Human Origins

by S. Laing

There is, however, one discovery, made since the date of these above recorded, of human work below the great basalt cap of North-Western America, brought up from a great depth of underlying gravels and sands of a silted-up lake, formerly forming part of the course of the Snake river at Nampa in Idaho, which is as startling in its way as that of the Calaveras skull. The following account of it is given on the authority of Professor Wright, who, having visited the locality in the summer of 1890, states that he found "abundant confirmatory evidence"—

The Nampa image was brought up in boring an Artesian well, at Nampa in Ada county, Idaho, through a lava-cap 15 feet thick, and below it about 200 feet of the quicksands and clays of a silted-up lake, formed in a basin of the Snake river, which joins the Columbia river, and flows into the Pacific, forming part, therefore, of the same geographical and drainage system as the Californian gravels. At this depth the borers came down to a stratum of coarse sand, mixed with clay balls at the top, and resting at the bottom on an ancient vegetable soil, and the image came up from the lower part of this coarse sand. The borer, or liner of the well, was a six-inch iron tube, and the drill was only used in piercing the lava, while the sands below it were all extracted by a sand pump. Mr. King, a respectable citizen of Nampa, who was boring the well, states that he had been for several days closely watching the progress of the well and passing through his hands the contents of the sand pump as they were brought up, so that he had hold of the image before he suspected what it was. Mr. Cumming, superintendent of that portion of the Union Pacific Railway, a highly-trained graduate of Harvard College, was on the ground next day and saw the image, and heard Mr. King's account of the discovery, and Mr. Adams, the president of the railway, happening to pass that way about a month later, he brought it to the notice of some of the foremost geologists in the United States. The image was sent to Boston by Mr. King, who gave every information, and it was found to be modelled from stiff clay, like that of the clay balls found in the sand, slightly if at all touched by fire, and incrusted like those balls with grains of oxide of iron, which Professor Putnam considers to be a conclusive proof of its great antiquity. Mr. Emmons, of the State Geological Society, gives it as his opinion that the strata in which this image is said to have been found, is older by far than any others in which human remains have been discovered, unless it be those under Table Mountain, in California, from which came the celebrated Calaveras skull. So much for the authenticity of the discovery, which seems unassailable, but now comes the remarkable feature of it, which to a great extent revolutionizes our conception of this early palæolithic age. The image, or rather statuette, which is scarcely an inch and a half long, is by no means a rude object, but on the contrary more artistic, and a better representation of the human form, than the little idols of many comparatively modern and civilized people, such as the Phœnicians. It is in fact very like the little statuettes so abundantly found in the neighbourhood of the old temple-pyramids of Mexico, which are generally believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish Conquest.

THE NAMPA IMAGE—ACTUAL SIZE.

(Drawn from the object by J. D. Woodward.)

In the face of this mass of evidence, from both the Old and New Worlds, it seems more like obstinate incredulity than scientific caution to deny the existence of Tertiary man. Indeed the objections put forward by those who still cling to the notion that any proofs of greater antiquity of man take them further back from the orthodox standpoint of Genesis, are sufficient of themselves to show the straits to which they are driven to explain the facts. A conspiracy has been imagined of many hundreds of ignorant miners, living hundreds of miles apart, to hoax scientists, or make a trade of forging implements, which is about as probable as the theory that the palæolithic remains of the Old World were all forged by the devil, and buried in Quaternary strata in order to discredit the Mosaic account of creation. It is enough to say that the great majority of the implements had been thrown away as rubbish, and that not a single instance has ever been adduced in which money was asked or offered for any of them.

Another equally wild theory is that gold-mining tunnels had been driven by some race of prehistoric Indians through hundreds of feet of solid basalt and quicksands, who left their implements in them; and this on the face of the fact that no such tunnels or evidences of ancient mining have ever been found in California, and that gold was unknown there until its recent discovery.

In accepting, however, the evidence for Tertiary man, we must accept with it conclusions which are much opposed to preconceived opinions. In the two best authenticated instances in which human skulls have been found in presumably Tertiary strata, those of Castelnedolo and Calaveras, it is distinctly stated that they present no unusual appearance, and do not go nearly as far in a brutal or pithecoid direction as the Quaternary skulls of Neanderthal and Spy, or as those of many existing savage races. The Nampa image also appears to show the existence of considerable artistic skill at a period which, if not Tertiary, must be of immense antiquity. How can this be reconciled with the theory of evolution and the descent of man from some animal ancestor common to him and the other quadrumana? Up to a certain point, viz. the earliest Quaternary period, the evidence of progression seems fairly satisfactory. If we take the general average of this class of skulls as compared with modern skulls, we find them of smaller brain-capacity, thicker and flatter, with prominent frontal sinuses, receding foreheads, projecting muzzles, and weaker chins. The brain is decidedly smaller, the average being 1150 cubic centimètres as compared with 1250 in Australians and Bushmen, and 1600 in well-developed Europeans; and of this smaller capacity a larger proportion is contained in the posterior part.[15] Other parts of the skeleton will tell the same story, and in many of the earliest and most extreme instances, as those of Neanderthal and Spy, a very decided step is made in the direction of the "missing link."

But if we accept the only two specimens known of the type of Tertiary man, the skulls of Castelnedolo and Calaveras, which are supported by such extremely strong evidence, it would seem that as we recede in time, instead of getting nearer to the "missing link," we get further from it. This, and this alone, throws doubt on evidence which would otherwise seem to be irresistible, and without a greater number of well-authenticated confirmations we must be content to hold our judgment to a certain extent in suspense. This, however, it must be remarked, extends only to the type of man as shown by these two skulls, and does not at all affect the fact that man, of some type or other, did exist in the Pliocene and Miocene periods, which is established beyond reasonable doubt by the numerous instances in which chipped implements and cut bones have been found by experienced observers, and pronounced genuine by the highest authorities.