The Meeting-Place of Geology and History

by Sir John William Dawson

The palanthropic age came to a tragic end, and is somewhat definitely separated from that which succeeded it. This appears from several considerations which are too often overlooked by writers who have a prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by slow degrees into that by which it is followed—an exaggerated uniformitarianism beyond that of Lyell, but in harmony with the hypothesis of Darwin, to which many anthropologists appear to tie themselves hopelessly.

Three facts are here specially important. The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races are physically different from any modern races, and give place at the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them as any now existing, and who, on the other hand, while separated from the palæocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern times. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may to this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt or Cro-magnon type. These are good evidences of the unity of man through all the ages, but no race exists having all the peculiarities of these ancient peoples, which thus belong not to a distinct species but to a distinct racial variety of man.

Secondly, at the close of the palanthropic age we find a great change in land animals—a number of important species hunted by early man having disappeared, and the more meagre modern fauna having come in at once. Thus it may be affirmed that the land fauna of this primitive time was distinct from that now living. This implies either long time or a great physical break.

Thirdly, this change of fauna consists not so much in the introduction of new species as in the extinction of old forms, either absolutely or locally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since it seems to be a law of the geological succession that increasing land brings in new land animals; diminishing land area leads to extinction, and not to introduction.

Fourthly, in accordance with this we find that, at the close of the palanthropic age, the continents of the northern hemisphere experienced a subsidence from which they have only partially recovered up to the present time, and which introduced the modern geographical and climatal features. This appears from raised beaches and beds of rubble, loam and loess of modern date overlying the débris of the glacial period and holding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread over the whole northern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to high levels. An interesting illustration has recently been given by Dr. Nuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen. [25] These show an overlying deposit with 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble and loam destitute of human remains, and below this a bed containing bone implements, worked flints, and traces of cookery of the palanthropic period. The whole rests on a bed of rolled pebbles, supposed to be the upper part of the glacial deposits. This shows the interval between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods, and also the post-glacial date of man in Switzerland, and it accords with a great many other instances.

[25] Nouvelles archives des Missions, &c. vol. iii. Noticed in Natural Science, 1893.

Were these changes sudden or gradual? Experience has no answer, for no similar events have occurred in historic times, and though there are records in the geological history of many mutations in the elevation of the land, we have no information as to their rate of progress, and we know little of their causes. The changes of this kind known to us in modern times are merely local, not general, and in regard to their rate are of two kinds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake shocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic activity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible, and are often of wider distribution. It is evident, however, that these slight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of past periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas. We have no modern instances of these almost world-wide depressions of continents under the sea, though we know that these have occurred, one of them within the human period, and it is idle to speculate as to their rate or duration in the absence of facts. We know pretty certainly, however, from the gauges of time which can be applied to the close of the glacial period, that this latest subsidence must have occurred within six thousand years of our time.

With reference to the particular movement in question, we know that the close of the palanthropic period was accompanied by a movement at least equal to the difference between the wide lands of the second continental period and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we find on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess and plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable elevation, and evidences, as in Siberia, of large herds of animals perishing on elevated lands on which they seem to have taken refuge. [26] In short, no geological fact can be better established than the post-glacial subsidence.

[26] Prestwich, 'Evidence of Submergence of Western Europe,' Trans. Royal Society, 1893; 'Possible Cause for the Origin of the Tradition of the Flood,' Trans. Vict. Inst., 1894; Dawkins, Journal Anthrop. Inst., February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (Nature, November 10, 1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to extend far upward on the Caspian plain and the Pamirs, so that all Asia must have been submerged within a very recent period. See also Fossil Man, by the author, 1880.