The caves of the Dordogne Valley in south-western France have supplied us with some very good relics of a very remote period. They are situated in rocks of Cretaceous age, and form shelters in which ancient huntsmen used to find dwelling-places, leaving behind them refuse-heaps and instruments of various kinds. In the Vezère Caves, which are included in the Dordogne series, there is one of very ancient date, Le Moustier, in which is a bed of sand having both above and below floors of a similar character, containing charcoal, flint instruments, and other remains. The depth of this sandy bed is about 10 inches, having the appearance of a river deposit; and, although many flint instruments have been found in it of a more ancient date than those unearthed in the other caves, yet no worked bone instruments have been discovered. In another cave, the Langerie, bronze and polished stone objects have been found, together with various kinds of pottery, below which, and under masses of fallen rock, covered with Palæolithic flints and sculptured bones and antlers of reindeer, a human skeleton was discovered lying under a block of stone. In another cave, La Madeleine, was found a mammoth tusk, on which was rudely carved a picture of the animal itself, proving incontestably that cave-men lived here in mammoth times. In the Mentone cave Dr. Rivière, in 1872, suddenly came upon the bones of a human foot, which caused him to make a very careful examination of the deposit, the result being that he unearthed an entire human skeleton at a depth of 20 feet, surrounded by a large number of unpolished flint flakes and scrapers, and a fragment of a skewer, about six inches long. No metal, pottery, or polished flint was found; but bones of extinct mammals were scattered about, thus suggesting a remote Palæolithic antiquity. The skeleton is 5 feet 9 inches high, the skull dolichocephalic, forehead narrow, temple flattened, and facial angle measuring 80 to 85 degrees; the teeth were worn flat by eating hard food, and the long bones are strong and flattened.
No human bones have as yet been discovered in the deposit of the Somme valley, where so many Palæolithic flints have been found; but in the valley of the Seine, at Clichy, Messrs. Bertrand and Reboux found, in 1868, portions of human skeletons in the same beds where Palæolithic implements had been embedded. These bones were found at a depth of seventeen feet, and included a female skull of very inferior type, having enormously thick frontal bone and a low, narrow roof, slanting from before backwards. A very good specimen of human fossil is that known as the “Denise Fossil Man,” comprising the remains of more than one skeleton found in a volcanic breccia near Le Puy-en-Velay, in Central France. These bones have been very carefully examined by the members of the French Scientific Congress, as also the deposit in which they were found, and the opinion arrived at is that the fossils are genuine and their age early Pleistocene. Another most interesting specimen of ancient human remains is the skeleton found buried under four Cypress forests, superimposed one upon the other, in the delta of the Mississippi, near New Orleans, at a depth of sixteen feet. Dr. Dowler ascribes to this skeleton an antiquity of at least 50,000 years, reckoning by the minimum length of time that must have elapsed during the formation of the deposits found and the sinking of the four successive forest beds. In another part of the same delta, near Natchez, a human bone, os innominatum, accompanied by bones of the mastodon and megalonyx, was washed out of what is believed to be a still more ancient alluvial deposit. Dr. Dickeson, in whose possession the said bone is now, states that it was buried at a depth of thirty feet, and geologists agree that its date is very early, some maintaining that it is probably of a higher antiquity than any yet discovered.
From these discoveries it is abundantly evident that man existed on the earth contemporaneously with the mastodon and other extinct mammals belonging to the Pleiocene and early Pleistocene eras. There are, however, people who stoutly deny that this can be so—at any rate, as regards Northern and Central Europe—and who rank the discoveries at Moulin Quignon, Engis, Kent’s Cavern, etc., with late Pleistocene remains. They maintain that the beds in which these relics were found could not have been of Pleiocene or early Pleistocene formation, inasmuch as they lie above the till and boulder-clay which form the glacial deposits of the time when Europe was an Arctic region—that is to say, of late Pleistocene times. Therefore, they say, man’s earliest existence in Europe was post-glacial or late Pleistocene. But while the fact of the human remains having been discovered above the boulder-clay appears to point to a post-glacial date, still there is confronting us the perplexing anomaly of the contemporary existence of extinct mammals belonging to a tropical fauna, which, if we accept this theory, involves the necessity of admitting that a tropical climate followed the last glacial epoch—a condition of things that we know never existed at all. The fact is there have been more periods of glaciation than one, each being followed by the deposition of boulder-clays; and between the periods of intense Arctic cold there were intervals of tropical or sub-tropical heat, when mammals belonging to and requiring a tropical climate ventured as far north as the north of England, to become extinct when the period of glaciation supervened. The last glacial period, we know, extended its area of influence as far as the high peaks of Switzerland and Northern Italy, completely overwhelming the whole of Northern Europe as far south as the latitude of 45°, and the whole of North America as far south as the latitude of 40°; since when there has been a gradual diminution of cold until the present temperate climate supervened. Now, if it can be positively ascertained that all the boulder-clays found in England and Northern Europe were deposited during and immediately after this last glacial period, the date of man’s first appearance in those districts, as far as we have as yet any evidence, must be post-glacial; but in such a case it would have been impossible that a tropical fauna and flora could have existed in the same localities, whereas their remains have been abundantly found lying side by side with the remains of Palæolithic man. The conclusion we must draw is that the boulder-clays found below the remains of Palæolithic man could not have been deposited after the last period of glaciation, but must have followed some prior glacial condition, and that man existed in England and Northern Europe contemporaneously with extinct mammalia during inter-glacial or pre-glacial times, when the climate of England was tropical or sub-tropical—that is to say, in middle Pleistocene or late Pleiocene times. If man really existed in England in Pleiocene times, in favour of which view there appears to be strong evidence, he would have been in all probability the companion of the extinct tropical mammalia found deposited in the Cromer Forest beds, and some of which belonged to Meiocene times. This forest was in existence at the close of the Pleiocene era, and stretched from Cromer far away into what is now the German Ocean, uniting Norfolk and Suffolk to Holland and Belgium; but soon after the commencement of the Pleistocene period the North Sea gradually swept over the old continent between Britain on the west and Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands on the east, thus converting the old forest at Cromer into the bed of the ocean, where the stumps of the trees may now be seen embedded in deposit at very low tide. Immediately after the disappearance of this forest the first period of glaciation commenced, from which moment until the close of the glacial periods the alternations in temperature and surface level were frequent and of enormous magnitude, the correct sequence of which changes we have as yet no proper conception.
If we go back to the commencement of the Tertiary great division of the geological periods, we shall find that, at the beginning of the Eocene deposits, the Secondary cretaceous rocks had been upheaved from the bottom of the sea, and had become the dry ground of a large continent, of which the British Islands formed a part; so that Eocene fauna and flora in England had free communication with continental life. The relative positions of land and water during this first Tertiary period were as follows: The great continent spread from North America to Europe, uniting Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Faroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, Ireland, and Britain (except south-east portion), with Scandinavia and Spitzbergen on the north-east, and with France (Brittany) and Spain on the south. There were three seas—the North Sea, which, like a wedge with its point downwards, separated Greenland, Iceland, and Faroes from Spitzbergen and Scandinavia; the South-Eastern Sea, which stretched from the top of Denmark to Boston in Lincolnshire, thence to Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, and on to Cherbourg, covering the whole of the east and south-east of England; and the Atlantic, which was separated from the North Sea by Iceland, Faroes, and intermediate lands, and from the South-Eastern Sea by the British Islands, Western France, and intermediate lands. These Eocene seas teemed with fish now only found in more Southern latitudes; while the inland lakes and rivers abounded with reptilian life. On the land tropical flora and fauna flourished, among the former being palms, cypresses, and giant cacti, and among the latter, in Lower Eocene times, large numbers of marsupial species, in the Middle Eocene also lion-like carnivora, and in Upper Eocene tapir-like animals, herds of Anchitheres (ancestors of the horse), Hyænodon (ancestors of hyæna), and Lemurs. The Miocene period opened with a lower temperature than that of the Eocene, and with a considerable difference of surface level in Denmark and on the South of England, the land having been upheaved to such an extent as to leave no part of the country under water, uniting Yorkshire with Denmark, and dividing the South-Eastern Sea into two portions, the Northern one stretching from Schleswig as far as a few miles from the present Lincolnshire coast and then back to the present mouth of the Scheldt; and the latter stretching from Boulogne-sur-Mer to Hastings and Portland Bill, and back to Cherbourg. Otherwise the relationship between land and water was much the same as in Eocene times. The climate of the Meiocene period was sub-tropical, and in the lower strata were found placental mammals, but few marsupials; in the middle beds remains of the mastodon, rhinoceros, anthropomorphous apes, sloths, and ant-eaters; and in the upper layers antelopes and gazelles; but no mammalian species in any Meiocene deposit has continued to present times, all having become extinct. When we arrive at the Pleiocene age we have quite a different state of things; the Atlantic and North Seas gradually united together, thus separating Europe from Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and North America; and on the east of Britain the North Sea slowly descended as far as the present mouth of the Thames, thus separating Britain from Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands; while the two Southern seas disappeared altogether, leaving a huge continent, the borders of which stretched from the present west coast of Norway to Denmark, the Netherlands, across to Essex, central Norfolk (east Norfolk and Suffolk being part of North Sea), and up to the Shetlands, at which point a turn was made south to a few miles west of present west coast of Ireland, and thence southward to a few miles west of present coast of Brittany, in France, thus leaving the British Isles, France, and the rest of Europe as one large continent. To accomplish these enormous changes, a very long time was required, during which the climate was gradually becoming more temperate, being in older Pleiocene times sub-tropical and in newer Pleiocene warm-temperate; while the fauna and flora gradually became less tropical in kind. The older Pleiocene deposits are divided into coralline crag and reg crag, while the newer Pleiocene consist of Norwich crags and Weybourne sands, on a level with which latter was the Cromer forest, submerged by the North Sea during the earlier Pleistocene period.
At this point commence those enormous alterations in the surface level and climate of this part of the world which produced such extraordinary results, and during which man made his first appearance in Britain. At the very commencement of the Pleistocene era the temperature in Britain was lowered to such an extent as to produce a sudden disappearance of the semi-tropical fauna and flora: the land had reached the high elevation of 500 feet above the present level, joining Scotland and Scandinavia, and there had appeared in the North Sea large blocks of ice, which rapidly increased in size and quantity, and continually pushed farther south, until at length, after a long lapse of time, the whole of Northern Europe, Asia, and America as far as the latitude of about 45° became like a huge ice-house, the Arctic cold driving all life before it to a more southern latitude, those forms which had lived in Britain during Meiocene and Pleiocene times being the first to disappear on the earliest sign of the approaching cold, and the Arctic flora and fauna which took their place being afterwards compelled also to move southward, owing to the intense severity of the glaciation.
When this state of things had lasted a very considerable time the climate became milder, the melting ice deposited its boulder-clay, and the high continent commenced to sink again to its former level, during which gradual submergence the climate became still warmer, until it at length reached a more than temperate mildness, at one time being almost tropical. Still the land continued to sink, and this submergence lasted until the British part of the great continent had become a large archipelago of small islands, the surface of the land being upwards of one thousand feet below the present level. It has been calculated that such a submergence would require at the least 88,000 years to be completed; so that a general idea may be formed of the enormous periods of time occupied by these glacial and inter-glacial epochs. While the British archipelago existed, another change of climate took place, resulting in another glacial period, but probably not of such intensity as the previous one. At this period the upper boulder clay was deposited in the sea, to be afterwards upheaved above the sea level in Yorkshire and other places. After a long continuance of this glaciation the land commenced to rise again and the climate to improve, until, after a period of about 136,000 years (according to careful computation), there was produced another continental condition, the ground reaching about 600 feet higher than now, and the climate becoming temperate once more. England, Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and Spain once again formed a mighty continent, the climate of which was cold-temperate, becoming milder year by year, and the elevation of which was gradually declining, as it has continued to do until the present time, the British islands slowly becoming once more separated from the continent of Europe. During the last temperate continental condition Palæolithic and Neolithic man lived in Britain, as is clearly proved by the evidence brought forward by various authors in support of the contention; but, as we have seen, Palæolithic man’s remains discovered in the various deposits were often in the company of the bones of extinct mammals belonging to a tropical fauna, which species could not have existed in Britain with such a climate as that which followed the last period of glaciation, but must have lived either in pre-glacial times, or, in other words, at the end of Pleiocene or very beginning of Pleistocene times, or else in inter-glacial or mid-Pleistocene times; and whichever alternative be adopted we are bound to fix the date of the Palæolithic remains at the same period. To fix their date in the very earliest of Pleistocene, or latest of Pleiocene times, would give them an antiquity of nearly 300,000 years; to fix it in mid-Pleistocene times, during the temperate or inter-glacial period of submergence, would give them an antiquity of upwards of 170,000 years; and to fix it in post-glacial times would give them an antiquity of probably 70,000 or 80,000 years at most. The inter-glacial theory would, on the whole, appear most likely to be the correct one, were it not for the fact that, during the inter-glacial period, this country was partially submerged, which would probably have prevented any communication in those times between the islands and the mainland. We must, however, not forget that the great submergence commenced during the first period of glaciation, and did not cease until the second period had been reached, so that the inter-glacial period of warmth would take place when England and Scotland were but little different from now in their relationship to the continent, and long before the archipelago was formed. Whether it would have been possible under these conditions for Palæolithic man to cross from the continent to the British islands we cannot say; but the probability is that the distance to travel by water would have been far too great in such early times; in which case we have no alternative but to place the date of man’s earliest existence in England at the latest Pleiocene age, as indeed we are compelled to do by the fact that Palæolithic implements have been found in Kent’s cavern side by side with teeth of the extinct bear of that period, as well as by the discoveries made in the Engis and other caves.
In Southern Europe and the Southern States of North America the glacial epoch had little effect, so that man’s age upon the earth in those districts will be better calculated than it can ever be here or in France and Belgium; and it will not be surprising if we learn before long that man lived in the districts surrounding the Mediterranean Sea in early Pleiocene times. This sea, it must be recollected, was almost dried up during the early and middle Pleistocene periods, and there was no communication between it and the Atlantic Ocean, so that Europe was connected both on the east and west with Africa, and was also one continuous continent with Asia, there being then no Black Sea and no Caspian Sea. The probability, therefore, is that man first became a rational being, parting with his ape-like characteristics, somewhere in Southern Asia or Northern Africa, or, more probably still, in the now submerged continent of Lemuria, which once joined China, India, and Africa in one continental system; after which he emigrated in different directions, finding his way north-westwards over the European continent as far as the very limit of the Franco-British continental system. At what period man first existed in the districts around the Mexican Gulf it is at present impossible to say; but the skull found in the Mississippi beds is calculated to be at least 50,000 years old, and by some the date is fixed at 100,000 years, which would carry us back to middle Pleistocene times at least. Man, therefore, most probably existed in Europe long before he had made his appearance in the new world, although it is quite possible that further investigation may lead to the discovery of a still more ancient stock than that to which the Mississippi skull belonged. How long a time elapsed between the first appearance of Palæolithic man in Northern Europe, and the subsequent advent of Neolithic man, it is at present impossible to say with any degree of certainty; but the interval must have been of enormous length, for we find no traces of polished stone implements until the very close of the Pleistocene era during the last Franco-British continental system. At this period man had become much more civilised than his ancestors of the Palæolithic age; his implements were more ornamental and better fitted for the purposes for which they were intended; his mode of life had become more settled; and he had developed primitive industries. In the ancient “hut circles” found at Standlake and at Fisherton, near Salisbury, have been found instruments used for spinning and weaving, which date back to Neolithic times, also fragments of pottery and stones used for grinding corn, side by side with the remains of domestic animals. From this we conclude that Neolithic man was at this time a companion of domestic animals, a keeper of flocks and herds, and an agriculturalist. He very soon became, in addition to this, a miner, as is evident from the remains found at Cissbury, on the South Downs, and at Grimes Graves, near Bandon, in Suffolk. Shafts had been sunk and galleries dug out of the ground in order to unearth a better kind of flint for manufacturing useful implements; and in some of these galleries the tools of the workmen have been discovered, consisting of picks made out of stags’ antlers, polished stone celts, chisels of bone and antler, and small cups made of chalk. With these and other primitive tools the flint had been worked out in several places, forming deep hollows in and near which were the remains of birds, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, and dogs, which evidently had served as companions to and food for the miners. Canoes, hollowed out of large trees by the use of fire and axes, have also been discovered, together with huge paddles for propelling them; and numerous have been the discoveries of heads of javelins, arrows, and spears, which were probably used as weapons of warfare, the population by this time having grown large and divided itself into small communities more or less at enmity with each other.
Similar progress was made by Neolithic man on the continent of Europe, as we know from the discoveries made in Switzerland. As early as 1829 very ancient piles had been discovered in the lake of Zürich, which have since been found to be the remains of primitive lake-dwellings, dating from Neolithic times. These peculiar habitations consisted of wooden houses built on platforms erected on a number of wooden piles driven into the bottom of the lake, and were, no doubt, so constructed with the view of protecting the small colony from the raids of wild beasts and warlike people from other parts of the country. Most of these lake-dwellings were burnt down, their charred remains sinking to the bottom of the lake, where they have been discovered together with heaps of corn, pieces of woven and plaited cloth, mealing or grinding stones, earthenware implements, nets and mats, and implements of stone, antler, and bone. Numbers of domestic and other animals were kept in these dwellings, such as the dog, horse, pig, sheep, and cow; and fish appears to have been a regular article of consumption. Similar discoveries have been made in Denmark by Professor Steenstrup and others, which show an equal advance in civilisation and culture during early Neolithic times. Vast accumulations of refuse matter, in the form of oyster-shells, fish-bones, and animal remains, have been found near the shores of the Baltic, the whole being heaped up into mounds, evidently having formed public refuse-heaps for communities of settlers. Scattered about were also found polished stone axes, but no metal implements; while upon some of the stones were well-drawn engravings, pointing to a considerable advance in culture; and the fact that the remains of the domestic animals prove them to be of southern and eastern origin suggests the probability that these settlers were immigrants from the south-east of Europe, where we should expect considerable advance to have been effected in civilisation.
It is extremely probable and generally admitted that man became civilised in oriental countries, and made his way northwards and westwards, gradually covering the whole of Europe; so that we should expect the races of Egypt, Persia, and India to be far more highly cultured than those who were establishing themselves in the west at the same time. It would take a very long time indeed for people to spread themselves from Egypt and Persia over the whole of Europe, and during all this time they would naturally, owing to their wandering habits, advance in civilisation far more slowly than those who remained in their original homes. At the time, therefore, that Neolithic man had become a settler in Europe and Britain we may fairly suppose that Egypt, Persia, and India were great, powerful, and prosperous states, well advanced in civilisation and art, and, perhaps, even the tail-end of a mighty and prosperous civilisation that had preceded them long ages before. It was probably from these highly-civilised centres that the discovery of bronze was carried into Europe, which marked the commencement of what is called the Bronze or Prehistoric Age, during which period the use of bronze implements almost entirely superseded that of polished stone weapons.
Before the Bronze Age had fairly commenced the last of the Pleistocene deposits had taken place, and the recent layers of earth had begun to distribute themselves upon the older strata; but how long a time has actually elapsed since the completion of the Pleistocene stratification has not been accurately ascertained. A rough approximation to the relative length of the Pleistocene and Prehistoric periods may be obtained from the fact that the valleys were cut down by streams flowing through them as much as a hundred feet deep in the former period, while the work done by the rivers during the latter period is measured by the insignificant fluviatile deposits close to the adjacent streams. We may, therefore, conclude that the Pleistocene era was, beyond all calculation, of longer duration than the Prehistoric. It must not be imagined from this that the Prehistoric period was a short one, for there have been a series of changes in the fauna, and a series of invasions of different races of men into Europe, which must have required a very long time to have been brought about, judging from similar changes recorded in history.