Prehistoric man

by W. L. H. Duckworth

Commencing again with the fifth column of the table, the first point to notice is that no implements at all have been discovered in immediate association with the fossil remains at Mauer and Trinil (Java). Yet in the absence of evidence, it must not be concluded that the contemporary representatives of mankind were incapable of providing such testimony. Evidence will be adduced presently to show the incorrectness of such a conclusion.

In the next place, the great majority of the cave-men are associated with implements of one and the same type, viz. the Mousterian, so called from the locality (Le Moustier) which has furnished so complete an example of ancient prehistoric man.

Lastly, the Galley Hill skeleton maintains the distinctive position assigned to it, for as in the previous columns, it disagrees also here with the majority of the examples ranged near it.

If enquiry be made as to the significance, i.e. the sequence in point of time and the general status of the various types of implements mentioned in the table, it will be found that all without exception are described as of Palaeolithic type. Indeed they furnish largely the justification for the application of that term (employed so often in Chapter II) to the various skeletons described there.

To these Palaeolithic implements, others of the Neolithic types succeeded in Europe. [It is necessary to insist upon this succession as European, since palaeoliths are still in use among savage tribes, such as the aboriginal (Bush) natives of South Africa.] Confining attention to palaeoliths and their varieties, the discovery of a form alleged to fill the gap separating the most ancient Neolithic from the least ancient Palaeolithic types may be mentioned. The implements were obtained from the cave known as Le Mas d'Azil in the south of France.

In Germany, the researches of Professor Schmidt[28] in the caverns of Württemburg have revealed a series of strata distinguished not only in position and sequence but also by the successive types of stone implements related to the several horizons. The sequence may be shewn most concisely if the deposits are compared in a tabular form as follows (Table I).

These caves give the information necessary for a correct appreciation of the position of all the cave-implements in Table A. Reverting to the latter, and having regard to the cave-men, both subdivisions of Division II (cf. [Table A]) appear, but no example or representative of the earliest form (designated by Division I). The fauna is entirely Pleistocene, if we except such a trifling claim to Pliocene antiquity as may be based upon the presence of Rhinoceros merckii at Krapina.

The results of this enquiry shew therefore that genuine Mousterian implements are of Pleistocene age, that they were fabricated by human beings of a comparatively low type, who lived in caves and were by occupation hunters of deer and other large ungulate animals. So much has long been known, but the extraordinary distinctness of the evidence of superposition shewn in Professor Schmidt's work at Sirgenstein, furnishes the final proof of results arrived at in earlier days by the slow comparison of several sites representing single epochs. That work also helps to re-establish the Aurignacian horizon and period as distinctive.