Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 93, No. 571, May, 1863

Transcriber’s Note:
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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE
No. DLXXI.      MAY 1863.      Vol. XCIII.
The title of ‘Prehistoric Man’ in Mr Wilson’s book applies not only to those races who lived and expired before any history whatever was written, but to all races, even those who are contemporary with us, who are incapable of delivering a history of themselves to other nations or their own posterity. They are rather the un -historic, the speechless people—speechless so far as their posterity is concerned, on whom his inquiries are directed. In fact, that portion of the development of mankind which pertains to savage life, or to the very earliest stages of civilisation, is the subject of Mr Wilson’s book. The subject is far from being new, but far from being exhausted; and our author’s archæological knowledge has enabled him to invest it with a novel interest. His position is somewhat singular in its advantages. A European archæologist and antiquarian, he finds himself in that new world where forms of human life are still lingering akin to those which he has been hitherto studying by the light only of such remains as have been preserved for ages buried in the earth. His stone , his bronze , his iron periods are all found living about him. The flint weapon dug up in London or Glasgow from the lowest strata of human remains, has, in this new world, hardly fallen from the hand of the native. The men of the stone period are still alive, though half a century more may see them either absorbed in the more civilised races, or altogether extinguished.