Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Aram, Eugene" to "Arcueil" / Volume 2, Slice 4

by Various

Although many problems yet remain to be solved in England, its small area, and the relatively large number of workers, have together sufficed to put the main facts of the earlier stages of man’s existence on a fairly satisfactory basis. In France, owing to the richness of the results, a great number of trained and ardent workers have made equal, if not better, progress. But unfortunately the real scientific spirit is not invariably found. Not so long ago an apparently serious writer in a well-known scientific magazine gave a detailed account of his studies in primitive methods and explained at great length his attempts at the manufacture of flint and stone implements. He found by the processes he adopted that it was much more easy for him to produce a polished implement than one merely flaked. From this fact he seriously argued that a great mistake had been made in the relative ages of the neolithic and palaeolithic periods, and that the former must necessarily be the older of the two. The evidence of geological position and of the mammalian remains accompanying the obviously older flints was entirely disregarded, just as on the other hand it was forgotten that in regard to neolithic remains the proofs were in every way in favour of a relatively modern origin. Such attempts not only bring the serious study of early man into disrepute, but tend to retard the progress of real knowledge and are therefore to be deplored and when possible discouraged.

Caves (q.v.) have been at all periods regarded as something uncanny and mysterious, with perhaps a tinge of the supernatural. In classical times they were associated with semi-divine beings, with oracles, and even with the Cave Period. gods themselves, while half the legends of dwarfs and gnomes that run through the folk-lore of medieval and modern Europe are associated with caves. They have been used as shelters or habitations at all times, and in examining them it is fully as necessary to sift the evidence of age as it would be in dealing with the river-gravels. Their exploration in the first instance may well have been due to chance, but it is fairly certain that during the 16th century the search for the horn of the unicorn as an antidote to disease, was responsible for the opening up of a certain number. Among the finds were no doubt the fossil bones of Quaternary animals to which mythical names and imaginary properties were attached, and the popular belief in such amulets naturally gave a great impetus to the search. It is, however, only a little more than a century ago that these investigations took anything like a scientific turn, and even then they had only a palaeontological end in view. The idea that archaeology entered into the matter was not at all realized for some years. The remains of many extinct or migrated animals, such as the hyena, grizzly bear, reindeer and bison, were found in quantities in the now famous cave at Gailenreuth in Franconia; and later, William Buckland explored the equally well-known hyena-cave at Kirkdale in Yorkshire, where he demonstrated that these animals had lived on the spot, feeding on the mammoth, rhinoceros and other creatures that had been their prey. The remains of man, however, had not been found, nor were they even looked for. It was not until Kent’s cavern, near Torquay, was examined by the Rev. J. McEnery, that man was clearly proved to have been contemporary with these extinct beasts. So contrary was this contention to the ideas prevalent in the second quarter of the 19th century, that the pioneer in this work had died (in 1841) before the immense importance of his discovery was admitted. To Godwin Austen in the first place and to W. Pengelley in the second, with the aid of the British Association, was due the vindication of McEnery’s veracity and accuracy.

Several circumstances conspire to give a special interest to Kent’s cavern, and not the least is the fact that the age and appearance of the various strata indicate that it has been the home or the refuge of human beings at all ages even up to medieval times, and perhaps from a period even more remote than is the case elsewhere. In the black mould that formed the uppermost layer were found fragments of medieval pottery, and relatively in close proximity were ancient British and Roman remains as well as relics of the earliest days of metallurgy, in the shape of bronze fragments. The two thousand years or more that may have separated the oldest from the most modern of these later products, is as nothing in comparison with the immense intervals that lie between the earliest of them and the infinitely more remote period when gigantic mammals first inhabited the cave. Attempts have been made from time to time to express in years what the interval must have been: but as the computations have differed by hundreds of thousands of years, according to the method adopted, it is scarcely wise to do more than speculate. Beneath the black mould, containing what may be called the recent remains, was a layer of stalagmite, some feet in thickness; and under this at one place was a great quantity of charcoal, which has been with good reason assumed to show the site of fireplaces. A quantity of implements of palaeolithic type was found, but the main layer at this level consisted of a reddish clay known as cave-earth, and in this deposit were implements both of flint and horn, as well as bones of extinct animals. The flint implements were mostly of the usual river-drift type, but some were of types generally confined to cave-deposits of this period; while the barbed harpoon heads, and more especially a bone needle, were definitely of the cave class, so well represented in the caves of Dordogne. Again, below the cave-earth was a breccia formed of limestone and sandstone pebbles cemented together by a calcareous paste. In this also were found implements and bones of bears.

The succession of strata indicated above may be taken as typical of the caverns used by palaeolithic man, the breccia and stalagmite flooring being in themselves proof of a very considerable age, while the association in the former, or under the latter, of remains of human handiwork, with bones of extinct animals, may be safely taken to show contemporaneous existence.

Once the mind has fairly grasped the fact that man was living at so remote a time, it is a simple and natural conclusion that he should have provided himself with weapons and tools more or less rudely fashioned from the stones he found ready to his hand. The analogy of the recently extinct Tasmanian is sufficient to show that even the meanest savage is not without such aids. But the caves of France, of the same palaeolithic period, and used by men theoretically in the same stage of culture, bring before us a race of artists of first-rate capacity, who for accuracy of observation, and for skill in indicating the character and peculiarities of the animals around them, have never been surpassed. Such a statement sounds like a contradiction in terms. We are dealing with human beings whose intellect, to judge by their physical characters, should be on a level with that of the Fuegian or the Australian black, and far below that of the Maori or the Sandwich Islander. Yet none of these gentle and relatively cultured brown races produced anything in the nature of art that can in any sense be compared with the masterly drawings or sculptures of the cave-men of France. The best-known of the engravings, that of the mammoth on a piece of ivory, is in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. It is evidently intended to be nothing more than a sketch, the lines of the finely curved tusks being repeated several times in the desire for accuracy. But the heavy lumbering walk of the ponderous beast, his attitude, and even the character of the hairy hide, are all shown or suggested with a skill and freedom that not only denotes daily familiarity with the thing represented, but a most complete mastery of the art of translating the idea into simple line. This mammoth-drawing is probably the most important and monumental of its class, but there are many others that possess artistic qualities not less remarkable, while they have in addition a grace and beauty of line not less astonishing. One of these, in the British Museum, the head of an ibex-like creature, is outlined with a decision and refinement that can scarcely be surpassed, and many other sketches in horn or stone in the same collection show a keen appreciation of the characteristic features of the different animals as well as a masterly deftness in the handling of the graving-tool. If we are forced to marvel at the graphic skill of the cave-men, their sculptures in the round are on a still higher plane, as may be seen in the figures of reindeer in ivory in the British Museum. While they are not highly finished, they show a complete understanding of the animal’s peculiar forms and contours, which are rendered in a direct, unhesitating way that should betoken a long period of artistic training and an executive power uncommon at any time. These drawings and sculptures have always been appreciated and even regarded as being of a much more advanced style than was to be expected among men who are always classed in the lower grades of culture. But enough stress has not hitherto been laid on the artistic quality of the work, which would be considered fine at any time in the world’s history. This high artistic level was attained by a race of men whom we cannot credit with any great intellectual equipment; men, moreover, who were engaged in a daily struggle for the barest necessaries of life, in a trying climate and surrounded by a fauna whose means of attack and defence were infinitely superior to their own. There are many astonishing problems in archaeology, but none so badly in need of solution. Had the discovery been confined to a single drawing or even to a single site, fraud or a misreading of the conditions might have been alleged, but the case is very different. The drawings and sculptures have been found generally enough in France to demonstrate that such artistic power was fairly common, while the question of the authenticity and period of the discoveries has long since been satisfactorily settled. It is true that the climatic conditions in pleistocene France were more favourable to man than was the case farther north, but even an agreeable climate does not necessarily produce an artistic race; if it were so, the Polynesians would probably be the greatest artists the world has ever seen. The physical remains of palaeolithic man, even when found under unquestionable conditions, are, however, so scanty, that it is unlikely that the important question of the race or races inhabiting central and northern Europe will ever be settled by their means. The evidence at present is in favour of two very different types, one dwarfish and brutal (Canstadt), the other more advanced and noble in physical character (Cro-Magnon). To the latter were due the artistic productions, and until further physical evidence is forthcoming recourse must be had to the most minute examination of the objects themselves and to accurate observation of the conditions under which they are found. So far as our present materials go, these are the only means by which more light may be thrown on the many problems of early man.

In spite of the unquestioned and unquestionable character of palaeolithic discoveries in general, it must not be assumed that there has been an absence of falsification, forgery, and what the French call “mystification”; on the contrary, such attempts to meet the demand have been common enough. Apart from Edward Simpson, who was notorious as “Flint Jack” in the middle of the 19th century, many others, both in England and on the continent of Europe, have devoted themselves to this peculiar industry. Boucher de Perthes tried to conquer the scepticism of some of his friends who doubted the human origin of the Abbeville flints, by unwisely offering his workmen a reward for the discovery of human bones in the same beds. The Moulin Quignon jaw was accordingly produced, and became the subject of much controversy; but the evidence finally showed that it had originally come from elsewhere. The cave drawings also have found their imitators in modern times. One Meillet, a man of education, took a special pleasure in the production of spurious examples, and even published an account of his pretended discoveries. But here, as in all the attempts at imitation of the cave drawings, the modern efforts were betrayed by their poor artistic quality, and a comparison of the new discoveries with the old was generally enough to disclose the forgery. Two drawings on bone of a wolf and a bear, declared to have been found in a cave at Thayingen in Switzerland, were afterwards shown to have been copied from a child’s picture-book. In Switzerland also a brisk trade was carried on some years ago in false antiquities said to come from the Lake-dwellings; and fantastic types of tools and implements were placed on the market. In Italy, too, a lively discussion has taken place of late years over the authenticity of curiously shaped flint implements from the neighbourhood of Verona; while America has provided similar food for discussion in the well-known Lenapé stone and the Calaveras skull. The former bears drawings of the French cave type, while the latter if genuine would carry back the story of man in the American continent before Pliocene times.

An apparent break in the continuity of man’s history in Europe occurs at the end of the palaeolithic period. Attempts have been made to bridge the gap by means of a “mesolithic” period (μέσος, middle); but it would Mesolithic. not seem probable that the missing links will occur at all events so far north as Britain. We leave palaeolithic man in a cold climate, surrounded by a somewhat mixed fauna that formed his prey. We know him as a hunter and artist, but the remains show that he had no knowledge of pottery till towards the close of the period. Among the humbler arts he practised at least sewing, and lived in caves or took shelter at the base of overhanging rocks; but like the Australian, he frequently camped in the open. His successor of the later Stone Age (neolithic) we find to be a very different character and with very different surroundings. The configuration of the land in which he lived is practically the same as we now see it. The severe arctic conditions with the appropriate fauna had entirely disappeared, and the introduction of new arts must have radically changed his daily life. The most important of these are the training of domestic animals, agriculture, and the development of pottery. What were the burial rites of palaeolithic man we have at present no means of knowing, but for his neolithic successor we know that these were matters of great moment. The abundance of arrowheads of flint indicate the common use of the bow and arrow as a weapon, while the art of weaving marks an immense stride in the direction of comfort and civilization. Of the form and construction of his dwelling we have only a limited knowledge, derived with some uncertainty from the analogy of the dwellings for the dead (barrows) and more certainly from the remains of the villages found erected on piles on the shores of lakes.

A much-debated question arises here that cannot be passed over. The changes just mentioned are not such as would be produced by internal causes alone. Much of the evidence is in favour of neolithic man being an immigrant, coming into northern and central Europe long after palaeolithic man and his characteristic fauna had disappeared. Where did the earlier race go and who are its modern representatives, if any? The answers to this question are many. W. Boyd Dawkins is of opinion that the reindeer was followed by man in its journey to the north after the retreating glaciers, and that the modern representative of palaeolithic man is the Eskimo. His arguments are ingenious but unconvincing; they mainly consist in the similarity of the habits of both races in using harpoons and implements of similar form and make, their power of carving and drawing on bone, the absence of pottery, disregard of the dead, &c. As to the positive evidence, it is almost enough to say that the Eskimo, like the cave-men, used the material nearest to hand that served their purpose, and that nothing is more remarkable than the similarity of primitive weapons used by widely separated peoples; while the negative evidence as to the absence of pottery is of little value; their conditions of life would allow them neither to make it nor keep it. Till recently we had no evidence at all of the treatment of the dead by palaeolithic man, but this is no longer the case; the discoveries in the Grottes de Grimaldi, Monaco, show several methods of burial, near a hearth, or in rude stone cists (see Dr Verneau in L’Anthropologie, xvii. 291). A stronger argument would be furnished if it could be shown that by his physical character the Eskimo is an intruder in his present home, and is unrelated to his neighbours. But this has not yet been done, and the skulls of the Eskimo do not resemble any of those hitherto found in the caves. In fact, what evidence there is on the subject is rather against than in favour of the wanderings northward of the inhabitants of the caves. There are indications, on the other hand, that in the south of France, in the Pyrenees, the reindeer was in existence, with man, at a later period than that of the caves, while the type of skull is that of Cro-Magnon. Here, therefore, it may be that something like a bridging of the gap between palaeolithic and neolithic times may be forthcoming. But it still remains to be found, and for the present we must be content with uncertainty.

The neolithic period has often been loosely called the age of polished stone, from the fact that in no case has a polished or ground stone implement been found in a palaeolithic deposit. The term is not only loose but inaccurate. Neolithic. In the first place, there is no reason why the cave-men should not be found to have polished a stone implement on occasion, for they habitually polished their weapons of bone. Secondly, neolithic man was by no means uniform in his methods; he polished or ground the surfaces of such tools or weapons as would be improved by the process; but to take a common instance, he found that the efficacy of his arrow-point was sufficient when chipped only, and polishing is only occasionally found, as in Ireland. Many other implements also are found in neolithic times with no trace of grinding and yet with every appearance of being complete.

The most trustworthy evidence with regard to this and the succeeding archaeological periods is to be found in the grave-mounds. For the earlier part of the neolithic age, however, these are by no means fruitful of relics. From their shape they are called in England “long barrows” to distinguish them from the round barrows which belong to a succeeding time, though evidence is being accumulated to show that this division is not of universal application. Long barrows are by no means of such frequent occurrence in Britain as the round variety; they are most common in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Dorset, and occur as far north as Caithness. Some of them contain within the mound a stone chamber, at times with a gallery leading to it, and in the chamber the interment or interments took place. Similar barrows have been found on the continent of Europe, and both in Britain and abroad have one feature in common, viz. that no metal, with possibly the exception of gold, has ever been found in them. This similarity of burial custom, though it may conceivably indicate intercourse, certainly does not prove identity of race, as has been sometimes claimed. The type of skulls found in the interment is clear evidence against such an assumption.