Читать книгу A Manual of the Antiquity of Man - J. P. Maclean - Страница 7

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No subject, of late years, has so much engrossed the attention of geologists as the antiquity of the human race. The interest was greatly increased by the publication of Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man." This work called the attention of the public to the subject, and so great became the interest that many volumes and memoirs have been added to the list, discussing the question in various ways, and, for the most part, in such a manner as to add fresh interest and throw more light on the subject. The scientific men were slow to take advantage of the discoveries continually being made of the bones and works of man found in caves and associated with the remains' of extinct animals. It is probable, even at this late day, there would not have been so much discussion of this subject had not Sir Charles Lyell lent the weight of his great name to it. Educated men, everywhere, began to doubt the correctness of Archbishop Usher's chronology, and so complete has been the revolution of opinion that it is almost impossible to find an intelligent man who would limit the period of man's existence to 6,000 years.

To Aimé Boué, a French geologist, must be attributed the honor of having been the first to proclaim the high antiquity of the human race; to Dr. Schmerling, the learned Belgian osteologist, on account of his laborious investigations, untiring zeal, and great work on the subject, the merited title of being the founder of the new science; to M. Boucher de Perthes, its great apostle; while to Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock must be ascribed the honor of having made the new theory popular.

The new science soon became permanently established, and the geologists at once set about classifying the facts before them, in order to assign to them their respective places in the geological epochs. All are agreed in respect to the chronological orders, but all have not used the same nomenclature, in consequence of which more or less confusion has been the result. Sir J. Lubbock has divided pre-historic archæology into four great epochs, as follows:

"I. That of the Drift; when man shared the possession of Europe with the mammoth, the cave-bear, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, and other extinct animals. This we may call the 'Palæolithic' period.

"II. The later or polished Stone Age; a period characterized by beautiful stone weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone; in which, however, we find no trace of the knowledge of any metal, excepting gold, which seems to have been sometimes used for ornaments. This we may call the 'Neolithic' period.

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

"IV. The Iron Age, in which that metal had superseded bronze for arms, axes, knives, etc."[1]

These divisions are recognized by Lyell and Tylor.

Edward Lartet has proposed the following classification:

I. THE STONE AGE.

1st. Epoch of extinct animals (or of the great bear and mammoth).

2d. Epoch of migrated existing animals (or the reindeer epoch).

3d. Epoch of domesticated existing animals (or the polished stone epoch).

II. THE METAL AGE.

1st. The Bronze Epoch.

2d. The Iron Epoch.

This mode of division is adopted by M. Figuier, in his "Primitive Man," by the Museum of Saint-Germain in that portion devoted to pre-historic antiquities, and adhered to in essential points by Troyon and d'Archiac.

Professor Renevier, of Lausanne, has proposed a somewhat different scheme, founded upon the epochs of Swiss glaciation. It is as follows:

"I. Pre-glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the elephant (Elephas antiquus), rhinoceros (R. hemitæchus), and the cave-bear (Ursus spelæus).

"II. Glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus), cave-bear, etc.

"III. Post-glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the mammoth and reindeer (Cervus tarandus).

"IV. Last Epoch, or epoch of the Pile-buildings, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the Irish elk (Megaceros hibernicus), aurochs (Bison Europæus)," etc.[2]

Westropp divides the periods of man, in respect to his stages of civilization, as follows: Savagery, hunters, herdsmen, and agriculturists.

In the following pages a somewhat different classification has been adopted, and may be thus explained:

I. Pre-glacial Epoch; that period antedating the glaciers of the post-tertiary, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the animals of the tertiary, southern elephant (E. meridionalis), etc.

II. Glacial Epoch; that period of the post-tertiary when man was forced to contend with the great ice-fields and the floods immediately succeeding them, when the mammoth (E. primigenius), rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus), cave-bear, etc., began to flourish.

III. Interglacial Epoch; that period between the glacial and the second advance of the ice, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the animals of the preceding epoch, and the cave bear became extinct.

IV. Reindeer Epoch; that period when the glaciers again advanced; in which man's chief food consisted of the flesh of the reindeer (C. tarandus), that animal having made its way in numerous herds as far south as the Pyrenees.

V. Neolithic Epoch; that period in which man polished his weapons of stone, and sought to domesticate certain animals, the dog, etc.

VI. Bronze Epoch; that period characterized by weapons and implements being made chiefly of bronze.

VII. Iron Epoch; that period in which bronze was generally superseded by iron.

This classification, on the whole, seems to be the best that could be devised, for the reason it attempts to place the evidences of the existence of man in their relative geological positions.

Other methods have misled the student. There was no universal Stone, Bronze, or Iron Age. The classification given by Lubbock applies to Europe, but is too general. I have adopted the word "Neolithic" for want of a better term, although the signification of the word is appropriate to the period it is intended to represent.

These various epochs are not sharply defined, the one from the other; but one merges into the other by gradual progression covering a period of thousands of years. The growth of the various plants and animals, and their retreat or final extinction, have also been very slow.

An outline of the history of the discoveries which led to a careful investigation of the question, and which resolved the question into a science, is not only one of interest but also of importance to the careful thinker seeking information on the subject.

Prior to the study of the ancient implements the "people had so little notion of the nature and signification of the stone axes and weapons of earlier and later times that they were regarded with superstitious fear and hope, and as productions of lightning and thunder. Hence for a long time they were called thunderbolts even by the learned. … As late as the year 1734 when Mahndel explained in the Academy of Paris that these stones were human implements, he was laughed at, because he had not proved that they could not have been formed in the clouds."[3]

As early as the year 1700, a human skull was dug out of the calcareous tuff of Constatt, in company with the bones of the mammoth. It is preserved in the Natural History Museum at Stuttgart.

In the year 1715, an Englishman named Kemp found in London, by the side of elephants' teeth, a stone hatchet, similar to those which have been subsequently found in great numbers in different parts of the world. This hatchet is still preserved in the British Museum.

In 1774, in the cavern of Gailenreuth, Bavaria, J. F. Esper discovered some human bones mingled with the remains of extinct animals.

In 1797, unpolished flint axes were dug out in great numbers from a brick-field near Hoxne, county of Suffolk, where they occurred at a depth of twelve feet, mingled with the bones of extinct species of animals. They were gathered up and thrown by basketsful upon the neighboring road. In the year 1801, before the Society of Antiquaries, John Frere read a paper upon them, in which he stated that they pointed to a very remote period. This communication, short as it was, contained the essence of all subsequent discoveries and speculations as to the antiquity of man. But the society regarded the subject as of no importance.

During the construction of a canal (1815–1823) in Hollerd, there was found, near Maestricht, in the loess, a human jaw in company with the bones of extinct animals. This bone is preserved in the museum at Leyden.

In 1823, Aimé Boué disinterred portions of a human skeleton from ancient undisturbed loess near Lahr, a small village nearly opposite Strasbourg. These bones were placed in the care of Cuvier, but, having been neglected, are now lost.

In the same year, Dr. Buckland, an English geologist, published his "Reliquiæ Diluvianæ," a work principally devoted to a description of the Kirkdale Cave. The author combined all the known facts which favored the coexistence of man, with the extinct animals.

In 1828, M. Tournal and M. Christol explored numerous caverns in the south of France. In the cavern of Bize, Tournal found human bones and teeth, and fragments of rude pottery, together with the bones of both living and extinct species of animals, imbedded in the same mud and breccia, cemented by stalagmite. The human bones were in the same chemical condition as those of the extinct species.

M. Christol found in the cavern of Pondres, near Nimes, some human bones in the same mud with the bones of an extinct hyena and rhinoceros.

In 1833, Dr. Schmerling explored the two bone-caverns of Engis and Enghihoul (Belgium). In the former he found the Engis skull (now in the museum of the University of Liége), at a depth of nearly five feet, under an osseous breccia. The earth also contained the teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyena, and bear, and exhibited no marks of disturbance. He also found the skull of a young person imbedded by the side of a mammoth's tooth. It was entire, but so fragile, that it fell to pieces before it was extracted. In the cave of Enghihoul he found numerous bones belonging to three human individuals, mingled with the bones of extinct animals. In these caves he noted rude flint instruments, but did not collect many of them. In the care of Chokier, he discovered a polished and jointed needle-shaped bone, with a hole pierced through it, at its base. The caves of Engis and Chokier have been annihilated, while only a part of Enghihoul remains.

Soon after these discoveries Dr. Schmerling published a work which described and represented a vast quantity of objects which had been discovered in the Belgian caverns. The scientific men were not yet prepared to receive the new discoveries, and it attracted but little attention at that time.

Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Dr. Schmerling for his unremitting labors. Of these labors Sir Charles Lyell has said: "To have undertaken, in 1832, with a view of testing its truth (antiquity of fossil human bones) to follow the Belgian philosopher through every stage of his observations and proofs, would have been no easy task even for one well-skilled in geology and osteology. To be let down, as Schmerling was, day after day, by a rope tied to a tree, so as to slide to the foot of the first opening of the Engis cave, where the best-preserved human skulls were found; and, after thus gaining access to the first subterranean gallery, to creep on all fours through a contracted passage leading to larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through the stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove piece by piece the underlying bone-breccia nearly as hard; to stand for hours with one's feet in the mud, and with water dripping from the roof on one's head, in order to mark the position and guard against the loss of each single bone of a skeleton; and at length, after finding leisure, strength, and courage for all these operations, to look forward, as the fruits of one's labor, to the publication of unwelcome intelligence, opposed to the prepossessions of the scientific as well as the unscientific public;—when these circumstances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder … that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighboring professors of the University of Liége came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman."[4]

In 1835, M. Joly, then professor at the Lyceum of Montpellier, found in the cave of Nabrigas (Lozére) the skull of a cave-bear, on which an arrow had left its mark. Close by, was a fragment of pottery marked by the finger of the moulder.

It was in the valley of the Somme (a river in the north of France) that M. Boucher de Perthes found those famous flint-axes of the rudest form. His explorations had been going on for a long time. He did all he could to bring these discoveries before the public. In the year 1836 he began to proclaim the high antiquity of man, in a series of communications addressed to the Société d'Emulation of Abbeville. To the same society, in the year 1838, he exhibited the flint-axes he had found, but without result. In 1839, he took these hatchets to Paris, and showed them to some of the members of the Institute. At first they gave some encouragement toward these researches; but this favorable feeling did not last long. In 1841 he began to form his collection, which has since become so justly celebrated. He engaged trained workmen to dig in the diluvial beds, and in a short time he had collected twenty specimens of flint wrought by the hand of man, though in a very rude state. In 1846, he published his first work on the subject, entitled "De l'Industrie Primitive, ou les Arts et leur Origine." In the following year he published his "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes," in which he gave illustrations of these stone implements. This work attracted no attention until the year 1854, when a French savant, named Rigollot, made a personal examination and was successful in his search for these relicts in the neighborhood of Amiens. He was soon followed by Sir C. Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Falconer, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, and other eminent scientists.

Boucher de Perthes, continuing his researches, was rewarded, in the year 1863, by finding the lower half of a human jaw bone, covered with an earthy crust, which he extracted with his own hands from a gravel-pit at Abbeville. A few inches from it a flint hatchet was discovered. They were at a depth of fifteen feet below the surface. This bone has been called the jaw of Moulin-Quignon, and is preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris.

The discovery of this bone produced a great sensation among English geologists. Christy, Falconer, Carpenter, and Busk went to France and examined the locality where the bone was found. They went away satisfied with both its authenticity and antiquity. Some geologists, however, doubted its authenticity; but at the present time all, or nearly all, recognize the truth of the conclusions of Boucher de Perthes.

Not far from the same locality, he was again successful, in 1869, in finding a number of human bones presenting the same character as the jaw of Moulin-Quignon.

In 1840, Rev. J. MacEnery, of Devonshire, England, found in a cave, called Kent's Hole, human bones and flint knives among the remains of the mammoth, cave-bear, hyena, and two-horned rhinoceros, all from under a crust of stalagmite. Mr. MacEnery began the explorations of this cave as early as 1825. He did not publish his notes on his discoveries but they remained in manuscript until 1859, when they were obtained by Mr. Vivian.

Mr. Godwin-Austen, in his communication to the Geological Society in the year 1840, states, in his description of Kent's Hole, he found works of art in all parts of the cave.

The fossil Man of Denise was discovered by a peasant, in an old volcanic tuff, near the town of Le Puy-en-Velay, Central France, an account of which was first published by Dr. Aymard, in 1844. Able naturalists, who have examined these bones, especially those familiar with the volcanic regions of Central France, declared that they believed them to have been enveloped by natural causes in the tufaceous matrix in which they are now seen.

In the years 1845–1850, Casiano de Prado made discoveries on the banks of the Manzanares, near Madrid. They consisted of portions of the skeletons of the rhinoceros, and a nearly perfect skeleton of an elephant in the diluvial sand. Lying beneath this ossiferous sand, were several flint axes of human workmanship.

Fig. 1. Sir Charles Lyell.

Near the town of Aurignac, France, a workman named Bonnemaison, in the year 1852, accidently discovered a cave containing the remains of seventeen human skeletons. These bones were taken by Dr. Amiel, the mayor of Aurignac, who was ignorant of their value, and consigned to the parish cemetery. The spot of their re-inhumation has been forgotten, and this treasure is now lost to science. In 1860, the cave was explored by Edward Lartet. After a long and patient examination, he came to the conclusion that the cave was a human burial place, cotemporary with the mammoth and other great animals of the quaternary epoch.

It was at the meeting of the British Association, in 1855, that Sir Charles Lyell declared his belief in the great antiquity of the human race. He had before opposed the idea, but was convinced of the truth by personal examination of human bones and flint hatchets, from the quarries of St. Acheul. He became enthusiastic in his investigations, and, in order to present the discussion clearly to the scientific public, he published his "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man," in 1863. In the last edition of his "Principles of Geology," he bestows considerable space to the discussion of the subject. He was closely followed, in the same view, by other eminent geologists.

The remains of the ancient Lake Dwellings of Switzerland were discovered in the winter of 1853–1854. That winter was so dry and cold that the water of the lakes fell far below its ordinary level. On account of this, a large tract of ground of Lake Zurich was gained by the people throwing up embankments. In the process of the work, the piles on which stood the dwellings, fragments of pottery, bone and stone implements, and various other relics, were discovered.[5] Dr. Keller, of Zurich, examined the objects, and at once came to a right understanding as to their signification. He carefully examined the remains, and described these lake habitations in six memoirs presented to the Antiquarian Society of Zurich, in 1854, 1858, 1860, 1863, and 1866. In 1866 these memoirs were translated into English by J. E. Lee, together with articles from other antiquaries, under the title of "The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, and other parts of Europe." This work contains ninety-seven plates, besides many wood-cuts.

Memoirs of the Dwellers of different lakes have, from time to time, been published, but they are included in the translated work of Dr. Keller.

The far-famed Neanderthal skull was discovered by Dr. Fuhlrott, in the year 1857, in a limestone cavern, near Düsseldorf, in a deep ravine known by the name of Neanderthal. This skull, with parts of the skeleton to which it belonged, was found under a layer of mud, about five feet in thickness. It is now in the cabinet of Dr. Fuhlrott, Elberfeld, Rhenish Prussia.

In 1858, a bone-cavern was found near Torquay, not far from Kent's Hole. This cave was examined by a scientific commission. At first it was undertaken by the Royal Society, but when its grants had failed, Miss Burdett-Coutts paid the expenses of completing the work. In this cave, under a layer of stalagmite, were found many flint knives, associated with the bones of extinct mammals.

M. A. Fontan found in the cave of Massat (Department of Ariége), in 1859, human teeth and utensils associated with the remains of the cave-bear, the fossil hyena, and the cave-lion (Felis spelœa).

In 1861, M. A. Milne Edwards found certain relics of human industry mingled with the fossil bones of animals, in the cave of Lourdes, France.

In 1862, Dr. Garrigou published the result of the researches which he, in conjunction with Rames and Filhol, had made in the caverns of Ariége. These explorers found the jaw-bones of the cave-bear and cave-lion, which had been wrought by the hands of man.

In the upper strata of the tertiary beds (pliocene) at St. Prest (Department of Eure), in the year 1863, M. Desnoyers found the bones of extinct animals which were cut or notched by flint instruments. In the same strata Abbé Bourgeois discovered implements of stone. He communicated his discoveries to the International Congress held at Paris in 1867.

In 1864, James Brown found flint implements midway between Gosport and Southampton, included in gravel from eight to twelve feet thick, capping a cliff which at its greatest height is thirty-five feet above high-water mark. These flint tools exactly resemble those found at Abbeville and Amiens. Some of them are preserved in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury.

In 1865, there was found in the loess of the Rhine, near Colmar, Alsace, human bones in the same bed with bones of the mammoth, horse, stag, auroch, and other animals.

In 1866, Alfred Stevens first dug out a hatchet from the gravel at the top of the sea-cliff east of the Bournemouth opening, Southampton river. Soon after, Dr. Blackmore, to the west of the valley, obtained two other flint implements. The spot was examined by Lyell in 1867.

Dr. Edward Dupont, an eminent Belgian cave explorer, in the year 1866, found a fragment of a human jaw in the Trou de la Naulette, a bone cave situated on the bank of the river Lesse not far from Chaleux.

At the International Congress of 1867, M. A. Issel reported he had found several human bones in beds of Pliocene age, near Savonia, in Liguria.

The Reindeer Station on the Schusse, in Swabia, was discovered in 1867, during the operations undertaken for the improvement of a mill-pond. The Schusse is a little river which flows into the lake of Constance, and its source is upon the high plateau of Upper Swabia between the lake of Constance and the upper course of the Danube.

In 1868, Thomas Codrington discovered an oval flint implement in gravel at the top of the Foreland Cliff, Isle of Wight, five miles southeast of Ryde.

The fossil Man of Mentone was discovered, in 1873, by M. Riviére, in a cave near Nice, France. The skeleton was almost entire, and imbedded twenty feet below the surface of the deposit.

In 1873, M. Riviére discovered another human skeleton, by the side of which lay a few unpolished stone implements, in one of the caves in the same neighborhood.

In 1873 and 1874, M. Riviére was again so fortunate as to discover, in neighboring caves, the remains of three persons, two of them those of children. The skeletons were in the same condition, and decked with similar ornaments, as those he had previously discovered.