These combined advantages would make this valley one of the centers of population, from whence would issue successive bands of invading people. A portion of these, passing over into California, would come in contact with the descendants of Pliocene man. The result would be, that the primitive inhabitants, unable to escape to the west, would come in contact with wave after wave of invading tribes. This is not altogether theory. All inquirers into the customs, arts, and languages of the primitive Californians have been struck with the remarkable commingling of the same. We are driven to the conclusion that here has been the meeting ground of many distinct tribes and nations. “From such a mixture, and over-population of the most desirable portions of the country, would naturally result the formation of the hundreds of petty tribes that existed in both Upper and Lower California when first known to the Spaniards.”29
In view of these facts, it is not strange that no advance in culture is noticeable; and the grounds just mentioned may go far to explain why we catch sight, here and there, of bits of customs, habits, and manners of life which strangely remind us of widely distant people—though it will not explain the presence of words of Malay or Chinese origin which are claimed to exist.30 What is known as the Eskimo trace is quite marked in the physical characters and in the arts of the Californians.31 It is, probably, the continuance of the type of the primitive American race.
It would naturally be interesting to know whether any date can be given for the Pliocene Age, and so give us some ideas as to the antiquity of man, if he were really here during that epoch. This, however, is one of the most difficult questions to answer, and in the present state of our knowledge incapable of solution. Approximations have, of course, been made, and, as might be expected, vary greatly in results. When it was acknowledged on all hands that on geological grounds the age of the earth was certainly very great, many times the few thousand years hitherto relied on, it is not strange that popular thought swung to the other extreme, and hundreds of millions of years were thought necessary to explain the series of changes which the geologists unfolded. This demand for a greatly extended time was strengthened when the law of the gradual evolution of life was expounded by the modern school of naturalists, and as great a lapse of time as five hundred millions of years was not deemed an extravagant estimate. Sir William Thompson has, however, demonstrated that the time that has elapsed since the crust of the earth became solidified can not be far from one hundred millions of years, and consequently we know the time since the appearance of life must be greatly less than that number of years.
Attempts have been made to estimate the length of time required to form the sedimentary crust of the earth. The results are so divergent on this point that it is best not to adopt any standard at present. Our views on this matter are also dependent on the time that has elapsed since the close of the Glacial Age, which, as we have seen, is not yet a settled point. If it be true that the islands of the Pacific commenced to sink during late Tertiary times, then we have a measure of that time in the growth of coral, which has required at least four hundred thousand years to form reefs the thickness of some that are known to exist.32
But here, again, it seems we are not certain when this depression commenced.33 In a previous chapter we have gone over the Glacial Age, and have seen when, according to Mr. Croll’s theory, it commenced. This was probably not far from the close of the Pliocene Age. We might as well leave the matter here. There are so many elements of uncertainty that it is doubtful if we will ever be able to assign satisfactory dates to the epoch.34
In bringing to a conclusion this somewhat extended notice of early man in California we have to admit that much of it is speculative; still it is an endeavor to explain known facts. The main statement is that man lived in California in the Pliocene Age, in the Neolithic stage of culture. Whether the arguments adduced in support of this statement are sufficient to prove its accuracy must be left to the mature judgment of the scientific world. There is no question but that the climate and geography, the fauna and the flora, were then greatly different from those of the present. Starting with these known facts, so strange and fascinating, it need occasion no surprise, if the pen of the enthusiastic explorer depict a scene wherein facts and fancy are united.
In this case truth is certainly stranger than fiction, and when, in imagination, we see the great Pacific archipelago emerge from the waves, and, in place of the long swell of the ocean, we picture the pleasing scenes of tropic lands, the strange floral growth of a past geological age, the animal forms which have since disappeared, with man already well advanced in culture: when we recall all this, and picture forth the surprising changes which then took place, the slowly subsiding land, the encroaching waters, and the resultant watery waste, with here and there a coral-girt island, the great volcanic uplift on the main-land, the flaming rivers of molten lava, which come pouring forth, followed by the night of cold, ice, and snow: when we consider these, and the great lapse of time necessary for their accomplishment, how powerless are mere words to set forth the grandeur and the resistless sweep of nature’s laws, and to paint the insignificance and trifling nature of man and his works!
The discoveries in California are not the only instances of the relics of man and his works found under such circumstances that they are relied on by some to prove the great age of man in America. But on account of the rarity of these finds, and the contradictory statements and opinions respecting them, the scientific world has until lately regarded with some distrust the assertion of a great antiquity for man on this continent; but a review of the evidence on this point, and especially of Dr. Abbott’s discoveries in New Jersey, must impress on all the conclusion that tribes of men were living here at the close of the Glacial Age, and probably long before that time.
It need occasion no surprise to learn that several of the discoveries of former years, relied on in this connection, have since been shown to be unreliable. They have not been able to stand a careful examination at the hands of later scholars. They were made when European savants were first communicating to the world the results of the explorations of the river gravels and caves of that country. The antiquity of man being amply proven there, may afford some explanation why more discriminating care was not employed. Of this nature were some of the discoveries in the valley of the Mississippi; such, for instance, as the portion of the human skeleton found mingled with the bones of extinct animals a few miles below Natchez, and the deeply buried skeleton at New Orleans, in both of which cases a simple explanation is at hand without the necessity of supposing a great flight of years.
Some of these discoveries yet remain an unsettled point. Such is the discovery of flint arrow-heads in connection with the bones of a mastodon found in Missouri. Dr. Koch, who made the discovery, draws from the facts of the case such a suggestive picture that we will give his own words. After describing where found, he says: “The greater portion of these bones had been more or less burned by fire. The fire had extended but a few feet beyond the space occupied by the animal before its destruction, and there was more than sufficient evidence that the fire had not been an accidental one, but, on the contrary, that it had been kindled by human agency, and, according to all appearance, with the design of killing the huge creature which had been found mired in the mud, and in an entirely helpless condition. All the bones which had not been burned by the fire had kept their original position, standing upright and apparently quite undisturbed in the clay, whereas those portions which had been extended above the surface had been partially consumed by the fire, and the surface of the clay was covered, as far as fire had extended, by a layer of wood ashes, mingled with larger or smaller pieces of charred wood and burnt bones, together with bones belonging to the spine, ribs, and other parts of the body, which had been more or less injured by the fire. It seemed that the burning of the victim and the hurling of rocks at it had not satisfied the destroyers, for I found also, among the ashes, bones, and rocks, several arrow-heads, a stone spear-head, and some stone axes.”