Antiquity of Man

A fourth line of enquiry, opened up by Charles Darwin, placed the problem of man's antiquity in a new setting: His Origin of Species, which was published at the end of 1859, clearly indicated to his readers of 1860, that man had arisen, as had all forms of life, by a gradual process of evolution from older types and thus prepared their minds for the discovery, in geological strata, of intermediate forms which would link man to a lower and older form of primate.

Evidence of Antiquity Afforded by Ancient Cemeteries. —Since 1860 all four lines of enquiry have been vigorously pur sued and each has yielded evidence which compels us to place human beginnings at an ever-receding point of geological time. Excavation of ancient cemeteries and of former sites of human habitation, in Egypt, Mesopotamia and India have demonstrated that parts of these lands were densely populated before the middle of the fourth millennium B.C. and that their peoples inhabited cities, cultivated many kinds of crops, kept domesticated animals, prepared and used copper for many purposes and enjoyed the benefits of organized government. It is clear that to find the rise of man from a state of barbarism we must go far beyond the year B.c., the date which was assigned by Archbishop Usher to mark man's first appearance on earth.

Evidence of Antiquity Afforded by

Caves.—Excavations carried out in the caves of France during the last four decades of the i9th century permitted archaeologists to establish a chrono logical system for the period which covers man's habitation of caves. The prehistoric periods thus established, with the names given to them and estimates of their duration are dealt with else where. (ARCHAEOLOGY, q.v.) The evidence yielded by caves consists of fossil remains of man, fossil remains of animals, weapons and ornaments of stone and bone and ancient graves. In no cave in Europe, with perhaps the exception of Kent's Cavern (q.v.) in the south of England, is the human record carried beyond, if even up to, the middle of the Pleistocene (q.v.). European caves of Pleistocene date have yielded fossil remains of two species of mankind ; in the upper deposits the remains are those of present-day or Neanthropic man; the deeper and older strata contain the skulls and bones of an extinct species, Homo neanderthalensis or primigenius. (Antiquity of Man, q.v.) In size of brain both Neanthropic and Neanderthal man had reached the higher human scale long before the end of the cave period. The stone implements found in the deepest and oldest strata show that man was already a skilled workman when he took to cave life.

The Evidence of Antiquity Yielded by Valley Deposits. —During the whole of the Pleistocene period, deposits of gravel, sand and loam were being accumulated in the floor and on the sides of the river valleys of Europe. Such deposits or "terraces" thus offer us a means of tracing the changes which have overtaken man and beast during a whole geological epoch—one which wit nessed several extreme changes in climate. Man's history in Europe has been traced throughout the Pleistocene period by the discovery of his fossil remains and of his stone weapons. The deeper or older valley deposits have yielded fossil remains of two types of men—the type found at Piltdown in Sussex, and that found at Mauer, near Heidelberg. Each represents a special genus of humanity and both differ from the genus to which all living races are assigned. Primitive though those early Pleistocene Europeans undoubtedly were we cannot withhold from them the right to be called human. Man was certainly in existence at the beginning of the Pleistocene period. Unfortunately we have no sure means of estimating the duration of this period in terms of years; estimates given by geologists vary from 250,000 years to 1,500,000 years, but the tendency is towards accepting the lower figure.

Shaped stones, showing evidence of human workmanship, have been found in Pleistocene deposits of all dates in France, Belgium and England. In the roo ft. (3o metre) terrace of the Thames valley Messrs. R. A. Smith and H. Dewey (Archaeologia, 1912, vol. lxiv., p. 177) found deposits of three ages. The middle deposit contained implements of the Chelles type—pieces which show very skilful workmanship—and certainly do not represent man's earliest attempts at fabricating weapons. In the deeper and older deposit of this terrace, one laid down in early Pleistocene times, they also found implements—but of a much cruder kind, to which the elastic name pre-Chellean is given. In the corresponding terrace (3o metre) of the Somme valley M. V. Commont had previously found the same sequence of deposits and a corresponding suc cession of implements (Les gisements paleolithiques d'Abbeville, Lille, 191o). M. Rutot has traced a succession of implements throughout the Pleistocene deposits of Belgium. The most definite evidence of man's great antiquity in Europe comes from East Anglia. Its easternmost part is covered by deposits laid down at all phases of the Pleistocene; these accumulations cover others which were deposited in the latter half of the previous geological period—the Pliocene. The Cromerian formations mark the transi tion from the earlier to the later of these two periods. Even so long ago as 1863 Sir Charles Lyell expressed the opinion that "signs of man's existence" would be met with in the Cromer forest bed. In 1879 Lewis Abbott discovered flints in this bed showing unmistakable evidence of human workmanship (Natural Science, 1897, vol. x., p. 89). In more recent years—from 1909 onwards— J. Reid Moir has carried out a systematic search for traces of man in the deposits of East Anglia. He has published accounts of flint implements found under the Cromer forest bed (The Great Flint Implements of Cromer, 1923); within the Red-Crag, a deposit of late Pliocene date (Upper Pliocene), and under the Red-Crag he has gathered many examples of early stone industries, thus carrying the evidence of man's existence—at least that of a tool fabricating animal—far into the Pliocene period. (Pre-Palaeolithic Man, 1919; Early Man in East Anglia, 1927.) In older Pliocene deposits it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between stones shaped by natural forces and those fashioned by man's apprentice hand. Perhaps the earliest traces of man's handiwork are represented by the "eoliths" which Benjamin Harrison first discerned in the plateau gravels of Kent in 1885 and which were accepted by Sir Joseph Prestwich as showing definite signs of human workmanship. Reid Moir regards the plateau "eoliths" as being at least mid-Pliocene date. Many authorities are inclined to accept shaped stones found in deposits of the geological period which precedes the Pliocene—the Miocene, as evidence of the existence of beings with brains sufficiently advanced to conceive the use of stone tools, and with hands sufficiently skilled to fashion them. By such evidence human antiquity is carried into a past which must be measured by a million. perhaps millions, of years. All the evidence of this kind, which bears on the antiquity of man, has been fully discussed by Prof. W. J. Sollas (Ancient Hunters, 3rd ed., 1924; see also Apes and Men, by Harold Peake and H. J. Fleure, 1927; A Text-book of European Archaeology, vol. i., Palaeolithic Period, by R. A. S. Macalister, 1921).