Among the bones were those of the wild bull or aurochs, beaver, seal and great auk, all now extinct or rare in this region. Moreover, a striking proof of the antiquity of these shell-heaps is that they contain full-sized shells of the common oyster, which cannot live at present in the brackish waters of the Baltic except near its entrance, the inference being that the shores where the oyster at that time flourished were open to the salt sea.
The article on Lake Dwellings brings out very clearly the fact that this, like other early stages of development, is to be found at widely different periods of time: in Switzerland, thousands of years ago; in Scotland and Ireland (see also the article Crannog, Vol. 7, p. 377) during the Christian era; and in New Guinea and Central Africa within the last few years. This is in accordance with the fact that the human race has not “matured” with equal rapidity all over the earth—that even now one race is in infancy, another in childhood, another in a transition stage like adolescence, and another in the prime of civilization.
Language
Returning to the article Anthropology, the next topic treated is Language. The more important points on this subject are stated in another chapter of this part of the Guide, on Language and Writing. Dr. Tylor says:
For all that known dialects prove to the contrary, on the one hand, there may have been one primitive language, from which the descendant languages have varied so widely, that neither their words nor their formation now indicate their unity in long past ages, while, on the other hand, the primitive tongues of mankind may have been numerous, and the extreme unlikeness of such languages as Basque, Chinese, Peruvian, Hottentot and Sanskrit may arise from absolute independence of origin. The language spoken by any tribe or nation is not of itself absolute evidence as to its race-affinities. This is clearly shown in extreme cases. Thus the Jews in Europe have almost lost the use of Hebrew, but speak as their vernacular the language of their adopted nation, whatever it may be.... In most or all nations of mankind, crossing or intermarriage of races has taken place between the conquering invader and the conquered native, so that the language spoken by the nation may represent the results of conquest as much or more than of ancestry.... On the other hand, the language of the warlike invader or peaceful immigrant may yield, in a few generations, to the tongue of the mass of the population, as the Northman’s was replaced by the French, and modern German gives way to English in the United States.
Development of Civilization
The last general topic in the article Anthropology is Development of Civilization. In connection with it the student should read the article Civilization (Vol. 6, p. 403), by Dr. H. S. Williams, editor-in-chief of The Historian’s History of the World, and particularly the first part of it dealing with early times.
Ethnology
The comparatively brief article Ethnology and Ethnography (Vol. 9, p. 849) takes up the story of man’s progress at the point where Anthropology stops, and deals particularly with the division of mankind into separate races. Was pleistocene man specifically one? The evidence to supply an answer to this question is of three kinds: anatomical, physiological and cultural and psychical. Human bones from this early period “show differences so slight as to admit of pathological or other explanation,” and do not prove that there were separate species. The physiological answer, that there was only one species, is given and explained in the article Anthropology: species cannot breed with species, and hybrids are infertile. The third answer is also in the negative. “The works of early man everywhere present the most startling resemblance.” Dr. J. C. Prichard is quoted in the article as saying that
the same inward and mental nature is to be recognized in all races of men. When we compare this fact with the observations, fully established, as to the specific instincts and separate psychical endowments of all the distinct tribes of sentient beings in the universe we are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion that all human races are of one species and one family.