Anthropology

by Edward B. Tylor

Next, we have to look at culture or civilization, to see whether this also shows signs of man having lived and laboured in ages earlier than the earliest which historical records can tell of. For this purpose it is needful to understand what has been the general course of arts, knowledge, and institutions. It is a good old rule to work from the known to the unknown, and all intelligent people have much to tell from their own experience as to how civilization develops. The account which an old man can give of England as he remembers it in his schoolboy days, and of the inventions and improvements he has seen come in since, is in itself a valuable lesson. Thus, when starting from London by express train to reach Edinburgh by dinner-time, he thinks of when it used to be fair coach-travelling to get through in two days and nights. Catching sight of a signal-post on the line, he remembers how such semaphores (that is, sign-bearers) were then the best means of telegraphing, and stood waving their arms on the hills between London and Plymouth, signalling the Admiralty messages. Thinking of the electric telegraph which has superseded them, reminds him that this invention arose out of a discovery made in his youth as to the connexion between electricity and magnetism. This again suggests other modern scientific discoveries that have opened to us the secrets of the universe, such as the spectrum-analysis which now makes out with such precision the materials of the stars, which is just what our fathers were quite certain no man on earth ever could know. Our informant can tell us, too, how knowledge has not only increased, but is far more widely spread than formerly, when the thriving farmer’s son could hardly get schooling practically so good as the labourer’s son is now entitled to of right. He may then go on to explain to his hearers how, since his time, the laws of the land have been improved and better carried out, so that men are no longer hanged for stealing, that more is done to reform the criminal classes instead of merely punishing them, that life and property are safer than in old times. Last, but not least, he can show from his own recollection that people are morally a shade better than they were, that public opinion demands a somewhat higher standard of conduct than in past generations, as may be seen in the sharper disapproval that now falls on cheats and drunkards. From such examples of the progress in civilization that has come in a single country and a single lifetime, it is clear that the world has not been standing still with us, but new arts, new thoughts, new institutions, new rules of life, have arisen or been developed out of the older state of things.

Now this growth or development in civilization, so rapid in our own time, appears to have been going on more or less actively since the early ages of man. Proof of this comes to us in several different ways. History, so far as it reaches back, shows arts, sciences, and political institutions beginning in ruder states, and becoming in the course of ages more intelligent, more systematic, more perfectly arranged or organized, to answer their purposes. Not to give many instances of a fact so familiar, the history of parliamentary government begins with the old-world councils of the chiefs and tumultuous assemblies of the whole people. The history of medicine goes back to the times when epilepsy or “seizure” (Greek, epilēpsis) was thought to be really the act of a demon seizing and convulsing the patient. But our object here is to get beyond such ordinary information of the history books, and to judge what stages civilization passed through in times yet earlier. Here one valuable aid is archæology, which for instance shows us the stone hatchets and other rude instruments which belonged to early tribes of men, thus proving how low their state of arts was; of this more will be said presently. Another useful guide is to be had from survivals in culture. Looking closely into the thoughts, arts, and habits of any nation, the student finds everywhere the remains of older states of things out of which they arose. To take a trivial example, if we want to know why so quaintly cut a garment as the evening dress-coat is worn, the explanation may be found thus. The cutting away at the waist had once the reasonable purpose of preventing the coat skirts from getting in the way in riding, while the pair of useless buttons behind the waist are also relics from the times when such buttons really served the purpose of fastening these skirts behind; the curiously cut collar keeps the now misplaced notches made to allow of its being worn turned up or down, the smart facings represent the old ordinary lining, and the sham cuffs now made with a seam round the wrist are survivals from real cuffs when the sleeve used to be turned back. Thus it is seen that the present ceremonial dress-coat owes its peculiarities to being descended from the old-fashioned practical coat in which a man rode and worked. Or again, if one looks in modern English life for proof of the Norman Conquest eight centuries ago, one may find it in the “Oh yes! Oh yes!” of the town-crier, who all unknowingly keeps up the old French form of proclamation, “Oyez! Oyez!” that is, “Hear ye! Hear ye!” To what yet more distant periods of civilization such survivals may reach back, is well seen in an example from India. There, though people have for ages kindled fire for practical use with the flint and steel, yet the Brahmans, to make the sacred fire for the daily sacrifice, still use the barbaric art of violently boring a pointed stick into another piece of wood till a spark comes. Asked why they thus waste their labour when they know better, they answer that they do it to get pure and holy fire. But to us it is plain that they are really keeping up by unchanging custom a remnant of the ruder life once led by their remote ancestors. On the whole, these various ways of examining arts and sciences all prove that they never spring forth perfect, like Athene out of the split head of Zeus. They come on by successive steps, and where other information fails, the observer may often trust himself to judge from the mere look of an invention how it probably arose. Thus no one can look at a cross-bow and a common long-bow without being convinced that the long-bow was the earlier, and that the cross-bow was made afterwards by fitting a common bow on a stock, and arranging a trigger to let go the string after taking aim. Though history fails to tell us who did this and when, we feel almost as sure of it as of the known historical facts that the cross-bow led up to the match-lock, and that again to the flint-lock musket, and that again to the percussion musket, and that again to the breech-loading rifle.

Putting these various means of information together, it often becomes possible to picture the whole course of an art or an institution, tracing it back from its highest state in the civilized world till we reach its beginnings in the life of the rudest tribes of men. For instance, let us look at a course of modern mathematics, as represented in the books taken in for university honours. A student living in Queen Elizabeth’s time would have had no infinitesimal calculus to study, hardly even algebraic geometry, for what is now called the higher mathematics was invented since then. Going back into the Middle Ages, we come to the time when algebra had been just brought in, a novelty due to the Hindu mathematicians and their scholars, the Arabs; and next we find the numeral ciphers, 0, 1, 2, 3, &c., beginning to be known as an improvement on the old calculating board and the Roman I., II., III. In the classic ages yet earlier, we reach the time when the methods of Euklid and the other Greek geometers first appeared. So we get back to what was known to the mathematicians of the earliest historical period in Babylonia and Egypt, an arithmetic clumsily doing what children in the lower standards are taught with us to do far more neatly, and a rough geometry consisting of a few rules of practical mensuration. This is as far as history can go toward the beginnings of mathematics, but there are other means of discovering through what lower stages the science arose. The very names still used to denote lengths, such as cubit, hand, foot, span, nail, show how the art of mensuration had its origin in times when standard measures had not yet been invented, but men put their hands and feet alongside objects of which they wished to estimate the size. So there is abundant evidence that arithmetic came up from counting on the fingers and toes, such as may still be seen among savages. Words still used for numbers in many languages were evidently made during the period when such reckoning on the hands and feet was usual, and they have lasted on ever since. Thus a Malay expresses five by the word lima, which (though he does not know it) once meant “hand,” so that it is seen to be a survival from ages when his ancestors, wanting a word for five, held up one hand and said “hand.” Indeed, the reason of our own decimal notation, why we reckon by tens instead of the more convenient twelves, appears to be that our forefathers got from their own fingers the habit of counting by tens which has been since kept up, an unchanged relic of primitive man. The following chapters contain many other cases of such growth of arts from the simplest origins. Thus, in examining tools, it will be seen how the rudely chipped stone grasped in the hand to hack with, led up to the more artificially shaped stone chisel fitted as a hatchet in a wooden handle, how afterwards when metal came in there was substituted for the stone a bronze or iron blade, till at last was reached the most perfect modern foresters’ axe, with its steel blade socketed to take the well-balanced handle. Specimens such as those in Chapter VIII. show these great moves in the development of the axe, which began before chronology and history, and has been from the first one of man’s chief aids in civilizing himself.

It does not follow from such arguments as these that civilization is always on the move, or that its movement is always progress. On the contrary, history teaches that it remains stationary for long periods, and often falls back. To understand such decline of culture, it must be borne in mind that the highest arts and the most elaborate arrangements of society do not always prevail, in fact they may be too perfect to hold their ground, for people must have what fits with their circumstances. There is an instructive lesson to be learnt from a remark made by an Englishman at Singapore, who noticed with surprise two curious trades flourishing there. One was to buy old English-built ships, cut them down and rig them as junks; the other was to buy English percussion muskets and turn them into old-fashioned flintlocks. At first sight this looks like mere stupidity, but on consideration it is seen to be reasonable enough. It was so difficult to get Eastern sailors to work ships of European rig, that it answered better to provide them with the clumsier craft they were used to; and as for the guns, the hunters far away in the hot, damp forests were better off with gunflints than if they had to carry and keep dry a stock of caps. In both cases, what they wanted was not the highest product of civilization, but something suited to the situation and easiest to be had. Now the same rule applies both to taking in new civilization and keeping up old. When the life of a people is altered by emigration into a new country, or by war and distress at home, or mixture with a lower race, the culture of their forefathers may be no longer needed or possible, and so dwindles away. Such degeneration is to be seen among the descendants of Portuguese in the East Indies, who have intermarried with the natives and fallen out of the march of civilization, so that newly-arrived Europeans go to look at them lounging about their mean hovels in the midst of luxuriant tropical fruits and flowers, as if they had been set there to teach by example how man falls in culture where the need of effort is wanting. Another frequent cause of loss of civilization is when people once more prosperous are ruined or driven from their homes, like those Shoshonee Indians who have taken refuge from their enemies, the Blackfeet, in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, where they now roam, called Digger Indians from the wild roots they dig for as part of their miserable subsistence. Not only the degraded state of such outcasts, but the loss of particular arts by other peoples, may often be explained by loss of culture under unfavourable conditions. For instance, the South Sea Islanders, though not a very rude people when visited by Captain Cook, used only stone hatchets and knives, being indeed so ignorant of metal that they planted the first iron nails they got from the English sailors, in the hope of raising a new crop. Possibly their ancestors never had metals, but it seems as likely that these ancestors were an Asiatic people to whom metal was known, but who, through emigration to ocean islands and separation from their kinsfolk, lost the use of it and fell back into the stone age. It is necessary for the student to be alive to the importance of decline in civilization, but it is here more particularly mentioned in order to point out that it in no way contradicts the theory that civilization itself is developed from low to high stages. One cannot lose a thing without having had it first, and wherever tribes are fallen from the higher civilization of their ancestors, this only leaves it to be accounted for how that higher civilization grew up.

On the whole it appears that wherever there are found elaborate arts, abstruse knowledge, complex institutions, these are results of gradual development from an earlier, simpler, and ruder state of life. No stage of civilization comes into existence spontaneously, but grows or is developed out of the stage before it. This is the great principle which every scholar must lay firm hold of, if he intends to understand either the world he lives in or the history of the past. Let us now see how this bears on the antiquity and early condition of mankind. The monuments of Egypt and Babylonia show that toward 5,000 years ago certain nations had already come to an advanced state of culture. No doubt the greater part of the earth was then peopled by barbarians and savages, as it remained afterwards. But in the regions of the Nile and the Euphrates there was civilization. The ancient Egyptians had that greatest mark of a civilized nation, the art of writing; indeed the hieroglyphic characters of their inscriptions appear to have been the origin of our alphabet. They were a nation skilled in agriculture, raising from their fields fertilized by the yearly inundation those rich crops of grain that provided subsistence for the dense population. How numerous and how skilled in constructive art the ancient Egyptians were, is seen by every traveller who looks on the pyramids which have made their name famous through all history. The great pyramid of Gizeh still ranks among the wonders of the world, a mountain of hewn limestone and syenite, whose size Londoners describe by saying that it stands on a square the size of Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, and rises above the height of St. Paul’s. The perfection of its huge blocks and the beautiful masonry of the inner chambers and passages show the skill not only of the stonecutter but of the practical geometer. The setting of the sides to the cardinal points is so exact as to prove that the Egyptians were excellent observers of the elementary facts of astronomy; the day of the equinox can be taken by observing the sunset across the face of the pyramid, and the neighbouring Arabs still adjust their astronomical dates by its shadow. As far back as anything is known of them, the Egyptians appear to have worked in bronze and iron, as well as gold and silver. So their arts and habits, their sculpture and carpentry, their reckoning and measuring, their system of official life with its governors and scribes, their religion with its orders of priesthood and its continual ceremonies, all appear the results of long and gradual growth. What, perhaps, gives the highest idea of antiquity, is to look at very early monuments, such as the tomb of prince Teta of the 4th dynasty in the British Museum, and notice how Egyptian culture had even then begun to grow stiff and traditional. Art was already reaching the stage when it seemed to men that no more progress was possible, for their ancestors had laid down the perfect rule of life, which it was sin to alter by way of reform. Of the early Babylonians or Chaldæans less is known, yet their monuments and inscriptions show how ancient and how high was their civilization. Their writing was in cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters, of which they seem to have been the inventors, and which their successors, the Assyrians, learnt from them. They were great builders of cities, and the bricks inscribed with their kings’ names remain as records of their great temples, such, for instance, as that dedicated to the god of Ur, at the city known to Biblical history as Ur of the Chaldees. Written copies of their laws exist, so advanced as to have provisions as to the property of married women, the imprisonment of a father or mother for denying their son, the daily fine of a half-measure of corn levied on the master who killed or ill-used his slaves. Their astrology, which made the names of Chaldæan and Babylonian famous ever since, led them to make those regular observations of the heavenly bodies which gave rise to the science of astronomy. The nation which wrote its name thus largely in the book of civilization, dates back into the same period of high antiquity as the Egyptian. These then are the two nations whose culture is earliest vouched for by inscriptions done at the very time of their ancient grandeur, and therefore it is safer to appeal to them than to other nations which can only show as proofs of their antiquity writings drawn up in far later ages. Looking at their ancient civilization, it seems to have been formed by men whose minds worked much like our own. No super-human powers were required for the work, but just human nature groping on by roundabout ways, reaching great results, yet not half knowing how to profit by them when reached; solving the great problem of writing, yet not seeing how to simplify the clumsy hieroglyphics into letters; devoting earnest thought to religion and yet keeping up a dog and cat worship which was a jest even to the ancients; cultivating astronomy and yet remaining mazed in the follies of astrology. In the midst of their most striking efforts of civilization, the traces may be discerned of the barbaric condition which prevailed before; the Egyptian pyramids are burial-mounds like those of præhistoric England, but huge in size and built of hewn stone or brick; the Egyptian hieroglyphics, with their pictures of men and beasts and miscellaneous things, tell the story of their own invention, how they began as a mere picture-writing like that of the rude hunters of America. Thus it appears that civilization, at the earliest dates where history brings it into view, had already reached a level which can only be accounted for by growth during a long præhistoric period. This result agrees with the conclusions already arrived at by the study of races and language.

Without attempting here to draw a picture of life as it may have been among men at their first appearance on the earth, it is important to go back as far as such evidence of the progress of civilization may fairly lead us. In judging how mankind may have once lived, it is also a great help to observe how they are actually found living. Human life may be roughly classed into three great stages, Savage, Barbaric, Civilized, which may be defined as follows. The lowest or savage state is that in which man subsists on wild plants and animals, neither tilling the soil nor domesticating creatures for his food. Savages may dwell in tropical forests where the abundant fruit and game may allow small clans to live in one spot and find a living all the year round, while in barer and colder regions they have to lead a wandering life in quest of the wild food which they soon exhaust in any place. In making their rude implements, the materials used by savages are what they find ready to hand, such as wood, stone, and bone, but they cannot extract metal from the ore, and therefore belong to the Stone Age. Men may be considered to have risen into the next or barbaric state when they take to agriculture. With the certain supply of food which can be stored till next harvest, settled village and town life is established, with immense results in the improvement of arts, knowledge, manners, and government. Pastoral tribes are to be reckoned in the barbaric stage, for though their life of shifting camp from pasture to pasture may prevent settled habitation and agriculture, they have from their herds a constant supply of milk and meat. Some barbaric nations have not come beyond using stone implements, but most have risen into the Metal Age. Lastly, civilized life may be taken as beginning with the art of writing, which by recording history, law, knowledge, and religion for the service of ages to come, binds together the past and the future in an unbroken chain of intellectual and moral progress. This classification of three great stages of culture is practically convenient, and has the advantage of not describing imaginary states of society, but such as are actually known to exist. So far as the evidence goes, it seems that civilization has actually grown up in the world through these three stages, so that to look at a savage of the Brazilian forests, a barbarous New Zealander or Dahoman, and a civilized European, may be the student’s best guide to understanding the progress of civilization, only he must be cautioned that the comparison is but a guide, not a full explanation.

In this way it is reasonably inferred that even in countries now civilized, savage and low barbaric tribes must have once lived. Fortunately it is not left altogether to the imagination to picture the lives of these rude and ancient men, for many relics of them are found which may be seen and handled in museums. It has now to be considered what sort of evidence of man’s age is thus to be had from archæology and geology, and what it proves.

When an antiquary examines the objects dug up in any place, he can generally judge in what state of civilization its inhabitants have been. Thus if there are found weapons of bronze or iron, bits of fine pottery, bones of domestic cattle, charred corn and scraps of cloth, this would be proof that people lived there in a civilized, or at least a high barbaric condition. If there are only rude implements of stone and bone, but no metal, no earthenware, no remains to show that the land was tilled or cattle kept, this would be evidence that the country had been inhabited by some savage tribe. One of the chief questions to be asked about the condition of any people is, whether they have metal in use for their tools and weapons. If so, they may be said to be in the metal age. If they have no copper or iron, but make their hatchets, knives, spear-heads, and other cutting and piercing instruments of stone, they are said to be in the stone age. Wherever such stone implements are picked up, as they often are in our own ploughed fields, they prove that stone-age men have once dwelt in the land. It is an important fact that in every region of the inhabited world ancient stone implements are thus found in the ground, showing that at some time the inhabitants were in this respect like the modern savages. In countries where the people have long been metal-workers, they have often lost all memory of what these stone things are, and tell fanciful stories to account for their being met with in ploughing or digging. One favourite notion, in England and elsewhere, is that the stone hatchets are “thunderbolts” fallen from the sky with the lightning flash. It has been imagined that in the East, the seat of the most ancient civilizations, some district might be found without any traces of man having lived there in a state of early rudeness, so that in this part of the world he might have been civilized from the first. But it is not so. In Assyria, Palestine, Egypt, as in other lands, one may find sharp-chipped flints which show that here also tribes in the stone age once lived, before the use of metal brought in higher civilization.

Fig. 1.—Later Stone Age (neolithic) implements. a, stone celt or hatchet; b, flint spear-head; c, scraper; d, arrow-heads; e, flint flake-knives; f, core from which flint-flakes taken off; g, flint-awl; h, flint saw; i, stone hammer-head.