Thronged they, like bristly swine; their naked limbs With herbs and leaves entwining. Nought of fear Urged them to quit the darkness, and recall, With clamorous cries, the sunshine and the day: But sound they sunk in deep, oblivious sleep, Till o'er the mountains blushed the roseate dawn. ········ "This ne'er distressed them, but the fear alone Some ruthless monster might their dreams molest, The foamy boar, or lion, from their caves Drive them aghast beneath the midnight shade, And seize their leaf-wrought couches for themselves. ········ "Yet then scarce more of mortal race than now Left the sweet lustre of the liquid day. Some doubtless, oft the prowling monsters gaunt Grasped in their jaws, abrupt; whence, through the groves, The woods, the mountains, they vociferous groaned, Destined thus living to a living tomb. ········ "Yet when, at length, rude huts they first devised, And fires, and garments; and, in union sweet, Man wedded woman, the pure joys indulged Of chaste connubial love, and children rose, The rough barbarians softened. The warm hearth Their frames so melted they no more could bear, As erst, th' uncovered skies; the nuptial bed Broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress Of prattling children from the bosom chased Their stern ferocious manners."[C]

This is a picture of many phases in the life of primitive man: his powerful frame, his ignorance of agriculture, his dependence on the fruits and animal products of the earth, his discovery of fire and of clothing, his chase of wild beasts with clubs and missile stones, his repair to caverns, his contests with the lion and the boar, his invention of rude huts and dwellings, the softening of his nature through the sweet influence of family life and of children, all these are veritable stages in our prehistoric development. The influence of Greek thought is also reflected in the Satires of Horace,[D] and the Greek conception of the natural history of man, voiced by Æschylus[E] as early as the fifth century B. C., prevailed widely before the Christian era, when it gradually gave way to the Mosaic conception of special creation, which spread all over western Europe.

Rise of Modern Anthropology

As the idea of the natural history of man again arose, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it came not so much from previous sources as from the dawning science of comparative anatomy. From the year 1597, when a Portuguese sailor's account of an animal resembling the chimpanzee was embodied in Filippo Pigafetta's Description of the Kingdom of the Congo, the many points of likeness between the anthropoid apes and man were treated both in satire and caricature and in serious anatomical comparison as evidence of kinship.

The first French evolutionist, Buffon,[F] observed in 1749: "The first truth that makes itself apparent on serious study of nature is one that man may perhaps find humiliating; it is this—that he, too, must take his place in the ranks of animals, being, as he is, an animal in every material point." Buffon's convictions were held in check by clerical and official influences, yet from his study of the orang in 1766 we can entertain no doubt of his belief that men and apes are descended from common ancestors.

The second French evolutionist, Lamarck,[G] in 1809 boldly proclaimed the descent of man from the anthropoid apes, pointing out their close anatomical resemblances combined with inferiority both in bodily and mental capacity. In the evolution of man Lamarck perceived the great importance of the erect position, which is only occasionally assumed by the apes; also that children pass gradually from the quadrumanous to the upright position, and thus repeat the history of their ancestors. Man's origin is traced as follows: A race of quadrumanous apes gradually acquires the upright position in walking, with a corresponding modification of the limbs, and of the relation of the head and face to the back-bone. Such a race, having mastered all the other animals, spreads out over the world. It checks the increase of the races nearest itself and, spreading in all directions, begins to lead a social life, develops the power of speech and the communication of ideas. It develops also new requirements, one after another, which lead to industrial pursuits and to the gradual perfection of its powers. Eventually this pre-eminent race, having acquired absolute supremacy, comes to be widely different from even the most perfect of the lower animals.

The period following the latest publication of Lamarck's(1)[H] remarkable speculations in the year 1822, was distinguished by the earliest discoveries of the industry of the caveman in southern France in 1828, and in Belgium, near Liége, in 1833; discoveries which afforded the first scientific proof of the geologic antiquity of man and laid the foundations of the science of archæology.

The earliest recognition of an entirely extinct race of men was that which was called the 'Neanderthal,' found, in 1856, near Düsseldorf, and immediately recognized by Schaaffhausen(2) as a primitive race of low cerebral development and of uncommon bodily strength.

Darwin in the Origin of Species,(3) which appeared in 1858, did not discuss the question of human descent, but indicated the belief that light would be thrown by his theory on the origin of man and his history.

It appears that Lamarck's doctrine in the Philosophie Zoologique (1809)(4) made a profound impression on the mind of Lyell, who was the first to treat the descent of man in a broad way from the standpoint of comparative anatomy and of geologic age. In his great work of 1863, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, Lyell cited Huxley's estimate of the Neanderthal skull as more primitive than that of the Australian but of surprisingly large cranial capacity. He concludes with the notable statement: "The direct bearing of the ape-like character of the Neanderthal skull on Lamarck's doctrine of progressive development and transmutation ... consists in this, that the newly observed deviation from a normal standard of human structure is not in a casual or random direction, but just what might have been anticipated if the laws of variation were such as the transmutationists require. For if we conceive the cranium to be very ancient, it exemplifies a less advanced stage of progressive development and improvement."(5)

Lyell followed this by an exhaustive review of all the then existing evidence in favor of the great geological age of man, considering the 'river-drift,' the 'loess,' and the loam deposits, and the relations of man to the divisions of the Glacial Epoch. Referring to what is now known as the Lower Palæolithic of St. Acheul and the Upper Palæolithic of Aurignac, he says that they were doubtless separated by a vast interval of time, when we consider that the flint implements of St. Acheul belong either to the Post-Pliocene or early Pleistocene time, or the 'older drift.'

It is singular that in the Descent of Man, published in 1871,(6) eight years after the appearance of Lyell's great work, Charles Darwin made only passing mention of the Neanderthal race, as follows: "Nevertheless, it must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous one at Neanderthal, are well-developed and capacious." It was the relatively large brain capacity which turned Darwin's attention away from a type which has furnished most powerful support to his theory of human descent. In the two hundred pages which Darwin devotes to the descent of man, he treats especially the evidences presented in comparative anatomy and comparative psychology, as well as the evidence afforded by the comparison of the lower and higher races of man. As regards the "birthplace and antiquity of man,"(7) he observes:

"... In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to speculate on this subject; for two or three anthropomorphous apes, one the Dryopithecus of Lartet, nearly as large as a man, and closely allied to Hylobates, existed in Europe during the Miocene Age; and since so remote a period the earth has certainly undergone many great revolutions, and there has been ample time for migration on the largest scale.

"At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, when man first lost his hairy covering, he probably inhabited a hot country; a circumstance favorable for the frugivorous diet on which, judging from analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago it was when man first diverged from the catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at an epoch as remote as the Eocene Period; for that the higher apes had diverged from the lower apes as early as the Upper Miocene Period is shown by the existence of the Dryopithecus."

With this speculation of Darwin the reader should compare the state of our knowledge to-day regarding the descent of man, as presented in the first and last chapters of this volume.

The most telling argument against the Lamarck-Lyell-Darwin theory was the absence of those missing links which, theoretically, should be found connecting Man with the anthropoid apes, for at that time the Neanderthal race was not recognized as such. Between 1848 and 1914 successive discoveries have been made of a series of human fossils belonging to intermediate races: some of these are now recognized as missing links between the existing human species, Homo sapiens, and the anthropoid apes; and others as the earliest known forms of Homo sapiens:

Year	Locality	Character of Remains	Race
1848	Gibraltar.	Well-preserved skull.	Neanderthal.
1856	Neanderthal, near Düsseldorf.	Skullcap, etc.	Type of Neanderthal race.
1866	La Naulette, Belgium.	Fragment of lower jaw.	Neanderthal race.
1867	Furfooz, Belgium.	Two skulls.	Type of Furfooz race.
1868	Crô-Magnon, Dordogne.	Three skeletons and fragments of two others.	Type of Crô-Magnon race.
1887	Spy, Belgium.	Two crania and skeletons.	Spy type of Neanderthal race.
1891	Trinil River, Java.	Skullcap and femur.	Type of Pithecanthropus race.
1899	Krapina, Austria-Hungary.	Fragments of at least ten individuals.	Krapina type of Neanderthal race.
1901	Grimaldi grotto, Mentone.	Two skeletons.	Type of Grimaldi race.
1907	Heidelberg.	Lower jaw with teeth.	Type of Homo heidelbergensis.
1908	La Chapelle, Corrèze.	Skeleton.	Mousterian type of Neanderthal race.
1908	Le Moustier, Dordogne.	Almost complete skeleton, greater part of which was in bad state of preservation.	Neanderthal.
1909	La Ferrassie I, Dordogne.	Fragments of skeleton.	Neanderthal.
1910	La Ferrassie II, Dordogne.	Fragments of skeleton, female.	Neanderthal.
1911	La Quina II, Charente.	Fragments of skeleton, supposed female.	Neanderthal.
1911	Piltdown, Sussex.	Portions of skull and jaw.	Type of Eoanthropus, the 'dawn man.'
1914	Obercassel, near Bonn, Germany.	Two skeletons, male and female.	Crô-Magnon.

In his classic lecture of 1844, On the Form of the Head in Different Peoples, Anders Retzius laid the foundation of the modern study of the skull.(8) Referring to his original publication, he says: "In the system of classification which I devised, I have distinguished just two forms, namely, the short (round or four-cornered) which I named brachycephalic, and the long, oval, or dolichocephalic. In the former there is little or no difference between the length and breadth of the skull; in the latter there is a notable difference." The expression of this primary distinction between races is called the cephalic index, and it is determined as follows:

Breadth of skull × 100 ÷ length of skull.

In this sense the primitive men of the Old Stone Age were mostly 'dolichocephalic,' that is, the breadth of the skull was in general less than 75 per cent of the length, as in the existing Australians, Kaffirs, Zulus, Eskimos, and Fijians. But some of the Palæolithic races were 'mesaticephalic'; that is, the breadth was between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of the length, as in the existing Chinese and Polynesians. The third or 'brachycephalic' type is the exception among Palæolithic skulls, in which the breadth is over 80 per cent of the length, as in the Malays, Burmese, American Indians, and Andamanese.

Fig. 1. Outline of a modern brachycephalic skull (fine dots), superposed upon a dolichocephalic skull (dashes), superposed upon a chimpanzee skull (line).

g. glabella or median prominence between the eyebrows.

i. inion—external occipital protuberance.

g-i. glabella-inion line.

Vertical line from g-i to top of skull indicates the height of the brain-case. Modified after Schwalbe.

The cephalic index, however, tells us little of the position of the skull as a brain-case in the ascending or descending scale, and following the elaborate systems of skull measurements which were built up by Retzius(9) and Broca,(10) and based chiefly on the outside characters of the skull, came the modern system of Schwalbe, which has been devised especially to measure the skull with reference to the all-important criterion of the size of the different portions of the brain, and of approximately estimating the cubic capacity of the brain from the more or less complete measurements of the skull.

Among these measurements are the slope of the forehead, the height of the median portion of the skullcap, and the ratio between the upper portion of the cranial chamber and the lower portion. In brief, the seven principal measures which Schwalbe now employs are chiefly expressions of diameters which correspond with the number of cubic centimetres occupied by the brain as a whole.

In this manner Schwalbe(11) confirms Boule's estimates of the variations in the cubic capacity of the brain in different members of the Neanderthal race as follows:

Neanderthal race	—La Chapelle	1620	c.cm.
""	—Neanderthal	1408	"
""	—La Quina	1367	"
""	—Gibraltar	1296	"

Thus the variations between the largest known brain in one member of the Neanderthal race, the male skull of La Chapelle, and the smallest brain of the same race, the supposed female skull of Gibraltar, is 324 c.cm., a range similar to that which we find in the existing species of man (Homo sapiens).

Fig. 2. The skull and brain-case, showing the low, retreating forehead, prominent supraorbital ridges, and small brain capacity, of Pithecanthropus, the java ape-man, as restored by J. H. McGregor.

As another test for the classification of primitive skulls, we may select the well-known frontal angle of Broca, as modified by Schwalbe, for measuring the retreating forehead. The angle is measured by drawing a line along the forehead upward from the bony ridge between the eyebrows, with a horizontal line carried from the glabella to the inion at the back of the skull. The various primitive races are arranged as follows:

		PER CENT
Homo sapiens, with an average forehead	frontal angle	90
Homo sapiens, with extreme retreating forehead	""	72.3
Homo neanderthalensis, with the least retreating forehead	""	70
Homo neanderthalensis, with the most retreating forehead	""	57.5
Pithecanthropus erectus (Trinil race)	""	52.5
Highest anthropoid apes	""	56

For instance, this illustrates the fact that in the Trinil race the forehead is actually lower than in some of the highest anthropoid apes; that in the Neanderthal race the forehead is more retreating than in any of the existing human races of Homo sapiens.

Archæology of the Old Stone Age[I]

The proofs of the prehistory of man arose afresh, and from an entirely new source, in the beginning of the eighteenth century through discoveries in Germany, by which the Greek anticipations of a stone age were verified. For a century and a half the great animal life of the diluvial world had aroused the wonder and speculation of the early naturalists. In 1750 Eccardus(17) of Braunschweig advanced the first steps toward prehistoric chronology, in expressing the opinion that the human race first lived in a period in which stone served as the only weapon and tool, and that this was followed by a bronze and then by an iron period of human culture. As early as 1700 a human skull was discovered at Cannstatt and was believed to be of a period as ancient as the mammoth and the cave-bear.[J]

France, favored beyond all other countries by the men of the Old Stone Age, was destined to become the classic centre of prehistoric archæology. As early as 1740 Mahudel(18) published a treatise upon stone implements and laid the foundations both of Neolithic and Palæolithic research. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the problem of fossil man had awakened wide-spread interest and research. In Buckland's(19) Reliquiæ diluvianæ, published in 1824, the great mammals of the Old Stone Age are treated as relics of the flood. In 1825 MacEnery explored the cavern of Kent's Hole, near Torquay, finding human bones and flint flakes associated with the remains of the cave-bear and cave-hyæna, but the notes of this discovery were not published until 1840, when Godwin-Austen(20) gave the first description of Kent's Hole. In 1828 Tournal and Christol(21) announced the first discoveries in France (Languedoc) of the association of human bones with the remains of extinct animals. In 1833-4 Schmerling(22) described his explorations in the caverns near Liége, in Belgium, in which he found human bones and rude flint implements intermingled with the remains of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave-hyæna, and the cave-bear. This is the first published evidence of the life of the Cave Period of Europe, and was soon followed by the recognition of similar cavern deposits along the south coast of Great Britain, in France, Belgium and Italy.

Fig. 3. Three great types of flint implements.

A. An eolith of accidental shape.

B. A palæolith of Chellean type, partly fashioned.

C. A Neolithic axe head, partly polished.

After MacCurdy.

The work of the caveman, gradually revealed between 1828 and 1840, is now known to belong to the closing period of the Old Stone Age, and it is very remarkable that the next discovery related to the very dawn of the Old Stone Age, namely, to the life of the 'river-drift' man of the Lower Palæolithic.

This discovery of what is now known as Chellean and Acheulean industry came through the explorations of Boucher de Perthes, between 1839 and 1846, in the valley of the River Somme, which flows through Amiens and Abbeville and empties into the English Channel half-way between Dieppe and Boulogne. In 1841 this founder of modern archæology unearthed near Abbeville a single flint, rudely fashioned into a cutting instrument, buried in river sand and associated with mammalian remains. This was followed by the collection of many other ancient weapons and implements, and in the year 1846 Boucher de Perthes published his first work, entitled De l'Industrie primitive, ou des Arts à leur Origine,(23) in which he announced that he had found human implements in beds unmistakably belonging to the age of the 'river-drift.' This work and the succeeding (1857), Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes,(24) were received with great scepticism until confirmed in 1853 by Rigollot's(25) discovery of the now famous 'river-drift' beds of St. Acheul, near Amiens. In the succeeding years the epoch-making work of Boucher de Perthes was welcomed and confirmed by leading British geologists and archæologists, Falconer, Prestwich, Evans, and others who visited the Somme. Lubbock's(26) article of 1862, on the Evidence of the Antiquity of Man Afforded by the Physical Structure of the Somme Valley, pointing out the great geologic age of the river sands and gravels and of the mammals which they contained, was followed by the discovery of similar flints in the 'river-drifts' of Suffolk and Kent, England, in the valley of the Thames near Dartford. Thus came the first positive proofs that certain types of stone implements were wide-spread geographically, and thus was afforded the means of comparing the age of one deposit with another.

This led Sir John Lubbock(27) to divide the prehistoric period into four great epochs, in descending order as follows:

The Iron Age, in which iron had superseded bronze for arms, axes, knives, etc., while bronze remained in common use for ornaments.

The Bronze Age, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting instruments of all kinds.

The later or polished Stone Age, termed by Lubbock the Neolithic Period, characterized by weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone, with no knowledge of any metal excepting gold.

Age of the Drift, termed by Lubbock the Palæolithic Period, characterized by chipped or flaked implements of flint and other kinds of stone, and by the presence of the mammoth, the cave-bear, the woolly rhinoceros, and other extinct animals.

Edouard Lartet, in 1860, began exploring the caverns of the Pyrenees and of Périgord, first examining the remarkable cavern of Aurignac with its burial vault, its hearths, its reindeer and mammoth fauna, its spear points of bone and engravings on bone mingled with a new and distinctive flint culture. This discovery, published in 1861,(28) led to the full revelation of the hitherto unknown Reindeer and Art Period of the Old Stone Age, now known as the Upper Palæolithic. As a palæontologist, it was natural for Lartet to propose a fourfold classification of the 'Reindeer Period,' based upon the supposed succession of the dominant forms of mammalian life, namely:

(d) Age of the Aurochs or Bison.

(c) Age of the Woolly Mammoth and Rhinoceros.

(b) Age of the Reindeer.

(a) Age of the Cave-Bear.

Lartet, in association with the British archæologist, Christy, explored the now famous rock shelters and caverns of Dordogne—Laugerie, La Madeleine, Les Eyzies, and Le Moustier—which one by one yielded a variety of flint and bone implements, engravings and sculpture on bone and ivory, and a rich extinct fauna, in which the reindeer and mammoth predominated. The results of this decade of exploration are recorded in their classic work, Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ.(29) Lartet, observes Breuil,(30) clearly perceived the level of Aurignac, where the fauna of the great cave-bear and of the mammoth appears to yield to that of the reindeer. Above he perceived the stone culture of the Solutrean type in Laugerie Haute, and of the Magdalenian type in Laugerie Basse. Lartet also distinguished between the archæological period of St. Acheul (= Lower Palæolithic) and that of Aurignac (= Upper Palæolithic).

It remained, however, for Gabriel de Mortillet, the first French archæologist to survey and systematize the development of the flint industry throughout the entire Palæolithic Period, to recognize that the Magdalenian followed the Solutrean, and that during the latter stage industry in stone reached its height, while during the Magdalenian the industry in bone and in wood developed in a marvelous manner. Mortillet failed to recognize the position of the Aurignacian and omitted it from his archæological chronology, which was first published in 1869, Essai de classification des cavernes et des stations sous abri, fondée sur les produits de l'industrie humaine:(31)

(5) Magdalénien,[K] characterized by a number and variety of bone implements;

(4) Solutréen, leaf-like lance-heads beautifully worked;

(3) Moustérien, flints worked mostly on one side only;

(2) Acheuléen, the 'langues de chat' hand-axes of St. Acheul;

(1) Chelléen, bold, primitive, partly worked hand-axes.

Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, Edouard Piette (b. 1827, d. 1906), who had held the office of magistrate in various towns in the departments of Ardennes and Aisne, France, and who was already distinguished for his general scientific attainments, began to devote himself especially to the evolution of art in Upper Palæolithic times, and assembled the great collections which are described and illustrated in his classic work, L'Art pendant l'Age du Renne (1907).(32) He first established several phases of artistic evolution in the Magdalenian stage, and only recognized in his later years the station of Brassempouy, not comprehending that the Aurignacian art which he found there underlay the Solutrean culture and was separated by a long interval of time from the most ancient Magdalenian. His distinct contribution to Palæolithic history is his discovery of the Étage azilien overlying the Magdalenian in the cavern of Mas d'Azil.

Fig. 4. Evolution of the lance-point, spear, or dart head. Note the increasing symmetry and skill in the flaking and retouch as the types pass in ascending order through the Chellean, Acheulean, Mousterian, and Aurignacian, into the perfected, symmetrical, double-pointed 'laurel-leaf' of the Solutrean; and into the subsequent decline in the flint industry of the Magdalenian and Azilian stages. After de Mortillet, Obermaier, and Hoernes.

Henri Breuil, a pupil of Piette and of Cartailhac, exploring during the decade, 1902-12, chiefly under the influence of Cartailhac, formed a clear conception of the whole Upper Palæolithic and its subdivisions, and placed the Aurignacian definitely at the base of the series.

Thus step by step the culture stages of archæological evolution have been established and may be summarized with the type stations as follows:

ÉTAGE		STATION
Tardenoisien,		Fère-en-Tardenois, Aisne.
Azilien,		Mas d'Azil, Ariège.
Magdalenien,		La Madeleine, près Tursac, Dordogne.
Solutréen,		Solutré près Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire.
Aurignacien,		Aurignac, Haute-Garonne.
Moustérien,		Le Moustier, commune de Peyzac, Dordogne.
Acheuléen,		St. Acheul, près Amiens, Somme.
Chelléen,		Chelles-sur-Marne, Seine-et-Marne.
Pre-Chelléen
(= Mesvinien, Rutot), Mesvin, Mons, Belgique.

These stages, at first regarded as single, have each been subdivided into three or more substages, as a result of the more refined appreciation of the subtle advances in Palæolithic invention and technique.

Larger Image

Fig. 5. The type stations of the successive stages of Palæolithic

culture from the Chellean to the Azilian-Tardenoisian.

A new impulse to the study of Palæolithic culture was given in 1895, when E. Rivière discovered examples of Palæolithic mural art in the cavern of La Mouthe,(33) thus confirming the original discovery, in 1880, by Marcelino de Sautuola of the wonderful ceiling frescoes of the cave of Altamira, northern Spain.(34) This created the opportunity for the establishment by the Prince of Monaco of the Institut de Paléontologie humaine in 1910, supporting the combined researches of the Upper Palæolithic culture and art of France and Spain, by Cartailhac, Capitan, Rivière, Boule, Breuil, and Obermaier, and marking a new epoch in the brilliant history of the archæology of France.

It remained for the prehistory of the borders of the Danube, Rhine, and Neckar to be brought into harmony with that of France, and this has been accomplished with extraordinary precision and fulness through the labors of R. R. Schmidt, begun in 1906, and brought together in his invaluable work, Die diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands.(35)

To an earlier and longer epoch belongs the Prepalæolithic or Eolithic stage. Beginning in 1867 with the supposed discovery by l'Abbé Bourgeois(36) of a primordial or Prepalæolithic stone culture, much observation and speculation has been devoted to the Eolithic(37) era and the Eolithic industry, culminating in the complete chronological system of Rutot, as follows: