The various tribes could not keep alive the civilization they had overthrown. The wandering hordes of Germanic people could not easily forget their former barbaric life, their marches of conquest, and careers of pillage. But the claims of civilization, though light and pleasant, are none the less imperative, and a people who seek her rewards must form settled communities, develop public spirit, organize government, and sink the individual in the public good. Not appreciating these claims, it is not strange that the incipient civilization nearly expired, and that the night of the Dark Ages enwrapt Europe. From out that darkness, composed of the descendants of the people whose culture we have been investigating, finally emerged the mediæval nations of Europe.
The review has been a pleasant one, for it is a record of progress. The difference between the culture of the Neolithic and the Iron Age is great, but it is simply a development, the result of a gradual growth. Civilization and history have only hastened this growth. If we look around us to-day we can trace the elements of our civilization back through the eras of history, and though the faint beginning of some can be noticed, yet many of them come down to us from prehistoric times. We have treated of these early people in the three stages of culture known as the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages. We have seen there is no hard and fast line dividing the different stages of culture. To borrow the words of another, these stages of progress, like the three principal colors of the rainbow, overlap, intermingle, and shade off the one into the other, and yet in the main they are well defined.16
We instinctively long to set bounds to the past, to measure it by the unit of years. It affords us satisfaction to give dates for events long since gone by. For any event in the domain of history, it is natural and appropriate to gratify this desire. It gives precision to our thoughts, and more firmly fixes the march of events. But the historical portion of human life on the globe is but a small part of the grand whole. When we pass beyond history, or into prehistoric times, we find ourselves utterly at a loss as to dates.
We have referred in the preceding pages to the commonly accepted belief of a few years ago, that, at most, a few thousand years express the whole period of human life on the globe. This was supposed to be the teaching of the Scriptures, but Infinite Wisdom left not only his word, but he left an imperishable record of the past in rocky strata and excavated valley, in dripping caves and mountain masses. When it was seen that the claims of geology for a greatly extended past, one transcending the powers of the human mind to conceive its length, could no longer be successfully denied, then it was that earnest investigators in the field of human antiquity could no longer shut their eyes to the fact that if geological evidence were worth any thing, man must have existed in the world for a far longer time than one covered by the brief period hitherto relied on.
This truth is so patent and plain that it has received the unqualified indorsement of the most learned scholars. Distinguished divines have been amongst its able expounders, and instead of being in opposition to the Bible, as already stated, the earnest reader finds in the periods of the geologists unexpected confirmation of its truths. The evidence of an extended past for man is not, however, wholly of a geological nature, though these have been the ones principally relied on. The archæologist to-day summons to his aid the science of language, studies into the origin of civilization and the comparison of the different races of men, and derives from each and all of these concurrent testimony as to a vast, shadowy, and profound antiquity for man, one stretching way beyond the dawn of history, far into the very night of time.
As we have now spent some time in tracing out the culture of these early ages, it may be well to see if there are any means at our command to determine the absolute chronology of the various ages. At the very outset of our inquiry, we shall perceive that we have no such class of facts as guided our investigations into the age of the Paleolithic remains. We have but to recall the situation in which the implements of that age were found, always under such circumstances, that we see at once that a great lapse of time has passed since they became imbedded where found, and then the bones of the various extinct animals, found so associated with the implements, that we are justified, even compelled, to admit they occupied the same section of country, and then, from a variety of causes, we are satisfied that they occupied Europe at the close of the Glacial Age, if not for long ages before. All this gave us a point of departure, and we have showed with what care scholars have studied all questions relating to the date of the Glacial Age.
But aside from the fact that geology points out that a long time went by after the close of the Glacial Age before Neolithic man arrived on the scene, we are largely deprived of its aid in our investigations; for all the various implements and specimens of the household industries, from which we derive our knowledge of these latter ages, are found only in surface deposits; that is, in the modern alluvia and silt of river bottoms, in superficial deposits, in caves, and in peat-bogs; and even in other instances where apparently deeply buried, as in the submerged forest deposits of the British coasts, we know that, geologically speaking, their age is recent.
But in spite of these difficulties, attempts have been made from time to time to determine the absolute chronology of these ages. The results, however, can only be considered as approximations of the truth. We will call attention to some of these calculations. Their value to us consists in showing us the methods by which this problem has been attacked, and not in the results obtained. M. Morlot, of Switzerland, has sought to determine this question by a study of the delta of the Tinière, which is a small river flowing into the lake of Geneva. Like all mountain streams, it brings down considerable quantities of sediment, with which it has formed a conical shaped delta. Cuttings for a railroad exposed a fine section of this cone, and showed that at three different times layers of vegetable soil, which must once have been its old surface were found.
The lowest surface was some twenty feet beneath the present surface, and here were found relics of the Stone Age. The second layer was at the depth of ten feet, and contained relics of the Bronze Age. Finally the first buried layer, three feet beneath the present surface, was found to contain relics of the Roman Age. Obtaining from other data the time that has elapsed since the deposits of the Roman layer, he readily calculates the age of the Stone and Bronze layers. By this means he obtains for the Bronze Age an antiquity of between three and four thousand years, and for the Neolithic Age from five to seven thousand years.17 M. Morlot does not claim for his calculation more than approximate accuracy.18 But if we were to allow it a greater accuracy than its author claims, it would still only show us that from a period of from five to seven thousand years ago, tribes of stone using folks lived in Switzerland. It tells us nothing as to their first appearance, or the total length of this age.19
Other calculations of a similar nature have been made. The Lake of Bienne, in Switzerland, has been gradually silting up along its margins from time immemorial. About seven hundred and fifty years ago there was an abbey built at one place on the then existing shore of the lake. Since that time the gain of land has been about twelve hundred feet. A considerable distance further up the valley are found the remains of a lake settlement of the Stone Age. If the gain of land has been uniform, it has not been far from seven thousand years since the lake washed round the ancient settlement. Of course the land may have gained faster at one time than at another, but from the general configuration of the valley it is considered that its gain was regular.20