These few implements imply that their possessors were savages like the native Australians. In this stage of culture, man lived by hunting, and had not yet learned to till the ground, or to seek the materials out of which his implements were made by mining. Re merely fashioned the stones which happened to be within reach in the shallows of rivers as they were wanted, throwing them away after they had been used. In this manner the large numbers which have been met with in certain spots may be accounted for. Man at this time appears before us as a nomad hunter, poorly equipped for the struggle of life, without knowledge of metals, and ignorant of the art of grinding his stone tools to a sharp edge.39 Of course we can not hope to learn much of their social condition other than that just set forth.
DePerthes found some flints which show evidence of their human origin, and yet it would be very difficult to say what was their use. He thinks they may have a religious significance, and has set forth a great variety of eloquent surmises respecting them. It only need be said that such theorizing is worse than useless. That while it is very probable these tribes had some system of belief, yet there is no good reason for supposing these flints had any connection with it. It has been supposed, from another series of wrought flints, that the men of this epoch were possessed of some sentiments of art, as pieces have been found thought to represent the forms of animals, men’s faces, birds, and fishes; but as very few have been able to detect such resemblances, it is safe to say they do not exist.
As the love of adornment is almost as old as human nature itself, we may not be surprised to find traces of its sway then. Dr. Rigollot found little bunches of shells with holes through either end. The supposition is that these were used as beads; which is not at all strange, considering how instinctively savage men delight in such ornaments. These ancient hunters made use of beads partially prepared by nature.
Europe is not the only country where the remains of this savage race are found. They are found in the countries bordering the Mediterranean in Northern Africa, and in Egypt. In this latter country they are doubtless largely buried under the immense deposits of Nile mud; yet in 1878 Professor Haynes discovered in Upper Egypt scrapers and hatchets, pronounced by archæologists to be exactly similar to those of the river Somme. We are not informed as to their geological age, but there can be no question that they are much older than any monument of Egyptian civilization hitherto known.40
Paleolithic implements have also been found in Palestine and in India. In the latter country the beds are so situated that they present the same indicia, of age as do those of the Somme Valley. A great portion of the formation has been removed, and deep valleys cut in them by running water.41 They have also been found in at least one locality in the United States; that is in the glacial gravel of the valley of the Delaware at Trenton, New Jersey. We must not confound these remains with those of the Indian tribes found scattered over a large extent of surface. Those at Trenton also are not only in all respects, except materials, similar to those of the Somme, but are found imbedded in a formation of gravel that was deposited at least as far back as the close of the Glacial Age, thus requiring the passage of the same long series of years since they were used, as do the implements of European rivers.42 We must also bear in mind that no country has been so carefully explored for these implements as has Europe, and that the very country, Asia, where, for many reasons, we might hope to find not only unequivocal proofs of man’s presence but from our discoveries be able to clear up many dark points, as to the race, origin, and fate of these primitive tribes, is yet almost a sealed book.
But the scattered discoveries we have instanced show us that the people whose implements have been described in this chapter were very widely dispersed over the earth, and everything indicates that they were far removed from us in time. The similarity in type of implements shows that, wherever found, they were the same people, in the same low savage state of culture—“Alike in the somber forests of oak and pine in Great Britain, and when surrounded by the luxuriant vegetation of the Indian jungle.”43
We have yet two important points to consider. The first is, what race of men were these river tribes? and second, when did they arrive in Europe? Did they precede the glacial cold? did they make their appearance during a warm interglacial period? or was it not until the final retreat of the glaciers that they first wandered into Europe? These questions are far from settled; yet they have been the object of a great amount of painstaking research.
To determine the first point, it is necessary that anatomists have skeletons of the men of this age, to make a careful study of them. But for a great many reasons, portions of the human skeleton are very rarely found in such circumstances that we are sure they date back to the Paleolithic Age, and especially is this true of the men of the River Drift. In a few instances fragmentary portions have been found.
M. Quatrefages, of France, who is certainly a very high authority on these points, thinks that the hunter tribes of the River Drift belonged to the Canstadt race—“so named from the village of Canstadt, in Germany, near which a fossil skull was discovered in 1700, and which appears to be closely allied to the Neanderthal skull, discovered near Dusseldorf in 1857, and about which so much has been written.”44 Quatrefages supposes that this type of man is still to be found in certain Australian tribes. These are not mere guesses, but are conclusions drawn from careful study by eminent European scholars.45
It is well known that a competent naturalist needs but a single fossil bone to describe the animal itself, and tell us its habits. So also anthropologists need but fragments of the human skeleton, especially of the skull, to describe characteristics of the race to which the individual belonged.