CHAPTER III.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

The Unvarying Succession of Implements of Rough Stone (Paleolithic), Polished Stone (Neolithic), Bronze, and Iron-Age of Copper probably intervened between Neolithic and Bronze Epochs-Geologic Measure of the Ages-Paleolithic Tools in Egypt-Interesting Discovery by General Pitt-Rivers-Tools of the Drift and Cavern Periods-Exploration of Kent's Cavern by Mr. Pengelly-The French Caves-Similarity of Fauna-Man certainly cotemporary with Extinct Animals— His Pre-glacial Origin still in dispute-Difference between early and later Paleolithic Tools.

THE works of pre-historic man, wherever found, tell the same unvarying tale; first, of a very low type of humanity, content with the rudest of weapons, rough flints sharpened to a point by blows from another flint, rising gradually to the use of better and more artistically-formed weapons, polished with care; then to a knowledge of gold, silver, copper. A little later, these weapons of stone, polished or unpolished, yield to implements of bronze; and considerably later, these in their turn are replaced by those of iron, and with the latter, history dawns, and the progress of mankind is no longer conjectural.

This change and succession of weapons, always from stone to bronze, and from bronze to iron, has caused anthropologists to divide the pre-history of mankind into four ages: the first known as Paleolithic, in which rude weapons and implements of rough, unpolished stone were alone used; the second, or Neolithic, in which the implements were ground and polished with care; the third, or Bronze Age, in which polished stone was sup

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plemented by bronze for implements and weapons; and the fourth, or Iron Age, in which iron became the chief metal for useful purposes. There is at present a disposition to subdivide each of these periods, and to interpolate, between the Neolithic and the Bronze ages, one of Copper. In many countries,1 and certainly in America, there was a period, although perhaps a brief one, in which implements of copper only were used; and it is certain that the vast period included in the term Paleolithic might be advantageously subdivided into the earlier and later.

It is these rude stone Paleolithic tools which supply the earliest traces of man, for they are found under circumstances that leave no room for doubt as to their vast antiquity. Sir Charles Lyell, in his celebrated work on the Antiquity of Man, brought all his skill as a geologist and naturalist to bear on this subject, and his deductions have been very generally adopted by later writers as practically unassailable.

Beginning with the more obvious traces of man and his works, as shown in the "kitchen-middens" or refuse heaps of Denmark, and the "lake dwellings" of Switzerland, Italy, and Ireland-which all yield certain proofs, not only of man's existence at a remote period, but of his knowledge of some of the useful arts, as the art of weaving and of making clothes, fishing-nets, and pottery, the domestication of animals, and even a knowledge of agriculture; periods which may to a certain extent be measured, not only by the internal evidence they offer, but also by the changes in their surroundings during historic times, and which he therefore designates as recent-he works backwards to that remote past represented by the extinct mammalia, and proves that man was contemporary with them by the juxtaposition of tools, undoubtedly of human manufacture, although rude in form; with the bones of the mammoth, gigantic elk, and other smaller species of mammalia now found only in a fossil state, embedded in caves sealed down. 1 Mr. Flinders-Petrie found implements of copper in the cities of the Fayoum recently explored by him.

with stalagmite, or in undisturbed river-gravels, the date of which can hardly be determined within thousands of years.

Evidence of this kind has been accumulating since the publication of Lyell's work, and these rude paleolithic tools have been found in many unexpected places. In India, Japan, Palestine, Babylonia, on the Cape Flats South Africa, and in the blue ground from which diamonds are extracted, on the sandy African deserts, and more interesting still, in that cradle of civilization, Egypt, where, although man is known to have been in possession of metal tools for many thousands of years, these rough chipped stone implements have been found at various depths in the sandy soil which time has converted into rock.

One of these deserves especial mention, because it was found by General Pitt-Rivers forming part of the soil out of which ancient Egyptian tombs, near Thebes, have been cut, proving that it was there in situ before these tombs were constructed, and that it had lain there undisturbed whilst the mud and gravel slowly formed itself into a hard conglomerate. "The whole deposit," says General Pitt-Rivers," appears to have been washed down from the Bab-el-Molook, a tributary valley in which the tombs of the kings are situated, and to have spread itself out on the plains in a fan shape between the gorge of the valley and the Nile. Through this delta, or fan of gravel, a waddy about eighty paces mean width has cut its way to a lower level, and now extends from the gorge of the valley to the margin of the highest Nile floods, passing through the fan for a distance of nearly 2000 paces, and opening into the plain about 270 paces to the east of the Temple of Koorneh." 1

In this gravelly deposit, hardened into conglomerate, rising in places to a height of from nine to nineteen feet, which General Pitt-Rivers says could not have changed materially since Egyptian times, tombs have been cut consisting of flat-topped chambers and galleries supported by square pillars of gravel. It was in one of

1 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, May 1882.

these square supporting pillars that the flint flake of which we have spoken was found, the end having been cut off in forming the entrance to the tomb. It was so firmly embedded in the rock that it had to be cut out with a chisel, and proved to be a very fine paleolithic specimen. Nor was this the only flint implement discovered in this conglomerate, for seven others were removed on the same day.

The tombs are supposed to belong to the XVIII. Dynasty, or perhaps earlier, that is, about 1500 B.C.; but the date of the formation of the gravelly conglomerate in which they were cut cannot be so easily estimated, although it seems certain that it was when the climate and rainfall of Egypt differed greatly from that known in the very earliest of historical records.

Here then we get a glimpse of the antiquity of man, for it is certain that he existed and made and used flint implements, when as yet Egypt had not assumed its present form, and long before the rise of that very ancient civilization, the origin of which is still undetermined.

Similar evidence is afforded by the gravels of Europe, in which implements of the same type are frequently found, in positions proving vast geographical changes since they were deposited. Those found in the drift, that is, in the gravels, sand, and loam, which formed the beds of ancient rivers, or in terraces, from which seas or rivers have gradually retreated, are regarded as the most ancient; they are generally larger and rougher than those of later date, although often very skilfully fashioned; they are found associated with bones of extinct mammalia, and carry the antiquity of man back certainly to the close of the glacial period, if not to its commencement. Many implements of the most ancient type have been found in caves sealed down by vast deposits of stalagmite. The most celebrated of these caves is that known as Kent's Hole, a cavern near Torquay, which has been most carefully and scientifically explored by Mr. Pengelly, aided by a grant from the British Association.

The history of this cave is very interesting. About sixty years ago Mr. M'Enery, a Roman Catholic priest, explored this famous cavern, and found therein bones of extinct animals, and with them flint and bone tools, evidently the work of man, and which he believed to be cotemporaneous. Nevertheless, in deference to Dr. Buckland, who two years previously had explored the Kirkdale Caves, and declared his conviction that none of the human relics found were as old as the mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds, he quietly yielded his own opinion, and allowed the matter to drop; but subsequent researches, conducted in a manner which seems to render mistakes or fraud impossible, have emphatically confirmed the opinion of the first explorer. Since the history of Kent's Cavern is almost identical with that of all the osseous caves of England, we will give a concise summary of its contents, according to the report of its able and energetic explorer, Mr. Pengelly.

There are two entrances, and the first thing to be noticed in the interior is a number of irregular blocks of limestone, which have evidently fallen from the roof, and now rest upon a black mould, from three to twelve inches thick, containing remains which are all traceable to the period of the Romans, or a little earlier—that is, representing an antiquity of about 2000 years, the animal remains also belonging exclusively to the historic period. This black mould cleared away, we find a flooring of granular stalagmite, varying in thickness from less than an inch to five feet. Beneath this stalagmite lies a black band, about four inches thick, consisting almost entirely of pieces of charred wood, and extending only for about 100 square feet near the entrance of the cavern, and supposed to represent the place in which the ancient cave-dwellers kindled their fires. Below this, again, and filling the cavern to the depth of several feet, is cave-earth of a light-red colour, in which, as also in the black band and the overlying stalagmite, have been found embedded, not only the bones of many extinct animals, the hyæna predominating, but also traces of man, in tools of bone and stone, rudely manufactured,