We see, therefore, that the opinion propounded by Dr. Schaaffhausen at the commencement of his studies was not able to stand its ground before the opposition resulting from subsequent labours on the point; and that this head of a man belonging to the epoch of the great bear and mammoth, which he regarded as manifesting the most limited amount of intelligence, differed in no way from the heads belonging to Celts of historic times, whose moral qualities and manly courage make Frenchmen proud to call themselves their descendants.
We need scarcely add that the examination of this latter skull, which dated back to the first origin of mankind, is sufficient to set at naught all that has been written as to the pretended analogy of structure existing between primitive man and the ape, and to wipe out for ever from scientific phraseology the improper and unhappy term fossil man, which has not only been the cause of so many lamentable misunderstandings, but has also too long arrested the formation and the progress of the science of the first starting-point of man.
Other remains of human skulls, appearing to date back to a very ancient epoch, have been found in various countries, since the discovery of those above-named. We will mention, a jaw-bone found by M. Édouard Dupont in the cave of Naulette, near Dinant, in Belgium—a frontal and parietal bone, extracted from the Lehm in the valley of the Rhine, at Eggisheim near Colmar, by Dr. Faudel—a skull found by Professor Bocchi, of Florence, in the Olmo pass, near Arezzo—lastly, the celebrated jaw-bone from Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville, found in 1863 by Boucher de Perthes, in the diluvium, of which bone we have given an illustration in the introduction to this volume. It is acknowledged by all anthropologists that this portion of the skull of the man of Moulin-Quignon bears a perfect resemblance to that of a man of small size of the present age.
From the small number of skulls which we possess, it is impossible for us to estimate what was the precise degree of intelligence to be ascribed to man at the epoch of the great bear and mammoth. No one, assuredly, will be surprised at the fact, that the human skull in these prodigiously remote ages did not present any external signs of great intellectual development. The nature of man is eminently improvable; it is, therefore, easily to be understood, that in the earliest ages of his appearance on the earth his intelligence should have been of a limited character. Time and progress were destined both to improve and extend it; the flame of the first-lighted torch was to be expanded with the lapse of centuries!
II.
Epoch of the Reindeer, or of Migrated Animals.
[CHAPTER I.]
Mankind during the Epoch of the Reindeer—Their Manners and Customs—Food—Garments—Weapons, Utensils, and Implements—Pottery—Ornaments—Primitive Arts—The principal Caverns—Type of the Human Race during the Epoch of the Reindeer.
We have now arrived at that subdivision of the stone age which we designate by the name of the Reindeer Epoch, or the Epoch of migrated animals. Many ages have elapsed since the commencement of the quaternary geological epoch. The mighty animals which characterised the commencement of this period have disappeared, or are on the point of becoming extinct. The great bear (Ursus spelæus) and the cave-hyæna (Hyæna spelæa) will soon cease to tread the soil of our earth. It will not be long before the final term will be completed of the existence of the cave-lion (Felis spelæa), the mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus. Created beings diminish in size as they improve in type.