CHAPTERS I. AND II.
Christy and Lartet, Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ.
Davis and Thurnam, Crania Britannica.
Dawkins, Cave Hunting.
Dawkins, Early Man in Britain.
Evans, Stone Implements of Great Britain.
Evans, Bronze Implements of Great Britain.
Geikie, The Great Ice Age.
Greenwell, British Barrows.
Keller, The Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland (trs. Lee).
Lyell, Antiquity of Man.
Lubbock, Pre-historic Times.
Mortillet, Origine de la Navigation et de la Pêche.
Mortillet, Promenades Préhistoriques à l’Exposition.
Mortillet, Le Préhistorique, L’Antiquité de l’homme.
Montelius, La Suède Préhistorique.
Tylor, Anthropology.
Tylor, Early History of Mankind.
Tylor, Primitive Culture.
Troyon, Habitations Lacustres.
Worsaae, The Pre-history of the North (trs. Simpson).
And numerous articles in the Archæological and Anthropological journals of England, France, and Germany.
[Pp. 8], and [14-15]. Antiquity of Man.—The question concerning the history of Palæolithic man which presses the most immediately for solution, is that which has been just touched upon here: whether the variety of animal remains with which the remains of men are found associated, do really point to an immensely lengthened period of his existence, in this primitive state. We have said that human bones are found associated with those of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), those of the woolly rhinoceros, and with the remains of other animals whose existence seems to imply a cold-temperate, or almost frigid, climate; at another place, or a little lower in the same river bed (the higher gravel beds are the oldest), we may find the bones of the hippopotamus, an animal which in these days is never found far away from the tropics. The conclusion seems obvious: man must have lived through the epoch of change—enormously long though it was—from a cold to an almost tropical climate. Some writers have freely accepted this view, and even gone beyond it to argue the possibility of man having lived through one of the great climatic revolutions which produced an Ice Age. (See the arguments on this head in Mr. Geikie’s Ice Age.) And in a private letter, written from the West Indies, Kingsley says that he sees reason for thinking that man existed in the Miocene Era. (See Life of Kingsley.)
On the other hand, these rather startling theories have not yet received their imprimatur from the highest scientific authorities. There are many ways in which they clash with the story which the stone-age remains seem to tell of man’s primitive life. For instance, the civilization of the caves is to all appearance in advance of that of the drift-beds; and yet, as we have seen ([p. 18]), the cave men must have existed during the earlier part of the stone age, that of the mammoth. Here we see evidences of a decided improvement, an advance; whereas between the drift-remains associated with the mammoth and those associated with the hippopotamus are seen few or none.
[P. 9]. Cave-drawings or carvings.—The best representations of these are to be found in the work of Christy and Lartet given above.
[P. 19]. The ideas which savages or primitive men associate with drawings or representations of things (as also with the names of things) are sometimes exceedingly complex and difficult of apprehension—for us. This the following example may show:—
In the earliest Egyptian tombs the beautiful and realistic drawings have long attracted the attention of archæologists, both on account of their intrinsic merit, and from the curious contrast which they present to the more conventional religious drawing and sculpture of a later date. Though the drawings of the first class are found exclusively upon the walls of tombs, they have apparently no connection either with ideas of death or with religious observances. They seem to represent merely the earthly and secular life of the entombed man: here he is superintending his labourers at their work, here he is hunting, here he is reclining at the banquet and watching the performances of fools or dancing-girls. This is what a mere study of the drawings suggests. A more complete study of the inscriptions which accompany them have, however, convinced Egyptian archæologists that the object of these wall-paintings is not merely decorative or representative, in the sense in which drawings are representative to us. Their essential use is what we may call magical. They are believed to contain (and this is a universal savage belief as touching drawings or sculptures of any kind) some elements of the things they represent. Thus the tomb-paintings would be a kind of doubles of the things which the deceased enjoyed in this life. And they would be placed in the tomb in order that the double of the deceased (what the Egyptians called his ka) might enjoy the usufruct of them in the new state.
This is the simplest magic use of the copies or representation of things in early Egyptian tombs. But the idea of the makers of these drawings seems often to be more complicated than this. The drawings by being placed in the tombs are supposed to give the ka of the deceased (not in the tomb, but far away in the land of shades) the enjoyment of the doubles of the things which he enjoyed in life. In this instance the drawings are not the actual possessions which the dead man has, but they correspond to, or influence, or in a certain sense create in the land of shades new possessions, the doubles of the old.
These subtle and complex notions are by no means to be expressed by the conventional words magic, animism, etc., loosely thrown about by anthropologists.
[Pp. 47] and [52]. Weaving.—The art of platting, which carries in it the germ of the art of weaving, is of immemorial, undiscoverable antiquity. There can hardly have been a time when men did not weave together twigs or reeds to form a rude tent covering—a primitive house. And one proof of the immense antiquity of this practice is given by the numerous names for twigs, reeds, etc., in different languages which are derived from words signifying to twist or weave. The word weave itself (Ger. weben) is connected with a Sanskrit root vê, meaning much the same thing; and we find this same root vê appearing again in the Latin, vimen a twig, and vitis, a vine, the last so named from its tendrils, which we should judge were used for platting before they were used for producing grapes. From the same root, again, and for the same reason, are derived the Latin viburnum, briony; the Slavonic wetle, willow; the Sanskrit vetra, reed. The Latin scirpus, reed, and the Greek γρῖφος, a net, are allied; but these may not be instances quite in point.
Such rude platting as this is a very different thing from the elaborately woven cloths found among the remains of the lake-villages, whose construction involves also the art of spinning.
[P. 54]. The view put forward in this chapter concerning the race of the neolithic men in Europe, is that which seems to the writer most consistent with all the facts known, concerning the distribution of pre-historic man. As was said in the Preface, the students in different branches of pre-historic inquiry have not begun yet to collate sufficiently the results of their researches, and their opinions sometimes clash. We have to reconcile the pre-historic anthropologist and the ethnologist with the student of comparative philology. Most of the former are agreed that the earliest inhabitants of this quarter of the globe were most allied in character to the Lapps and Finns; and were consequently of what we have distinguished (Chapter V.) as the yellow-skinned family. But they are far from agreed that the bronze-using men were not of the same race; and some (Keller for instance) are violently opposed to the notion that the substitution of metal for stone was a sudden transition, and due to foreign importation. In some instances there is evidence that the change was gradual.
But the evidence on the other side is stronger. The human remains found with the bronze weapons are generally clearly distinguishable (in formation of skull, etc.) from those associated with the implements of stone. The funeral rites of the bronze-age men were as a rule different from those of the stone-age men; for while the former generally buried their dead, the latter seem generally to have burnt theirs (see Grimm, Ueber das Verbrennen der Leichen). Now we have strong reason for believing that the Aryan races (see Chapters IV., V.) practised this sort of interment; and we have further reason for thinking that the use of metals was known to them before their entry into Europe (see Pictet, Les Origines Indo-Européennes and Grimm, Geschichte der deut. Sprache). Moreover, these Aryans unless their original home were in Europe (see [p. 99, note]), must have come in at some time, and when they did come, they must have produced an entire revolution in the life of its inhabitants. No time seems so appropriate for their appearance as that which closes the age of stone.
This theory does not preclude the possibility of, in many places, a side-by-side existence of stone users and bronze users, or even a gradual extension of the art of metallurgy; and these conditions would be especially likely to arise in such secluded spots as the lake-dwellings. Therefore, Dr. Keller’s arguments are not impeached by the theory that the Aryans were the introducers of bronze into Europe.