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Author
Title
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MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Part of a painting in the Cueva del
Civil, Valltorta Gorge, Castellon,
Spain.
ANDRE SENET
Man in Search
of his
Ancestors
THE ROMANCE OF PALEONTOLOGY
TRANSLATED BY
MALCOLM BARNES
LOJVDOIV
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSK INT HOUSE MUSEUM STREET
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1955
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of
private study, research, criticism or review as per-
mitted under the Copyright Act, 1911, no portion
may be reproduced by any process without written
permission. Enquiry should be made to the publisher.
George Allen & UnmnLtd, 1955
Translated from the original French
IOMME A LA RECHERCHE DE SES
(Published by Librairie Plon, "P&ti^ 1954)
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
in 1 1 point Garamond type
BY THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS LTD
TONBRIDGE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: The Monkey's Revenge P a g e *
PART ONE : At the Cradle of Humanity
i: The Customs Officer and the Academy of
Science 1 1
ii : The Hunt for Fossil Man 3 3
in: Prehistoric Art and Life 61
iv : From African Apes to Modern Nations 98
PART TWO : Our Ancestors the Fishes
v : The Assault of the Continents 137
vi : In the Days of the Reptiles 152
vn : The Penultimate Conquest of the World 184
PART THREE i The Why and How of the History of
Life
vni : The Indisputable Evolution of the Living
World 213
ix : Life, the Queen of the Seas 233
<t
x : Life, the Daughter of Light 243
EPILOGUE * 262
INDEX 269
QUATERNARY (1 MILLION YE>
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HOMO SAPIENS
PITHECANTHROPUS
SINANTHROPUS
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200
PLIOCENE
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DRYOPITHECUS
AUSTRALOPITHECUS
PLlOPITHECUS
PROCONSUL
PROPLIOPITHECUS
PARAPITHECUS
MESOHIPPUS
CAMELIDAE
PHENACODUS
fPROTOCERATOPS ^
TYRANNOSAURUS
< TRICERATOPS >ETC.
I DINOSAURS
LHESPERORNIS J
fARCHAEOPTERYX ^
I ALLOSAURUS I ETC.
1 STEGOSAURUS f
LBRONTOSAURUS )
ICHTHYOSAURUS
ORNITHOSUCHUS
CROCODILUS
AMMONITES
PROTOBATRACHUS
ORNITHORHYNCUS
DIMETRODON
SEYMOURIA
LABYRINTHODONTS
CROSSOPTERYGII
DIPNOI
PLACODERMI
RHIP1DISTIA
JAYMOYT1US
OSTRACHODERMS
GRAPTOL1TES
SPONGIAE, COELENTERATA
GIGANTOSTRACES
TRILOBITES
MIOCENE
P
OLIGOCENE
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EOCENE
CRETACEOUS
MESOZOIC OR SECONDARY
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:OGNIZABL
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MARINE
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VERABLE
ITERATES
MARINE
LIFE WELL
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JURASSIC
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Z
PERMIAN
PALEOZOIC OR PRIMARY
8
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-400
SILURIAN
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-500
CAMBRIAN
PRECAMBRIAN (OR ARCHEAN) 1500 MILLION YEARS ?
MOLLUSCS CRUSTACEANS
WORMS
PLATES
Frontispiece: Part of a painting in Cueva del Civil, Castellon,
Spain
1. Jacques Boucher de Perthes ; Edouard Lartet f ac ^ n &P a & e 3^
2. Comparison of the skulls of Australopithecus and a chimpanzee 37
3. Skull of a Pekin man; Reconstruction of the skull of the
Java man 5 2
4. Jaw of the Mauer man 5 3
5. Skull of the Cro-Magnon man 68
6. Grave of a Cro-Magnon man 69
7. Reconstruction of the facial muscles of the Neanderthal man 84
8. Aurignacian polychrome painting from Lascaux 85
9. Magdalenian polychrome painting; superimposed paintings
from Font- de-Gaume 132
10. Armoured fish of the Devonian period 133
11. Professor Millot with the first preserved Coelacanth; the
pectoral fin of a Coelacanth 148
12. Tyrannosaunts, carnivorous reptile of the Cretaceous;
Diniohyrus, Miocene 'boars' 149
13. Megaceros y deer contemporary with earliest man; Mastodon,
elephant type from some millions of years ago 156
14. A Jurassic landscape 157
CHARTS AND TABLES
PAGE
Table of Geological Time vi
Comparison between Men and Anthropoids 109
Sequence of the first Apes in
Attempt at a Genealogical Tree of Man 122
Comparison between Fish and Choanichthyes 149
Principal Lines of the Secondary Reptiles, etc. 163
Dauvillier and Desguin Theory 255
Genealogical Tree of the Living World 260
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
FIG. PAGE
1. Thunder-stones, or ceraunites, from Mercati's book Metal-
lotheca Vaticana 12
2. Skeleton of a giant salamander, long thought to be the
skeleton of a prehistoric man 22
3. Mammoth engraved on mammoth bone, discovered by
Lartet 26
4. Formation of hanging river terraces 29
5. Prehistoric fauna as seen by prehistoric man: woolly rhino-
ceros wounded by arrows 30
6. Prehistoric fauna : reindeer 31
7. Prehistoric fauna: lassoed horse 31
8. Prehistoric fauna : male bison 32
9. The top of the Neanderthal skull 38
10. The Island of Java and the site of the Pithecanthropus
discoveries 43
11. The skeleton of the Neanderthal man, as reconstructed by
Boule 47
12. Comparison of the skulls of Sinanthropus, the Neanderthal
man and modern man 5 1
1 3 . The skull of Australopithecus africanus 5 3
14. Comparison of the pelvises of Australopithecus and a South
African native 5 7
15. The roof-painting in the Altamira cave 61
1 6. Mammoth engraved on a rock wall (Laugerie-Haute,
Dordogne) ' 62
17. The evolution of painting methods during the Aurignacian 67
1 8. Polychrome bison in relief (La Madeleine, Dordogne) 68
19. Mammoths fighting (Laugerie-Haute, Dordogne) 69
20. Female reindeer with young (La Madeleine) 69
21. Bull (Teyj at, Dordogne) 69
22. The famous fighting reindeer of Font-de-Gaume 70
23. The prehistoric ' f pin-up' discovered by Miss Garrod at
Angles-sur-P Anglin 7 1
24. A 'baton de commandemm? (La Madeleine) 73
25. End of a spear-thrower decorated with a black-cock (Le
Mas d'Azil) 73
26. Engraved 'baton de commandemenf (La Madeleine) 73
ix
x ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
FIG. PAGE
27. Man disguised as an animal, with reindeer (Trois-Freres) 74
28. Trapped mammoth (Font-de-Gaume) 75
29. Sorcerer in a boar's mask (Trois-Freres, Haute-Garonne) 75
30. Stag facing a trap (Les Combarelles, Dordogne) 75
31. Bouquetin wounded by an arrow (Niaux, Ari&ge) 77
32. Lassoed reindeer (Les Combarelles) 77
33. Hunting a wild boar (Agua Amarga, Spain) 78
34. Stag wounded by a shower of arrows or spears (Pena de
Candamo, Spain) 78
35. Wounded bison (Marsoulas, French Pyrenees) 80
36. The 'Venus' of Laugerie-Basse 80
37. Small engraved human figure from Laugerie-Basse 80
38. Small sketch of a human being (leaving for a hunt?) (La
Madeleine) 81
39. Types of eolith 85
40. The roughly cut flint nodules of the AbbevilHan 86
41. Faces and profiles of the Acheulian 'limandes' 87
42. Implement types of the Mousterian 87
43. Implement types of the Levalloisian 88
44. Implement types of the Aurignacian 88
45. Implement types of the Solutrian 89
46. Implement types of the Magdalenian 90
47. Specimen of a skull that very probably was deliberately
trepanned 95
48. Lower jaw of Parapithecus 99
49. Lower jaw of Propliopithecus 100
50. Spectral tarsier, Tarsius, from the East Indies 102
51. Ring-tailed ILemur, from Madagascar 103
52. Anatomical differences between a human skull and an
anthropoid skull 105
53. Anatomical differences between the dental arcades of
anthropoid and man 106
54. Diagnostic anatomical differences in the pelvises of
anthropoid and man 107
5 5 . The Mauer jaw-bone 115
56. Neanderthal skulls, backward, average and advanced 117
57. The implements of the Mesolithic 129
58. The enigmatical coloured pebbles from Mas d'Azil 129
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT xi
FIG. PAGE
59. Coelacanth, showing the fins that have the rudiments of the
feet of terrestrial vertebrates 141
60. The three types of foot in vertebrates 142
61. One of the best known of Devonian fishes : Osteolepis 146
62. One of the first vertebrates to set foot on dry land:
Ichthyostega 147
6 3 . A primitive vertebrate : Eryops 1 5 o
64. Qrnithohstes capturing the first known bird, Archaopteryx 153
65 . Mesosaurus, marine reptile of the Cretaceous 155
66. Tyrannosaurus, one of the most formidable of Cretaceous
carnivores 156
67. Triceratops, a reptile of the Cretaceous 157
68. A vital reptile 'invention' : the shell egg 160
69. Seymouria, one of the first animals to lay shell eggs 161
70. Pelvises and jaws of Saurischia and Ornithischia 165
71. An ostrich without feathers: the reptile Struthiomimus 166
72. Nasal ornaments of the duck-billed dinosaurs 168
72a. Direction of air passage in the endless nostrils of Para-
sauro tophus 168
73. Pachycephalosaurus y with a brain the size of a marble 169
74. Stegosaurus of the Jurassic 170
75. The three brains of Stegosaurus 170
76. Ankylosaurus, the most heavily armoured of the Cretaceous
reptiles 171
77. Protoceratops: several of its egg-filled nests have been found
in Mongolia f 171
78. Comparison of the wings of flying reptiles, birds and flying
mammals 174
79. Pteranodon and Rhamphorhyncus, flying reptiles of the
Cretaceous 176
80. The first of the birds with teeth: Archaopteryx 177
8 1. Diatryma, a giant bird of the Tertiary 177
82. Genealogical tree of the turtle 179
83. An ammonite, a typical mollusc of the Secondary seas 180
84. Cuvier's opossum 1 84
85. Cuvier's reconstructions of the mammals in the Mont-
martre gypsum 189
86. Dicynodon, half reptile and half mammal 194
xii ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
FIG. PAGE
87. Dimetrodon^ a carnivorous reptile with some mammalian
features 195
88. Moscbops, a curious reptile with clearly differentiated teeth 196
89. The articulation of the jaw in reptiles and mammals 199
90. Ornithorhyncus and Echidna 200
91 . The jaw of one of the first mammals : Plagiaulax 201
92. Progressive complicating of the molar surface of herbivores 202
93. Phenacodus, the ancestor of numerous mammals 203
94. Progressive reduction of the number of toes in the ancestry
of the horse 203
95 . Mesohlppus y an ancestor of the horse 204
96. Progressive reduction in the number of teeth in certain
carnivores 205
97. Brontops, an attempt in the direction of the rhinoceros type 206
98. Megacamelus^ an ancestor of the camel 207
99. Alticamelus, another ancestor of the camel 207
100. Paleomastodon, one of the first elephants 207
101. Glyptodon^ a sort of giant armadillo 208
1 02. Megatherium ', a giant edentate 209
103. Reconstruction of Protobatrachus 225
104. The first phases in the development of the egg of inver-
tebrates and vertebrates 237
105. Very simplified sketch of a graptolite colony 240
1 06. ]aymoy <tius, an ancestor of the vertebrates 241
107. The oxygen cycle 248
1 08. The nitrogen cycle 249
109. The carbon cycle 250
1 10. The interdependence of the living world 251
INTRODUCTION
The Monkey's Revenge
SATURDAY, November zist, 1953, was for the great majority of
Londoners a Saturday of no importance : the weather was gloomy,
the sky was low, the red omnibuses crowded the centre of the city,
signs glittered in Piccadilly Circus, and starlings twittered in
Trafalgar Square. Nothing had changed.
Nevertheless, it was no ordinary Saturday. Aloof from all this
activity, down in the west, not far from the quiet spaces of Ken-
sington Gardens, a number of laboratory assistants were busy
under the direction of a departmental head. The next day, being a
Sunday, there would be many visitors to the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington, the children more numerous than
the adults. Now, on the morning of November 2ist there had
appeared the usual monthly bulletin of the geological department
of the Natural History Museum, and in a few lines this contained
a sensational communication that had left the majority of its
readers flabbergasted and had raised a cry of triumph from a few
others. For forty years the scientists had been hoaxed and the
Piltdown man was really nothing but a fake. Its jaw, which had
been regarded as a true antiquity, was no more and no less than
the jawbone of an ape - an orang-utan or a chimpanzee - that had
probably been alive at the beginning of the century in the reign
of the good King Edward VII.
That is why, in the ground-floor galleries of the museum, on
the left, some twenty yards from the entrance, they were in a
hurry to change the glass case where the casts of the Piltdown man
were displayed, These specimens, hitherto regarded as being about
40,000 years old, had been under investigation by one of the
world's most celebrated anatomists, Professor W. le Gros Clark.
For the second time in four years, the lower jaw, the solitary
canine and the fragments of the cranium had been subjected to the
merciless test of microchemical examination. They did not emerge
2 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
with credit. On the first occasion, in 1949, it had been necessary
to rate the Piltdown fossil considerably younger than was thought.
It was not from 75 to 100,000 years old, but 40,000 at the very
most. On the second occasion it was necessary to rate it even
lower: at least a part of the fossil had been faked. And there was
reason for the excitement, for the bomb had been thrown by three
world-famous scientists. It was Dr. Weiner of the Department of
Anatomy at the University of Oxford who 'belled the cat 5 and
energetically demanded a re-examination of the bones, and it was
his chief, the famous Professor le Gros Clark, and Dr. Oakley, a
well-known prehistorian on the staff of the Natural History
Museum, who had closely collaborated in this revaluation.
But who was this venerable person, this pillar of the museum,
casts and photos of whose bones had been sent around the world
so that they might be submitted to the pitiless criticism of the
experts? This Piltdown man is more than a humble fiameless
fossil. He is a veritable symbol. By the studies, discussions and
even the disputes he has provoked, he shows us, probably better
than any other fossil, the exciting hunt which man has carried on
in search of his ancestors; moreover, he shamelessly reveals both
the strength and weakness of paleontology, and of all the natural
sciences in a more general way.
So on this notable Saturday of November zist, 1953, the
prehistorians took their revenge on the Piltdown man. The brief
article which brought about his fall would scarcely have attracted
attention if the newspapers in Britain, Europe and America had
not devoted to him some lengthy articles that were decorated with
a few quite misleading caricatures. For forty-eight hours radio and
television sought out the prehistorians in order to drag them
before the microphone. Queen Elkabeth might be leaving for her
174-day tour of the world, the French National Assembly might
be carrying on a noisy debate about the European Army, and the
police investigations into the triple murder at Lurs might be in
full swing; but all these events had to share the front page of the
newspapers with headlines that announced the exposure of the
greatest scientific fraud of the half-century. A few old bits of bone
and a few worn teeth were enough to stampede the journalists.
Articles and interviews about these rusty remains, hitherto known
only to experts, were hastily concocted.
Yet the excitement was surprising. One would like to be sure
THE MONKEY'S REVENGE 3
that the journalists and radio-reporters were not obeying some
unconscious impulse; and after careful reflection I think that the
layman has seen in this affair an opportunity to take his revenge
on the scientists. Nuclear physics threatens us with its explosions,
and palaeontology has had to pay for the damage done by splitting
the atom. Moreover, there is the curious fact that on the very day
the Piltdown fraud was exposed, one of the most eminent atomic
scientists in America, Dr. Robt. Oppenheimer, reported the dis-
covery of new nuclear particles and stated that our knowledge of
this realm of physics might be greatly upset thereby.
And all this because a very clever forger - it is still impossible to
say exactly who he was, but it was possibly Mr. Dawson himself -
had, by the skilful use of a file and a small bottle of potassium
bichromate, disguised the bone of an ape as a human fossil. It is
worth giving some attention to the matter, for in the end it raises
the problem of the origin of man and, by inference, of the origins
of life on the earth, forcing one at the same time to question the
confidence that can be placed in the prehistoric discoveries which
are used for their interpretation.
According to the story that had so far been accepted, it all began
in a quite commonplace fashion one summer day in 1908. A little
man of 44 years, with curling moustaches and bowler hat, was
walking quietly along a quiet road in the County of Sussex, in
the neighbourhood of Uckfield. He had almost arrived at the
village of Fletching and had just passed quite close to a farm
belonging to the hamlet of Piltdown. He suddenly stopped,
stepped back a few paces and reflected. He had just noticed that
certain parts of the road had been repaired wifh small flat, reddish
gravel which he did not know existed in that locality. Now Mr.
Charles Dawson, a solicitor of Newhaven, was also a keen
amateur in 'things of the past*. He was interested in archeology
and geology, and he had a very definite weakness for palaeonto-
logy. Always on the lookout for a discovery, he soon questioned
the workmen and learned that the gravel came from a small quarry
nearby; he asked if anyone had found any bones there and
obtained a promise that if any should turn up he would be advised
at once.
Soon the foreman in charge of the work on the farm (so the
story goes) gave him a small fragment of a flat bone that was
reddish like the gravel, so like the gravel in fact that one could well
4 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
believe that the greater part of the Piltdown skull was lost simply
because the rust had been so abundantly deposited as to make it
practically impossible for a layman to distinguish between bone
and gravel. It seemed, moreover, that the workmen had on one
occasion broken 'a sort of large coconut', as one of them said,
without having paid the least attention to it. The forger who had
made the jawbone had known how to produce this reddish
coloration with diabolical skill.
The bone which the foreman had just given Mr. Dawson was
part of the cranium; it was a fragment of the left parietal, that is to
say, a fragment of one of those two roughly rectangular bones
which form the top of the head, stretching side by side
between the forehead and the nape and fitting together with little
pointed teeth in such a way as to trace a sinuous line - the
parietal join - that separates the brain-pan into left and right
halves.
After this first discovery, irresistibly drawn by the Piltdown
gravel pits, Charles Dawson returned to them again and again.
But for three years his tenacity went unrewarded. There was
nothing to be found in the gravel. In 1911 he himself started to
poke about in a small pile of gravel dumped beside the pit. He
extracted from it another fragment of parietal bone. Here is a
point which it is important to stress straight away : the two frag-
ments of parietal bone were never found properly embedded in a
particular geological layer; they were found among the material
that had been excavated and this was the case with all the remains
of the Piltdown man discovered thereafter. This was one of the
principal arguments used by its adversaries in discussion concern-
ing the fossil.
However, after this further discovery, Charles Dawson hesi-
tated no longer. He contacted an expert at London's Natural
History Museum, Professor Arthur Smith Woodward, the palae-
ontologist. The two of them engaged some workmen, obtained
the necessary permission, and in the spring of 1912 began to
search the little quarry carefully. They extracted several scraps of
skull and the right half of a jaw-bone. Woodward at once under-
took the complete reconstruction of the skull on the basis of the
few fragments he possessed and found that the volume of the
brain, at 1,070 c.c., was a little less than that of modern man.
Here, therefore, was man's ideal ancestor: man at the dawn of
THE MONKEY'S REVENGE 5
humanity. For this reason Woodward named him Eoanthropus
Damoni.
The volume of the brain is known to experts as 'cranial capa-
city' and is expressed in cubic centimetres. Generally, it is between
1,400 and 1,600 c.c. in men and between 1,300 and 1,450 c.c. in
women. While stating the volume of the brain it gives at the same
time some indication of the degree of intelligence, although many
other facts also come into play. Nevertheless, if this cranial
capacity makes a comparison between the ancestors of man, the
men of to-day, and the larger apes possible, it cannot be used in
comparisons between man and other animals since the size of the
animal is then involved, a factor which may falsify the results.
However that may be, on December i8th, 1912, Smith Wood-
ward and Charles Dawson made a resounding communication to
the Geological Society of London and showed its members the
various bones that had been extracted from the quarry. Feelings
ran high in scientific circles and amongst the public. The more
important newspapers seized upon the discovery, just as 40 years
later they were to seize upon the fall of the Piltdown man. For in
1912 the matter was important to Englishmen. This was the first
time a fossil ancestor of modern man had been discovered in
England, while France, Germany and Belgium already had several
such fossils. And this fossil, this ancient citizen of the British Isles,
provided (or so most people thought) a very fine missing-link
between apes and man, but with an ape's jaw he had just upset all
the accepted ideas of 50 years concerning human evolution. The
affair became a sensation. Tourists flocked to Piltdown and the
local inn - which had changed its commonplace sign of The l^amb
for one with much greater publicity value, The Piltdown Man - did
a lot of trade.
But the great quarrel of the Piltdown man had only just begun.
The French, proud of having seen the birth of the science of pre-
history on their own soil, and the Americans, who, in default of
possessing any venerable prehuman remains at home, were
already taking an interest in Western Europe, at once took up a
position opposed to the English. For them the matter was not in
doubt: bones of two different individuals (by the greatest chance,
certainly!) happened to be found so close together that they were
mistaken for parts of the skeleton of one individual. Unfortunately
the same coincidence was to be repeated in 1915, when Dawson
6 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
found, about two miles from the first quarry, a few pieces of skull
and a lower molar. Luck was playing a big part. So this last
discovery served to convince the majority of American scientists
and to sow doubt in the minds of the French, the more so because,
until very recently, despite our palaeontological knowledge, the
presence of an ape in England 50,000 years before our era could
not be properly explained. And for a very good reason, since the
said ape should not have come to England, even as a skeleton,
until the beginning of the present century.
For 40 years the quarrel was to continue, giving rise to nearly
300 papers and sometimes involving violent quarrels between
experts. One American anthropologist is reported to have said
one day that two men who were not among his friends were the
Piltdown man! Apart from the petty rivalries of national pride,
what was in fact the change that the Piltdown 'discovery' brought
to prehistory?
When Darwin had shown, in the middle of the last century, that
existing animal species derived from animal species that have
to-day disappeared, that the animal world is a connected whole,
that at the beginning only the simplest animal forms existed and
then had given rise to more complex forms - then, for the first
time the theory of evolution experienced a great vogue, even
though it had been put forward by Lamarck, a Frenchman, as early
as 1809. One of the principal conclusions of all this was that on
anatomical and physiological levels man was closely related to the
ape. At the end of the last century man was even made to descend
directly from the ape. The ideal intermediate creature, the ape-
man, had been found in Java in 1890 by a Dutch military doctor,
Eugene Dubois. And quite naturally between the ape-man of the
Dutch East Indies and real man, another intermediary was sand-
wiched, a little less ape and a little more man: the Neanderthal
man, whose remains had been found at various points in Western
Europe, especially in Germany and France, and at Gibraltar.
Thus the ascent of man stood out very clearly. Man and ape (by
which must be understood the larger anthropoids, gorillas,
orang-utans, chimpanzees and gibbons) were second cousins, born
of a common stock, and one could trace an imperceptible progres-
sion from the common ancestor, a primitive ape, to modern man.
Now into this picture, which is conspicuous for its simplicity,
the Piltdown man did not fit at all. This man was reckoned to be
THE MONKEY'S REVENGE 7
about the same age (50 to 100,000 years before our time) as the
Neanderthal man, but instead of appearing as a composite being,
half-man and half-ape, he very paradoxically united the jaw of
chimpanzee to the cranium of a modern man. And that was inex-
plicable, for very good reasons that we now know. So it happened
that lively scientific quarrels developed, some scientists clinging
to the authenticity of the fossil and therefore determined to
refashion their views on the origins of humanity, others denying
its authenticity, pointing to the chance union of pieces from two
different fossils in the same stratum, and consequently scarcely
modifying their ideas on the evolution of prehistoric man.
Thus the Piltdown man stood at the crossroads of various
opposing conceptions in human palaeontology. And although it is
with the story of this fraud that we have begun this book, it is not
a matter of chance. The lessons that can already be drawn from it
are numerous.
Badly informed by the newspapers, which sacrificed the full
scientific story in order to concentrate on a few picturesque
details, it seems that the general public, at the end of the year 1953,
has scarcely remembered anything but the mistakes of scientists
at the hands of an unknown hoaxer. And although some had had
a few regrets, it was at not knowing the end of this detective story,
since the identity of the forger was uncertain.
Naturally, some people have seen further. They have been
stirred by the effect of the fraud on the problem of human origins.
The Piltdown man has started something. But the scientists have
taken the thing quite well. One might even say that the question
is clarified, since an irritating enigma is now solved for better or
for worse.
Furthermore, this fraud should draw our attention to the very
method which was used to reveal it. It was done by the quantita-
tive analysis of 10 centigrams of bone, in which the presence of a
tenth of a milligram of fluorine had to be revealed. These results
had then to be confirmed by the very delicate analysis of the nitro-
gen content of the bones. So we have here an opportunity to
emphasize the incomparable help that new physical and chemical
techniques are able to bring to the sciences of the past, prehis-
tory and palaeontology: a curious anachronisrpJ It is from the most
modern scientific techniques, and those requiring great scientific
skill to put into practice, that the sciences of the past draw their
8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
best results. A recent book, published by a group of prehistorians,
is very significant in this respect, for it delves into details of radio-
activity, magnetism, microchemistry, X-rays, ultra-violet and
infra-red analyses, and the like. The examples given in support of
these new methods of investigation are convincing. And the story
of the Piltdown hoax is not one of the least of them.
Thus, in short, it is the whole problem of the origins and the
evolution of men, animals and plants - that is, the problem of the
history of life on the earth - which the Piltdown affair raises. The
Coelacanth, that living fossil from Madagascar and the Comoro
Islands, gives every reality to these questions.
And is there anyone not interested ? Is there anyone who has
never asked the exciting question: where do we come from?
Palaeontology, the science of life on the earth during the completed
geological epochs, answers these questions. It answers sometimes
with hesitation and sometimes even admits ignorance. Sometimes
it is mistaken and has to modify its views as in the case of the
Piltdown man; this is not a sign of failure, but, on the contrary,
of vitality.
PART ONE
At the Cradle
of
Humanity
CHAPTER I
The Customs Officer
and the Academy of Science
WHEN in 1830, aftdr a brilliant career as a student in Paris, a
young doctor of twenty-four years named Casimir Picard went to
settle in Abbeville, no one thought that from this commonplace
transfer of a medical practice tfre science of prehistory would be
born in France a few years later. The most eminent English geolo-
gists of the nineteenth century were to hold this infant at its
baptism.
Abbeville, a sub-prefecture of the Somme department, situated
on that river some twelve miles from its estuary, was then one of
those quiet little provincial towns of which France has hundreds
of examples. With narrow lanes and houses crowding around the
gothic cathedral of Saint Vulfran, famous for its splendid facade,
it was scarcely different when Casimir Picard went to live there
from the humdrum little town that was ravaged by the bombard-
ments of 1940. In Picard's day it was already quite a rich centre,
where commerce and industry prospered, thanks to several tan-
neries and a spinning-mill. Its situation at the mouth of the Somme
(the tide was effective to the gates of Abbeville) made of it a lively
port and around 1830 work went on busily in the suburb of
Hocquet, where the dredgers ceaselessly widened and deepened
the canal by which the ships could avoid the elbow described by
the Somme as it passes through the town. These dredgers played
their part in the birth of the science of prehistory.
Intellectual life was quite bright in Abbeville. In 1797, under
the impetus of the chief customs officer, the activities of a certain
number of amateur naturalists, archaeologists and antiquaries were
centred upon the Abbeville Sociftf d y emulation. Casimir Picard,
already an eminent naturalist, was immediately welcomed there
and soon formed close bonds of friendship with its President,
iz MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Jacques Boucher de Perthes, son of the society's founder and
himself head of the local customs service. It was to be a fertile
friendship. Casimir Picard interested himself especially in palx-
ontological excavations, in the course of which some stones,
obviously fashioned by the hand of man, were dug up.
As a matter of fact these stones were no novelty. In the Middle
Ages, as still happens in our own day, it was not rare for a peasant
working in the fields to unearth one of these curiously chipped
stones - generally flint - which were called thunder-stones. The
scientists called them ceraunites, from the Greek word Keraunos,
VVLGO FVLCVR
CEWAVKIA
FIG. i. Thunder-stones, or ceraunites, from Mercati's book
Metallotheca Vaticana,
meaning thunder. In fact, it was then thought that they had been
hurled at the earth during storms, or at the very least that their
sharp edges resulted from a stroke of lighting. However that may
be, from the fact of their comparative rarity great value was attri-
buted to them either as charms or as cures. It would seem, more-
over, that such beliefs still persist in some country villages of
France and amongst certain primitive tribes.
At the time of the Renaissance, when the majority of the
sciences were springing into life (though geology was a late
starter) ceraunites were generally regarded as freaks of nature and
scientists in the main continued to think of them as the work of
lightning. A few alert minds, however, expressed some original
ideas on the subject, notably the Italian, Michel Mercati, whose
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 13
study of thunder-stones and fossils was preserved in the Vatican
library for two centuries before it was published. In this work,
known by the name of Metallotheca, posthumously published in
the eighteenth century (the author died in 1593), Mercati stated
that the thunder-stones had in former times been broken off
from large flint-nodules and used as weapons.
Actually this idea had already been proposed by several authors
of antiquity : Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Pliny, etc., and above all by
Lucretius. In his De Reruv? Natura^ he explains that man's first
tools were his hands, nails and teeth; later, the branches of trees
and stones ; then, as a result of the discovery of fire, weapons of
bronze and, later still, of iron. Of course, all these authors of
Greco-Roman antiquity, who readily borrowed each other's ideas,
had no scientific knowledge of the prehistoric remains contained
in the earth, but, besides a certain intuition, one has c to give a
share either to the persistence of very old traditions or to what
was known of savages, or backward peoples, who were numerous
on the borders of the then known world,' to quote Boule. For in
certain circumstances chipped stones have often been used during
historical times ; for instance, by the Egyptians, who carried out
certain ritual incisions on mummies-to-be with the aid of flints,
and by the Jews, who used them for circumcision; and by the
Etruscans, and therefore by the ancestors of the Romans, who
used them to immolate certain sacrificial victims.
Casimir Picard was particularly interested in the problem of
ceraunites. He carried out a few excavations himself, but was very
busy with his clientele and had often to be content with studying
the objects discovered by his colleagues of the Socttte d* emulation.
In 1 834 and 1835, when reports were presented to members of the
Society, he stated several fundamental ideas.
These thunder-stones or ceraunites were found in the same
strata as the bones of certain animals which one did not expect to
find in the sub-soil of Europe: elephants, rhinoceroses and hippo-
potamuses. The necessary conclusion was that the countryside
had not always been as we know it to-day, and also that man had
been the contemporary of these now exotic animals.
Moreover, Casimir Picard clearly established that there were
two sorts of worked stones. Some had clean, smooth surfaces and
had visibly been rubbed for a long time to attain perfect regularity.
Others, on the contrary, had a much rougher appearance:
14 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
detached from a block of flint and rapidly touched up to make
their edges sharp, they did not show the finish of the first-men-
tioned specimens. There had therefore existed two different
civilizations, one of chipped stone and the other of polished stone,
with which ideas everyone is now vaguely familiar from school
history lessons.
Finally, Picard had clearly distinguished that, when striking a
flint in order to shape it, the artisans of the first civilizations used
sometimes the splinters detached from the crude stone, and at
others the crude stone itself, more or less touched up. Casimir
Picard thus distinguished two different stone ages.
From the fact that the bones of animals now vanished from
Europe and stones indubitably fashioned by man are found in the
same geological stratum, we are forced to conclude that :
Europe has not always had a temperate climate, but has in
former times enjoyed a warm climate, since elephants, rhino-
ceroses and hippopotamuses have lived there;
At that epoch men were already living in Europe, and these
men, to satisfy their needs, had hunted the elephants, rhinoceroses
and hippopotamuses ;
These men were little civilized and had only stone tools, the
form of these tools making it possible, however, to distinguish
several different civilizations.
Such were the principal points established by the researches of
Casimir Picard.
*
Although these statements now seem to us too timid, because
too general, they were at that time rather unorthodox and ran
counter to the opinions of the teachers of geology. Also, they were
private and only a few members of the Socttte d* emulation received
them. Only the President of the society, Boucher de Perthes,
patron and friend of Casimir Picard, was to see them succeed.
However, nothing in his character, except his father's example,
seemed to predispose Boucher de Perthes to abandon his activities
completely in order to devote himself to prehistoric archaeology.
It certainly seems that to begin with this customs officer and
poet, this patron of science and near-socialist, this witty writer
who could have made an excellent career as a dramatist or song-
writer, had been fascinated by the new aspects of the appearance
of man on the earth which had been revealed to him. His taste for
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 15
vast syntheses did the rest and that is why he had to devote the
last thirty-one years of his life to prehistoric studies. He died at
the age of 80, after having seen the triumph of his own ideas and
those of his friend Casimir Picard, who died at the very early age
of 35 years.
But this call did not come to Boucher de Perthes at once. If we
may use the expression here, he found his road to Damascus when
one day in 1835 or 1836 he was superintending the work of a
dredger in the Hocquet suburb, beside the canal. The dredger
threw up some broken bones, some worked flints, some polished
axes, and one axe in particular that had a handle of stag's horn, by
which he seems to have been especially moved. These 'Celtic
antiquities' are described by Casimir Picard. The friendship of
Boucher de Perthes for the young doctor was thus cemented and
he interested himself more and more in his works on the origin of
man. Together they soon worked up some grandiose projects
which were much in keeping with their temperaments: the
establishment of a local museum, which was to be realized in a few
years, also a great plan of excavations in the neighbourhood of
Abbeville, with a view to studying systematically all the human
antiquities to be found there.
But what sort of man was he, this Jacques Boucher de Crve-
cceur de Perthes, recognized everywhere as the father of pre-
historic studies ?
He was a most attractive person: gentle, calm, and of great
tenacity, but never stubborn; sceptical sometimes to the point of
contempt, and apt to make fun of an administration which he
seems to have entered more by family tradition than by taste. He
suffered from rheumatism, but was a confirmed swimmer, and he
never ceased to take his daily swim in the Somme up to the age of
76 years ! A satirical poet in his leisure hours, this chief customs
officer wrote pamphlets in defence of free trade!
Born at Rethel (Ardennes) on September loth, 1788, his child-
hood and youth were spent at Abbeville, where his father had been
appointed head of the customs service. We must describe this
father in a few words, for Boucher de Perthes was affected to
some extent by the family environment in which he lived till he
was 1 6.
The father, a wealthy official, was an enthusiastic naturalist,
interesting himself in botany and especially in fossil plants. He
16 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
was also an amateur of art and archaeology, and transformed his
house into a "sanctuary of science and art', as Jacques was to say
later, collecting with equal enthusiasm old furniture, ferns, faience
and pictures. As a naturalist he was an amateur, certainly, but for
his work he was nevertheless elected in 1 800 an associate member
of the Institut de France. Furthermore, he quickly gathered some
amateur investigators around him. Despite the vicissitudes of the
revolutionary period which shortly followed his installation at
Abbeville, the discussions and researches were fruitful, so that in
1797 Boucher de Crevecoeur and his friends had founded the
Societe d' emulation. Here were studied all things touching upon
science and art, and anyone could apply himself usefully to helping
the investigators in their labours. During the nineteenth century
the members of this Society were the first to hear of the new ideas
that Boucher de Perthes and Casimir Picard propounded con-
cerning the origin of man.
This was the environment in which Jacques Boucher de Perthes
was brought up until 1 804. In that year he set off on a long journey
through Italy. He did not return to Abbeville until 1824, when at
the age of 36 years he succeeded his father at the head of the local
customs service.
As a matter of fact, until 1837 Boucher de Perthes took very
little interest in science generally, and scarcely more in palaeonto-
logy and archaeology. Of the paternal influence and the atmosphere
in which he had been brought up he kept little more than a very
lively taste for all antiquities, which he accumulated in his mansion
where, at the end of his life, one could move only with difficulty
among the most incongruous pieces of furniture, cases of curios
and old pictures, all valuable objets d y art with the exception of a few
notoriously unacceptable fakes. All those who had the good
fortune to be able to visit this house before it was destroyed by the
bombardments of 1940, could well believe that it had served as a
model for Balzac - a contemporary of Boucher de Perthes - when
he described the dwellings of nineteenth-century antiquaries in
some of his novels.
It required both the ever alert scientific mind and enthusiasm
of Casimir Picard to bring Boucher de Perthes to devote himself
to prehistoric archaeology. But to understand the full significance
of his researches and to demonstrate their novelty, one must know
the ideas about the origin of man that ruled in cultured circles at
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 17
that time, and what was the prevailing view of geologists in
particular.
*
Indeed, nobody would then have been advised to contest
biblical chronology: the Flood was the essential starting-point
from which any system that claimed to explain the origin and
evolution of man on the earth should be constructed. That there
were some men on our planet before the Flood was a proposition
admitted by everyone. But scarcely anyone was concerned to
harmonize scientific discoveries with the teachings of the Old
Testament. The principal discussions at that time bore upon the
exact date of man's creation and the declarations of Archbishop
Ussher were readily accepted. According to him, man had been
created on March 23rd, 4,004 B.C., very precisely, and endless
discussions arose as to whether one could confidently accept that
date. Everyone, as usual, vigorously defended his own view, but
all these controversies have now no more than an anecdotal
interest, since they only concern differences of a few centuries.
Furthermore, it was quite shocking to believe that the first
human civilizations had made use of stone weapons, since such
poverty in the industrial field ran contrary to the easy life offered,
by definition, to the inhabitants of the Earthly Paradise. But this
was not the view of everyone, and in the eighteenth century
Buffon, in his Epoches de la Nature., spoke of the ceraunites as the
'first monuments of the art of man'.
Finally, the history of the earth was represented as a series of
calm epochs, separated from one another by a series of cata-
clysms of great violence. During the calm periods, flora and fauna
established themselves on the earth, then were remorselessly
destroyed during the destruction of the earth's surface marking
the end of the period. Buffon thus distinguished seven successive
epochs and Cuvier adopted more or less the same opinion. The
last cataclysm had been the biblical Flood, and although Adam
and Eve, Cain and Abel, and their relatively numerous descen-
dants had lived before this flood, and although Noah himself had
survived it, no one thought of being able to find traces of ante-
diluvian man.
These notions were vaguely in the minds of Casimir Picard and
Boucher de Perthes. They needed great courage and patience to
state that antediluvian man had left traces on the earth.
*
i8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Boucher de Perthes began by working in close collaboration
with Casimir Picard, meeting the expenses of the excavating work
which he supervised in the young doctor's place, since the latter
was busy with his patients. When Casimir Picard died at the age
of 35, in 1841, Boucher de Perthes continued with the excava-
tions alone, and more eagerly than ever.
In the summer of 1844, during some digging at the site of the
hospital, close to his port, he himself made discoveries in the
presence of two of his colleagues so that there was not the least
possibility of fraud: in the same stratum, between July 2 3rd and
August 2 6th, he found a chipped flint, three chipped axes and a
large fragment of an elephant's molar tooth. This passed all
bounds ! The proof of the existence of 'antediluvian' man was
there, and also the proof that this man, using tools of stone, had
been the contemporary of the great exotic beasts that have now
disappeared from Europe. Boucher de Perthes at once advised the
Paris museum. They remained sceptical. Only Brongniart, the
palasobotanist and friend of his father, gave any encouragement.
But this was of little consequence to Boucher de Perthes. Defi-
nitely convinced of the importance and truth of his theories, he
fought to get them accepted by the scientific world and eventually
won a victory against great odds.
He drafted the manuscript of Antiquites celtiques et antediluviennes
and sent it to the Institut de France in 1846, accompanied by a
letter requesting that a commission of enquiry should be
appointed to come and examine his discoveries. A commission of
five members was actually named, but it never went to Abbeville.
The same year, Boucher de Perthes wrote to the director of the
museum at Flourens to offer him his collection of stone imple-
ments. He never received a reply.
In 1847 he repeated his offer, this time to the Institut, which
emphatically refused it. In fact, at the Academy of Science the
permanent secretary, Elie de Beaumont, a geologist, exercised a
preponderant influence: he refused to believe that it was possible
for man and elephant to be contemporary: furthermore, he
claimed that the chipped flints were of Roman origin. Of what
consequence in the eyes of these Paris gentlemen were the eccen-
tric theories of a little provincial amateur as opposed to the
authoritative opinion of the greatest of French geologists ?
But all of a sudden events moved with a rush. An amateur
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 19
archaeologist and naturalist of Amiens, Doctor Rigollot, who had
been told of the theories of Boucher de Perthes, journeyed to
Abbeville with the firm intention of demonstrating the absurdity
of these ideas. He came, but he went away convinced that Boucher
de Perthes was right; he undertook in his turn to excavate the
gravel-pits at Saint Acheul, a suburb of Amiens on the banks of
the Somme. In 1834 he published a Report on the chipped flint
implements found at Saint Acheul \ near Amiens , considered in their
geological and archeological relations ; in this it was clearly demon-
strated that these stone objects were found in the same gravel beds
as the bones of elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus.
All this created a great stir, more especially as Boucher de
Perthes had not remained inactive and had published more papers
and pamphlets to make his discoveries known. Elie de Beaumont,
however, remained unmoved and uncompromising. But some
English experts, who had been aroused and were less mulish than
the members of the Institut de France, decided to go and see
things on the spot. It was a fine delegation that arrived at the
banks of the Somme on April 26th, 1859: among them was a man
of world reputation, one of the greatest of English scientists 'and
the most eminent British geologist of the nineteenth century,
Charles Lyell; with him were Falconer the palaeontologist,
Prestwich the stratigrapher, John Evans the young and already
very brilliant archaeologist, and Flower, the anatomist. These were
men whose reputation and scientific honesty were incontestible.
Boucher de Perthes had them visit his excavations and showed
them his collections. From Abbeville they went on to Amiens,
where Doctor Rigollot was proud to show ttfem round the gravel-
pits of Saint Acheul. They saw, they dug, they discussed, and they
went away convinced of the exactness of the theses maintained by
Boucher de Perthes and Rigollot. In a few weeks Lyell drafted a
report which appeared at the end of 1 8 5 9 and fell like a bomb into
French scientific circles.
Meanwhile, other members of the English delegation had
undertaken excavations on the banks of the Thames : they made
discoveries identical with those made on the banks of the Somme.
Others had re-read old reports and saw that during the preceding
hundred years a number of discoveries like those made by Boucher
de Perthes had been reported but had passed unnoticed.
This is not the place to deal at length with the works of those
20 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
earlier discoverers, who do not seem to have had either the know-
ledge or the conviction necessary to assure the acceptance of their
ideas. It is not unprofitable, however, to record their names and
relate a few picturesque items from that early period.
About 1690 a London pharmacist, Conyers, found in the gravel
bed of an abandoned arm of the Thames a pointed chipped flint
close to the almost complete skeleton of an elephant. A friend of
Conyers reported the fact to the Society of Antiquaries in London
and explained that it was an elephant of the Roman army of the
Emperor Claudius, killed by a Briton. In the middle of the
eighteenth century, Thomsen and Worsaal, who were Danes,
established that in certain parts of their country three civilizations
had f followed one another: at first there was a stone age, then a
bronze age, and finally an iron age. The relics of these civilizations
were found in the superimposed geological beds, the most recent
of them being naturally closest to the surface.
More interesting was the discovery made in 1797 by John
Frere, at Hoxne, in Norfolk : in a pit where the raw material for
brick-making was being dug, he found, at a depth of 12 feet,
some chipped flints mixed with the remains of large animals. He
attributed them to a very ancient period of human history, a
period when the use of metal was unknown.
In France, in 1823, Ami Bou presented Cuvier with a human
humerus taken from the banks of the Rhine together with animal
remains. But Cuvier denied the possibility that the two finds were
the same age. However, similar discoveries were about to follow
one another rapidly, showing the presence side by side in the same
stratum of the bones of animals that have now vanished and
human relics, either in the form of chipped stones or bones.
These discoveries were made in France (Jouannet, in Dordogne,
1815; de Cristol, near Montpellier, 1829, etc.), in England
(McEnnery, at Kent's Hole, near Torquay, where the English
investigators, convinced by Lyell, were later to return), and in
Belgium. In Belgium it was Dr. P. C. Schmerling who, in several
caves in the Lige region in 1 829, found chipped flints mixed with
the bones of mammoth, rhinoceros, hyaena and bear, as well as
human skulls; in 1833 and 1834 he published two large volumes
on these researches and declared that the stone implements were
the work of prehistoric man.
In France, between 1826 and 1829, a pharmacist named
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 21
Tournal, keeper of the museum at Narbonne, had also, like
Schmerling, realized the importance of the discoveries he had
made in the cave at Bise (Aude). There he found, alongside human
remains, fragments of pottery, bones of animals missing from our
present fauna, and - this was the most striking discovery - a
certain number of engraved reindeer bones.
Despite the tribute we have just paid to the forerunners of
Casimir Picard and Boucher de Perthes, we must nevertheless
emphasize the merits of these two, who alone were not content to
realize the importance of their discoveries but had also exploited
them to the utmost. Now that LyelTs publication had shaken the
Academy of Science things moved quickly. Young and unknown
at that time, but later accepted as one of the greatest of French
palaeontologists, Albert Gaudry came to Saint Acheul in 1859.
He neiver left the workers on their own and so prevented any
possibility of fraud. He found the classic association once again:
nine chipped axes, the teeth of a large bull and various hippo-
potamus, elephant and rhinoceros bones. This time, the discovery
was published in the reports of the Academy of Science (meeting
of October 3rd, 1859).
Nevertheless, the recognized authorities remained sceptical,
Such stubbornness began to turn to their discredit. Their errors
of judgment were many. A note by Lartet on 'the geological
antiquity of the human species in Western Europe' was rejected
in 1860. The publication by Boucher de Perthes, in the same year,
of a work entitled De I homme anttdiluvien 'et de ses auvres was
ignored. In 1860 again, the discoveries made by Gosse, a Gene-
vese, and Lamotte-Picquet, a Frenchman, in the gravel-pits of
Crenelle (Paris) were treated with scorn. And on May i8th, 1863,
at the Academy of Science, the all too permanent secretary, Elie
de Beaumont, again declared: C I do not believe that the human
species ^as contemporaneous with the Elephas primigenius. In this
respect I continue to share M. Cuvier's opinion. M. Cuvier's
opinion is a work of genius; it has not been destroyed.'
Cuvier's opinion, to which constant reference was made, carried
great weight. This French scientist must truly be regarded as the
founder of comparative anatomy. Moreover, he was the first to
recognize the real nature of a great number of fossils, and for this
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
reason must be placed in the
ranks of the pioneers of animal
palaeontology. However, faced
with Elie de Beaumont's ap-
peal to the authority of Cuvier
when faced with so many
proofs of the existence of
prehistoric man, there are some
observations that must be
made.
Cuvier died, in fact, in 1832
and knew nothing of the work
of Casirnir Picard, Boucher de
Perthes or the English geolo-
gists. In using Cuvier's theory
to deny categorically discover-
ies that took place more than
30 years after his death, Elie de
Beaumont, to whom in the
end we owe no single im-
portant discovery, certainly
appears to have done great
harm to the posthumous repu-
tation of Cuvier. Moreover,
Cuvier had never had much
luck with the prehistoric
human bones that were given
him - or those that claimed
to be such. Sometimes, in fact,
the specimens proved to be the
bones of turtles or whales,
sometimes the remains of ele-
phants, and on another occa-
sion the skeleton turned out
to be that of a salamander. On
the other hand, when they
were indisputably the remains
of a human being, it was
always impossible to date
with certainty the strata from which they had been taken.
FIG. 2. Skeleton of a giant
salamander, long thought
to be the skeleton of a
prehistoric man.
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 23
Finally, it should not be forgotten that Cuvier, a firm believer
in the system of successive cataclysms that had convulsed the
surface of the earth at more or less regular intervals, thus causing
the flora and fauna to disappear radically, had once written that
'before the last revolution man was able to inhabit the earth, in
some not very extensive region, from where a few individuals had
repopulated the planet, while the bones of all the others, having
perished together in the cataclysm, were covered by the sea.'
And who knows, had Cuvier lived long enough and had the
chance to study the reports of Casimir Picard, Boucher de Perthes
and Dr. Rigollot, as well as Lyell's work, he might once again
have said what he once wrote to his collaborator, Dumeril, 'My
dear friend, we are mistaken.'
On the other hand, we must recognize that in the writings of
Boucher de Perthes everything recorded should not be regarded
as valid coin. Very often he was misled by his workmen, who in
the hope of reward were ingenious in getting him to find 'celtic'
objects. It was easier for these labourers to go and collect some
polished flints on the plateau where the Picardy plain reaches the
edge of the Channel and then to bury them in a suitable spot.
Similarly, when in 1 863 Boucher de Perthes discovered the famous
Moulin-Quignon jawbone in the environs of Abbeville, he
allowed himself to be fooled as to its authenticity, for it was later
proved that the bone was stolen from a nearby charnel-house.
Finally, the prehistorian Vayson tells this very picturesque tale:
one of his cousins, Mme. Ducatel, had spent her youth at Abbe-
ville, and during her walks she had been much intrigued by the
work of a peasant who was spending his time in smashing stones
on the paving-blocks of the road; she questioned him one day and
got this reply: 'I am making prehistoric axes for M. Boucher de
Perthes.' Also, among the flint-nodules which he had gathered
and which, it was claimed, had been worked, there were some
which were certainly 'worked', but not by the hand of man; these
nodules were the work of running water or some other erosion
agent, which had polished them by rubbing them one against the
other. This did not prevent Boucher de Perthes, lacking for once
in critical spirit, from regarding them as objects of worship, the
famous 'stone figures', which he described with some
complacency.
However, before he died on August znd, 1868, Boucher de
24 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Perthes had the satisfaction of seeing the triumph of his and his
young friend Casimir Picard's ideas on the antiquity of man on the
earth. He had the further satisfaction of seeing created a group of
scholars who were about to turn prehistoric studies into a science,
the inspiration of which was essentially French, often assisted, as
he himself was, by the labours of English experts.
x-
The French prehistorians at the end of the nineteenth century
are too numerous even to consider mentioning them all. However,
it would be unjust not to make mention here of Dr. Hamy, of
Quatrefages, of Edouard Piette, the great explorer of Pyrennean
caves, of Capitan, Cartailhac, and Gabriel de Mortillet, who,
appointed assistant-keeper of the Museum of National Antiquities
at St. Germain, started in 1 864 the first prehistory review and later
published, in collaboration with his son Adrien, those two basic
works Musee Prehistorique and Prehistorique. Marcellin Boule, the
Abb6 Breuil, Denis Peyrony, etc. - are all our contemporaries.
But one name overshadows all others, a name that we must place
on the same level as Boucher de Perthes: Edouard Lartet (1801-
Justice of the Peace in a little straggling village of Gers, he
lived for 30 years without taking the least interest in the world of
geology, palaeontology or archaeology. Very erudite, he read a
great deal and spent his leisure hours and weekends on his father's
lands, interesting himself in their exploitation, in cattle-rearing
and in work on the soil. One day, about 1830, a peasant showed
him a very strange tooth which had been dug out of a field a few
days earlier. It was the tooth of a mastodon, first cousin to the
modern elephant, which once lived in Europe and which Cuvier
was the first to describe. No more was needed to move Lartet
profoundly: to discover for oneself or to examine on the spot the
remains of living creatures that have disappeared thousands of
years ago is something that very few can resist. Lartet could not
resist the attraction of a mastodon's molar. He devoured the works
of Cuvier and learned all he could of zoology, anatomy and oste-
ology. He undertook excavations around his property and in 1834
discovered the famous Sansan bed ; from it he extracted a fossil ape,
which was given the name otPliopithecus, and he later found other
palaeological treasures at the same place.
In 1850 he was in Paris at the palaeological laboratory of the
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 25
Museum, where he was preparing a great study of fossil probo-
scidea (elephants, mammoths, mastodons, etc.), which appeared
in 1859. Meanwhile he made two important discoveries. One was
at Sansan, of a further fossil ape, Dryopithecus, cousin to Plio-
pithecus ; these two will be studied at greater length in the next
chapter, in their place as more or less direct ancestors of the
human branch.
The other discovery took place at the large village of Aurignac
in the Haut-Garonne, where" an inquisitive inhabitant one day
overturned the slab that covered the entrance to a small cave. In
it he found a number of human skeletons. Lartet was summoned;
his reputation in the district was beginning to grow. They were
anxious to remove the skeletons to the cemetery in order to give
them Christian burial. Lartet arrived in haste, dug and found in
the middle of the geological bed in which the skeletons lay the
remains of hearths, bones, chipped flints, and the more or less
broken bones of reindeer, bears, rhinoceroses and hyaenas. He
concluded that these were the remains of a funerary feast. Lartet
was not wrong in thinking that all burials, whether prehistoric or
modern, are always accompanied by suitable feasting, but he was
mistaken in thinking that he had found bones from the polished
stone age and on industries and fossil bones from the chipped
stone age. However, this spurred him on to dig carefully in several
other Pyrennean caves and to report his discoveries in a paper on
c the geological antiquity of the human species in Western Europe',
which was rejected by the Academy of Science but enthusiasti-
cally received by English and Swiss scientific.societies.
Soon, Lartet received from Eyzies (Dordogne) a small box con-
taining specimens analogous to those which he had just discovered
at Aurignac, accompanied by a letter advising him that the region
was full of similar remains. He delayed only long enough to call
for his English friend, Henry Christy, before beginning in 1863
a campaign of excavations in the valley of the Vezere. Lartet's
special discovery was the irrefutable proof of the co-existence of
man and the great mammals in the form of the mammoth engraved
on a mammoth tusk in the La Madeleine cave.
Lartet was luckier than Boucher de Perthes. In 1869 he was
appointed Professor of Palaeontology at the Museum, but he died
shortly afterwards at the age of 70 years without having been able,
because of the Franco-Prussian war, to give his first lesson.
26
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
So three names should be remembered: Casimir Picard,
Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Edouard Lartet, who were by
different rights the real founders of the science of prehistory. To
these the name of an English geologist, Charles Lyell, should be
added because of his clear-sightedness: his scientific authority
powerfully helped the acceptance of the ideas of these three
founders. Although these latter may often have set out on mis-
taken hypotheses, when they had sometimes worked on manifestly
FIG. 3. Mammoth engraved on mammoth bone, discovered
by Lartet at La Madeleine in 1864.
false objects, they demonstrated the indisputable existence of ante-
diluvian - or prehistoric - man.
But it is to Lartet that we must give the credit of having been
the first to trace in a systematic way the framework within which
the evolution of humanity proceeded. In fact, throughout this
evolution the climates changed, the landscapes were transformed,
the animals and the plants were not always the same, certain
species died out and others made their appearance, and some may
have migrated from one country to another as a result of climatic
changes. It was in 1 866 that Lartet was able to sketch out a first
chronology of prehistoric times on the following lines. For some
time the archaeologists had already recognized that on the surface
of the earth, at least in Europe, there had been three successive
epochs : the Stone Age, of which evidence had been provided by
Boucher de Perthes, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Lartet,
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY 27
starting from the same principles, was able to put forward the
following sub-divisions for the Stone Age : the age of the great
cave bear, the age of elephant and rhinoceros, the reindeer age,
and finally the age of the aurochs.
This classification was therefore based on palseontological
characteristics : the study of the fauna and, by implication, of the
climates. It was a very similar classification to that reached by
Boucher de Perthes without, however, his being able to expatiate
upon it : in the following order he distinguished a tropical period
(elephant and rhinoceros), a glacial period (reindeer) and a tem-
perate period (aurochs). Other classifications were suggested in
rapid succession by de Mercey in 1875 and by the Mortillets.
But it was not until the first writings of MarcelUn Boule in 1888
that we had at last a firm chronological framework, established
upon indisputable data, of the 500 millenia which have seen the
human species conquer the entire world.
Boule showed clearly that three different kinds of data could be
used to fix this chronology. They must be studied separately
before attempting their coherent synthesis. First of all comes the
data provided by archaeological studies. Thus the study of
weapons and tools (known as typology) permits us to establish
the fact that there was first an age of chipped stone, followed by
an age of polished stone; certainly, this indication is a very rough
one, but it permits us to divide prehistoric times into three succes-
sive periods : the old stone or chipped stone age, known scientifi-
cally as the Palaeolithic (that is 'Old Stone'), then an intermediate
period, forming the transition between a hunting and an agri-
cultural civilization, known as the Mesolithic, and finally the
polished stone age, characterized especially by the invention of
agriculture, of stock-raising and pottery, known as the Neolithic
('New Stone')* Archaeology also informs us of the manner in
which the civilizations followed one another and shows us that
the crudely worked tools were gradually replaced by other tools
which were progressively finer and more varied as prehistoric
time went by.
Nevertheless, these archaeological classifications should not be
accepted blindly, for in the same epoch all the people scattered
over the surface of the earth were not necessarily at the same stage
of evolution and did not necessarily use the same tools or the same
weapons. One has only to think of how future archaeologists will
28 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
have to study the civilizations of the middle of the twentieth
century, taking account of the co-existence in space of the indus-
trial civilizations of Europe and America, using atomic power,
and quite primitive civilizations, like that of the pygmies of
Central Africa, using wooden weapons, or that of the Motiron
Indians of South America. Archaeological evidence alone will
never allow one to state that two prehistoric civilizations were
contemporary because they used the same types of tools.
We must also take into consideration the fact that two different
groups of humans, completely separated in time and space, can
create similar tools, for there are not many ways of cutting stone.
The prehistorian, Jacques de Morgan, has clearly emphasized this
fault of c the experts who seek to link up civilizations that are very
remote from one another as if there had been a Cook's office at
that time to enable peoples to go on some extraordinary
excursions.*
However, the study of typology permits us to distinguish three
divisions of the Palaeolithic Age, corresponding to the degree of
perfection in the stone-cutting techniques that it reveals and by
the increasingly great diversity of the implements. This age of
chipped stone begins with the crude tools of the Lower Palaeo-
lithic, continues with the finer and more varied tools of the
Middle Palaeolithic, and ends with the very numerous types of
tools in stone and bone of the Upper Palaeolithic, which further
saw the birth of art. To study these diverse types of implements in
greater detail, the technique of their manufacture, as well as the
works of art painted and engraved by the men of the reindeer age,
will be the object of a later chapter.
In this way, therefore, archaeology allows us to establish a
relative chronology, and (for a given region) to establish the order
of civilizations which followed one another there. But Boule has
shown that other information can and should be used - that pro-
vided by geology and by the particular branch known as palaeon-
tology. The geologist teaches the anthropologist and archaeologist
that during prehistoric times several very cold periods succeeded
one another, in the course of which the glaciers, creeping down
the mountains, more or less covered the surrounding plateaus and
plains. These glaciers have left the traces of their passage in the
form of stone trails, called moraines, pushed up in front or along
the sides of the glacier and abandoned where they stood on the
',al plain-.
/ITTTT
0000000000^
TTTMV
v^fl PV
J_L
i i i i i\
*
Upper terrace
"Middle terrace \
Jgwer terrace 2. 1
FIG. 4. Sketch of the formation, of hanging river terraces.
3 o MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
retreat of the ice, consequent upon a general warming up. Thus
we can settle the boundaries of the habitable territory at a given
epoch, also by dating more or less exactly the age of the glaciation,
determine the age of other geological sites that were contem-
poraneous with it and contain the remains of human industries.
Furthermore, the enlargement of the glaciers, by mobilizing the
available water upon the earth's surface, led to a general lowering
of the sea level; this resulted in an increase in the excavating wprk
of the rivers, since their beds have always the tendency to sink into
the soil in order to approach the level of the sea. Thus the beaches
and the hanging terraces at the edge of the sea, or on the banks of
FIG. 5 . Prehistoric fauna as seen by prehistoric man : woolly
rhinoceros wounded by arrows (La Colombi&re,
Dordogne.)
the rivers of the plain, bear witness to the discontinuous succession
of glacial periods. It is in such terraces, on the banks of the Somme,
that Boucher de Perthes discovered his first chipped stone
implements.
Finally, these geological and climatic changes were attended by
changes in the fauna and flora of the different countries. Thus
palaeontology provides the prehistorian with a third source of
information for setting up a chronology of prehistoric times. The
succession is clearly marked by a fauna called warm (elephants,
Merck rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses); then by a fauna called
cold, corresponding to three or four glaciations which then
covered Europe (mammoths, hairy rhinoceroses, reindeer); and
finally by a temperate fauna, very similar to the fauna of Europe
CUSTOMS OFFICER AND THE ACADEMY
FIG. 6. Prehistoric fauna as
seen by prehistoric man :
reindeer (Trois-Freres,
Haute Garonne).
FIG. 7. Pre-
historic
fauna as
seen by
prehis-
toric
man: las-
s o e d
horse
(N i a u x,
Haute-
Garonne)
to-day. The warm fauna corresponds approximately to the begin-
ning of the Lower Palaeolithic, the cold fauna to the Middle and
Upper Paleolithic, the temperate fauna to the Mesolithic and
Neolithic.
If agreement is to-day more or less unanimous so far as concerns
the relative chronology of prehistoric times - that is, if the
experts are no longer in serious dispute, except on points of detail,
in regard to the contemporaneity or the succession of one civiliza-
tion with respect to another in any given bed - agreement is far
from being so perfect where absolute chronology is concerned.
In fact one would very much like to be able to fix the age of a
given skeleton with certainty, or of a given worked stone or a
work of art; this is, indeed, what most interests the layman. The
matter is unfortunately very difficult, although recent physico-
chemical methods have brought some degree of accuracy. These
methods will be set out at greater length in a later chapter, for
32 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
they concern not only the study of prehistory but equally the
general chronology of the history of life. It will be sufficient,
in order to fix one's ideas, to say here that the Palseolithic Age
began, at least in our Western European countries, approximately
400,000 years before our era and ended only 10,000 years ago; the
Mesolithic age, covering 3,000 or 4,000 years, ended on an
average about 5,000 years ago, and was replaced by the Neolithic
Age (copper, bronze and iron), a stage of evolution at which
certain so-called primitive peoples still exist.
*
Thus, contrary to the view that is too widespread, the Gauls
were not the first inhabitants of France. Several tens of thousands
of years before them, men were already there, who, coming from
Asia or Africa, occupied European regions left vacant by glacial
invasions.
What do we know of these men, of their anatomical structure,
of their industrial and artistic activity, or of their religious con-
ceptions? In less than 100 years, working forward from the
discoveries of Boucher de Perthes, of Casimir Picard and Edouard
Lartet, the prehistorians have given very satisfying answers to
these questions.
FIG. 8. Prehistoric fauna as seen by prehistoric man: male
bison (La Greze, Dordogne)
CHAPTER II
The Hunt for Fossil Man
AFTER Boucher de Perthes had found the prehistoric stone tools
and duly proved their origin and antiquity, he naturally would
not rest until he had found the remains of the men who had made
them. Now that the working implements of fossil man were
known, it should surely be possible to find out what that man
was like, and eventually in 1863 Boucher de Perthes was in
possession of his fossil man in person, if one can so describe
a vei;y fine half of a jawbone in a very good state of pre-
servation, found not far from Abbeville in the Moulin-Quignon
quarry.
Several months earlier Boucher de Perthes had promised the
then considerable sum of 200 francs to any man who should find
a fossil bone in the quarries then being worked. At that time a
first-class navvy received a maximum of 2. 5 o francs a day. It might
be said that in the Abbeville region, as well as around Amiens,
nawying work became very attractive after Boucher de Perthes
had revealed the existence of prehistoric axes. To Boucher de
Perthes himself an axe was sold for five sous, because he was a
local man and was much liked by his workmen. But other geolo-
gists and lay visitors had to pay 10 or 15 sous, and the English
20 sous or more. In these circumstances, given that with some
skill a flint already worked by natural geological causes could be
transformed in a few hours into a very acceptable axe, a fair
number of workmen formed the habit of making stone tools
themselves and, according to the importance of the visitor,
arranged their discovery in the quarry itself or sold them in the
nearest village. But the sum of 200 francs was incomparably more
attractive than such small sources of profit.
Although Boucher de Perthes was too intelligent not to have
known of these practices, he maintained a blind confidence in the
discoveries made by his diggers, whom he knew very well and it
33
34 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
is by no means certain that he did not, in his own heart and with
some malice, approve of their astuteness when they acquired some
extra money at the expense of the idlers. Unfortunately, his too
great confidence in his workmen was grossly abused in respect of
the Moulin-Quignon jaw-bone. In fact, a short time after he had
made the promise of 200 francs reward for the discovery of the
first bones of antediluvian man - on March 23rd, 1863, to be
precise - Boucher de Perthes was led to discover in rapid succes-
sion, first two human teeth, then half a jawbone, then a third
tooth and finally a fourth tooth from which a few fragments were
missing.
In 1863 Boucher de Perthes was 75 years old. For 25 years he
had struggled almost alone against all the learned men of France
to get the existence of prehistoric man accepted. His theories and
deductions had been recognized and proclaimed valid by English
scholars only three years before. So this discovery of human teeth
and a jaw-bone seemed to him, as well as to his friends and sup-
porters, the crowning of a brilliant scientific career. Advised at
once, his English friends hurried to Abbeville a second time. The
matter was important. This time it was no longer a question of
studying the tools of prehistoric man, but of making acquaintance
with this prehistoric man himself. However, some of the most
eminent among the English specialists returned to London much
less convinced by the mandible and teeth than they had been four
years earlier by the 'Celtic' axes. Some days later Falconer, the
palxontologist, published a short report to show that one of the
molars given him by Boucher de Perthes was of very recent origin
because chemical analysis showed that it was very rich in protein;
he also showed that the stone tools found in the same Moulin-
Quignon bed were fakes, having been deliberately cut. From this
it was only a step to conclude that the jaw-bone itself was not
authentic and Falconer did not hesitate to take that step. By a
curious reversal, the French, who had ignored or ridiculed
Boucher de Perthes for 25 years, took up the cudgels on his behalf
and accused the English scientists of partiality, ignorance, chau-
vinism, jealousy and many other even more amiable things. The
affair developed very quickly. Tempers ran high. Some English-
men challenged Falconer's too categorical statements. The Press
seized upon the Moulin-Quignon jaw-bone and, aided by
increasingly tendentious arguments, turned it into a philosophical
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 35
and religious problem and succeeded only in heaping confusion
on confusion.
In the end, a little more than a month after the discovery, a
mixed Anglo-French commission, comprising the most qualified
experts of both countries, established that the Moulin-Quignon
jaw-bone was authentic. It was the Dean of the science faculty in
Paris himself, the celebrated zoologist Milne-Edwards, President
of the commission, who submitted the report to the Academy of
Science on May i8th, 1863. In France the matter was regarded as
closed and, apart from a few retrograde minds, everyone agreed
that prehistoric man had at last surrendered his remains to the one
who deserved most to find them.
On the other hand, in London the polemics continued
worse than ever. In June two of the scientists who went to Abbe-
ville in 1859 to authenticate Boucher de Perthe's discoveries
exchanged acrimonious letters. Evans, the young archaeologist,
set himself up against Prestwich, the geologist. Finally, the
English experts agreed to send a professional digger named
Keeping to work in the same Moulin-Quignon quarry. He had
already proved himself under their direction in various English
beds. Keeping reached Boucher de Perthes on June 2nd, 1863, and
worked there for four months. Quite determined to get his jaw-
bone authenticated, Boucher de Perthes welcomed him in a very
friendly fashion. But when on his return to London, after having
continuously replied 'good, good' to Boucher de Perthes, who did
not understand a word of English, Keeping declared that there
had been a fraud, Boucher de Perthes felt that his self-esteem had
been a little wounded. As for the English, a* letter from John
Evans, published in the Athenaum of July 4th, 1863, put an end to
the debate.
Taking his stand on Keeping's statements, Evans resumed
certain arguments from his earlier letters. He demonstrated that
the shaped stone tools discovered at the same time as the jaw-bone
were fakes because the dark sandy matrix in which they were
enveloped was quite recent and could easily be washed off with
water, and that with very little trouble the finger-prints of the
diggers could be revealed on them; because the flints themselves,
freed from their matrix, did not show the usual patina of very old
flints; because, bluntly, at Moulin-Quignon they had begun to
discover chipped axes in great abundance when they had been
36 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
very rare a few months before the discovery of the jaw-bone;
because, finally, a minute analysis made it possible to reveal traces
of iron on the surface of these flints that came from the tool used
to shape them. Keeping himself had, on two or three occasions,
set traps for the workers, who had allowed themselves to be
caught. One day a digger drew his attention to the presence of a
prehistoric tool when, by leaning forward so as to conceal the
position of the axe, Keeping alone could have seen it. On another
day he noticed that a certain fissure in the quarry had been filled
up during the night; digging in it the next morning, he found a
stone implement 3 feet down and noticed that beyond it the fissure
continued just as he had seen it the day before. Many other argu-
ments were brought forward by Evans, who ended his letter with
the sincere hope that the Moulin-Quignon jaw-bone would be
relegated to oblivion.
Another fraud! It is not - alas! - the last that will be recorded
in this book. For fraud is easy in prehistoric archaeology, so easy
that a famous specialist, Vayson de Pradenne, was able to devote
a book of nearly 700 pages to its study. However, fraud often has
no other motive than interest. It is almost certain that if Boucher
de Perthes had not been so generous to his workers he would not
have discovered the Moulin-Quignon jaw-bone so 'fortuitously'.
This is one of the principal difficulties that the prehistorian
encounters in his quest for fossil man. If he does not interest the
layman in his works - and how can he interest him except by
money? - he risks losing very precious pieces for ever through
negligence or malevolence. But on the other hand there is a great
temptation for the workers at a digging to create the bones or
shaped stones which will assure substantial profits; a little skill,
average intelligence and an observant mind are sufficient for
making fakes that are more than passable, at times so successfully
that the experts are deceived for several years. It must not be for-
gotten that the Piltdown fraud, probably the most resounding of
all palaeontological frauds, was not revealed for 40 years, and then
only by the use of very delicate physico-chemical tests which were
devised only a short while ago. Let it suffice to insist on the
extreme scientific strictness with which every prehistorian and
every archaeologist has to receive a new item, and to emphasize
the difficulty of their task by showing the trouble they take in
procuring new material. One does not create an animal or a plant
The skull of Australopithecus, dis-
covered by Dart in 1924. The
cranium is very 'human* in contrast
to the shape of the jaw and teeth,
which are more like those of apes,
The skull of a young of
equivalent the is
visible, de FHomrne,
Paris.)
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 37
still unknown to the zoologist or the botanist. But fraud is easy,
on the other hand, when a bone fragment, a shaped stone or a
picture at the far end of a cave is concerned.
Without going as far as fraud, the method of recompense can
have other inconveniences, though certainly minor ones. Thus
in Java, in 1937, the Dutch geologist Von Koenigswald was
presented in a few days, by the greater number of his labourers,
with fragments of bone from the skull of a man-ape. The clearly
recent fractures in these fragments attracted his attention; in fact,
the skull, which had been discovered intact, had provided an
opportunity for an original operation in the multiplication of
rewards by the simple process of breaking it up into many parts.
In the end, however, the incident was more amusing than serious,
for the freshness of the fractures made possible an easy reconstitu-
tion of the whole of the skull.
The first fossil skull to arouse any interest in scientific circles
was the one discovered in 1856 in the Feldhofer cave, between
Diisseldorf and Elberfeld in the side of a ravine called the Nean-
derthal. Actually, only the top of the cranium was discovered;
it had been very nearly destroyed by the quarry-men working on
the banks of the Diissel, but luckily came into the hands of Dr.
Fuhlrott. Soon a detailed description appeared in a German
scientific review under the name of the renowned palaeontologist,
Schaaffhausen. To-day one can hardly imagine the emotion that
gripped scientific circles during the next 10 years. Coming imme-
diately after Boucher de Perthes' discoveries and the publication
of Darwin's book, this skull constituted for some the remains of a
very venerable ancestor of man, while for others, opposed to the
evolutionist ideas of the English, saw nothing that deserved
special attention. For one of the greatest experts in pathological
anatomy of the nineteenth century, a German named Virchow,
the skull was that of a diseased person. The fact is that, being very
thick and quite abnormally shaped, with a bony ridge above the
orbits, a flattening of the top of the head that is not found in any
modern man, and a bony ridge at the nape, this fragment of skull
was truly odd. Gibb, the Englishman, went further: he bluntly
diagnosed disease and demonstrated, with the aid of unanswerable
arguments, that it was a case of hypertrophic osteitis.
38 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Another Englishman identified this cranium as that of an idiot
afflicted with rickets ; upon which, but, of course, without any
malice, the French anthropologist Pruner-Bey stated that the skull
was quite identical with that of a modern Irishman. Finally, to
crown everything, Mayer, a German, was persuaded that he had
found the last word in the story by demonstrating that the relic
was that of a Cossack killed during the anti-Napoleonic campaign
of 1814.
Meanwhile, others had slightly saner ideas. A modest English
anatomist, Dr. King, whose name deserves to be handed down to
FIG. 9. The top of
the Neanderthal
skull. Four typical
features are clearly
visible: the thick-
ness of the bone,
the ridge above
the orbits and the
occipital ridge,
and the flattening
of the summit.
posterity, saw in it an authentic ancestor of the human species and
created for this much disputed piece of bone a species and a style
all its own : Homo manderthaknsis. After a very carefully conducted
study, Huxley, Darwin's faithful lieutenant, stated that this was a
real man, but a more primitive man than that existing to-day.
Bishop Wilberforce, who ventured to contradict him and to cast
doubts on the antiquity of the origins of the human species, drew
upon himself the retort that it would be better to be a perfected
ape than a degenerate Adam. But during the years that followed,
Huxley became hesitant: at one time he stated in his writings that
the Neanderthal cranium had belonged to a creature clearly inter-
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 39
mediate between ape and man, and at another time he considered
it very improbable that the skull was that of the much-sought
intermediary. More cautious still, in 1871 Darwin spoke of it at
length in his work on the origins of man, but did not reach any
conclusion.
It must be admitted that there is some reason for such hesitation
when placed in the climate of the time and when the ideas that
ruled in geology and palaeontology between 1860 and 1870 are
taken into consideration. Also, it was difficult to base an irrefut-
able argument on a piece of skull. It would have been necessary
to discover a whole skeleton, but this skeleton was only disco-
vered some 50 years later, in 1908, in the south of France. Further-
more, the Neanderthal cranium had not been found in situ in a
well-defined bed, but had only been received after the event and
the workers had not been able to point out its position with
reasonable precision. Finally, it was very rash at that time to assert
the close kinship of apes and men and the most convinced parti-
sans of this kinship, among the foremost of whom was Huxley,
were somewhat justified in their caution.
However, rather by chance and probably also because men's
minds were interested by the new theories of Boucher de Perthes
and Darwin, the discoveries of bones were not long in multiply-
ing. In 1864 the meeting of the British Association was shown a
fossil head identical with the one from the Neanderthal, but
possessing the greater part of the face and jaw. This head had been
completely forgotten for nearly 20 years in a store-room of the
British Museum. In 1866, at La Naulette, not far from Lige, a
lower jaw of very primitive appearance was dug up in a cave.
Finally, once again in Belgium, in a cave at Spy, near Namur, the
Belgian geologists de Puydt and Lohest in 1866 discovered the
remains of three men, two almost intact skulls and some limb
bones, mixed with animal bones and tools of the Mousterian
epoch. This time the antiquity of the bones was absolutely beyond
dispute. In fact, the bones had been discovered, as geologists say,
6 in situ 9 ; that is, they had been got out of the soil of the cave
instead of being brought along by some amateur or layman after
having passed through a number of hands. From this fact it was
easy to fix a relative age to these human remains in accordance
with the geological stratum that contained them. Furthermore,
animal remains had been found beside them that came from a cold
40 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
fauna - mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses. These remains were
described very minutely and very definitely resembled the Nean-
derthal cranium. Unfortunately, at this time this ancestor of man -
or what was claimed as such - had difficulty in finding his place
in the museums and in the papers of the experts.
At last it certainly seemed that we were faced with creatures that
had lived 75,000 years ago in the Belgian Ardennes and who in
their skeletons clearly combined human characteristics with others
that were much more simian. All things considered, no one knew
quite what to do with these creatures. We had to wait until 1908
before the complete skeleton of the Neanderthal man was disco-
vered in France by three young abbs who were passionately
interested in anthropology; it was immediately described by one
of the greatest of French palaeontologists, Marcellin Boule. Then
the true nature of the Neanderthal man was recognized.
Meanwhile, a sensational discovery of prehistoric man had
thrown the world of learning into confusion, and had probably
for the first time stirred up the journalists and aroused public
feeling simultaneously, for it posed many more problems than it
solved.
This discovery had its origin in Holland in 1858, when there
came into the world a child of destiny who answered to the other-
wise quite French name of Eugene Dubois. Here was a young
man who, after a brilliant student career, found himself at the age
of 28 years, a lecturer in anatomy at the University of Amsterdam,
giving promise of a very brilliant career in the teaching profession.
But a secret demon had hold of him : he was passionately interested
in prehistoric man and he was persuaded that the discovery of our
ideal ancestor, the man-ape, should fall to him. One can imagine
that Eugene Dubois argued the matter with himself more or less
as follows.
By his studies in medicine and the natural sciences, he was well
informed of the discoveries of fossil bones made during recent
years. On the other hand, he had been much moved by reading
the works of Darwin, and especially those of a German naturalist,
Ernst Haeckel. The latter, having become blind when he was
scarcely more than 30 years old, had devoted himself - and for
very good reason - to theoretical studies of the origin and evolu-
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 41
tion of living creatures. Now Haeckel, immediately converted to
Darwin's ideas, undertook to set up genealogical table of living
creatures. Between 1870 and 1880, and almost one after the other,
he published three volumes entitled General Morphology of Organ-
is MS, History of Creation and Anthropogeny or the History of Human
"Evolution. Thoroughly exploiting Darwin's ideas on evolution and
its working, he demonstrated that all living creatures had one
common ancestor; and that there is then a progression from the
simple to the complex organism, the whole of Haeckel's evolu-
tionary plan starting from a microscopic creature which he called
the moneron. This creature was unfortunately hypothetical, just
as were the numerous intermediate animals that Haeckel thought
up in order to link the different zoological groups, sometimes with
some difficulty. If some of the ideas suggested by the German
naturalist were clearly exaggerated, several of them, on the other
hand, found striking confirmation in later discoveries. Such is the
case so far as concerns the origins of humanity.
When, in fact, in order to bring his genealogical tree of living
creatures to completion, Haeckel sent down the roots of the
human branch into the ape group, he was led to suppose the
existence of a creature intermediate between the anthropoid apes
and man, a creature to which he had assigned in advance the
evocative name of Pithecanthropus, that is to say, ape-man. Now
Dubois, having read and re-read Haeckel and Darwin, and having
studied the discoveries from Neanderthal, Gibraltar and Spy, and
after having grasped the importance of the work of Boucher de
Perthes and Lartet, decided that this ape-man was his to discover.
Where on the surface of the earth was he to find him ? For Dubois
the answer was simple: the large anthropoid apes were now
localized in two parts of the globe, the orang-utans in the Dutch
East Indies, and the gorillas and chimpanzees in Central and East
Africa. As the Dutch East Indies were by reason of his nationality
more accessible to him than Africa, it was there that he decided to
look for his ape-man. But to make such a search he unfortunately
needed money; so Dubois tried to obtain for himself some job of
exploration. Nevertheless, this little faculty assistant, who
bothered the professors in their laboratories and disturbed the
administrative peace of the civil servants, was regarded by every-
one as a young fanatic. Moreover, his desperate eagerness to
discover what the majority of men regarded as a myth was, in the
42 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
end, rather irritating and a little odd. Fortunately for science, this
young man was obstinate. Seeing that his teachers had abandoned
him, and although his colleagues and friends almost regarded him
as mad when they saw him ready to sacrifice a brilliant future, he
gave up an official job that allowed him to do some excavating in
peace, and decided to set out for the Dutch East Indies at any cost.
He was a doctor; it was by gambling with this professional quali-
fication that he succeeded in reaching the lost paradise of the man-
apes.
In December 1887, the military doctor Eugene Dubois disem-
barked at Sumatra to take up his post at the hospital at Padang.
Unfortunately he was too busy with his invalids to undertake any
diggings before the middle of 1888. On that occasion he was able
to go to Java to explore some caves, but without any success.
Dubois was not discouraged. At the end of that year he learned
that a skull, obviously very old, had just been discovered on the
island of Java, at Wadjak. He went there as soon as he could, was
able to get possession of the skull and himself found a second in
the same bed. Curiously, however, he kept this discovery a close
secret for about 30 years and only in 1921 disclosed the existence
of the two skulls, which were moreover the skulls of modern men
without much palasontological importance.
But Dubois was thenceforth convinced that it was in this region,
in Java, more or less in the centre of the island that he would find
the man-ape. In November 1 890 a fragment of a human lower jaw,
with one tooth still in place, was discovered at Kedoeng Brobces.
Dubois felt that the goal was near. He hurried to the district and
started systematic diggings.
This region is situated in the eastern half of the island, where
a series of volcanoes rises, some of the craters still being active :
Witis, Merapi, Lawu-Kukusan, and others. Rising on the slopes
of the latter and flowing around it from south to north, then
twisting around it on the west, to run at last into the Pacific
Ocean, a river called the Solo carves its bed through the ash
hurled from the crater in earlier times. And it was while digging
in the clay and volcanic debris which flank the river north of
Lawu-Kukusan, not far from the village of Trinil, that Dubois, in
September 1891, brought to light the third upper right molar of
an ape-man. Some weeks later, at the beginning of December,
three yards from the spot where he had found the tooth, he disco-
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN
43
Tertiary
\ \ Ask #d tufcis
FIG. 10. The island of Java and the site of the Pithecanthropus
discoveries,
44 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
vered the top of the cranium of what was thereafter considered to
be Pithecanthropus, as promised by Haeckel. He had longer to wait
before he discovered, in August 1 892, a femur that was buried not
far away. But the site where he had found Pithecanthropus had
meanwhile provided Dubois with a very great number of animal
bones, the remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses,
tapirs, antelopes, and dog-faced monkeys.
Dubois devoted himself to a geological study of the stratum in
order to determine its relative age. Unfortunately, these animals
had been drowned; their dead bodies had then been carried along
by the river and for some reason had been deposited on its banks
at a certain spot. The same applies evidently to specimens of
Pithecanthropus, a fact which at the end of the last century helped
to lessen its value. But in order to fix one's ideas, it may be said
that the man-ape of Java lived some hundreds of thousands of
years ago - let us say between 300,000 and 100,000 years before
our era. Nevertheless, Dubois quickly returned to Europe and
showed his precious discovery to the Third International Congress
of Zoology, which was held at Ley den, in Holland, in 1895.
There the discussions between specialists were truly impassioned.
Even the general public was aroused and the cranial dome, the
two teeth and the femur of Pithecanthropus made a small tour of
Europe which led from Holland to Paris, Liege, London, Dublin,
Berlin and finally to Jena.
The great enigma of Pithecanthropus is that it paradoxically com-
bines the characteristics of ape and man. Of the ape it has the flat
cranium, the bony excrescence above the orbits (the brow ridge),
and that other bony excrescence above the nape (the occipital
ridge); it also has ape-like teeth. On the other hand, the femur
shows very little difference from the femur of modern man. This
was one of the main subjects of discussion between zoologists and
palaeontologists, for many refused to admit that so human a femur
could have been associated with so simian a cranium. Besides, it
was also questioned whether the teeth had belonged to the same
individual as the cranium. Others, taking the stand which was that
of certain detractors of the Neanderthal man, sought to regard
Pithecanthropus as a diseased or abnormal creature. Finally, the
age of the fossil was also disputed, arguing from the fact that
Dubois was not a professional geologist but an anatomist and that
he certainly could have made mistakes in his study of the stratum.
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 45
It must be recognized, moreover, that this study was quite diffi-
cult, since Pithecanthropus ', like the surrounding animals, had been
drowned and carried a longish way from its original habitat before
it was cast up and buried in the alluvial deposits of the bank.
However, from the studies of later geologists, conducted by
experts of unquestionable repute, we can fix the age of 'Pithecan-
thropus between 100,000 and 300,000 years.
For many scientists since that time, at the beginning of this
century, an intermediate creature has been sandwiched between
apes and men: the man-ape of Java, Dubois' Pithecanthropus,
which should be considered more or less as one of our direct
ancestors. Other scientists, and especially the great majority of the
French, under the guidance of Boule, looked on it only as a giant
gibbon. These scientists, certainly, did not deny the existence of
fossil man, but they showed very great caution. They laid especial
emphasis on the discoveries made at Neanderthal and Spy and
hoped to find an acceptable intermediate creature in the Neander-
thal man. In 1908, this man, or rather his skeleton, in a state of
admirable preservation, was offered them on a platter.
That summer, three young abbes, Amedee and Jean Bouyssonie
and Louis Bardon, were spending their holidays in Corr&ze,
south-east of Brive, at a little town called La Chapelle-aux-Saints,
situated almost on the boundary of the department of Lot. Explor-
ing a little cave at the outskirts of the village, they began by
throwing out some loose soil, then some not very thick clayey
sand, and uncovered a bed of compressed earth that was much
harder, about 1 2 to 15 inches thick, where they found numerous
stone implements and animal bones. In this cave had lived - at
least provided they had not been brought there by carnivorous
beasts - bison, reindeer, woolly rhinoceroses, marmots and cave
hyasnas, as evidenced by the numerous bones. Finally, on August
3rd, 1908, three yards from the entrance to the cave the three abbes
uncovered a human skeleton which they hurriedly released and
sent to Marcellin Boule at the National Museum of Natural
History in Paris. Boule soon found himself in possession of the
almost complete head, also of 'twenty-one vertebras or fragments
of vertebra^ a score of ribs or fragments of ribs, a clavicle, the two
46 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
almost complete humeri, the two incomplete radii, the two
ulnas, some bones of the hand, two pieces of the iliac bones, two
incomplete femora, two patellas, parts of the two tibiae, an
astragalus, a calcaneum, the five right metatarsals, two pieces of
left metatarsals, and a phalanx', as he himself recorded. The recon-
stituted skeleton can be seen to-day at the Muse de PHomme in
Paris. At the time it was a very important event, for it was only
the second time that an almost complete skeleton of prehistoric
man had been found, 30 years after Riviere's discovery at Menton,
which will shortly be described, since this was in any case a Very
modern' fossil.
After several years' work, Marcellin Boule was able to present
a remarkable reconstruction of the Neanderthal man. He had a
large head on a small body and was only between 5 feet i inch and
5 feet 3 inches tall; although he stood upright, he walked with
stoop, head thrust forwards and knees bent. The face was very
massive in relation to the volume of the cranium, and had a
muzzle-like projection. The cranium was flat (known as platy-
cephalic), with a receding forehead; in front, like "Pithecanthropus ',
although less pronounced, was a bony ridge above the orbits, and
an occipital ridge at the back. When viewed from above, this
skull reveals a very distinct narrowing behind the brow ridge.
The brain reached the size of that in modern man, being around
1,540 c.c.; in the case of the specimen from La Chapelle-aux-
Saints, which was 1,600 c.c., it was even abnormally developed.
On the other hand, so far as can be judged by the plaster casts, the
structure of the brain seems to have been much more simple than
that of modern man; especially noticeable is the great develop-
ment of the zones called visual, at the expense of the frontal parts
of the brain, known as the frontal lobes. This feature brings the
Neanderthal man closer to the animals, especially the higher apes.
In fact, zoology and palaeontology teach us that the vertebrates, in
proportion as their cerebral faculties develop, reveal correlatively
a tendency to the regression of the olfactory and visual areas and
to the enlargement of the volume of the frontal lobes. The work
carried out by the physiologists for several decades has assigned
to these frontal lobes the power of association, that is, the seat of
the intelligence is almost regarded as being in this area. The ques-
tion, in its physiological aspect, is rather beyond the scope of this
work, and it is sufficient, in order to understand the problem of
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN
47
human fossils, to connect the development of the frontal lobes
with the manifestation of a higher cerebral activity.
Finally, Boule tried to go a little further in the restoration of the
Neanderthal man. We shall let him speak
for himself; although his studies went on
for another 40 years and he died in 1942 at
the age of 80, this rough and tenacious
Auvergnat became one of the world's lead-
ing palaeontologists; he remains and will re-
main the great specialist on this fossil man:
'The only attempt in which I thought it
possible to indulge is as follows. To a young
sculptor named Joanny-Durand, who was
an enthusiastic student of anatomy, I gave
a cast of the skull of the Man of La Chapelle-
aux-Saints. I asked him to model the princi-
pal muscles in plasticine and to superimpose
them, one by one, on this plaster cast, pro-
ceeding from the deep layers to the super-
ficial layers and carefully adjusting their
insertion. Their strength permits us to
appreciate to some extent the power of the
relative muscles. Far from forcing his work
in a simian, animal direction, which would
have been easy, the artist remained as far as
possible in a human sentiment. Apart from
the shape of the ears and the tip of the
nose, for which we had no data, our re-
construction would not diverge far from
the true appearance of the skinless head of
our fossil man. I leave to readers the task of
studying this physiognomy, of finding there
the morphology of the skull, of comparing
it with the faces of real man and of asking
themselves what any cutaneous and hairy
covering would add to the expression of this physiognomy, so
well as the more or less dramatic play of the muscles presented
here in a state of rest'. (See Plate 7).
FIG. ii. The skele-
leton of the Nean-
derthal Man as re-
constructed by
Boule after the
specimen from La
Chapelle - aux -
Saints.
At the beginning of this century a German doctor practising in
48 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
China, Dr. K. A. Haberer, was occupying his leisure in making
a very curious collection, one that could only be made successfully
in China. He was collecting fossil teeth. It so happens that Chinese
healers used very curious medicines, ranging from snake skins to
the placentas of dogs and including fragments of bone or teeth
which in the main were attributed to fabulous dragons. These
bones and teeth were in fact fossil bones and teeth from animals
that have long since disappeared from Chinese soil. All these
medicaments were sold in the apothecaries' booths, which might
be called dispensaries. It was while haunting these dispensaries, as
others haunt antique shops, that Haberer succeeded in getting
together a very fine collection of fossil teeth of great scientific
value, which he forwarded to Max Schlosser, the professor of
palaeontology at the University of Munich. After detailed examina-
tion, Schlosser published his results in 1903 and described, in
particular, a third upper left molar of almost human appearance.
He drew attention at the same time to the apparent antiquity of
this tooth, as deduced from its external aspect (in fact there is, to
the eyes of a specialist, a clear difference between fossilized bones
that are several tens of thousands of years old, and more recent
bones only some tens of centuries old). This is probably the first
scientific mention of the Pekin man, but, less daring than was
Black, the Canadian, 25 years later, Schlosser did not dare to
construct a history of prehistoric man in China on the basis of a
single tooth.
The discovery and study of the Pekin man, begun by a German
and corroborated by a Canadian, have certainly a very cosmo-
politan look, for it was a Swede who provided their first founda-
tions, which were brought to completion by the combined
researches of a Frenchman, a Chinese and an American. In 1916,
Dr. Andersson arrived from Sweden as an adviser to the Chinese
geological service which had just been created. As a part of his job
he inspected mines and quarries, and during these visits collected
bones and teeth which he sent to the University of Uppsala. In
1920 he was inspecting the chalk quarries of Chou Kou Tien,
about 25 miles south-west of Pekin; these quarries were, in fact,
caves dug into limestone cliffs, rather like the caves and pits that
in France are hollowed out by the waters that infiltrate the lime-
stone plateaus of the Gausses. During this inspection, Andersson
noticed that certain fissures were filled with red earth of a very
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 49
special appearance, a sort of fine and very light sand; taking a
closer look he gathered some fragments of fossil animal bones
and, with an instinct that can only be praised in retrospect, decided
that there were doubtless some interesting palaeontological disco-
veries to be made at this spot.
Andersson's reasoning can be summarized in the following way.
These caves and fissures in the limestone hills of Chou Kou Tien
had at one time been empty; something like a million years ago
the limestone hills were raised above the vast plain of Hopei, the
climate was cold, the glaciers that come down from the north
halted not far away, and the violent winds that blew along the
surface of these glaciers gradually filled the pockets in the lime-
stone with the red loess that now completely blocked them. Thus
it was not impossible that some fossils of apes could be found
there that might throw new light on the evolution of this group
and, perhaps, on the origins of man. In any case, since there were
fossils in the limestone fissures, it would not be uninteresting to
study them.
With these convincing arguments, Andersson persuaded Ivar
Kreuger, a patron of arts and sciences in Stockholm, who had an
enthusiasm for things of the past, to subsidize a campaign of
excavations and to send him an assistant in the person of Dr.
Zdansky. Having arrived on the spot, the latter quite quickly
discovered, among all the fossil bones he dug out at Chou Kou
Tien, two teeth of very human appearance. Unfortunately, he
hardly knew what to make of them, especially as these sites at
Chou Kou Tien, being considered very old (at least a million
years), the presence there of human or prehuman fossils seemed
inconceivable.
Fortunately, in 1925 Canada entered the scene: Dr. Davidson
Black, at his own request, was appointed Professor of Anatomy
at the medical college that had just been founded at Pekin. He was
very keenly interested in prehistoric man: he had a very close
knowledge of all that related to the circumstances of their disco-
very, and to their anatomical structure, and he had more especially
worked on the Piltdown man. It was even with the secret hope of
making a resounding discovery there that he had taken this post
in China. When Andersson and Zdansky showed him the teeth
discovered at Chou Kou Tien, he asked for funds from the
Rockefeller Foundation in order to undertake systematic excava-
50 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
tions and, on October 26th, 1927, one of his assistants, Dr.
Bohlin, discovered a splendid human molar intact. For a month
Black turned it over and over, thinking about it continuously and
studying it in its smallest details. On December 2nd of the same
year he presented to the Geological Society of China a report on
Sinanthropus Pekinensis, that is to say, the Chinese Man discovered
at Pekin, a very ancient kind of man who had lived in China more
than 100,000 years ago. The matter was the more serious and
the stand taken by Black the more sensational as, solely on the
basis of a single molar, he predicated the existence at a very
distant epoch of a prehistoric man much closer to modern man
than to the great apes. Now it was Black who, alone against every-
one, was right.
Between 1928 and 1932, thanks to 20,000 dollars granted every
year by the Rockefeller Foundation, the discoveries multiplied. A
hundred workers, toiling in the excavations, in three years shifted
12,000 cubic metres of earth and the superintendents of the
excavations brought to Pekin close on 2,000 cases of fossils. At
this moment a young Chinese palaeontologist, Dr. Pei, Black's
assistant, and Father Teilhard de Chardin, a Frenchman, entered
the scene. The latter, by a curious irony of fate, had been sent to
China - not to say exiled - because he began to hold what were,
to the orthodox Catholic view of the time, rather daring ideas
about the origin of man; in consequence of which he was to play
an extremely important part in the finest discovery of a man-ape
that had ever taken place. During the summer of 1928, Pei dis-
covered a fragment of cranium, a lower jaw-bone and some teeth.
In 1929, while digging out some caves at Chou Kou Tien, he came
upon the top of a skull which strongly resembled that of Pithe-
canthropus and, in 1930, a second skull. During this time, Father
Teilhard de Chardin and Young, the American, studied the bed
from the viewpoint of the fossils it contained and the succession
of the strata - that is, they determined the age of the sites and
therefore of the bones that were contained there, as well as of the
fauna in the midst of which Sinanthropus lived.
When Black died in 1934 he had had the pleasure of seeing his
ideas accepted : the conclusions he had drawn from the study of a
single molar were confirmed and it could be stated that a man-ape
lived in China more than a hundred thousand years ago.
The excavations and anthropological studies were not halted
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 51
by Black's death. The American, Weidenreich, who succeeded
him, was one of the most eminent of contemporary palaeonto-
logists. Teeth, pieces of cranium, and fragments of long bones
were extracted every year in quite large numbers. It would be
wearisome to record all the discoveries in their chronological
order. On the eve of the second world war, the Pekin man was the
best known of all fossil men: we had the remains of 38 different
individuals, 1 5 of them being children. War was not to bring luck
to Sinanthropus. Soon China was invaded by the Japanese. All the
bones were taken into the American medical college at Pekin,
where they filled no less than 63 cases, watched over by Father
Teilhard de Chardin, who had to remain a prisoner of the Japanese
for five years. But after 1945 it was absolutely impossible to lay
hands on a single one of these cases. From the enquiry that was
FIG. 12. Comparison of the skulls of Sinanthropus (leff) y
Neanderthal man (centre), and modern man (right).
conducted following their disappearance, there was reason to
believe that the Japanese, when about to evacuate China, had
wished to take the Pekin man to Tokyo, but that the ship that was
carrying the cases was wrecked in the China Sea, probably tor-
pedoed by an American submarine. So that, like his cousin
Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus ended in a watery grave. This acci-
dent, however, was no serious inconvenience, since, each time a
piece of bone was extracted from the Chou Kou Tien quarries, a
cast had been made at once, and these casts were long since in a
safe place.
So this Sinanthropus was a man-ape, whose anatomical descrip-
tion is very like that of the man-ape of Java. In actual fact he was
a Pithecanthropus and in all justice he ought to have borne the name
Pithecanthropus pekinensis, having regard to the rules of scientific
priority, which requires that the first name given to an animal or
52 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
a plant should be retained in the interests of clarity. Just like
Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus had a low forehead, a flat cranium, a
ridge of bone above the orbits and an occipital ridge at the nape;
his face projected, his teeth were intermediate between those of an
anthropoid and those of modern man; his long bones, so far as
we know them, were very like those of modern man and quite
removed from the long bones of the anthropoid apes.
Thus, 100,000 years ago there lived in South-west Asia man-
apes whose anatomical features were clearly intermediate between
those of modern men and those of real anthropoids. Their exist-
ence was further confirmed by the discovery, in 1936, 1937 and
1939 of further remains of Pithecanthropus in the island of Java,
at Sangiran, some 40 miles west of Trinil, the locality where
Dubois had discovered his first Pithecanthropus.
Finally, we cannot leave the Far East without speaking of the
giants that lived in China and Java something like 100,000 to
200,000 years ago. Between 1934 and 1939 a Dutch geologist, von
Koenigswald, often made the trip between China and Java. In
Java he discovered the specimens of Pithecanthropus just men-
tioned. In China he began, just like Haberer some 50 years earlier,
to explore the pharmacies of Hong-Kong to discover the riches
of the Chinese pharmacopasa and, as far as possible, to lay hands
on fossil bones used as medicaments. It was thus he received three
teeth that were fairly human in their conformation, but of quite
unusual size, twice that of real human teeth. The creature that
possessed them must have been a gigantic ape or man from
8 to 10 feet tall. Imitating Black, who had created a genus and a
new species on the basis of a single tooth, von Koenigswald
created Gigantopithecus. And in 1941, this time in Java, von
Koenigswald discovered in rapid succession two pieces of jaw-
bone of very great size, still with a few human teeth. These were
the remains of a giant man-ape, Meganthropus, who must have been
7 feet 6 inches tall. From these discoveries Weidenreich and von
Koenigswald have concluded that in its early days humanity
passed through gigantic forms which gradually gave birth to
smaller forms.
The English palaeontologist, Dr. Broom, energetically main-
tained the same views and it is even thus that he explains the
abnormal size of the human brain. In fact, according to him, the
stature of the giant men-apes with large brains progressively
of one of the
(Museede
FHomme, Paris.)
Reconstruction of the skull and
face-bones of the Java
,
The very heavy and lower
jaw of the ail
that remains of the oldest
known European, (Musce
de 1'1-Iomme, Paris,)
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 53
diminished while the brain retained its dimensions, thus becoming
enormous in relation to the total structure. Broom emphasized
that similar examples are to be found when one studies the dwarf
races of certain animals, like horses, dogs, cats and elephants. In
reality, this view is very questionable and so far very few palae-
ontologists have supported it. Nothing proves that the ancestors
of man have been giants ; nothing proves that the origin of the
great size of the human brain is to be found in the gigantism of
our ancestors.
From all this it remains clear that 100,000 years ago South-east
Asia was much populated. Several different species of man-apes
have been found there, scarcely differing one from the other except
in trifling anatomical features. Certain forms were of very great
FIG. 13. The skull of Australo-
pithecus africanus. It is a chim-
panzee-like skull with a jaw, and
especially teeth, that are very like
those of man.
stature. It will suffice to remember that we are here in the presence
of a group in evolution, in the midst of which several attempts in
the direction of modern humanity were taking place.
At present it appears that two clearly marked zoological lines
made the transition between the anthropoid apes and man : on the
one hand, the man-ape of the Dutch East Indies and China, an
anatomical mosaic of simian and human characteristics, and on the
other, the Neanderthal man, still a little simian and still a little
beast-like.
#
It was only in 1924, and between 1936 and 1939, that the first
fossil man-apes were found in South Africa, in a particularly
interesting form, since they were still closer to the ape than the
prehumans of South-east Asia; so much so that we could better
speak of them as ape-men than man-apes. Furthermore, they seem
54 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
to be very old and could very well take their place, at first sight,
at the very root of the human branch.
In 1910 the commercial exploitation of the clay quarries in
South-west Transvaal began. This clay is deposited along a river,
against limestone escarpments. The bulk consists of white clays,
but in them the water has carved quite a number of caves where
very sandy red clays were subsequently deposited. For ten years
the exploitation of these clay beds was uneventful, but in 1920 a
workman discovered in one cave a small cranium, which was given
to Dr. Haughton of the South African Museum at Capetown. The
latter came to the conclusion that this was the cranium of a baboon
but a fossil baboon unknown until the present day and, in order
to establish its antiquity, he called it Papio antiquus (Papio being
the generic name for a baboon). Between 1920 and 1924 several
further baboon skulls were discovered. One of them fell into the
hands of Miss Josephine Salmons, at that time assistant to Ray-
mond Dart, the then little-known Professor of Anatomy at the
University of Witwatersrand. It happened that Dart, who was very
interested in this small skull, knew the manager of the clay quarries
personally and he very easily secured a promise that any fossil
discoveries would be sent to him. And soon, at the end of the year
1924, a quarryman found the top of a cranium while blowing up
a depot at the mine, and, digging a little further, found the facial
bones corresponding to it. Dart was very excited when he
received these two pieces of bone. He succeeded in cleaning the
fossil in less than six weeks, thus creating a new speed record.
This was, he declared, a composite creature, half-ape, half-man,
but a creature from which, unfortunately, all the hoped-for infor-
mation could not be extracted, for it was a young creature, a
young ape of four or five years or an infant of six years. Dart gave
it the name Australopithecus africanus (southern ape).
The cranium is remarkable in the sense that it shows practically
no brow ridge or occipital ridge of marked degree and that it is
not very flat. Further, the foramen magnum through which the
spinal cord leaves the brain and enters the vertebral column is
placed fairly far forward, as in man, and in any case further for-
ward than in the anthropoid apes, which clearly indicates that
Australopithecus stood upright. The cranial capacity was 500 c.c.;
since this was a child, it can be reckoned that that of an adult
would be about 600 c.c., a figure slightly more than that of
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 55
gorillas and chimpanzees. The face is fairly comparable with that
of a young modern child, especially so far as the structure of the
eyes and nose are concerned. Finally, the teeth are quite remark-
able, for they are absolutely identical with the milk teeth of a child
of six years.
The publication of this discovery raised a general outcry and
the scientists who consented to give it attention were few. It was
generally considered to be an ape, a rather special one certainly,
but its pabeontological importance was considered to have been
greatly exaggerated by Dart. In no event was it admitted that it
had any relationship whatever with the human species. Even in
England the main discussions did not bear upon the osteology of
the fossil, but took a more lofty turn by moving to a linguistic
field. In fact, there was little concern to know what sort of ape
Dart had discovered and he was even pardoned for having sought
to regard it as an ancestor of man, but he was not pardoned for
knowing so little of the dead language as to create a Latin name
from two Greek roots.
Australopithecus was long forgotten when in 1934 Dr. Robert
Broom was appointed to the Pretoria Museum. There he spent
eighteen months in local excavations and in studying the fossil
reptiles of the region. In May 1936 he too decided to go in search
of Australopithecus and he did not doubt for a second that he would
succeed in discovering an adult. Thus he arrived at Sterkfontein,
led there by two of Dart's assistants, who had come to him after he
had published his discovery of the remains of a giant baboon.
Sterkfontein is an agricultural station about 30 miles from
Johannesburg. Some quite large caves had been discovered on its
land in 1895, and two years later Frames reported that the caves
were rich in the bones of horses, antelopes, apes, porcupines, rats
and bats, which had certainly been dragged there by beasts of prey.
These caves quickly became famous in the region and on Sundays
numerous tourists came to visit them, guided by Barlow, the
foreman of the quarry, to whom science is indebted for the prin-
cipal discoveries of Australopithecus. Barlow claimed to have
already seen the workers extract some skulls very like that which
Dart had found not far away in 1924. In conjeqtIence7Bi?Qom did
not doubt for a minute that he would fipdnis prey, the admbsape-
man, at this spot. And, of course, htfround it: on August lytfi,
1936, Barlow sent Broom the topx5t a cranium. The following day
56 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Broom was taken to the site of the discovery and himself extracted
the base of the cranium and a few pieces of frontal bone. The ape-
man he had just discovered was this time an adult. It was a close
relative of the Australopithecus and was given the name Plesian-
thropus transvaalenis.
At Sterkfontein, in less than a year, Broom was to discover
eight skulls of the ape-man, all very like Australopithecus-, like him,
these ape-men stood upright, were of small stature, with teeth
very like human teeth in their design; on the other hand, their
faces projected somewhat and their skulls were intermediate
between those of the anthropoids and those of modern men.
Chance continued to smile upon Broom. On June 8th, 1938,
Barlow handed Broom a piece of upper jaw with the first upper
molar still in place. Broom was able to acquire it by signing a
cheque for two pounds sterling. But on examining this fossil bone
more closely, Broom saw that there were two fresh fractures
corresponding to the location of two molars ; further, the matrix
which surrounded the fossil was not identical with that usually
found at Sterkfontein. He deduced from this that the bone had
been found elsewhere, in a spot eventually fertile in palasonto-
logical discoveries, and that, furthermore, someone was in posses-
sion of other pieces of this skull, if only the two recently broken
teeth. After a lot of coaxing, Barlow eventually admitted the
source of this piece of skull : it had been given him by a schoolboy,
Gert Terblanche, an occasional guide to the caves on Sundays,
when the tourists were too numerous.
Broom eagerly dashed over to the Terblanche farm, which was
about two miles from Sterkfontein; unfortunately he only found
Gert's mother and sister, who could only tell him the place where
the boy had found the piece of skull ; but they also gave him a very
valuable piece of information, that Gert had taken four teeth from
this skull to school with him. Broom went off at once to the site
of the discovery, at the top of a hill, where he found some frag-
ments of skull and two teeth. Then he went down again to the
school and reached there half an hour after noon, during break.
The headmaster fetched the young Terblanche, who drew from
his trouser pockets what Broom described as four of the most
sensational teeth in the history of the world. Following which,
Broom paid the ransom and gave a little improvised address to
the four teachers and 120 children of the school. Then he arranged
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN
57
for Gert to be free for the afternoon to come with him to the top
of the hill. There the boy drew from a hole that was carefully filled
in the lower jaw-bone of this sensational ape-man, with two teeth
in place. Finally, thanks to his tenacity, Broom in three days
almost entirely reconstituted the head of the Paranthropus robustus.
Three months later Paranthropus was introduced to the world at
large in an article in the Illustrated London News of August 20th,
1938, published under a title (which was not Broom's) which
suggested that the missing link was missing no longer.
Interrupted by the war, Broom's excavations did not begin
B
FIG. 14. Comparison of the pelvises of an Australopithecus
(left) and of a South African native (Bushman, right).
The outlines are roughly alike and clearly indicate that
Australopithecus had acquired an upright posture.
again until 1947 and in three years they produced some new forms
of the Australopithecus, differing very little one from another.
Once more the scientists were faced with a group in full evolution,
this time in South Africa and no longer in Asia, but providing
transitional forms between apes and men that are no less interest-
ing; so much so that, following these discoveries, one is much
tempted to set up an evolutionary succession still more complete
than that pointed out a few pages back : henceforth, between apes
and men there are three stages, first the South African Australo-
pithecus, then the man-apes of South-east Asia, and finally the
Neanderthal men. From one stage to the other the simian charac-
58 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
teristics can be seen to diminish progressively, while the human
characteristics progressively emerge, in an inconspicuous way at
first and then in clearer fashion.
But this outline, which will have ,to undergo quite considerable
modification later, is not yet complete. In fact, the line which
starts with the South African ape-men does not end bluntly with
modern men. Before that, several different races occupied the
world scene, but they were anatomically so like ourselves that for
a long time they passed unnoticed. The first discovery of modern
fossil men dates back to 1 823, when Buckland discovered in Wales
a headless skeleton, covered with powdered ochre, which he
called the Red Lady of Paviland, although in reality it was a male
skeleton.
But it was actually in France in 1868 that there were brought to
light the first remains of the men of the Reindeer Age. At that
time the network of roads was being extended parallel to that of
the railways, and at the entrance to the town of Eyzies, in Dor-
dogne, some blocks of limestone were blown up in order to
construct the road from Perigueux to Sarlat. After discovering a
fairly large number of chipped flints, the workers brought some
fossil bones to light. Information was at once sent to Edouard
Lartet, who had explored the region five years earlier with Christy,
an Englishman. But Lartet was old, and his son Louis was
entrusted with the task by the Minister of Education. He soon
discovered five almost complete skeletons : an old man, two adult
men, a woman and a foetus. In addition, excavating below the spot
where the skeletons lay, Louis exposed the remains of hearths -
blackened earth and calcined bones - chipped flints, shells and the
more or less complete skeletons of animals in fairly large numbers.
The task of studying these skeletons was entrusted to the
leading anthropologists of the day: Paul Broca, Pruner-Bey, de
Quatrefages and Hamy. The famous Cro-Magnon race - so named
because the five skeletons came from the place of that name - had
just made its entry into prehistory.
A few years later, at Grimaldi not far from Menton, the pre-
historian Riviere profited by the construction of the railway from
Marseilles to Genoa by discovering further fossil skeletons of
modern men. At this place nine caves open into the red rocks
THE HUNT FOR FOSSIL MAN 59
known as the Baousse Rousse, which overhang the sea. A tunnel
was being dug through these caves and it was there that Rivi&re,
on March 26th, 1 872, exhumed the Menton man. In 1 873 he found
three further skeletons and, in the two following years, two
skeletons of children. All these were of the same type as those
found at Cro-Magnon. Then, in 1901, under the direction and
with the financial help of Prince Albert I of Monaco, the skeletons
of an old woman and a child were exhumed that were very
different from those of Cro-Magnon.
The discoveries multiplied - to such an extent that to-day we
have to admit the existence of three different racial types in
Western Europe in the Reindeer Age, that strangely recall the
three principal types known at the present time : the white, black
and yellow races.
The Cro-Magnon type corresponds to the white peoples. These
men were very big - their height was on an average between
5 feet 1 1 inches and 6 feet i inch, and they were very robust, so far
as can be judged from the size of the marks left by the muscular
insertions on the surface of the bones. They were tall-headed and
their faces were slightly flattened, with very prominent
cheekbones.
On the other hand, the two Grimaldi skeletons correspond
more to the black peoples and for this reason they are generally
known as the Grimaldi Negroids. They were individuals of small
stature, possessing, like modern negroes, very long forearms and
forelegs as compared, respectively, with the upper arms and
thighs. In addition, they had prominent lower jaws and very large
teeth. These skeletons completely resemble those of modern
Bushmen and Hottentots.
Finally, there was a third racial type corresponding to the yellow
peoples : the Chancelade type, discovered in 1 888 not far from that
village in the neighbourhood of Perigueux. Of small stature, too,
these men had very well proportioned faces, with prominent
cheekbones.
*
This is a very rapid sketch of the principal human palseonto-
logical discoveries of the last 100 years. These discoveries have
made it possible for us to form a good idea of the different stages
bridging the gap between ape and man. In no case, however, do
they allow us to write that man is descended from the ape, a con-
60 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
venient formula popularized following the work of Darwin but
without real relation to fact; all zoologists and all palaeontologists,
beginning with Darwin and Huxley themselves, have condemned
it.
In fact, fine as they are, the exhumations of fossil man just
described are insufficient to explain completely the origins of
humanity. On the one hand, these fossils are not the only ones to
have been brought to light several tens of thousands of years after
their burial. On the other hand, one must take into consideration
the intense cerebral activity that distinguishes man, anatomically
and physiologically, whether prehistoric or modern.
This is why, before attempting to set up a genealogical tree for
the human species, that very special field of the mental activities -
industrial, aesthetic and religious - of prehistoric man must be
explored in order to offer a synthesis of any value.
CHAPTER III
Prehistoric Art and Life
A LITTLE Spanish girl named Maria was playing one day in a
cave. Not far away, her father, Don Marcellino de Santuola, an
archaeologist from Santander, was turning over the earth floor
in search of chipped flints. Suddenly raising her eyes, little Maria
caught sight of a splendid coloured picture on the ceiling of the
cave. 'Toros! TorosT she cried; and her father, roused by her cry,
was able after a fashion, by the light of some candles, to gaze in
amazement upon a parade of red and black bison covering the
whole roof of the cavern. This was how, in 1873, the rupestrean
form of prehistoric art was discovered.
The incident occurred in the Altamira cave, north-west of the
FIG. 1 5 . The roof-painting in the Altamira cave.
little town of Torrelavega, about twenty miles fom Santander, in
the mountain chain of moderate height known as the Cantabrian
Mountains, that runs from east to west parallel to the northern
Atlantic coast. This cavern had been accidentally discovered by a
local hunter in 1863, and at intervals, when he had time to spare,
Don Santuola came to explore it. Unfortunately, this splendid
discovery of prehistoric paintings was repudiated by all the
experts, apart from the Spaniard Vilanova and the Frenchman
61
62 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Piette, and was quickly forgotten. However, one good argument
favoured their antiquity. With their humped backs, their large,
wide and deep chests, and their great forward-curving horns,
there was no doubt that the painted animals were bison and
everyone knows that bison disappeared from Europe several
thousands of years ago. It was therefore impossible to conceive
of fraud, the more so as over the colours lay a slight calcareous
deposit. For a few, therefore, the Altamira cave contained
masterpieces painted by our very distant ancestors. But for the
immense majority of prehistorians the Altamira cave did not exist.
However, at the beginning of the year 1895, in the little hamlet
of La Mouthe, in the commune of Eyzies in Dordogne, rather
more than a mile south of La V6zre, a farmer named Lapeyre
FIG. 1 6. Mammoth en-
graved on a rock
wall (Laugerie-
Haute, Dordogne).
decided to clear out the floor of a small cave which served him
as a cellar. This sort of thing is usual in the district, where the
limestone hills are often sinuously hollowed out into caves of
considerable width and depth; in them provisions, especially
wine, are kept cool. To enlarge such caves the soil that has accu-
mulated on the floor has to be dug out. But what was the surprise
of M. Lapeyre and his men when, on April nth, 1895, they un-
covered the entrance to a gallery that plunged into the cliff. In
this gallery several vilkge youths, in search of adventure, were
at once swallowed up. By candlelight they crept along for about
a hundred yards and then, while halting for a rest, one of them,
Gaston Berthoumeyrou, suddenly saw some drawings cut into
the rock wall; taking a closer look, he saw that they depicted a
kind of bull - in fact, a bison. The young Berthoumeyrou was
not ignorant of the fact that the region had already furnished
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 63
some important prehistoric remains, and thanks to him the pre-
historian Emile Riviere was informed at once. From M. Lapeyre,
Riviere secured permission to clear out the gallery, and in the soil
that was excavated he discovered numerous chipped flints. In
the end he was able to reveal, on the walls of the La Mouthe cave,
engravings representing several kinds of animals, notably bison,
stags, horses, and a rhinoceros. On September z8th, 1896, a
report from Riviere was presented to the Academy of Sciences.
It disclosed the existence of line engravings done by men of the
Reindeer Age; he had even found a flat and hollowed stone con-
taining traces of fat, so that he had, in fact, simultaneously
discovered the lighting methods that made it possible for the
artists to work more than 100 yards from the entrance to the
cavern. However, this report was not very well received, although
the method of excavation, the discovery of chipped flints, and the
portrayal of France long ago, left no doubt as to the authenticity
and antiquity of the La Mouthe engravings. But they found no
more credit with the scientists than did the paintings at Altamira.
On August 3ist, 1896, Francois Daleau was excavating a cave
where he had made a habit of going in his spare time since 1874.
In this cave, situated at Pair-Non-Pair, not far from Bordeaux,
he had already discovered chipped stone implements comparable
with those found in the Dordogne region and in the Pyrenees;
these simply gave evidence that the Bordeaux region had also
been occupied by prehistoric men. Daleau had long ago observed
some drawings on the rock wall, but he had paid no further
attention to them. But the discoveries at La Mouthe had put him
on the alert, and on August 3ist he thought he clearly saw the
engraved outline of a horse. As soon as he could, he returned to
his cave and began to wash all the walls carefully with a vine
spray. In one month he had been able to identify about ten animal
figures which he then made known to the scientific world. Like
de Santuola and Riviere, Daleau received more sceptical laughter
than encouragement.
In the end it was the schoolmaster of Eyzies, Denis Peyrony,
aided by the Abbe Breuil and a local doctor named Capitan, who
at last secured recognition of the true nature of the prehistoric
paintings and engravings. Since the middle of the nineteenth
century important discoveries had been made in the Eyzies region :
in 1863, Lartet and Christy had discovered chipped stones and
64 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
engraved bones; in 1868, Louis Lartet had uncovered the Cro-
Magnon men; in 1872, a few hundred yards from Eyzies station,
the Laugerie-Basse skeleton had been found; in 1888, the Chance-
lade skeleton had been discovered; and from the first excavations
of Lartet and Christy there was no end to the discovery of chipped
flints and bone implements, as well as of the remains of animals
that have now vanished from Europe, bears, reindeer, mam-
moths, rhinoceroses, hyasnas, and so forth.
On September i5th, 1901, Denis Peyrony was exploring a cave
that opened into the side of a hill some 500 yards beyond Eyzies,
on the Sarlat road. This was the Font-de Gaume cave where by
candlelight he saw a great number of painted animals. Dr. Capitan,
Professor at the School of Anthropology, and Henri Breuil - a
young abbd of 24 years, who eventually became Professor of
Prehistory in the College de France and is to-day one of the
unquestioned masters of all that concerns prehistoric art and
industry - came at once. This trio of prehistorians had the remark-
able luck to carry out a double coup. In fact, half a mile beyond
Font-de-Gaume, M. Pomarel, a farmer at Les Combarelles, took
it into his head to enlarge a rock shelter that he used as a stable
for his draught oxen; he had cleared the entrance of a small
gallery and, after creeping with much difficulty for 100 yards,
discovered animal engravings on the wall. Still marvelling at the
paintings of Font-de-Gaume, which they had scarcely had the
time to decipher, Capitan, Breuil and Peyrony looked with wonder
on the engravings at Les Combarelles.
Once more the antiquity of these paintings and engravings was
duly proved, not only by the light calcareous deposit, transparent
or translucent, which covered them, but also by the chipped flint
implements in the sand and clay that partly filled the galleries of
these decorated caverns. The story of Altamira, La Mouthe and
Pair-Non-Pair was repeated. But this time, when the discoveries
made in the cave had been concisely presented in August 1902 to
the Congress of the French Association for the Advancement of
Science, both experts and laymen were convinced. The principal
participants at the Congress went to verify the existence of the
decorated caves de visu. Then they all became excited and the most
celebrated and influential of them, Emile Cartailhac, was honest
enough to write and publish his Mea culpa d'un sceptique.
But Cartailhac went further: he summoned the young Abb6
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 65
Breuil to his side and made him undergo a sort of test, asking him
to decipher and interpret the engravings and paintings of the
Marsoulas cave in the Pyrenees. Enthused by the assurance and
learning of Henri Breuil, Cartailhac suggested a trip to Altamira
and that same evening wrote to Salomon Reinach asking him to
procure a subsidy of 5 oo francs from the Acad6mie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres. By return of post, Salomon Reinach advanced
the sum from his own pocket and, on October ist, 1902, after one
of those toilsome journeys of which Spanish trains have the secret,
Cartailhac and Breuil reached Altamira. Both were amazed; at
Font-de-Gaume the paintings were more or less effaced, at Com-
barelles and at La Mouthe the engravings were mostly confused,
indistinct and difficult to decipher; but here, on the contrary, the
polychrome bulls and horses gleamed in the light of the candles.
But whereas in the Eyzies region Breuil had been able to copy the
paintings and engravings by making traces, at Altamira he had to
spend three weeks lying on his back for eight hours a day on sacks
of bracken in order to take geometrical bearings on the paintings.
The task was expensive : Cartailhac and Breuil would soon have
been at the end of their resources if the latter had luckily not
brought with him 400 francs which he had just received from
Emile Riviere for having traced the La Mouthe engravings.
All the boxes containing the reproductions of these prehistoric
works had unfortunately to lie dormant for another three years,
for the cost of publishing them was too great. In 1905 Prince
Albert of Monaco himself gave the necessary funds for the print-
of these monographs. This is probably the place to emphasize the
immense services rendered to science, and especially to human
palaeontology, by Prince Albert's activities, which far surpassed
enlightened amateurism. To him, for whom nothing that
was human was foreign, we owe the Grimaldi discoveries,
the publication of important volumes in colour of the engravings
and paintings of the principal decorated caves of South-western
France and Northern Spain, and, above all, the creation in Paris
of the Institute of Human Palaeontology, a research organization
inaugurated in 1921, of which Marcellin Boule was the director
until 1940. Finally, we must not forget that the Prince of Monaco
played the role of patron in other fields, interesting himself also
in marine biology and founding the principality's famous Oceano-
graphic Museum.
66 MAN IN SEARCH OF "HIS ANCESTORS
The discoveries of decorated caves in France multiplied from
this time on, principally in the Pyrenees and the Dordogne, but
also in Spain in the region of the Cantabrian Mountains. Up till
now 70 decorated caves that had been inhabited by hunters of
the Reindeer Age have been discovered. Twenty-four are known
in the Pyrenees, eighteen in Dordogne, seven in Arige, four in
Lot, four in Ardeche, four in Andalusia, two in Charente, two in
Hautes-Pyrdnees, two in Castille, two in Basses-Pyren6es and one
in Herault, to which must be added two Italian caves. Account
must be taken of the factors that limit such discoveries. Like the
Lascaux cave in Dordogne, the majority were explored only by
chance; in certain regions where caves are very numerous, one
is explored rather than another, thus sometimes passing over a
decorated cave in order to examine a simple geological curiosity.
Finally, certain caves have sheltered paintings that to-day have
disappeared, for when the entrance is fairly big, warm air deposits
water-vapour on the walls and thus contributes to the rapid
destruction of the paintings ; this is probably what happened at
Font-de-Gaume .
But when a decorated cave is discovered it is still necessary to
make certain of its authenticity. This is probably the most
important question for the layman, who never fails to be sur-
prised, and often does not hide his scepticism, that it is possible to
assure him that this painted bison or that engraved mammoth or
this outline of a hand was done 30,000 or 40,000 years ago. How-
ever, certain arguments can furnish proof of their incontestible
authenticity. When an animal is depicted that has long disap-
peared from the region - like rhinoceroses, mammoths, bears,
reindeer, bison, etc. - one can only be in the presence of old
paintings or modern fakes. Now palaeontology tells us when these
animals vanished and at the same time provides a method of
dating. Another proof of authenticity is the frequent necessity of
clearing the cave of the soil which either wholly or partly obstructs
it, before being able to examine the rupestrean engravings and
paintings; when the soil contains chipped flint implements,
authenticity is incontestible and it is again possible to date them.
Finally, in very many cases, as at Lascaux, the surface of the rock
wall is covered with a very light and completely transparent
calcareous coating which could only have been deposited there by
the geological processes of many centuries.
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
FIG. 17. The evolution of painting methods during the Aurignacian:
(a) outlines of hands dipped in colour, from La Baume de Latrone;
() hands surrounded by colour, from Le Castillo, Spain; (c)
animals done by finger-scraping, from La Baume de Latrone;
(d] simple line sketches in one colour, from Pair-Non-Pair.
68
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Thus we can not only determine approximately the age of
works of rupestrean art but - what is in the end much easier - we
can classify the paintings and engravings in relation one to
another. From these studies of relative chronology and absolute
dating, the experts - notably the Abb6 Breuil - have been able to
sort the works of art into various schools and establish the
principal stages of artistic creation within these schools.
When considering the Franco-Cantabrian area alone, which
stretches from the south of the Charentaise region to the North-
Atlantic coast of Spain, taking in the Dordogne and the Pyrenees,
FIG. 1 8. Polychrome bison in relief (La Madeleine, Dordogne).
the Abb6 Breuil distinguished two different cycles of decorated
caves.
The first cycle covers the Aurignacian epoch and dates from
about 40,000 years ago. This cycle begins by representations of
human hands in red or yellow, some being made by placing the
hand, coated with colour, on the rock wall, the others being made
by applying the colour around the hand as it rests against the wall;
as a great majority of left hands can be observed, we may conclude
that the men of this epoch were already right-handed. The first
cycle of decorated caves continues with line drawings done in the
clay that covers the cave walls; these formless designs are called
'macaronis'. Later appeared what the Abb6 Glary called finger-
scraping engravings : the artist created animal figures by running
Skull of the Cro-Magnon man, a modern type from
30,000 years ago. (Musee de 1'Homme, Paris.)
The grave of a Cro-Magnon man, discovered near Menton. The shells
that surround the head and the fcetal position of the body indicates the
existence of a funerary cult in the Reindeer Age. (Musee de FHomme,
Paris.)
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
69
FIG. 19. Mammoths fighting (Laugerie-Haute, Dordogne).
U
^~*
^
f
~^J
n
/ ,- r v y
FIG. 20. Female reindeer with young (La Madeleine, Dordogne).
FIG. 21. Bull (Teyjat, Dordogne).
yo MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
several fingers through the clay, though they were certainly still
very sketchy; at other times the figures were covered with
colouring matter and a sketchy painting in yellow or red resulted.
The proof that fingers were used is provided by the fact that these
sketches are always in triple line, corresponding to the use of the
first three fingers, by the fact that there is never a really broken
line as would have been made by stone implements, and finally
by the fact that in the curved parts the lines separate slightly one
from another. The caves at La Baume-Latrone, in Card, and at
La Pileta, in Spain in the neighbourhood of Malaga, provide the
finest example of these engravings and finger paintings.
Still in the Aurignacian cycle, the next to appear were the line
drawings, at first traced with a single fine line, either yellow or
FIG. 22. The famous fighting reindeer of Font-de-Gaume. A
specimen of Magdalenian polychrome painting.
red, and later bounded by a line in which thick and thin strokes
are visible. At this stage the animals are almost always depicted
in twisted perspective, which the Abbe Breuil, creator of the term,
defines thus : the animals are represented in profile but the ears,
horns, and hoofs are represented full-face or three-quarter face,
and sometimes even the internal organs appear as if they were
visible through the skin. The first cycle of decorated caves
reached its maximum development with the systematic use of
colour, first in flat tint, and then in two colours or in polychrome,
as for instance those splendid animals at Lascaux and Altamira
painted in red ochre, with extremities and muscles emphasized
with black.
Besides the twisted perspective, the Aurignacian animal por-
trayals are characterized by their realism, both intellectual and
visual. The finest paintings show animals in action, browsing,
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 71
running and leaping, no longer motionless, and they are as
realistic as photographs.
Besides paintings and engravings, the first men of the Reindeer
Age executed some sculptures of very fine appearance, like those
discovered at Laussel by Dr. Lalanne. However, during the
Aurignacian cycle painting and engraving were always clearly
separated, and it was exceptional that an engraving served as a
first sketch or as basis for a painting, which is contrary to what
happened in the second cycle of cave decoration.
This second cycle, corresponding to the Magdalenian epoch,
which is reckoned to date from 25,000 years ago, shows almost
the same stages as the Aurignacian cycle. Everything happened as
FIG. 23. The prehistoric e pin-up' discovered by Miss Garrod
a few years ago. It is probably the only truly realistic
human representation in which body features are not
grossly deformed. (Angles-sur-L'Anglin, Vienna).
if the artistic tradition had been suddenly lost and then, several
thousand years later, had been reinvented by the Magdaleniahs.
Thus the paintings of the second cycle of cave decoration begin
with line drawings in thick and thin strokes, and end with flat
tint and finally polychrome.
We have now only to discuss what techniques were used by the
artists of the Reindeer Age to create their paintings and engrav-
ings. The pigments were found in certain geological strata: they
consisted of iron salts for red and yellow, and of manganese salts
for black. These minerals were reduced to powder which could
be used in two different ways. Sometimes they were incorporated
with semi-solid fatty matter, probably derived from slaughtered
beasts, and the pigment was then spread upon the rock walls
either with the fingers or with a sort of brush made by fraying a
72 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
branch at one end (perhaps, as certain primitive tribes still do, by
chewing) or properly made of hair or feathers. Sometimes, on the
other hand, the powder was blown straight on to the rock wall
through a hollowed bone or branch, or directly from the mouth,
as is still the practice of certain Australian aborigines : it is the
method of the airbrush, and at Lascaux, for example, denser
patches corresponding to the centre of the jet can be clearly
distinguished.
Because these paintings were very often carried out at the far
ends of the caves, the artists had to solve the lighting problem.
They used either stones that were hollowed out to form a bowl
and contained a little fatty matter with a dry piece of plant matter
as a wick (like those found by Riviere in the cave at La Mouthe),
or very thin sandstone slabs, one end being covered with fatty
matter together with a wick (like those covered with lampblack
discovered by the Abbe Breuil in great numbers in the Trois-
Freres cave in the Pyrenees), or resin torches. Finally, the high
position of some of the pictures suggests the use of accessories to
raise the artist above the ground - ladders, ropes or perches.
The engravings were made in the soft clay covering the cave
wall with a finger, or with very hard flints capable of cutting
relatively fragile limestones.
But the works of art are not limited simply to paintings and
engravings. Very fine bas-reliefs have been found as well as clay
models, of which the most famous is probably the bison frieze
discovered at Tuc d'Andoubert in the Pyrenees. Finally, we must
mention the existence of numerous working implements -
hunting weapons especially - ornamented with drawings, carvings
or engravings. The most famous of these is undoubtedly that
discovered by Lartet of a mammoth engraved on a mammoth's
tusk. These engravings were very often made on what have been
called batons de commandement^ staves of authority. These are frag-
ments of reindeer antler with a hole bored through them, the
purpose of which remains a mystery despite the name we have
given them: nothing proves that they were emblems of power and
they can equally well be regarded as arrow-straighteners, tent-
pegs, tool handles, and so forth.
Our final problem is that of the origin and significance of the
art. According to the theory put forward by Obermaier, a Swiss
who worked with Breuil and Peyrony in the French caves for a
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
73
FIG. 25. End of a spear- thrower, decor-
ated with a black-cock (La Mas
d'Azil, Haute-Garonne).
FIG. 24. '"Baton de
commandement ' from
La Madeleine
(Dordogne).
FIG. 26. Engraved 'baton de commandtmenf (La Madeleine, Dordogne).
very long time, man disputed with the wild beasts - especially
cave bears - for possession of the caves that served as his dwelling;
on the clay surface of the walls the bears left very distinct claw
marks and it was from a desire to imitate these claw marks that
man first came to sketch the 'macaronis' and later to trace the
animal outlines.
74
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
This explanation seems a little forced and to-day we can group
the views on the origins and significance of prehistoric art in two
main schools. For some this realistic art was essentially utilitarian,
giving expression to the existence of a magic ritual. In support of
this thesis it is pointed out that the engraved, painted or sculpted
animals are always those which a hunting people would covet
because they provide the materials indispensable to the life of the
human group: food, clothes and weapons. Furthermore, these
animals are often depicted wounded, pierced with arrows or, so
far as we can judge, caught in traps. By representing such scenes
FIG. 27. Man disguised as an animal, with reindeer (Les Trois Freres
cave, Ariege).
and by performing certain ritual ceremonies before them, the
sorcerer ensured a successful hunt. Such magical practices still
continue among many primitive peoples. It is one of the features
of primitive mentality to notice that in sunlight the coveted
animal is always accompanied by its shadow and, by representing
this shadow - that is to say by sketching the animal - there is every
chance of catching it. Finally, in support of this theory of a
utilitarian art, it is suggested that as the females are often depicted
pregnant, there is evidence of the existence of certain fertility rites
ensuring the multiplication of the quarry, and therefore being
provisioned at all seasons.
Also, to this idea of fertility rites must be linked the existence of
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
75
FIG. 28. Trapped mammoth (Font-de-
Gaume, Dordogne).
FIG. 29. Sorcerer in a boar's
mask (Trois-Freres cave,
Haute-Garonne).
FIG. 30. Stag facing a trap (Les
Combarelles, Dordogne).
human portrayals, which are fairly rare in the works of art of the
Reindeer Age. A certain number of female statuettes are known,
each of them being called a Venus: the breasts and genital organs
are always strongly emphasized and certain of these statuettes
doubtless represent pregnant women. On the other hand, male
representations are very rare, if one excepts a few phalluses. There,
too, one should see proof of a fecundity cult.
The partisans of utilitarian art make the most of the fact that
the paintings and engravings are always situated in very secluded
places and that they must often have been done in very difficult
conditions. At Les Combarelles, for example, the first engravings
appear some 130 yards from the entrance to the cave, and at La
Mouthe nearly 100 yards. Thus, in order to execute them, the
artist had to isolate himself for many hours at the far end of the
cave and other men of the tribe had to be willing to provision
76 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
him, which is inconceivable unless he performed a useful function
for the tribe. Further, these engravings and pictures remained
hidden to the people at large and, beyond the sorcerer-artists
themselves, would only be known to a few initiates. The sorcerer
himself is sometimes represented in the paintings, and the most
famous of these is the one in the Trois-Frres cave, masked and
wearing the skin and antlers of a reindeer.
The supporters of the theory of art for art's sake reply that it is
difficult to understand why prehistoric man should have taken so
much trouble to portray the animals when, for magic ritual
purposes, simple hastily-drawn pictures would have sufficed.
They also make the most of the fact that the paintings and
engravings do not necessarily begin very far from the caves'
entrance and that at Font-de-Gaume, for example, to cite only one
instance, the animal representations are close to the entrances.
In certain cases the sculptures are wholly exposed to the open sky,
as at Cap Blanc.
In fact, as in many things, it seems necessary to adopt a middle
view. Materializing his daily preoccupation with provisioning,
but carried away by his subject, man passed beyond the utilitarian
framework of the first magical representations and, moved by a
feeling for the beautiful, achieved magnificent pictorial or
sculptural compositions in which art for art's sake came close to
eclipsing the material interest of the work. In conclusion one
cannot do better than quote the views of the Abb6 Breuil, which
are full of common sense :
'There have been frequent discussions with a view to deciding
whether the artists created these works for the love of art, simply
for the satisfaction of having done so, or whether they were
engraved or painted with the object of bringing the animals they
hunted to their ends by magical means. There is no contradiction
between these two views, which are not mutually exclusive but,
indeed, complementary. We cannot claim that every line or every
figure had a magical purpose, and in certain cases we can conceive
that to sketch an outline rapidly could for the artist have had no
more importance than to affirm his personality to himself and to
other visitors to these places, if they have preceded them there,
a little like the visitors of to-day who have an urge to scribble
their names. Again, it is clear that there are a number of figures
that required considerable time for their execution, and real skill
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 77
FIG. 31. Bouquetin wounded by an arrow (Niaux, Ariege).
in design and technique is evidence both that the artist took
genuine aesthetic pleasure in creating his work, and also that the
social environment in which he lived took a large part in the
execution of such works and assured their creator a life free more
or less from daily cares, for his works arose in the satisfaction of
needs considered by his fellows as essential to their existence.
FIG. 32. Lassoed reindeer (Les Combarelles, Dordogne).
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
X'
FIG. 33. Hunting a wild boar (Agua Amarga, Spanish Levant).
'Nobody disputes that in Egypt art was devoted to the cult of
the dead, nor that in the Middle Ages art was almost entirely
subservient to the Christian ideal; similarly, in the Reindeer Age
our painters and sculptors, no less artists than the Egyptian priests
and the image-makers of our cathedrals, found, thanks to beliefs
in hunting magic, a magic of reproduction and destruction, the
social reason to exercise, develop and teach their art. They were
artists and magicians at the same time, painting for the love of art,
FIG. 34. Stag wounded by a shower of arrows or spears (Pefia de
Candamo, Cantabria, Spain).
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 79
but also that the desired game should multiply, that the hunt
might be propitious, that maleficent beasts might be destroyed.
Art, principally in little developed societies and civilizations, could
not persist and grow except by penetrating an occupation judged
by them to be essential.'
To conclude this survey of the artistic activity of prehistoric
man, the existence of music and dancing in the Reindeer Age must
be mentioned.
The origins of music and dancing are to be found very deep in
the human past, since a certain sense of rhythm can be observed
even with some of the great apes, especially the chimpanzees.
Both in freedom and captivity the most competent observers, like
Carpenter, Koehler and Zuckermann, whose authority is beyond
dispute, have often seen chimpanzees perform a childish round
while holding hands. Sometimes these rounds are directed by a
sort of master of ceremonies, who leads the dance by clapping his
hands and striking his feet on the earth. Sometimes, too, the
females dress themselves up for these dances with lianas and
leaves. Undoubtedly, the men of the Reindeer Age knew about
dancing, which, in certain circumstances at least, was accompanied
by music. Numerous mural drawings give evidence of this.
Some of the musical instruments used by prehistoric man are
known, for they have been found during excavations. The prin-
cipal ones were pipes cut from bone, flutes that in several paint-
ings and engravings are shown in the hands of the sorcerer, and
especially bull-roarers. These instruments were cut from reindeer
antlers and a splendid specimen has been found in Dordogne in
the La Roche cave. Even to-day some primitive tribes use these
bull-roarers by tying them to cords and whirling them above their
heads to produce more or less harmonious sounds. Flutes, pipes
and bull-roarers are still very often used in our days by some
peoples to make the spirit voices heard during magical ceremonies.
Whether this art is in fairly close relation to the physical needs
of the individuals or whether it is a purely intellectual manifesta-
tion, the study of the origins and significance of art results in
raising certain questions concerning the life, both individual and
collective, of prehistoric men, especially the men of the Reindeer
Age. The natural first question concerns the respective places held
by religion and magic.
Religious manifestations are found first of all in the cult of the
8o
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
FIG. 35-
Wounded
bison (Mar-
soulas, French
Pyrenees).
dead. Very often, in fact, the skeletons or fragments of skeletons
that have been discovered were beyond doubt deliberately buried.
Examples are abundant. The Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-
aux-Saints (1908) was buried in a geometrically shaped grave;
the men discovered in 1909 by Peyrony and Capitan at La
Ferrassie in Dordogne were all buried in specially dug graves,
surrounded by offerings of food, as evidenced by the presence of
pieces of animal skeletons. Again, the skeleton of a Neanderthal
man was discovered in the Hissar Mountains of Siberia, north of
the town of Baissoum, and around it were disposed in a regular
fashion the tops of the skulls of goat-like ruminants, still with
FIG. 36. The 'Venus' of
Laugerie-Basse (Dor-
dogne).
FIG. 37. Small engraved
human figure from
Laugerie-Basse (Dor-
dogne).
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
81
their horns. At Solutr, in the department of Saone-et-Loire, five
skeletons were found buried parallel to one another. Further, like
the Red Lady of Paviland and all the Grimaldi skeletons, there was
red ochre on numerous skeletons, probably the symbolic repre-
sentation of blood. At Grimaldi, too, a blue stone was placed upon
the middle of the old woman's forehead. In the Trou Violet cave
in the Pyrenees pebbles were disposed in such a way as to outline
the body of the dead person.
All these facts show beyond dispute that the Neanderthal men
and the men of the Reindeer Age had practised a cult of the dead.
Moreover, it is not uncommon to find skeletons with their limbs
folded back along the body in the position called 'foetal', because
it recalls the position of the foetus in the womb. Indeed, in order
FIG. 38. Small sketch of a
human being (leaving for a
hunt ?) (La Madeleine,
Dordogne).
that they should keep this position for ever, the corpses had had
to be placed folded and then tied : perhaps because the fear of death
obliged men to bind the bodies and so render them inoffensive,
perhaps also because there was a quite simple wish to give parents
or friends the ideal position of rest and sleep, and perhaps, finally,
because by giving the dead man a foetal posture it was made
possible for him to be born again. This last hypothesis brings us
to the idea of survival, which was certainly not strange to some
peoples of the Upper Palaeolithic. It is to this idea of survival that
one must attribute the presence of tools, weapons, foodstuffs,
decorative objects, and so on around many skeletons. It is pro-
bably to this idea, too, that one must relate the symbolic repre-
sentation of blood in the form of red ochre. But, whatever the
hypothesis, it is nevertheless clear that the existence of a funerary
cult among prehistoric men is beyond dispute and that it goes back
at least some 75,000 years.
82 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
The reader will not have failed to notice that during excavations
the tops of skulls, intact or broken, are exhumed much more
often than any other part of the skeleton. Actually, there are
several explanations for this. First, it must be borne in mind that
the bones of the cranium are harder and much less fragile than the
bones of the face or the long bones of the limbs, also that certain
skulls must have been used as domestic implements and that, after
having been more or less roughly cut, they served as receptacles.
Nor must we exclude the possibility that the intervention of wild
beasts or cannibal contemporaries caused the separation of the
heads from the rest of the bodies ; water action and falls of rock
could have had the same result. However, it seems that a skull
cult existed during prehistoric times and this was perhaps the first
manifestation of the cult of the dead. This skull cult is found in
our own day among certain primitive peoples, in Australia, New
Guinea, New Zealand, and among the American Indians, etc.
Such special attention to the skull of a dead person can have
various origins. It is sometimes a simple sign of affection; at other
times it is a sign of respect for a particularly remarkable individual,
a man noted for his strength and skill, or a woman for her repro-
ductive capacities. On the other hand, the attention paid to the
skull by paying homage to the essential part of the individual,
arises quite simply from the fear of death; it is a way of appeasing
a formidable power. Finally, the skull cult has often as its object
the appropriation of the vital force of a parent, or a friend, or an
enemy. It happens that, with this end in view, an enlargement of
the foramen magnum is made with a view to consuming the brain,
and certain tribes justify their practice of head-hunting in this way.
Nothing expressly proves that the men of the Reindeer Age were
head hunters, but it seems incontestable that, for one reason or
another, they practised a skull cult.
From the rites relating to this cult we easily pass to ancestor
worship, to the practice of burial with a special orientation of the
skeleton, to the disposal around it of accessory articles, to the
digging of a tomb, to the placing of slabs above the dead, and
so on.
Thus, prehistoric man 30,000 to 40,000 years ago was already
homo sapiens, whose cerebral functions, whose moral and religious
aspirations scarcely differed, mutatis mutandis, from what these
have been throughout the historic period and still are to-day.
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 83
We are indebted to the anthropologist Vellard for having
shown, by a curious personal experience, that humanity thus
possesses a common fund of psychic qualities. On an expedition
to Paraguay, Vellard had by chance given refuge to a small girl
abandoned in their flight by the members of a particularly fierce
Indian tribe belonging to the Guayaquil group. Brought up by
Vellard's mother, this little girl eventually became Mme. Vellard
and is now a distinguished ethnologist, speaking several lan-
guages and collaborating very actively and very intelligently in
her husband's work. One is not born civilized; one becomes it.
And, as soon as he had reached a certain stage of his evolution,
prehistoric man had already acquired the essential psychic attri-
butes characteristic of humanity. The rest is a matter of life in
society.
*
But primitive art and religion are not sufficient to define the
principal aspects of the life of prehistoric man. It was by the
chipped stone implements that his existence was discovered and
duly proved for the first time. For a thorough study of the life of
prehistoric man, his industrial activities must be examined, by
passing in review the principal types of implement he made and
how they were made.
It is probable, although we cannot produce any formal proof,
that the earliest men first used wooden weapons. But these
weapons were rarely preserved, for wood is very easily destroyed;
fire burns it, shock breaks it and water rots it'. However, some
years ago, in a swamp in Hanover, a yew spear was discovered
between the ribs of a mammoth, and this weapon can be attributed
to the Neanderthal man. England, Spain and Germany have also
furnished, here and there, fragments of wooden tips and spears.
Nevertheless, it was stone that made it possible for prehistoric
man to manufacture his essential tools and weapons. And further,
of all the kinds of stones at his disposal he always showed a very
decided preference for flint. Flint is in fact one of the hardest of
rocks, but one which is nevertheless easy to break because of its
foliated crystalline structure. It should further be noted that in
their natural state flints often have edges that are fairly sharp, a
fact which could have originated the idea of using them as they
were or with very slight retouching, thus drawing the attention
of early men to the interesting properties of flint as raw material.
84 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
But how does one begin to cut a block of flint, to break off thin
sheets, or sharpen up the block itself so that its destructive power
is increased, however skilfully or unskilfully handled ? It was the
Frenchman, Leon Courier, a master stone-cutter, who undertook
interesting researches into this subject some years ago. Later he
worked at the Muse de 1'Homme, when it was founded in 1937.
His work has been continued by the Frenchman, Bordes, and the
Englishman, Barnes; consequently there is now not much that
we do not know about the techniques perfected thousands of
years ago for preparing flint weapons and tools.
The prehistoric workmen struck the large flint nodules with
a stone or wood striker. The stone strikers, of flint or sandstone,
were rather clumsy tools. The hard wood strikers - regularly
shaped sticks of oak or box about 8 inches long and a little thicker
than a thumb produced thin implements, the finish and delicacy
of which it is impossible not to admire. In some cases the cold
chisel technique was used, or certainly a technique known as 'on
the anvil', consisting of throwing the flint violently upon another
hard stone - a rock for example, or a large block placed on the
ground.
Courier's researches and those of his pupils were so carefully
carried out that, faced with an implement, it is mostly possible to
decide which technique was used in its manufacture.
But whichever is used, blows on a large flint nodule progres-
sively detach splinters and the nodule itself grows gradually
smaller. The prehistorians call this nodule the 'nucleus' and the
fragments detached from it the 'splinters' if they are short, and
'blades' if they are fairly long. Very soon the nucleus, before being
shaped, was roughly prepared so that one of its faces was rendered
almost flat, the face on which the striking action was exercised
and which is known as the 'striking plane'. The work was thus
made easier while increasing the precision of the shaping.
Three principal categories of stone work could thus have
existed: the work on the nucleus, in which the splinters were
neglected and discarded; the work on the splinters, in which the
nuclei were only regarded as raw material without direct utility;
finally, the mixed work, using simultaneously the splinters and
the nuclei after they had been subjected to adequate retouching.
On the other hand, within these categories the shape and variety
of the tools makes it possible to distinguish fairly numerous types,
Reconstruction of the facial muscles of the
Neanderthal man. (Boule.)
Aurignacian polychrome painting on the ceiling of one of the caverns
at Lascaux. (Dordogne.)
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
the more numerous, moreover, as the years passed, for, after a
process of trimming perfected over many years, the investigators
could now devote themselves to minute studies, made still easier
by the use of physico-chemical techniques recently imported into
prehistory. The result is that certain specialists have just made a
stand against the breaking up into innumerable varieties of the
great manufacturing divisions of the chipped stone age. There is
no question of considering this problem here in all its details; it
FIG. 39. Types of eolith, flints shaped by natural geological action
(after Rutot).
will be enough to sketch rapidly the sequence in time of the
various types of manufacture.
The first question is that of eoliths. After the discoveries of
Boucher de Perthes, everyone set out to find chipped flints and in
1863 the Abbe Bourgeois discovered some in very old strata
dating fiom millions of years ago; from this he at once concluded
that man's existence on the earth was very long. Following which,
quite naturally, similar discoveries multiplied in France, Belgium,
Italy, England, Greece and Portugal. However, these discoveries
seemed suspicious ; if they were authentic, then one had to admit
that man had made his appearance on the earth very long ago, so
long ago that at the beginning of the century the anthropologists
86 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
decided to clear the matter up. First of all there was Marcellin
Boule, whose attention was drawn to the work done in a cement
factory at Guerville, near Mantes (Seine-et-Oise). There blocks of
flint were reduced by crushing-mills to stones of small size; now,
after they had been broken, certain pieces of flint were absolutely
identical with the so-called implements that were evidence in
favour of the great antiquity of man on the earth. Then there was
the Abb6 Breuil, who collected near Clermont (Oise), in strata
that dated from about 50 million years ago, a large batch of these
famous flints. The explanation given by the Abb6 Breuil was
definitely confirmed by the Belgian, Mortelmans, following very
FIG. 40. The roughly cut flint nodules of the Abbevillian.
energetic researches: the flints thus fashioned in the shape of
implements had been crushed between blocks of stone rolled
along by moving glaciers. Thus, under the influence of natural
phenomena - such as rupture by glacier pressure or the effect of
heat, or considerable changes of atmospheric temperature - flints
have been shaped in such a way as to mimic the tools of prehistoric
man. To such flints the name eoliths has been given. They are only
freaks of nature which in no way prove the very ancient presence
of man on the earth.
About 500,000 years ago chipped stone manufacture really
began with the Chellean type (from Chelles, Seine-et-Marne), now
very often known as Abbevillian and typified by the use of flint
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
FIG. 41. Faces and profiles of the Acheulian 'limandes'.
cores roughly shaped as oblate tools, but still fairly little touched
up and known as double-faced. Later, the cores were the only
parts used, in a two-faced form already less rough and less thick,
to which this typical shape has given the familiar name Limandes :
this was the Acheulian epoch (from Saint- Acheul, near Amiens,
where on the banks of the Somme are the gravel-pits explored by
Dr. Rigollot).
At the same time, parallel to these types of worked cores there
developed, both in France and England, the working of splinters
known as Clactonian (from Clacton-on-Sea), Levalloisian (from
Levallois, a Paris suburb) and Tayacian (from Tayac, the com-
mune to which the hamlet of Eyzies in Dordogne belongs). Later,
about 100,000 years ago, began the Mousterian (from Le Mouster,
in Dordogne) ; the implements began to be much more varied and
FIG. 4z. Implement types of the Mousterian.
88
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
FIG. 43. Implement types of the Levalloisian.
the two main types were a pointed implement the tip of which had
been specially fashioned after the splinter had been broken off,
and a scraper, one of the edges of which had been made sharp by
minute retouching.
Then, in the Upper Palaeolithic, the tools became extremely
varied: flint scrapers, borers, cutters, blades, chisels and arrow-
heads. There were also implements made of bone, generally made
from reindeer bones : harpoons, daggers, awls, spear-throwers, as
well as pins, buttons that resemble our present-day collar-studs,
and needles with eyes. The shape of these implements and their
finish have made it possible for the 'experts to distinguish three
successive civilizations: the Aurignacian (from Aurignac in
Haute-Garonne, explored by Edouard Lartet), the oldest; the
Solutrian (from Solutre in Saone-et-Loire), and finally, the Mag-
dalenian (from La Madeleine in Dordogne).
FIG. 44. Implement types of the Aurignacian.
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE
89
FIG. 45. Implement types of the Solutrian.
The illustrations will show the essential characteristics of these
three periods. No one will fail, however, to observe that the
names given to these various types of manufacture are almost all
taken from French localities, which emphasizes the importance
which the science of prehistory, born in France, thanks to Boucher
de Perthes, has always received in that country.
*
Such manifestations of human activity - artistic, industrial and
religious - imply a rather well-organized collective life and this
has prompted several experts to raise the question of the existence
of a language permitting communication between members of the
same tribe, which takes us back to the problem of the very origin
of the spoken word. It is impossible to take account here of the
various hypotheses, all very hazardous, which have been put
forward to account for the origins of language. All that can be
said is that both the mode of life of men in the Reindeer Age and
their anatomical structure suggest the existence of a spoken
language.
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
FIG. 46. Implement. types of the Magdalenian.
In compensation the tools and weapons of stone and bone, as
well as the works of art which have been left us by these men
justify us in attempting a reconstitution of what could have been
the life of a man in the Reindeer Age, more especially in the
Magdalenian.
While the north of Europe, from the North Pole to Holland,
was covered by an immense glacier, the region where the Magda-
lenian man lived (Charentes and Perigord) marked more or less
the limit between the tundra, which immediately followed the
glacier to the south, and the forested steppe. This transitional zone
with a very severe climate in winter, but fairly warm in summer,
must have presented fine wooded crests where pine, fir, spruce,
larch and birch predominated; elsewhere, where the wind was
strong, was the land of scattered willow and dwarf birch
copses.
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 91
Mosses and lichens were abundant and, on mild days, flowers of
striking colour, including saxifrages and gentians, springing up on
the plateaus when the last traces of snow, which covered the
earth for six months or more, disappeared. In the forests or in the
sheltered valleys the herbaceous plants were more numerous
and varied and sometimes provided edible roots, leaves and
berries.
It was in this landscape that the reindeer developed; it lived in
herds which in spring and autumn made great migrations, now
moving northwards, now descending southwards, always with a
view to finding suitable vegetable sustenance. Very often the cave
hyaenas, and perhaps other great carnivores too, must have
prowled around the herds, watching an opportunity to capture
their prey.
It was in this landscape that the mammoth also evolved, as well
as the woolly rhinoceros, the polar fox and the arctic hare, without
mentioning the smaller rodents and birds. Salmon abounded in
the rivers.
But it was the reindeer that was by far the most important of
all these animals, the basis of the economic life of man at this
epoch. The activity of the Magdalenian tribes was an activity
entirely centred upon hunting the reindeer and on the conversion
of the products deriving from it. It can be reckoned that 80 per
cent, of the activities of a Magdalenian, which concerned the
material or magical preparation for the hunt, the hunt itself or the
exploitation of the prey, were acts which closely or distantly
touched upon the reindeer. This might lead us to think that the
life of men and women must have been fairly monotonous ; now
it seems that it was not so, at least as far as the men were
concerned.
Certainly, the women would not have taken any great part in
the hunting, except perhaps on the occasion of the great collective
beats, to frighten the reindeer by cries, wild gestures and showers
of stones or sticks. But women had another role in the provi-
sioning; they gathered the wild berries and edible plants, an
indispensable contribution to the times when their prey was
scarce. It would be absolutely impossible to cite more precisely
the names of the plants which might have been the object of
systematic collection, for we are ill-informed on the flora of this
period. But it is not at all impossible that one day the discovery of
92 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the remains of a hearth may bring to light precious botanical
evidence.
On the other hand, it may be assumed that the women shared
with the men certain responsibilities concerning the preparation
and upkeep of the fire, which they then knew how to produce at
will, the culinary preparations and finally the manufacture of
articles from the skins of reindeer. The principal articles of this
kind were clothing, tents, sacks and leather bottles, straps and
thongs; the reindeer's sinews, especially the very long and very
straight ones from the hoof muscles, were certainly divided into
very thin strands and used for sewing. There is good reason to
suppose that this sewing was often done with the aid of flat pieces
of bone, fairly wide and fairly thick (carpus and tarsus bones, and
phalanges), which we call sewing-presses; the bone needle,
threaded with a thin piece of tendon, was pushed into the skin
with the sewing-press, which thus served like our own thimbles
in all major respects. At the end the 'thread' was placed on the
sewing-press and cut with a blow from a flint. In fact several
sewing-presses bear irregular cuts at their extremities which it is
logical to interpret as the marks of these flint blows that ended the
sewing, while on their sides can be seen little holes that are
probably the marks of the needles' heads. Thus a woman's day
seems to have been divided mainly between culinary duties and
the care of clothing.
As for the men, they had but one occupation: hunting. For this
they had first to prepare their weapons ; it is probable that each one
knew how to make the ordinary weapons, the harpoon, the
throwing stick, etc., just as each knew how to make the stone
implements necessary to the cutting of reindeer bone. But it is
possible there were experts who prepared certain types of weapons
for their comrades: in any case there certainly were some indi-
viduals in the tribe who were more skilful than others, and from
this to specialisation is not a long step.
It may also be presumed that the experts got together into
workshops whence the weapons and tools were shared out among
the neighbouring tribes. Actually we only possess proof of the
existence of such workshops for a period more recent than the
Magdalenian - for the polished stone age; at that time, moreover,
these workshops 'exported' their merchandise to distant countries,
since we know, for instance, that flints worked in Saone-et-Loire
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 93
were transported to Belgium and used there. Similar proofs for
the Magdalenian period are impossible, but one still cannot deny
that there was a certain division of labour.
Furthermore, this division of labour was to be found in other
spheres. There were sorcerers, experts in magic, who were also
talented artists, whose role was to accomplish or direct those acts
the purpose of which was to facilitate hunting and make it
fruitful, such as incantations, dances, animal sacrifices and perhaps
human sacrifices too. It is generally reckoned that these artists,
who had to spend long hours in the deepest and often the most
uncomfortable recesses of the caves, more than 100 and even 300
yards from the entrance, were excused from hunting and provided
for by their companions. Moreover, in the primitive minds of
these men, to portray a beast pierced by an arrow or a harpoon was
quite as effective a way of participating in the hunt as to pierce
the animal in reality.
Flat pieces of bone or stone are fairly frequently found, covered
with what at first look like quite meaningless marks in which,
however, one can with great patience distinguish sketches of
animals or hunting scenes. The sorcerer-artists practised before
they went to work properly on the engravings and rupestrean
paintings. Some investigators have concluded - it seems to me a
little hastily - that these were the rough "sketch-books' of adole-
scents following an apprenticeship as sorcerer-artists.
At least one has to admit the existence of a class specializing in
magic ritual, with all the consequences entailed. Then there were
the 'active' hunters, who were numerically the largest part of the
tribe. As regards the business of hunting itself, just as in the
cutting of bone and stone, there were the skilful and the unskilful,
and this leads us to think that during large collective hunts some
were confined to the role of beaters, while the most skilful acted
as marksmen. The great collective hunts, and the most profitable
ones, had to be as frequent as the season and supply of prey
permitted: in the spring and autumn came the great reindeer
migrations, and during the summer the hunters turned their
attention to straying herds of bison or horses.
It is thought that the collective hunts consisted in lying in wait
for the herds at the river crossings and turning them from their
course towards the deepest places, where the marksmen waited
to kill them, either at the moment of entering the water or in the
94 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
water itself, from the opposite bank or from small boats.
Naturally, these large hunts were preceded by magical ceremonies.
When the hunt was over there followed the division of the
spoil, which continued during the days that followed in the
exploitation of the remains : the skins and the tendons had to be
cut up and possibly tanned. It is a fairly simple operation, known
to numerous primitive peoples to-day, especially in this particular
case as reindeer skins are among the easiest to tan.
Whenever possible, individual hunting and salmon-fishing
with harpoons were pursued simultaneously with the collective
hunts. In individual hunting or when hunting in small groups,
either traps were used (pits, or traps which fell on the animal when
it touched the bait) or the creature was tracked sometimes for
several days. Mammoths, bears, polar hares and others, were
killed in this way.
Although it is quite difficult to reconstruct a Magdalenian's day,
it was naturally the need to procure food and everyday objects
which filled his time; and although this end could only be reached
by following the hunt, there were many acts, material or cultural,
to be performed in order to succeed; these must have varied in
large measure the life of these Magdalenians which, with all due
allowances, must have been less stereotyped than that of many of
our contemporaries.
*
A study of the life and art of the Reindeer Age would not be
complete without taking account of the osteological evidence
concerning the health and disease of prehistoric man. For not only
was prehistoric man very often sick, but he knew nothing whatever
of any of his diseases. Fortunately modern medicine has filled this
lacuna and the work of Dr. Paales is our authority in this new
science known as palseopathology.
Undoubtedly, the best known procedure of prehistoric medi-
cine was the operation of trepanning. On certain skulls almost
circular holes are to be found, some of which were made after
death with chipped stones, while others had been carried out on
the living, as proved by the bony proliferation at the edges of the
wound which show that healing occurred after operation. It could
not be a question of trepanning with a view to operating on the
brain, and these holes have been interpreted as designed to allow
an 'evil spirit' to escape, this evil spirit naturally having its seat in
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 95
the head, the essential vital organ. This is the opinion held by
Professor Pittard of Geneva, as well as other experts. More
recently a French military doctor from Marseilles has opposed
this theory; he had observed that, of the bony lesions resulting
from syphilis, those affecting the cranium are very frequent among
certain races - that examination of the skulls of Senegalese
soldiers who have died from this disease has revealed holes partly
healed at the edges, in every way comparable with the lesions on
the prehistoric skulls. The two theories are not incompatible and
the argument of syphilitic lesions is not in the end more con-
vincing than that of ritual or magical mutilations, for one can
FIG. 47. Specimen of a skull
that very probably was
deliberately trepanned.
quite well object that these mutilations are current practice among
certain primitive peoples, and have a curative aim.
Further, it has still to be proved that syphilis existed in pre-
historic times, and it is in this way that the opinion of the expert
from Marseilles is double-edged. For his observations can be used
to demonstrate that syphilis is as old as the world, in order there-
after to state that, syphilis being associated with man since his
appearance on the earth, it was to this disease that we can attribute
what appeared to have been trepanning operations among men of
the Reindeer Age and the Polished Stone Age. Medical opinion
is far from unanimous about the origin and antiquity of syphilis.
One thing is incontestible : it has existed in Europe since the
fifteenth century and its spread closely followed the discovery of
the New World by Christopher Columbus. It was in 1492 that he
96 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
reached America; it was in 1493 that the first case of syphilis was
observed in Spain and in 1495 that it made its appearance in
Italy, in Naples to be exact. From Italy syphilis reached France at
the beginning of the sixteenth century, following Charles VIII's
campaigns in Italy, so that the French used to speak in those days
of 'the Naples evil' and the Italians, beaten in every field, expressed
their rancour by speaking of 'the French evil'. Thereafter syphilis
spread throughout Europe and was generously exported to Africa
and Asia.
On the other hand, it is impossible to find, either on the
Egyptian mummies or on the skeletons of Ancient Greece and
Roman Italy, one indisputable symptom of the disease. Two
theories continue in opposition: for some, syphilis has existed
since prehistoric times and had remained more or less virulent
until a clear recrudescence showed up under the action of the
particularly evil American Treponema pallidum\ for others, syphilis
was unknown in the ancient world or in the Middle Ages and was
imported from America following its conquest by the Spaniards.
The bony lesions that can be observed on prehistoric skeletons or
those dating from Grseco-Roman times are always equivocal and
do not allow us to come down on one side or the other.
In fact it is solely from a study of bony lesions that a history of
the diseases of fossil man can be sketched. But the repercussions
of a disease on the hardest and apparently the most static parts of
an individual are much more numerous than is imagined. Thus
we know with certainty that many of our distant ancestors were
attacked by arthritis. For arthritis has attacked animals and men
for thousands and thousands of years. Nothing is new under the
sun and the oldest known case of arthritis is that of a Diplodocus
that lived some 200 million years ago. Arthritis very often leaves
traces on the bones : sometimes it is by the deformation and wear
of contiguous articulating surfaces, and sometimes by the inflam-
mation of the articular ligaments resulting in their ossification and
articular ankylosis. Sometimes it is by the appearance of bony
excrescences which, in the case of the vertebral column, end by
joining up and forming a single hard block of bone (spondylosis).
Now precise research has shown that such changes in articulation
and spondylosis are comparatively frequent in all the fossils of
giant reptiles, wild animals and prehistoric men for 200 million
years, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, and in tropical as
PREHISTORIC ART AND LIFE 97
well as polar regions. It is even possible to say that arthritis was
abnormally frequent in the Polished Stone Age, during which it
seems to have attacked 40 to 50 per cent, of the population, while
it has since been somewhat in regression and on an average
attacks only 25 per cent, of the present population.
On the other hand, rickets, like dental caries, seems to have
been extremely rare. The same does not hold true of fractures,
accidents which must have happened very often during hunting;
but to judge by the callosities observed on the skeletons, one
must conclude that a certain technique of fracture dressing had
already been brought to a satisfactory state, a technique which
included both the reduction of the fracture as well as keeping the
injured limb in place.
*
Having stated the essentials of art and life in prehistoric times
we must, to end this first section, attempt a general synthesis of
the origins and evolutions of humanity.
CHAPTER IV
From African Apes to Modern Nations
THE Pharaohs of the Xllth Dynasty (Middle Empire), especially
Sesostris II, were zealous reformers and very wise rulers, and were
anxious to assure their lands a healthy economic prosperity. So
they conceived the idea of methodically exploiting an old pre-
historic habitat watered by an arm of the Nile. In the process,
aided by a skilful system of canals and locks, they created an
artificial oasis south-east of Cairo, which became one of the most
fertile regions of Egypt and has remained so for 4,000 years.
Simultaneously they made it possible for the palaeontologists of
the twentieth century to discover the first apes to inhabit our
planet.
About 60 miles before it reaches Cairo, an arm of the Nile
breaks away and, turning north-west, passes through a deep gorge
in the mountains of Libya to discharge into Lake Karoun, known
to the ancient Egyptians as Lake Merour. This lake, with the
canals, fields and woods that surround it, is the work of the
Pharaohs of the Xllth Dynasty. The farmers who settled at the
artificial oasis of Fayoum soon became numerous. Sesostris II
himself lived there in an immense palace in the town of Shedet,
consecrated to the crocodile-god Sebek, whence the name Croco-
dilopolis given it by the Greek historian Herodotus. The oasis has
been continuously inhabited ever since, and has not failed to
attract the attention of palaeontologists, prehistorians and archae-
ologists, who have made there some very interesting discoveries.
We shall soon have to discuss the fauna of Fayoum at some
length; there the ancestors of elephants and rhinoceroses
abounded, side by side with those of the great apes and perhaps
of men. It is enough for the moment to note that in this part of
Africa, 35 to 45 million years ago, there lived the first of all the
known apes, discovered by an Austrian, Max Schlosser, in 1910.
Of this Parapithecus only the lower jaw was found, but the size
98
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 99
of the jaw, the shape of the teeth, and the mode of their implanta-
tion provide valuable information. Parapitbecus, which was
scarcely larger than a marmoset, had a dental pattern identical to
that of modern man with (for the half-jaw) two incisors, one
canine, two pre-molars and three molars; moreover, judging from
their general appearance and the number of roots on the molars,
these teeth seemed as capable of evolving into human teeth as into
those of the great anthropoid apes of to-day. Thus, by the close
study of a single lower jaw that can be held in the hollow of a
hand, the palaeontologists can claim to have found one of the
ancestral forms - the oldest yet known - of the anthropoid group
from which at a certain stage the human line branched off.
FIG. 48. Lower jaw of Parapithecus,
with strongly humanised teeth.
Furthermore, certain features of the teeth of Parapithecus are very
similar to those of the curious arborial and nocturnal animals of
Madagascar and the Sunda Islands, the lemurs and tarsiers, which
will shortly be shown to us as the ancestors of the upper primates,
apes and men.
Besides Parapithecus, Schlosser discovered at Fayoum the jaw
of another and bigger ape, Propliopithecus, a probable descendant
of Parapithecus. Thus, Propliopithecus enables us to establish a
direct connection between the oldest known ape of Fayoum and
the anthropoid apes discovered in Europe more than a century
ago.
In fact, in 1834 Edouard Lartet had discovered, not far from
his property at Sansan (Haute-Garonne), a very rich bed in which
100
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the bones of elephants and the remains of apes that had lived in
the south of France some 30 million years ago were found side by
side. Lartet was thus able to describe to the Academy of Science
in 1837 a very primitive ape which he called f?liopithecus\ later, in
1856, he was able to report on Dryopithecus, a little more recent
than the former, since the bed in which it was found gave it an
age of only 15 million years. These two papers, especially the
latter, had repercussions, for they suggested that Europe had once
been the habitat of great apes like gibbons, of which they were
moreover almost the direct ancestor; gibbons are to-day confined
to the Sunda Islands and to certain areas of South-east Asia.
Above all, Lartet and the palaeontologist, Albert Gaudry, who
FIG. 49. Lower jaw of Pro-
pliopithecus.
had taken part in the researches on Dryopithecus, could rightly
emphasize that the jaws of these apes showed some relationship
to the human jaw, mainly in the structure of the teeth.
Much more recently, excavations in Kenya have provided
further information regarding the occupation of the African
continent by apes several tens of millions of years ago. For some
time a famous British archaeologist, L. B. S. Leakey, was curator
of the Coridon Museum at Nairobi. But to his unquestionable
qualifications in museum work he added an enthusiasm for fossils
and spent a great deal of his time in the bush with his wife,
exploring the palaeontological beds of this region. In 1948, on the
island of Rusinga, in the southern part of Lake Victoria, Mrs.
Leakey discovered the remains of a large ape rather 'younger' than
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 101
those discovered at Fayoum, since it dated from only about
20 million years ago. This ape was called Proconsul africanus, as a
tribute to the celebrated Consul, the most intelligent of the tame
chimpanzees raised by the American zoologist Koehler. During
recent years the discoveries made by Leakey in collaboration with
Hopwood, have multiplied and to-day we have the remains of
nearly 300 apes that inhabited Kenya at that epoch, some of the
species represented being the size of a small gibbon, others being
as big as a gorilla, while others come intermediate between those
two extremes. Probably the most important of these simian
species from Kenya is Limnopithecus> whose molars are very
similar to human molars.
As a result of these discoveries, the genaealogical tree of the
earliest apes take a fairly clear shape. It was in Egypt first of all,
in the Fayoum region, that Parapithecus and Propliopithecus
appeared. From the latter descended in more or less direct line
the Kenya 'Limnopithecus^ the European Pliopithecus (France,
Switzerland, Bavaria, Slovakia, etc.) and the East African Pro-
consul. All these apes are remarkable for the shape of their teeth,
which are not specialized, and especially for their canines, which
are always of medium size as in men and never form fangs over-
lapping the other teeth as in the large apes of to-day. Furthermore,
judging by the shape of their thigh and ankle-bones, these apes
seem to have walked on their hind feet and to have used their arms
little as a means of locomotion. Actually, the large apes of to-day
generally move about by swinging from one branch to another
with their arms, rather like trapezists: this is called brachiation.
These ancient African apes show no sign of movement by brachia-
tion or other adaptation to arboreal life.
So it was at this stage of evolution, let us say about 25 million
years ago, that two branches seem to have definitely diverged
from the stem of African apes, one leading in the direction of man
and the other of modern apes, known as anthropoids, represented
by the gibbons, chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans. It will
therefore be well to examine the zoological place of both the great
apes and man, paying as much attention to their differences as to
their similarities.
*
First of all, both men and apes are mammals and within this
animal class are grouped in an order very distinct from all others :
102
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the primates. As mammals, men and apes are animals with hair-
covered bodies that drop their young after a rather long gestation
in the mother's womb, and after the birth suckle their young at
the breast for a rather long period. Finally, they are warm-blooded
animals with a constant internal temperature.
As to the primates themselves, it is rather difficult to define
them in simple terms. To the layman the distinctive characteristics
FIG. 50. Spectral tarsier,
Tarsius, from the East
Indies. (Reproduced from
Young's Life of the Verte-
brates, Oxford Univ.
Press.)
of this order might seem rather paltry; in fact, the primates are not
very specialized, good for everything and good for nothing, to
use a familiar expression. It is almost classic in this respect to
recall the following anecdote related by Diogenes. Pkto was
asked for a definition of man and had replied : 'He is an animal on
two feet, but without feathers.' Then Diogenes seized a cock,
plucked it and presented it with the words, 'Here is Plato's man.'
But Plato, not in the least put out, corrected his definition, 'Man
is an animal on two feet, without feathers, but with flat nails.'
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 103
This tale is something of a caricature, but it has the merit of clearly
emphasizing the difficulties encountered in trying to define the
primates. In the long run it is by observing the facts from the
point of view of evolution that one can best make the typical
characteristics of this order clear.
The 'imperfect' apes are included in the order of primates -
apes with dog-like muzzles, the zoologist's lemurians - still to be
found to-day in Indo-Malaysia and Madagascar. The 'perfect'
FIG. 5 1. Ring-tailed 'Lemur ', from Madagascar.
(From Young's Life of the Vertebrates, Oxford Univ. Press).
apes are also included: capuchins, macacques, baboons, cyno-
cephali, etc. - details of the classification of which will be given
later. The c more-than-perfect' apes, if we can use the term, are
included too: chimpanzees, orang-utans, gorillas and gibbons.
These are so similar to man in their mimicry and their capacity to
learn that they are grouped under the name of anthropoid apes.
Finally, we include man.
Now the lemurians evolved first, then the apes, then the anthro-
poids, and finally man. One is therefore faced during this evolu-
io 4 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
tionary progression with two simultaneous phenomena: the
progressive development of the brain and the progressive loss of
the natural means of defence. From the lemurs to man, the
brain and cerebellum continually increase in volume and become
more complicated through the development of cerebral convolu-
tions and the physiological specialization of the various regions
of the brain : there is progressive brain-development.
On the other hand and parallel to this, the specialized organs of
defence have regressed, and this is an extremely important
phenomenon. In that endless struggle for life that is the evolution
of the living world, the acquisition or retention of the means of
defence is an imperious necessity. Now defence can take various
forms, sometimes by forestalling and passing at once to the
attack, sometimes by seeking safety in flight, and sometimes by
merely resisting the attacks of strangers. Thus, as natural means
of defence, the carnivores have teeth and claws (they are the first
to attack); elephants and rhinoceroses have horns (they resist
when attacked) ; horses and ruminants try to save themselves by
the swift use of their limbs. The existence in all groups of mam-
mals of an adaptation to the struggle for life is thus revealed.
Now with the primates there is nothing so clear: the five-toed
feet do not make rapid flight or deep wounding possible; and in
apes and men claws are replaced by flat finger-nails of doubtful
efficacy. The teeth are of medium size and can produce formidable
bites, but beginning with certain developed apes, the anthropoids
and man, their number decreases from 36 to 32 and in the human
branch they decrease also in size. On the other hand, many apes
know how to use sticks and other projectiles to defend them-
selves; with the human branch the use of weapons has definitely
prevailed. Thus the primates offer no remarkable anatomical
characteristic except for the development of the cranium, demon-
strating an increase in brain-power to which is associated the
intelligent use of various instruments making possible a successful
struggle against competition from other animal species.
But within the order of primates man seems like a being apart
and, after having clearly fixed his place beside the apes, it is
important now to distinguish him from them, and more especially
from the anthropoids. The first essential difference bears upon the
great development of the human cranium; in fact, on the develop-
ment of his brain. In the course of evolution, this growth of the
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 105
cranium occurs at the expense of the face. Is there any need to
describe an ape's head with its large projecting face and its flat
skull in order to contrast it with a man's head, with its relatively
flat face and a cranium that is both tall and bulges at the back
above the nape? It is in its facial projection that the strongly
prognathous apes clearly differ from man with his orthognathous
features. Cuvier put it thus: 'Of all animals man is the one with
the largest cranium and the smallest face, and animals differ the
more from these proportions as they become more stupid and
ferocious/
Since Cuvier's day, however, the mathematical interpretation
FIG. 52. Anatomical differences between a human skull (right) and an
anthropoid skull (left).
of scientific observation has assumed great importance; the
differences between craniums are now expressed in very precise
fashion with the help of two figures called the cephalic index and
the cranial capacity. The cephalic index (I) is obtained by multi-
plying by 100 the greatest width of the cranium (/) and dividing
the product by the length of the cranium (L), this being expressed
VI T / X 100.
by the equation: I =
JL/
The variations of this cephalic index allow us to class craniums
into three categories: dolicocephalic, familiarly known as 'long
headed 3 , the cephalic index being below 77.77; brachycephalic
or 'round headed', with a cephalic index above 80; finally,
average skulls, the mesaticephalic, with a cephalic index between
io6
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
77.77 and 80. The anthropoids and the most distant ancestors
of man are all dolicocephalic. It was very late in the process of
human evolution that the round heads appeared.
Cranial capacity is only the expression in cubic centimetres of
the content of the brain-pan. This figure therefore gives - indi-
rectly, but very precisely - an indication of the volume of the
brain. The cranial capacity of the great apes is about 500 c.c. and
of modern man about 1,300 c.c.
It is important to note, furthermore, that man, having articulate
FIG. 53. Anatomical differences between the U-shaped dental arcade of
an anthropoid (left\ with projecting canines and a space where the
opposing canine fits, and the dental arcade of a man (right}. The
foramen magnum is situated towards the back in the anthropoid,
while it is in an almost central position in man.
speech, shows a special anatomy of the tongue and certain organs
surrounding the tongue, which must be able to move freely; also
of the parts of the brain corresponding to the functions of speech.
The anthropoids are further distinguished from men by their
dental anatomy: their canines are very developed, extending far
beyond the level of the other teeth and touching the gums of the
opposing jaw; such development of the canines, especially marked
among the males, involves a gap (a diastema) between the last
incisor and the first molar of the opposite jaw. Nothing like this
occurs in man.
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 107
Finally, although the anthropoids and man assume a more or
less vertical posture, in practice the large apes generally move as
quadrupeds, almost always supporting themselves with their long
arms. The arms are also used for progressing from branch to
branch (brachiation).
An upright posture raises the serious problem of maintaining
the head in equilibrium at the top of the vertebral column. The
brain connects with the spinal cord through an orifice in the base
of the skull known as the foramen magnum. In man this is situated
in a horizontal plane, since the spinal cord detaches itself perpen-
dicularly from the brain and the head is perched in equilibrium at
FIG. 54. Diagnostic anato-
mical differences in the
pelviscs of anthropoid
(left; long, narrow and
relatively slender) and
man (right; broad, splay-
ed and relatively squat).
the top of the column; in the anthropoids, on the contrary, the
head inclines forward and the orifice is placed in a more or less
oblique plane from back to front. The foramen magnum is thus
a really valuable factor to study, for its position gives a vital
indication of the normal posture and method of locomotion.
Another essential indication of whether an animal had a vertical
or an inclined posture is given by the structure of the pelvic
bones : in man, the pelvis is enlarged and widened, supporting the
whole weight of the abdominal organs ; but in the anthropoids,
the pelvis only assumes this function to a slight degree and is
definitely narrower and longer than in man.
Finally, in the great apes, the big toe can be made to face the
io8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
other toes, a peculiarity which has often caused the anthropoids
to be known by the otherwise incorrect name 'quadrumana*.
In this way the close study of a few pieces of bone can inform
the specialists of the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of
fossils. Simply by considering the position of the foramen mag-
num and the shape of the pelvis, anthropologists can decide with
great certainty whether the creature under examination was a
biped or a quadruped; with nothing but the cephalic index and
the cranial capacity, within the margin of the 1,300 c.c. for man
and 500 c.c. for the great apes, they can relate the fossil to either
one or the other; with nothing to consider but the shape of the
teeth and the development of the canines they can form an idea
of the relationship to either anthropoids or man. The thickness
of the bones, the shape of the orbits, the anatomy of the cavity
of the ear, and many other details give the anthropologist,
palaeontologist and prehistorian exact and valuable data for
retracing the conquest of the world by the human species.
The reader now knows enough for an attempt to present him
with a five-act drama in the purest classical tradition, though it
will unfortunately be impossible to respect the sacred law of the
three unities, since the action takes place over hundreds of thou-
sands of years and at various points of the globe. This tragi-
comedy in five acts has a very attractive title: 'The Adventure of
Humanity'. The authors are numerous and the most important
of them - Boucher de Perthes, Casimir Picard, Lartet, Marcellin
Boule, the Abbe Breuil, Teilhard de Chardin, Vallois, Schlosser,
Leakey, Dart, Broom, Dubois, Black, Weidenreich, von Koenigs-
wald, and all the others that we cannot mention here- have been
presented during the long prologue which is at last coming to
an end.
When the curtain rises on the first act, some small apes, scarcely
larger than one's two fists - Parapithecus - occupy the stage. They
lived in a region with a moderately warm climate, rather like that
of the Mediterranean to-day; this region - the future Egyptian
oasis of Fayoum - was situated almost at the shore of the Mediter-
ranean Sea, then much larger than it is today and stretching like
a belt around three-quarters of the globe. This was the geologists
Oligocene, which began 45 million years ago and lasted for
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS
109
COMPARISON BETWEEN MEN AND ANTHROPOIDS
MEN
Large cranium and reduced face.
Three types of cranium.
Brain of from 1,300 to 1,600 c.c.
Superciliary arches effaced.
Mandible of small strength.
Chin.
Hyperbolical or parabolical
dental arch.
Non-projecting canines (thus no
diastema).
Vertebral column in three
curves.
Short fore-limbs.
ANTHROPOIDS
Flattened cranium and projecting
face.
Always dolkocephalic.
Brain of from 400 to 600 c.c.
Brow ridge above the orbits.
Very strong mandible.
No chin.
U-shaped dental arcade.
Projecting canines, especially in
the male (diastema in conse-
quence).
Vertebral column in two curves.
Long fore-limbs.
RESEMBLANCES :
Tendency to straighten the body.
Tendency to walk on two legs.
Development of the brain and intelligence.
DEFINITELY HUMAN FEATURES
Articulate speech.
Great intellectual qualities.
Vertical posture.
Functional differentiation of hands and feet.
10 million years. But at the end of this period Parapithecus was
soon replaced by its descendant, Propliopithecus, a sort of small
gibbon, scarcely 3 feet tall.
Soon the scene changes to the Miocene (which covered the
period from 3 5 million to 1 5 million years ago) : other apes that
descended direct from Propliopithecus have left the region in
Egypt where they arose and have invaded Europe and Africa.
Some were more or less like gorillas, some more or less like
chimpanzees ; they were the Kenya Proconsul, Pliopithecus in France
(especially at Sansan in Haute-Garonne), Switzerland, Slovakia,
no MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Bavaria, and finally and above all, l^imnopithecus in South-east
Africa. This last anthropoid is especially interesting, since it seems
to have given birth to the principal actors of the next scene, the
ape-men of South Africa, discovered and studied by Dart, Broom
and the English anatomist, Le Gros Clark.
When the curtain rises on the second act, the scene is a plain at
the edge of the Kalahari desert. Bordering the desert on the north
are great limestone cliffs; water-courses run along their feet and
on the banks of these are the few trees of the region. The climate
is hot and humid. In this land lived antelopes and jumping hares,
badgers, giant moles and several species of those small apes we
now know as baboons; in the rivers were fresh- water crabs,
turtles and numerous fish. But the most important animal of the
region, the principal actor in this Pliocene period, which covered
10 million years, was the ape-man, Australopithecus.
Physically Australopithecus was a creature of very modest size,
about 40 to 48 inches tall, but - an innovation in the animal world
he moved about on his hind feet: he had acquired an upright
posture. Seen from a distance, Australopithecus was already an
agile little man, hairy and bent slightly forwards; but at close
range he still looked like an ape with his projecting face, his
projecting and beetling brow and his flattened cranium. Australo-
pithecus lived in bands and seemed to co-operate with its fellows
in procuring food. Dart, who devoted 30 years of his scientific
career to its study, imagines them encircling herds of antelopes
around a water-hole and the most skilful of them felling their prey
with stones and sticks. Dart sees them also digging in the earth,
sometimes with sticks and sometimes with large pointed stones,
to open up the burrows -and so capture the giant moles and
jumping hares. Finally, it is almost certain that Australopithecus
cared very little for its kinship with the baboons that abounded
in the region, and felled them by blows with sticks at the nape
of the neck.
All these prey, as well as fresh- water crabs and turtles which
were gathered at the river banks, were then transported to the
caves in the limestone cliffs where Australopithecus lived. There
antelopes, baboons, moles, crabs, hares, and turtles were con-
sumed after having been roughly skinned with the aid of naturally
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS m
sharpened but deliberately collected stones. It is not possible to
state that the meat was cooked before being eaten, although Dart
claims to have found traces of hearths in the caves of Australo-
pithecus; other authors quite as competent deny the authenticity of
these hearths.
Anyhow, in the caves of Australopithecus are found numerous
bones from animals that served them as food and especially many
baboon craniums, fractured at the base as if they had been struck
there. It has sometimes been maintained that these fractures
resulted from accidental falls; but the hypothesis is difficult to
sustain, since one can scarcely imagine an epidemic of suicide or
SEQUENCE OF THE FIRST APES
FORMS APPROXIMATING TO THE APES WITH DOG-LIKE
MUZZLES
(Lemuriforms)
\ I I
Lemurs Old World Monkeys New World Monkeys
(Catarrhina) (Platyrrhina)
r ,
Cynomorpnae
I
Anthropomorphx
(Chimpanzees, Gorillas,
Orang-Utans, Gibbons).
Human line.
clumsiness affecting so many baboons in the Kalahari desert,
especially as baboons never climb trees and the region anyway
contained nothing bigger than herbaceous plants and small
bushes.
At the same time, a descendant of Proconsul., Dryopithecus, much
more ape and much less man, and already tending towards
modern types of anthropoid (gorillas, gibbons and chimpanzees),
had invaded the rest of the world : France, Slovakia, Africa, and
the Siwalik hills of India. In this latter region of hills and low
mountains that form a vestibule to the Himalayas, very many apes
have been found over the last 30 years, that have been given such
ii2 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
evocative names as IsLamapithecus, J$ramapithecus y Sivapithecus,
Sugrivapithecus\ they were found side by side with some species of
Dryopithecus. However, these anthropoids are closer to man than
are chimpanzees or gorillas. It is important to note the existence
of this sub-division of the ape-group in process of evolving
towards a fairly human type, for there are probably many more
discoveries to be made in the Siwaliks ; further fossils, even more
human, might well be extracted in years to come, and some years
ago the geologist, de Terra, when considering the different parts
of the world which could have served as the cradle of humanity,
finally eliminated all except the Siwalik region.
Now comes the third act. The scene moves to China, but it
closely resembles the preceding one in the sense that here too
limestone hills, hollowed out into deep caves, form the northern
boundary of a desert region where the vegetation is rather poor.
But time has passed: it is now the period known as the Lower
Palaeolithic, only some hundreds of thousands of years ago
(extending from 500,000 to 100,000 years before our time). In the
plain lived an extremely varied fauna: rhinoceroses, horses, sheep,
bison, camels of great size, buffalos, elephants, and deer with very
large and very flat antlers, while carnivorous beasts, bears and
sabre-toothed tigers sheltered in the caves, as well as a hyaena of
great size which was very numerous throughout the region. But
the wild beasts had to share these caves with the Pekin man, the
man-ape of China, Sinanthropus.
This time we are faced with creatures of medium height, from
4 feet 1 1 inches to 5 feet 3 inches, who used only their lower limbs
to move about and were probably very agile, though they still
had much of the ape in their prognathous faces, in the ridge above
the eyes, their flat craniums and the ridge above the nape.
As far as we can judge, they were bent earthwards and their legs
were bowed. On the other hand, the Pekin man was right-handed;
for, according to mouldings of the cranial cavity, the left cerebral
hemisphere seems always, as in modern man, more developed
than the right, and we know that the muscle movements of the
right side of the body are governed by the left half of the brain
and vice versa.
In hunting, which they probably pursued in more or less
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 113
numerous parties and perhaps under the direction of hunters more
skilful than the rest, Sinanthropus used weapons of chipped stone,
fairly numerous specimens having been found in the caves; they
perhaps used sticks too. All the animals of the neighbourhood
were their prey, but we are by no means sure that the most
important and the most sought-after of these prey was not
Sinanthropus himself. In fact, the few long bones of the arm and
leg that have been found in the caves of Sinanthropus - to be exact,
a fragment of femur, a half-broken clavicle and two pieces of
humerus - were all broken at the ends, as if an attempt had been
made to extract the marrow; some even show traces of calcina-
tion. Finally, all these bones - pieces of skull, teeth, pieces of
limb - were piled haphazardly with the bones of other animals,
just as in a kitchen midden; there is no question of voluntary
inhumation as with other prehistoric men. The palaeontologists
have quite naturally come to the conclusion that, to be thus
mutilated, Sinanthropus must have served as prey to creatures who
could only have been others of his kind from a neighbouring
tribe. A few palaeontologists, it is true, have claimed that a real
man had lived in the caves of Chou-Kou-Tien at the same time
as Sinanthropus y whose favourite prey he was; but it has never
been possible to find the least relic of this hypothetical human
being. Other palaeontologists, refusing to admit that one of our
ancestors, however distant, could have devoured his own kind,
have accused the comparatively enormous hyaenas that swarmed
at Chou-Kou-Tien of having broken the Pekin man's bones.
However, the majority of experts adopt the hypothesis that
Sinanthropus had cannibal tendencies.
Even though he has not, unfortunately, taken the trouble to
leave indisputable records to his descendants, it is easy to imagine
the Pekin man hunting his too adventurous or too aggressive
neighbours ; after having killed them with blows from stones or
sticks, he quickly took from the still warm corpse the pieces that
were reputed for their flavour or for their magic properties,
especially the marrow of the long bones (which explains why the
long bones in the caves are very few). Then, to return to his cave,
Sinanthropus loaded himself only with the heads and a few easily
carried 'beefsteaks and roasts'. The accumulation of craniums in
the caves of Chou-Kou-Tien can also have another meaning : they
can be regarded as hunting trophies, or better (since they are
ii4 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
almost always broken in such a way that the dome is clearly
separated from the face and base of the cranium) as domestic
utensils, serving as receptacles in an epoch when the invention of
pottery was still a long way off. Also, this breaking of the craniums
could very well have taken place during magical ceremonies
accompanying the eating of the brain. All of which is naturally in
the realm of hypothesis. Nonetheless, the bones found piled up in
the former hearths of Sinanthropus are strangely like the kitchen
refuse of the rare anthropophagous man of to-day, for example
the Kanakas. However, we need not go so far as to believe that
Sinanthropus was uncompromisingly carnivorous: he also con-
sumed currants and bilberries, as proved by the fossilized seeds
of these plants found in fairly large numbers in the Chinese
caves.
However severe the judgment we might make on the tastes of
Sinanthropus in the matter of food, at least he knew how to shape
the implements that ensured his food. By striking blocks of
quartz with sticks or stones he detached splinters from the central
nucleus and used either these splinters, roughly touched up at the
edges, or the nucleus itself, made a little sharper. It was an
industry neither of splinters nor nuclei, but a very primitive basic
type. It is generally reckoned that the Pekin man also broke
certain bones to use them as weapons or as implements for cutting
up carcasses; the horns and long bones of deer seemed to have
been preferred.
Nothing precise can be said of the mental activities of this man-
ape, other than that he seems to have possessed a very rudimentary
language, as evidenced by certain marks of muscular insertions
on the skulls.
But now the scene broadens and gains in depth; while the Pekin
men continued to devour one another in northern China, other
pre-men, comparable to them anatomically, physiologically and
mentally, if not completely identical, appeared in the Sunda
Islands (Dubois' and Koenigswald's 'Pithecanthropus). Also, in
South Africa, Africanthropus > of which nearly 200 small bone
fragments have been collected since 1935 ; patiently reassembled,
these form two flat and long cranial domes with strongly pro-
jecting brow and occipital ridges, a few isolated teeth and a few
remains of the upper jaw. This was a very advanced type of man,
almost a Neanderthal man. Evidence of these pre-men eventually
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 115
turned up in Europe in the Mauer jaw-bone, which deserves some
attention.
Dr. Otto Schoetensack, reader in geology at Heidelberg
University, one day discovered that the nearby gravel-pits con-
tained very interesting animal fossils : horses, wild bison, dogs,
cats, lions, beavers, elephants and rhinoceroses. It occurred to
Schoetensack that human remains might be found there some day.
So every day he covered the 1 2 miles from Heidelberg to the little
village of Mauer and back, and with the permission of the pro-
prietor of the quarry watched the men at work and himself dug a
little. When he arrived there, on October 2ist, 1907, the foreman
held out to him the large jaw-bone that crowned his efforts. This
jaw-bone had a very crude look; the bones were extremely thick
and there was no chin. It was not unlike an ape's jaw, but an ape
FIG. 55. The Mauer jaw-
bone, the oldest Euro-
pean human relic, com-
pared with a modern
human jaw, indicated
by the dotted line.
of very great size. On the other hand, the teeth were practically
identical with those of modern man. So it was a real pre-man who
lived at this epoch in Europe, combining human and ape features,
but different from both Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus.
Nevertheless, the third act ends a hundred thousand years ago
and allows the spectator to see the birth, at various points on the
globe - Europe, Asia and Africa - of some pre-men, still slightly
ape-like and not wholly men, but creatures who had nevertheless
the gift of technical invention (they are often referred to as Homo
faber to distinguish them from Homo sapiens) and the rudiments of
spoken language.
*
With the fourth act the scene changes entirely. It is very cold
everywhere. The glaciers stretch down from the north and from
the high mountain chains, the Alps, Pyrenees and Himalayas, for
n6 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the fourth time. In Europe they invade the plains, covering
Holland and Belgium, the greater part of Germany, almost the
whole of Switzerland and northern Italy. Elsewhere, around the
tropics, endless rains flood the greater part of Africa and certain
regions of Asia. In Europe a humid cold at first prevails ; then an
increasingly dry sharp frost. The wind sweeps across the glaciers,
raising masses of yellow dust, minute grains of sand which accu-
mulate in the steppes bordering the glacier front, forming a
thickening carpet of what is known to geologists as the loess and
to-day worked in very numerous sand-pits.
Descending from the north, fleeing before the extending ice,
innumerable herds of reindeer, comprising thousands of creatures,
less numerous herds of the great bog deer (or Irish deer) with
their immense shovel-shaped antlers, marmots, arctic hares and
blue foxes invaded our countries. During this time the fauna that
occupied the temperate zone of Europe disappeared; thereafter
the hippopotamus, elephant and Merck rhinoceros were then to be
found only in Africa. The lions, bears and hysenas took refuge in
the caves. Finally there appeared the great ungulates like the
mammoth and the woolly rhineroceros, all of them being covered
with a thick coat of long hair.
This was the epoch when, by necessity, man systematically
began to take refuge in the caves which alone could give him
shelter, sometimes precarious, from the rigours of the climate.
In a few sentences, Bergounioux and Glory have made perfectly
clear the consequences of these changes of temperature on the
habitat and ways of prehistoric men :
c As soon as man occupied the floor of a shelter with a constant
temperature, he built a hearth of large stones and heaped charcoal
in it. Pell-mell, he piled up the debris of his stone industry
(splinters, strikers, flint nodules) together with the broken bones
of the fore and hind-limbs of his prey killed during the preceding
season's hunting. When the summer returned he left his shelter,
sometimes for ever, and the hyaenas came to gnaw the abandoned
bones. Their coproliths (excrement impregnated with calcium
phosphate) and the marks of their canines on the bones betray
their presence. The unoccupied burrow filled up with fragments
of rock that fell from the roof and walls as a result of the alter-
nating phases of frost and thaw. The clays, silts and gravels
brought by the trickling water formed an empty bed ready to
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 117
receive new occupants. The thickness of this deposit varies
according to the place and region: over 150 feet at Chou-Kou-
Tien (China), 56 feet at Castillo (Spain), 28 feet at Krapina
(Croatia), and 15^ feet in the painted cave at Collias (Gard,
France).
'The study of the superposition of layers with and without
archaeological objects permit one to set up a rough chronology of
the various industrial techniques.'
At this period of human history the actors were very numerous :
they were the Neanderthal men of Europe, Asia and South Africa.
The Neanderthal man is adequately described by recalling his
general brutish bearing, bandy legs, low shoulders and bent back,
his prognathous face, receding forehead and eyes deeply sunk in
their orbits and overhung by a large bony protuberance.
FIG. 56. Neanderthal skulls: (left) backward, (centre) average, (right)
advanced.
Here, then, are the Neanderthal men making all sorts of imple-
ments out of chipped stone, as well as throwing weapons and
tools for preparing, cleaning and sewing furs. And here they are,
too, covering themselves with manganese dioxide and red ochre
for some ritual ceremony, burying their dead, preparing for a
hunt, or initiating the young hunters into the tribal mysteries.
It is especially interesting to see that anatomically it is possible
to divide the Neanderthal men into two large groups. On the one
hand there are, according to Father Teilhard de Chardin, the
backward ones, the 'savages' of the epoch; their skeletal charac-
teristics are very like those of the last of the pre-men of South-
east Asia in that the cranium is flat, the forehead recedes, the face
projects, and so on. These 'savages' are the Java Man and the
Rhodesian Man, as well as the man from the valley of the Neander,
the first Neanderthal man to be discovered. On the other hand,
in Palestine and in Germany lived the 'advanced' Neander-
n8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
thai men, the 'civilized' men of the epoch, with prominent cheek-
bones, a relatively tall forehead, a well-formed chin, and a face
that was a little less prognathous than in the average Neanderthal
men. It is a very curious fact, which the prehistorians have much
trouble in explaining, that among the oldest of the Neander-
thalians, chronologically speaking, are those which show the
'advanced' characteristics.
But, although the Neanderthal men were the principal and most
numerous actors, beside them and more discreetly, in some well
defined regions, especially in Southern England and on the
Atlantic shores of France, other men were developing, notably
the Swanscombe Man and the Font6chevade Man.
Unfortunately, we know very little about them. These are in
fact only known by the tops of their craniums and by a few rare
fragments of face-bones. Yet they were undoubtedly attached to
the line of modern men : all the bones we possess of them (all
dated beyond dispute, since they have passed their fluorine
examination) are distinguished from the craniums of modern men
only by their greater thickness, by a greater width of the occipitals
(a tiny detail!) and perhaps by a certain flattening of the top of the
cranium.
It is known, too, that these men used worked stones and
possessed five or six types of tools adapted to different purposes.
But the essential fact remains that these already modern men were
contemporary with or even earlier than Neanderthal men.
This is the moment to pause briefly for a backward glance
before the curtain rises on the fifth act, in the course of which
men already anatomically modern take their place on the face of
the earth - the moment to attempt a general reconstitution of the
evolution of humanity.
We have now presented the four evolutionary stages from very
primitive apes to present-day men. In the first of these were
undifferentiated forms still similar to the lemurians and ready to
evolve in various directions; in fact from these, more or less
directly, came the apes properly so-called, the anthropoids and
the human line. In the second stage were the small ape-men, the
Australopithecines of South Africa, in which the simian character-
istics were still dominant, although the human characteristics - or,
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 119
at the very least, the humanoid - are already to be found, as well
as a certain tendency to live in society and to use weapons and
implements intelligently. In the third stage of the men-apes, the
pre-men of South-east Asia and South Africa mingled human and
simian anatomical features in almost equal parts; these were no
longer real anthropoids but they were not yet men. Finally, to
these creatures must be attributed a certain intelligence in the way
of technique, as evidenced by their use of deliberately chipped
stones. In the fourth stage appeared the Neanderthal man, a man
beyond dispute (though his skeleton still showed certain primitive
features). Besides a fair variety of tools, this man already had
certain religious and magical customs and deliberately buried his
dead.
From this zoological sequence some anthropologists have
sought to construct an extremely simple genealogical tree of the
human species ; in recent years, the Czech professor of anatomy,
Hrdlicka, domiciled in America, has come out in support of this
over-simplification, which makes modern man descend directly
from the Neanderthal man, the Neanderthal man from the last
of the pre-men, and the pre-men from Australopithecus - at the
cost of unimaginable migrations of which one has not the
slightest proof.
In fact, when one tries to begin constructing a genealogical
tree of the human species, one has to take into account the fact
that fossil men, very different from one another anatomically and
mentally, were contemporary with one another or practically so.
For example, we have already learnt of the simultaneous existence
of the Mauer man and the pre-men, or of certain Neanderthal men
and the men of Fontechevade. So it is important to agree here and
now on certain indisputable points.
The first fact on which we might agree is that the ancestors of
man were born of primitive ape-like forms which, if they were
not necessarily Parapithecus and Propliopithecus, must at least have
strongly resembled them. Thereafter, certain of these forms were
progressively 'humanised'. Some anatomical features remained
practically unchanged, as was largely the case with the shape of
the teeth; other anatomical features were slowly transformed, as
was the case with the cranial dome and the progressive reduction
of the occipital and brow ridges. Furthermore, certain psycho-
physiological adaptations took place: the cranial capacity
120 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
increased, the pattern of the cerebral convolutions became more
complicated, all this being correlated to what must be called, in
default of a better term, the development of the intelligence,
which showed up in the invention of weapons and implements
that slowly but steadily assured man an even greater supremacy
over the external world.
The stages that marked these transformations are as follows:
the ape-man stage (Australopithecines), and then the man-ape
stage (Mauer man and Pithecanthropus). Once more, this does not
mean that Australopithecus was the direct ancestor of the ape-man
of Asia, any more than that Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus were
the direct ancestors of modern man. We have finally to admit our
ignorance undoubtedly only temporary - of the exact system of
relationships between these various stages. But it can meanwhile
be stated that the direct ancestors of modern man, though they
were not necessarily Australopithecus and Pithecanthropus., must
have strongly resembled them, bringing together certain features
which are still those of modern man and certain other features
that are the attributes of the anthropoids.
But the problem of the Neanderthal man is rather special. For
a long time there was a temptation to regard him as a fourth stage,
succeeding the man-ape stage and leading towards the modern
fossil men of the Reindeer Age, since he was a little less an ape
and a little more a man than the Asian and African Pithecanthropus.
But here we must take account of the fact that the Neanderthal
men were contemporaries of men already modern at least as
regards their craniums.
All the experts to-day agree that the Neanderthal man is what
we can call a relic; in other words, when the Neanderthal men
vanished from the surface of the earth they did not survive in any
direct descendant. On the other hand, almost contemporary with
them there were already some prehuman and human forms that
gave rise to modern humanity: the men of Swanscombe and
Fontechevade. This amounts to saying that life has made at least
two attempts in the human direction: one, the Neanderthal
attempt, which came to grief, and the other, the Swanscombe-
Fontechevade attempt, which succeeded. But in default of new
discoveries that can provide us with other information than the
anatomy of their craniums, nothing permits us yet to state that the
Swanscombe-Fontechevade line might itself be the origin of
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 121
modern man. Perhaps there were not only two but many more
attempts in the direction of man.
This phenomenon is not exceptional in palaeontology; it has
long been familiar in other animal lines more prolific in fossil
forms, like horses, rhinoceroses, elephants, and a great number of
invertebrates. What would have been exceptional is that the
contrary had been the case and that one could have set up a direct
relationship between the ancestors of apes and man, without the
development of parallel lines that came to nothing.
For we must take into account also the existence of the progres-
sive Neanderthal men; these very ancient men could well have
been at the origin of the fossil and modern races, so that between
the progressive Neanderthalians (the oldest) and the backward
Neanderthalian (the most recent) there was perhaps no direct
relationship at all.
Now is the moment to sketch the genealogical tree of the
human species, so far as present knowledge permits. To construct
this tree we must call upon the theories of the leading experts of
the day, especially those of Boule and Vallois, Father Teilhard de
Chardin, d'Arambourg, de Furon and the British anatomist,
Le Gros Clark.
Everyone is more or less agreed about that part of the tree that
leads from Parapithecus to Australopithecus, and discussion concerns
only points of detail of little importance to the layman. But once
the Australopithecus stage is reached argument is much more lively.
The various views that have been held on this subject must there-
fore be presented. They can be roughly grouped into four main
hypotheses.
The first hypothesis, which is only mentioned here as a
reminder, is Hrdlicka's ; he makes the four principal stages in the
evolution of humanity descend directly one from another. This
hypothesis is very difficult to maintain in the present state of our
knowledge.
The second hypothesis makes the Mauer man descend almost
directly from the Australopithecus., and from him modern man
descends through the Swanscombe-Fontechevade line. On the
other side, the pre-men and the Neanderthal men have also
descended from Australopithecus , evolving independently, though
they were more or less rapidly extinguished without leaving
survivors.
122 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
X PARAP!THECUS
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PROPLIOPITHECUS
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Attempt at a Genealogical Tree of Man
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 123
In the third hypothesis the Mauer man is still at the origin of
modern man, but this time by way of the progressive Neanderthal
men (the oldest). On their side, and still more or less deriving
from Australopithecus, came first of all the pre-men, who gave rise
to the typical Neanderthalians. The Swanscombe-Fontechevade
line evolved independently, though no one knows its origin or end.
The fourth hypothesis admits purely and simply that at least
four attempts have been made in the human direction: Australo-
pithecus ', pre-man, the Neanderthal man, and finally modern man,
the last having alone succeeded. In this hypothesis it could equally
well have been in the Swanscombe-Fontechevade line that
modern man had his origin.
All this is summarized in the accompanying table, which pre-
sents a schematic view of these various hypotheses, of which only
the second and third appear to have been confirmed by later
discoveries.
So as regards the origins of humanity it is necessary to confine
oneself in the end to the following outline : from the anatomical
point of view, four evolutionary stages followed one another, and
from one to the other the individuals increasingly approximated
to Homo sapiens. But intricacies and ramifications developed at the
different stages and it has to be admitted that several attempts in
the direction of man took place, only one of which succeeded.
Once again this parallel evolution is not exceptional: on the
contrary, it is to be found in all the animal groups and it would be
abnormal if it had not occurred during human evolution.
Thus an attempt at a precise reconstitution of the origins of
humanity should close on a note of interrogation. We must be
content with a general outline, which later discoveries may bring
to completion; palasontological activity throughout the world in
recent years allows us to hope that they will not be long delayed.
But to bring this problem of the origin of man to a conclusion,
two questions remain which fall within the province of biology
and paleontology. The first concerns the biological mechanism by
which the ape, or more precisely the pre-anthropoid, was able to
transform itself into man. The other concerns the cradle of
humanity.
A certain number of biologists, following the Dutchman Bolk,
124 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
are at present inclined to suggest as a substitute for the expression
'man is descended from the ape' (for which there is not the least
justification) the expression 'man is descended from the foetus of
the ape'. In actual fact, all things considered, there is more
resemblance between a human foetus and an anthropoid foetus than
between an adult man and an adult anthropoid; and man himself,
with his large head, and a cranium which has developed to the
detriment of the face, his relative absence of hair, the late cutting
of his teeth, his protracted ossification (resulting in very long
growth which scarcely ends before the 2 5th year, when the long
bones cease to increase in length), offers a certain number of
characteristics which in other animals are only to be found in the
foetus. This theory is the more attractive since it can be biologically
explained.
In 1864 the armies of Napoleon III were carrying on a luckless
war in Mexico. One day a military doctor sent the Minister for
Foreign Affairs some 30 creatures which had been taken from the
lakes of this part of Mexico; they were batrachians resembling
newts or salamanders, with a long and rather flat tail and a collar
of filamentous gills, which serve to absorb the oxygen from
the water. These animals were known by the name given them by
the natives of the region: axolotls. Much embarrassed, the
Minister gave them to the Zoological Society; the Society kept a
certain number and offered six to the Natural History Museum.
These were immediately taken over by a famous naturalist named
Auguste Dumeril, who for seven years had held the chair in the
zoology of reptiles and fishes. This gift gave Dumeril the oppor-
tunity to study the habits, food, and reproduction of these curious
creatures, which had many offspring. In fact, shortly after their
arrival, in February 1865, several little axolotls were born whose
later conduct rather discountenanced the experts. In the autumn
of the same year these little axolotls of six months suddenly began
to lose their gills and part of their tails, and to turn into brown
salamanders with yellow spots, emerging from the water and
taking up residence on the fine sand at the edge of the aquarium.
This gave Dumeril the opportunity to carry out the most
interesting investigations of his career, resulting in conclusions of
considerable importance to biology. These famous yellow-spotted
salamanders were in fact already fairly well known to the zoolo-
gists, who had given them the scientific name of Amblystoma.
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 125
Knowing the mode of development of the batrachians, which
always pass, after leaving the egg, through an aquatic 'tadpole'
phase before changing into adults, which sometimes remain
aquatic (newts) and sometimes become terrestrial (toads, frogs,
salamanders), Dumeril was quite naturally led to the conclusion
that the axolotls sent from Mexico were none other than the
larvx - that is to say, the tadpoles - of Amblystoma. The fact in
itself was not very surprising, but what was more surprising was
that the axolotls reproduced themselves in the larval stage.
Dumdril continued his observations for several years and dis-
covered that certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in
the larval state, thus giving birth to larvx which resemble them in
every way. This phenomenon was thoroughly studied in 1886 by
the German Kollmann, who gave it the name neoteny. Neoteny
is found among numerous parasitical worms, where one can
observe several generations of larvse succeed one another before
the appearance of the adult generation; also among certain insects.
However, neoteny is exceptional among batrachians; it is
explained in the case of the axolotls by the iodine content of water, ,
iodine being absolutely necessary to the metamorphosis of
axolotls into Antblystoma^ a thing that happens fairly rarely in the
mountain pools of Mexico, where these creatures normally live.
Thus by reference to neotenous phenomena it is sought to make
man, with his foetus-like characteristics, descend from animal
forms similar to the ancestors of the anthropoids. Under the
influence of some factor that naturally cannot yet be precisely
defined, but which might well be the result of some hormonal
disequilibrium, a primitive anthropoid might have acquired the
ability to reproduce itself at the larval stage. Such a theory, with-
out any proof so far, at present interests a certain number of
experts and all interpretations of the origins of humanity must
take it into account. Meanwhile, it would be stupid to seek to push
things to the extreme, by making modern man descend from the
Neanderthal man by neoteny, and the Neanderthal man from the
man-ape by the same process, and the latter from the Austra-
lopithecus.
All such characteristics as the reduction of the hair system and
the late cutting of teeth require that man effected the first steps of
his evolution in a relatively warm if not tropical climate, especially
because for food he had to reckon on the presence of plants
126 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
throughout the year, since his prey could not be regularly assured.
So we reach the problem of humanity's birthplace. Agreement is
almost unanimous in siting the birthplace in the warm regions of
the globe, but some palaeontologists favour Asia (the Siwaliks)
while others favour Africa (Kenya or the Transvaal). Broom's
recent discoveries, which show Australopithecus in full evolution,
at present lead many experts to consider tropical Africa as pre-
eminently the cradle of primitive humanity. On the other hand,
the partisans of Asia insist on the fact that the high plateaus close
to the Himalaya, which occupy the centre of the Asiatic continent,
some millions of years ago had a much milder climate than that
which prevails to-day. They also point out that only one scientific
expedition has yet worked in these regions, and that it had to work
very quickly and in very precarious conditions.
So modern man made his appearance on the earth for the first
time at the beginning of the Reindeer Age. Modern he was in his
general anatomy but, in the fifth and last act of humanity's adven-
ture, he was already split up into races, though they are not
identical with those of to-day.
The other feature typical of this last act is the appearance of
art for the first time in history, manifesting itself in engravings,
paintings and sculptures, executed either on the walls of caves,
flat stones or pieces of bone. Technical acquirements were also
very considerable, and the implements made of chipped stone and
bone were very varied.
The climate was still cold and, at the beginning of this period,
very humid. The glaciers had scarcely moved since the days of the
Neanderthal man and they still covered the greater part of
Northern and Central Europe. Mammoths, reindeer and woolly
rhinoceroses lived in more or less numerous herds and are typical
of the fauna of the epoch. But they were surrounded by a tundra
fauna, especially wild horses, musk oxen, blue foxes, wolverines,
cave bears, snow owls, etc. After this first attack of damp cold,
a certain amelioration made itself felt and the temperature became
more clement. But soon the frost returned, and this time it was
very dry and very severe; then to the aforementioned animals
were added the bison and the aurochs, together with saiga
antelopes, chamois, marmots and some jerboas.
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 127
At the beginning of this last act, that is, at the end of the
Mousterian and the dawn of the Aurignacian, tribes from North
Africa invaded Europe, either by the Straits of Gibraltar or by
the straits which separate Malta and Sicily from the African coast.
The crossing from Africa to Europe was actually very easy at
certain periods of the Reindeer Age, when the straits were very
narrow.
The men who thus spread across Europe were men of medium
height with long and large heads, large noses, bulging foreheads
and receding chins ; they were also characterized by the length and
narrowness of the pelvis and by the length of their forearms and
forelegs as compared with their arms and thighs. They were the
negroids of whom two complete skeletons, one an adolescent and
the other an old woman, were found in the Italian caves at
Grimaldi.
A little later, from the Aurignacian to the Magdalenian, Europe
was submerged under an invasion of tribes from the east. These
were the Cro-Magnon men, the dolicocephalics (long heads), with
short and broad faces. They seemed to come from a region of Asia
Minor fairly close to present-day Palestine and they successively
invaded Central Europe and Western and Southern Europe, as
well as North Africa. During the Reindeer Age new waves of
Cro-Magnon men ceaselessly arrived from the east; some of them
stopped in Central Europe while others went on until they came
to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea
in Italy and France.
Finally, much later, in the Magdalenian epoch, and probably
from Asia once again, came men who constituted the third fossil
race of prehistoric times in Western Europe : small men with long
heads, but with faces of average size both in length and breadth,
very distinctive men with very prominent cheek-bones. These
were the Chancelade men. Because it was thought that with the
eventual retreat of the ice these Chancelade men moved north-
wards, and because it was thought that they were therefore the
origin of the eastern Eskimos of to-day (those of Labrador and
Greenland) whom they strikingly resemble physically, ethno-
graphically and archseologically - and also because this view has
been widespread among the general public and has been supported
by very strong arguments - it must be said here that to-day, as a
result of the work of Henri Vallois, it is impossible to give con-
128 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
tinued support to this theory, for Vallois has demonstrated its
weakness after very complex anthropological studies.
Thus we have put in their places, in Europe at least, the three
great fossil races of Homo sapiens in the Reindeer Age. Neverthe-
less, as regards the origin of these races and also their fate when
the Paleolithic Age came to an end, certain survivals are still to be
seen in our days and from time to time, in Dordogne for instance,
a peasant of great height can be met who is not far removed from
the Cro-Magnon type. But it is probably in the Canary Islands that
the most eloquent phenomena of survival are to be seen; the
natives, whom we call Guanches, are Cro-Magnoids with scarcely
any physical or mental change.
Then, 10,000 years ago, began the intermediate period called
the Mesolithic. The climate continued to grow milder, the glaciers
retreated northwards or withdrew into the high mountains, and
the first attempts were now made at polishing stone, attempts that
were still timid and unskilful, and, moreover, without much
future.
It was in the Mesolithic Age that, coming from Eastern
Europe, perhaps even from Asia, men of small stature, still doli-
cocephalic, infiltrated right along the Mediterranean coasts and
occupied especially Yugoslavia, Italy, the southern part of France
and some parts of Spain. These little long-faced dolicocephalics
were very like one of the present-day ethnic types of Europe, the
Mediterraneans. On the other hand it was in the Mesolithic age
that round-headed men appeared for the first time in the history
of the world, men of small stature who thrust themselves in like a
wedge, to set up a comparison, classic in anthropology, between
the small dark dolicocephalics of the south and the big fair
dolicocephalics of the north of Europe.
Finally, in the Mesolithic Age art and industry were in very
definite retreat. Stone implements were mostly of very small size-
microliths - of typical shape, like the segments of an orange; they
seem to have been used only when fitted to the end of a stick or a
bone. Otherwise, the working of bone was very poor and all the
awls, harpoons and hooks of stag-horn in this period were rather
rough instruments. The only artistic activity of the period seems
to have been the coloured pebbles bearing on their surface stripes,
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 129
FIG. 57. The implements,
like segments of an
orange, of the Meso-
lithic.
crosses and lines of dots, the significance of which totally escapes
us, and although some archaeologists maintain that we should
regard them as the rudiments of a written language, we must
frankly admit that we cannot read it. Such coloured pebbles have
FIG. 58. The enigmatical coloured pebbles from Mas d'Azil.
130 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
been found in great abundance in the French Pyrenean cave of
Mas d'Azil.
At last the age known as the Polished Stone Age, or Neolithic
Age, began. Actually it is in some degree mistaken to use the term
'polished stone' since, as Furon has remarked, although the
polishing technique had at last been brought to perfection, the
manufacture of polished implements was far from being universal
and, in the very great majority of neolithic beds, we always find
an abundance of chipped stones and much rarer polished stones
side by side. On the other hand, what was far more characteristic
of the Polished Stone Age was the economic revolution by which
nomadic man became sedentary, turning from a hunter into a
tiller of the soil.
The milder climate now made life possible in the open air for
the greater part of the year. So, abandoning their dark caves, men
now lived in huts or in dwellings built on piles to form small
villages. A certain organization inevitably appeared, one of the
least questionable signs of which is, for the prehistorian, the
organization of funeral ceremonies. This was the epoch in which,
probably due in great part to the mild temperature, three impor-
tant inventions appeared : the polishing of stone, the domestica-
tion of animals and plants, and the making of pottery. But these
three inventions were not everywhere equal. Although, to quote
Furon again, a complete Neolithic was familiar with polished
stone, pottery, the growing of cereals and the domestication of
cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, there were actually very many
neolithic tribes who for various reasons knew nothing of one or
the other. In the neighbourhood of Cannes and Nice 5,000 years
ago there lived cultivators and shepherds who had never polished
their stone implements ; similarly, there are Australian aborigines
who use chipped stones, but know nothing of pottery or
agriculture.
Mme. Pia Zambotti has recently put out a very ingenious theory
to account for the origins of agriculture and pottery. Relying on
our present knowledge of the life and ways of the Franco-Canta-
brian hunters, she imagines that in the Reindeer and Mesolithic
Ages, in order to supplement the insufficient supplies of fresh
meat, which must very often have been precarious in the periods
of intense cold, and also in response perhaps to some unconscious
physiological need, vegetable foodstuffs acquired some import-
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 131
ance. It must not be forgotten that certain fossil seeds were found
in the caves of the Pekin man, and also in the Palaeolithic caves of
France and Spain. It is reckoned that the gathering of these
vegetables was restricted to the women of the tribe, while the
hunters were out, absent perhaps for days in pursuit of the herds
of reindeer and bison. In the Reindeer Age men were in contact
with animals, and women were in contact with plants. In the
desire to speed up the collection of wild berries, the women,
according to Mme. Zambotti, were not long in inventing the
basket, made of plaited plant matter. Nevertheless, when life in
the open was possible, the women responsible for collecting the
vegetable food soon observed that it would be much easier to
grow certain plants around their villages than to go gathering
them after long journeys into the country. It is thus that agri-
culture may have been invented, at the dawn of the Polished
Stone Age, by the females of the nomadic hunting tribes.
Further, in proportion to the development of vegetable foods,
the need to carry and to cook the supplies was soon imposed. The
first receptacles used for cooking were doubtless the plaited
baskets, the interstices being filled with a thin coating of clay; but,
as the clay hardened under the action of fire, the plaited lining
became useless unless the clay coating was sufficiently thick. Thus
was pottery born, but it still kept the memory of its origin in the
form of the interlaced marks that the plant stems had originally
left in the clay coating. In actual fact, the first articles of pottery
were always decorated with regular cross-pieces, made with the
finger, which were later transformed into geometrical motifs
and then became diversified to the extreme, both in design and
colour.
Finally, it is reasonable to try and discover in what regions
agriculture and cattle breeding began. To follow Mme. Zambotti
to her conclusions, two centres of culture are revealed whence
these skills, from which that of pottery cannot be separated, have
spread across the world : Mesopotamia (the lands of Sumer and
Akkad, between the Tigris and Euphrates) and Egypt. As it is
interesting to know the arguments which can be used to support
the relationship between the primary centres and the secondary
centres of cultivation, the example of the spread of Egyptian
agricultural civilization westwards deserves a few comments.
This civilization, which was born on the banks of the Nile 9,000
13* MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
years ago, spread southwards towards Nubia, and westwards
towards North Africa, whence it reached Europe, oceanic France
and then England, by way of the Straits of Gibraltar. And all
along the African coast of the Mediterranean, across Spain, then
along the Atlantic coast of France, especially in Britanny, as well
as in numerous parts of the British Isles, the route of this civiliza-
tion is marked by the existence of megalithic monuments, that is
to say menhirs (standing stones), cromlechs or groups of menhirs
placed more or less regularly in circles or lines, dolmens (flat
stones lying on standing stones and giving the appearance from
a distance of a table), covered ways (which can be a series of
dolmens placed side by side and forming a tunnel, sometimes
partly underground), etc. These megaliths are now recognized
beyond dispute as religious monuments, of striking relationship
with Egyptian tombs.
*
It is impossible here to describe, even briefly, the infinitely
complex mixing of populations that took place in the Neolithic
age. But, because it is a problem which worried anthropologists
for a long time and because the answer was given only a few years
ago, we cannot totally ignore the subject of fossil man in America.
It was in 1951 that the oldest known American was identified
beyond argument. Until then the discoveries of fossil human
remains in both North and South America have given rise to epic
disputes. Some stood for the very great antiquity of man in
America and the paleontologist Ameghino, some 30 years ago,
even went so far as to claim for South America in general, and
Argentina in particular, the honour of having been the cradle of
humanity. Others went too far the other way and stood for the
thesis of the late peopling of the Americas. The unfortunately few
moderates took up an intermediate position and reckoned that
man appeared in North America about 1 2,000 to 1 5 ,000 years ago,
coming from Asia.
But the oldest human relic that has ever been found in America
is a fragment of pelvic bone from a man who lived in North
America 11,000 years ago; it is probably to men of his race that
we must attribute the strange industry of chipped stone called the
Folsom industry, specially characterized by a very flat point, of
which the cutting edges are delicately retouched, while each of the
flat faces shows a wide and deep lengthwise groove.
Magdalenian polychrome painting of a bison covered by a
sketch which perhaps represents a trap. (Font-de-Gaume,
Dordogne.)
Engravings and paintings are often superimposed as in this
example from Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne.
' - , i .^k*?i rf , ;,,,,:' l ' l ''i --;"*.*..
-
Armoured fish (Ostracoderms) of the Devonian period, contemporary
with the Coelacanth, (Piveteau; Images fas months disp&rus!)
FROM AFRICAN APES TO MODERN NATIONS 133
This discovery is interesting because up till now all the slightly
old bones that have been dug up from American soil, whose
authenticity is beyond doubt, were always entire skeletons or
fragments of skeletons of Indians of modern type; however, the
finding of worked stones on the one hand, and on the other hand
the existence together in the same bed of human bones and the
bones of animals that have now vanished (giant armadillos),
indisputably prove that human beings had already penetrated
America 10,000 years before our era. The gap is now filled.
Naturally, the human species was already very developed
10,000 years ago (in Western Europe this was the beginning of the
Mesolithic Age); also the pelvis that has just been studied in
Chicago, and which was found at Natchez in Mississipi, is of
almost modern type. It is a fossil race whose type is little different
from that of present-day Indians.
But a history of life will not be complete if we are content only
to present its last phase, that which covers the period from
Parapithecus to modern man. The origins of man and the origins
of life itself must be sought still further back. In the course of this
search a stage is clearly marked by a recent discovery which has
made a great public stir: that of the Coelacanth, the fossil fish of
the Comoro Islands and Madagascar.
PART TWO
Our Ancestors the Fishes
CHAPTER V
The Assault of the Continents
SHORTLY before Christmas in the year 1938 a native fisherman,
off the coast of South Africa, was surprised to find in his heavily
laden nets a great fish weighing about a hundredweight and
measuring about 5 feet in length. Rather puzzled by this strange
creature of which he had never seen nor heard the like, he did not
at first know if it should be eaten or if it would be better to bring
it to the notice of the white man. Fortunately mind triumphed
over matter and in the end Miss Latimer, Keeper of the East
London Museum, had to shelter the cumbersome creature. Very
puzzled by it, too, having never seen this fish before nor any
description of it, she decided to ask for help from the capital and
wrote to the leading fish expert in South Africa, Professor J. L. B.
Smith. The latter expected simply to describe a new species and
promised to arrive in East London as soon as the Christmas
festivities were over, advising Miss Latimer to preserve the fish
meanwhile in the best possible way. Unfortunately, it showed no
interest in the Christmas festivities and quietly began to rot. Miss
Latimer had to resign herself to gutting it and throwing the
entrails away; some days later she called in an expert and asked
him to stuff the creature. In the midst of all this Professor Smith
reached the museum.
He was lost in amazement; it was almost as if without warning
he was suddenly confronted by a living Brontosaur. For the type
of fish before which he stood transfixed and of which, lacking the
internal organs, he would still be able to study the skeleton,
muscles and skin, was well known to the palaeontologists. Alive
only ten days earlier and now slowly decomposing, this fish was
without doubt a Coelacanth, a name which means a fish with fins
with hollow spines. These Coelacanths are an order which was
thought to have become extinct about 60 million years ago, and
belonged to the class with lobed fins known as the Crossopterygii,
137
138 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
which the experts pkce at the origin of all terrestrial vertebrates.
As a tribute to the patience and initiative of Miss Latimer,
Smith described his sensational discovery under the name
I^atimeria chalumna. Unfortunately, in 1939 the world had other
worries : war broke out in Europe shortly after Smith had pub-
lished his work and the crossopterygian did not receive all the
attention it deserved. But Smith himself had only one idea : since
the Coelacanths lived between Madagascar and the east coast of
Africa, in that part of the Indian Ocean known as the Mozambique
Channel, it should be possible to find others, to study them at
leisure and perhaps to obtain new ideas about the origin of
terrestrial vertebrates. Without respite, he scoured all the country
bordering the Mozambique Channel, the coasts of South Africa,
Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, warning and questioning
the fishermen, and doing some fishing himself. The result was
negative.
Some of the natives of the Comoro Islands remembered having
on earlier occasions caught fishes that corresponded to the
description given by Smith or seen them caught. Otherwise, the
creature was extremely rare and for this reason he had to consult
the cadi, the religious leader, to find out if there were not some
dietary prohibition regarding this uncommon fish, the flesh of
which is apparently very fatty and not at all tasty. It is probable
that a certain number of Coelacanths had been lost to science to
the benefit of Comorian and South African stomachs. The natives
did not know.
But for 10 years they knew that Professor Smith was offering
100,000 francs to the first fisherman to bring him a Coelacanth.
And the miraculous draught turned up at last in the Comoro
Islands, on the east coast of the island of Anjouan, on December
zoth, 1952. The deputy administrator had the fish taken to
Mutsamudu, the chief place on the island, and it is said that after
having telegraphed Madagascar without receiving precise instruc-
tions he mentioned the discovery to Captain Hunt of a small
English vessel plying regularly between the Comoro Islands and
South Africa. The latter had long been warned by Smith of the
importance of the Coelacanth and he had taken an active part in the
campaign conducted since 1940 to find out the principal charac-
teristics of the fish from the fishermen. So when Hunt saw the fish
which had just been taken at Anjouan, he was almost certain that
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 139
it was the coveted prize. He at once telegraphed Smith, who, filled
with impatience, forthwith telephoned Dr. Malan. The latter
placed a special airplane at the disposal of the ichthyologist and
his wife. But, quickly as he had acted, Smith once again found a
lo-day-old fish, somewhat damaged; Hunt had done the best he
could to preserve it; he had slashed the fish with a cutlass and had
efficiently salted it, which naturally damaged the appearance of
the venerable crossopterygian. However, Smith was so moved at
the sight of his Coelacanth that he could not refrain from weeping
like a child and, watching over it night and day as a box was
prepared for taking the precious palseontological trophy to the
Cape, he went without eating for 48 hours. And it was thus that
the Coelacanth made the return journey in Dr. Malan's plane and
well deserved the name Malania anjouanis*
But now the affair became a diplomatic incident. In Paris, where
he had gone to finish some work, Dr. J. Millot, Professor at the
Natural History Museum and Director of the Institute of Scientific
Research in Madagascar, was furious that the Coelacanth, caught
in French territorial waters, had been carried off by a British
scientist. All the French experts held Professor Smith in great
esteem, but still . . .! Taking the initiative this time, Professor
Millot, on his return to Madagascar, carried out a campaign
amongst the Comorian fishermen. M. Fourmanoir, one of his
assistants and an expert on fish and fishing, spent nearly six
months in the Comoro Islands, tirelessly describing the fish with
the help of photographs to all the fishermen in all the villages, and
he too promised the inevitable prize of 100,000 francs. Occa-
sionally, M. Fourmanoir also did some fishing himself, but with-
out success. At Tananarive, Professor Millot had supplies of
formaldehyde and insulated zinc-lined cases prepared; these were
stored at strategic points of the archipelago. The senior adminis-
trator of the Comoro Islands, M. Coudert, put his whole staff on
the alert and gave instructions that in the event of a capture
Tananarive was to be advised at once and that, while awaiting the
arrival of competent persons, the preservation of the 'devil', as
the Comorians called the Coelacanth, was to be assured. The
officer in command of the air force put a plane at the disposal of
Professor Millot to go and fetch the Coelacanth as soon as
captured.
During the night of the 24th to 2 5th September, 1953, a fisher-
140 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
man from Anjouan, Houmadi Assani, at last brought up on his
deep sea line a superb Coelacanth of 87 lb., that was 4 feet 3 inches
long. The capture took place at 1 1.30 p.m. Shortly after midnight,
Assani was back at his own port, Mutsamudu, the chief place on
the island. He deposited his precious capture at his home and
rushed to Dr. Garrouste; the latter had often been disturbed for
the sake of some commonplace fish and hesitated a little, but
ended by following the fisherman. When he saw the fish, he went
off to fetch the chief of the sub-division, Lher, who was not yet in
bed. Both were soon on the spot and at once began the injections
and washings with formaldehyde; then at the end of a sleepless
night they enclosed the fish in its zinc-lined case, just in time to
load it on to the regular airplane for Tananarive, which took off
at 6 a.m. So on September 25th, at 1.30 p.m., 14 hours after its
capture, the Coelacanth was unloaded from an Air France Junker
at the capital of Madagascar, where Professor Millot was impa-
tiently waiting. He tells as follows the end of the adventure:
'Transferred at once to a truck from the Institute for Scientific
Research, it was taken half-an-hour later into the laboratory
prepared for the purpose where, without losing a minute, the
examination was energetically begun: weight, various measure-
ments and photographs succeeded each other, followed by a
scrutiny of the external and internal parasites, the extraction of the
viscera, the removal of pieces of organs for microscopic investi-
gation or of organic liquids for chemical analysis, and various
dissections - the operators having to be quick to lock themselves
up securely as protection against the crowd of sightseers which had
appeared at once/
Eventually, a fourth Coelacanth was caught at Grande Comore
at the end of January 1954 and a fifth on February ist. They, too,
were sent to Tananarive in perfect condition and were recently
exhibited in Paris. Thanks to the precautions taken by the
Institute for Scientific Research at Madagascar, the three last
Comorian Coelacanths are in perfect condition and France now
possesses the two finest specimens of a fish with lobed fins that a
palaeontologist has ever hoped to lay hands on.
The press gave great importance to the Coelacanth, which was
presented as our distant ancestor, our grandfather, our aquatic
pre-Adam at a low stage of evolution, and so on. It is precisely
because the Coelacanth is none of these (at best a small and distant
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 141
cousin of man, a little retarded), and also because his existence
raises no less clearly the problem of life's conquest of the conti-
nents about 250 million years ago, that it has been so keenly
studied. Although the Coelacanth is not our grandfather, the
grandfather-fish from which all terrestrial vertebrates are derived
must have resembled him a great deal. On the other hand, the
monster from the Comoro Islands which we believed had
vanished from the surface of the earth - or rather from the depths
of the waters - at the same time as the Diplodocus, the Iguanodon
and the Pterodactyl, about 80 million years ago, is one of those
puzzling 'living fossils', one of those primitive creatures of times
past that are a joy to the palaeontologist.
Just to look at it, without even giving it close attention, is to
FIG. 59. Coelacanth, showing the fins that have the rudiments
of the feet of terrestrial vertebrates.
realize that the Coelacanth is not like other fish. All the fins, with
the exception of the first dorsal fin, begin with a veritable short
arm carrying long spines joined by a membrane; all other fish,
like those sold every day in all the world's markets, as well as the
rare monsters from the great deeps or from distant oceans, have
fins with spines (or rays, as they are called) that come straight out
of the body, to which they are fixed by a small base plate. Even
more, when the small arm which in the fish with lobed-fins forms
the base of the pectoral fin is dissected, three bones are found, just
as in a human arm, and situated like our humerus, radius and ulna,
prolonged by a multitude of small, short and flat bones compar-
able to the bones which form a human wrist. The lobed fin of the
142 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
crossopterygian is a real fin-foot, which could serve for crawling
over the earth; the fins of other fishes are too fragile for that and
can serve only for swimming.
But that is not all. On examining the mouth we find at the far
end of the palate two long openings by which the nasal cavities
connect directly with the throat, known as the choanae (inner
nostrils); with their aid the Coelacanth could breathe with its
mouth closed, as can all terrestrial vertebrates. For certain
'cousins' of this 300 million-year-old fish breathed in an abnormal
fashion for a member of the aquatic family, a fashion which is
found in practically no present-day fish. Actually, in all terrestrial
vertebrates, as in man, the nose has two functions: on the one
hand it is the olfactory organ, thanks to the nerve endings in its
FIG. 60. The three types of foot in vertebrates :
A. The fin of a fish.
B. The fin-foot of Crossopterygii.
C. The foot of a terrestrial vertabrate.
mucous membranes, and on the other hand it is a double passage
through which the air passes and, traversing the choanse, reaches
the throat, descends the trachiae and ends in the lungs: so the
choanas are necessary to the breathing of oxygen in a gaseous
state. Contrariwise, fish breathe the oxygen dissolved in the water
by means of their gills, which are generally covered by a small
protective piece of bone or cartilage; the nostrils are only the
external openings of small cavities called the olfactory capsules,
a name which fully explains their only function. The Coelacanth
has gills as well as the nose of a real terrestrial vertebrate which in
other creatures indicates the existence of lungs, which doubtless
arise from a transformation of the swim-bladder. So, once again,
this fish with lobed fins is nearer to man than all other fishes ; it
is a fish with fins that are no longer really those of a fish, without
being completely the limbs of a terrestrial animal; it is a fish
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 143
which shows adaptation to a mixed respiration, able to assimilate
either the oxygen dissolved in the water or oxygen in a gaseous
state. Thus the Coelacanth gives us a picture of aquatic animal life
in process of adapting itself to life on dry land.
But that is not all! The stumpy and very rudimentary tail,
which is not separated from the body in the least, as in other
fish, and the very peculiar cycloid scales, are very primitive
characteristics and bear witness to the creature's antiquity.
These features - and many others too technical to dwell on
here, notably the anatomical structure of the head - have thus a
double significance: they confirm that the Coelacanth is much
older than all the terrestrial vertebrates, and also that there is a
relationship between the Coelacanth and the terrestrial verte-
brates, including man, while the relationship is not very clear,
except in the very broad structural lines between the terrestrial
vertebrates and the fishes of to-day.
Actually, it was the little black boys of Central Africa who first
discovered the evolutive significance of the Coelacanth, many
centuries ago without a doubt. For in the region bounded on the
north by a line stretching from Senegal to the White Nile, and on
the south by the source of the Zambesi and Lake Tanganyika,
lives a curious fish able to move on dry land, to make vocal sounds,
and to spend about six months out of water, all of which is quite
contrary to the normal characteristics of fishes. This creature is a
very amusing object for the little black children and it is their
habit to go and poke at it with a stick when, during the dry
season, it is enclosed in a ball of mud. In these intertropical and
equatorial regions torrential rains continue for six months and
then the watercourses and small lakes suddenly dry up : when this
happens all the aquatic creatures have but one resource, to flee
under pain of death. Some of them let themselves be carried along
by the current and so reach the larger lakes where life is possible
throughout the year. But certain fish have found a neater solution :
when there is no water they do without it and secrete a sort of
mucus which covers them and keeps them moist for several
months ; thereafter, they make a kind of nest, a ball of mud with
an orifice to which they affix their mouths. It is through these
holes that the black children thrust their sticks and tickle the
fishes' throats. The fishes protest by blowing out air and emitting
a characteristic grunt. This fish is called Protopterus and, besides
144 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
its gills for breathing oxygen dissolved in the water, has lungs
which permit it to survive the dry season.
The zoologists had to wait until 1870 before they became
acquainted with these fishes. They were reported from Australia
and seemed the more precious because, not only did they have
lungs but they appeared to be exceedingly rare, being found only
in two small rivers, the Murray and the Burnett, in Queensland.
Afterwards, other Lung-fish (or Dipnoi, as they are called) were
found in Africa (Protopterus) and in South America, in the
Amazon and some of its tributaries (these are called I^epidosiren\
where they are by no means rare. These lung-fish provide a very
fine example of an animal's adaptation to its environment, since
with lungs they can lead a double life, in or out of water. This
adaptation exactly explains the methods by which the continents
were conquered.
When we go back 300 million years to the Devonian era, we
find the world populated with very many fishes, especially the
Crossopterygii, like the Coelacanths and the Dipnoi. At that time
an enormous North- Atlantic continent encompassed a great part
of North America, the Atlantic Ocean and Northern Europe. It
is often referred to as the 'continent of Old Red Sandstone',
because this is the typical geological formation of the Devonian
era. This continent had a tropical climate and experienced the
regular alternation of periods of drought and torrential rain. The
landscape was very monotonous, all in vertical lines, dominated
by endless plants resembling our modern horsetail, but 10 feet
high or more, raising their long parallel arms to the sky. In the
immense ocean that bounded this continent to the south lived
very many types of fish, all of them very strange, which must be
quickly described if the stages in the conquest of the continents
are to be properly understood.
In the fresh water and in the salt-water lagoons were fairly
numerous and varied species of what are called armoured fish.
Known as Placoderms and Ostracoderms, these fish were covered
with a sort of helmet to protect the head and what for simplicity's
sake may be called the neck and the beginning of the thorax; this
armour, sometimes all of one piece and sometimes of two articu-
lated pieces, was made of a type of bone called 'dermal bone',
because it arose by transformation of certain skin tissue. Laden
with this armour, which often varied in shape, and provided with
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 145
superabundant spines, these armoured fishes dragged themselves
heavily along close to the bottom of the water-courses and fed on
small crustaceans or on other less agile or less well-protected
fishes. They themselves were menaced by a kind of large aquatic
scorpion known as Euripterida.
One of the main peculiarities of these armoured fishes was the
presence, at the edges of the shield on either side, and also on top
of the head, of three lines of small bony plates lightly sunk into
the armour. The Swedish scientist Stensio, who has made a
lengthy study of the fossil Ostracoderms of Spitzbergen, regards
these formations as electrical organs comparable to those of
present-day rays and torpedoes. Stensio relies upon the anatomical
configuration of the nervous system, which he has been able to
study in detail, thanks to one peculiarity of the armoured fishes,
whereby the principal nerves were enclosed in little ossified
conduits. He has thus been able to establish that the three lines
of plates were connected by numerous nerves to a certain part of
the brain situated behind the olfactory zone. But other palaeon-
tologists do not regard this anatomical structure as convincing
and believe that the bony lines can equally well be regarded as
sense organs permitting the fish to maintain its balance, com-
parable to the lateral Line on either side of the bodies of the
majority of modern fishes.
On dry land a few large insects rather like our dragon-flies and
a few scorpions were able to maintain themselves after a fashion,
for climatic conditions were scarcely favourable. Speaking
literally, life had in fact already begun its conquest of the conti-
nents, since a few plants and a few invertebrates were to be found
there. But really, it was the vertebrates - and they alone -
which were to effect a true conquest of the earth, since they would
be capable of successfully occupying all the habitable areas and of
evolving in infinite variety, so that they would soon be masters of
the world and have completed their domination on a planetary
scale by the time man made his appearance. But when the Devo-
nian began no vertebrate had yet put fin or foot on dry land. All
the vertebrates, which at that time were the fishes of fairly
numerous and varied species, lived in the sea and the fresh water.
Besides these armoured fishes, dragging themselves along the
submarine depths, were Coelacanths of great size which all more
or less resembled the Coelacanth of the Comoro Islands. In the
i 4 6 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
fresh waters were other armoured fish and Dipnoi, too, of which
the principal kind, quite widespread, was Ceratodus, very like the
present-day Queensland Dipnoan, for which reason the latter has
been called Neoceratodus.
It was again in the water-courses that the very important fishes
with lobed fins, known as Rhipidistia, developed the habits which,
on the surface of this semi-desert continent of Old Red Sandstone,
with a tropical climate of alternating drought and endless rain,
were comparable to those of the Dipnoi of to-day. Excellent
swimmers, with slender bodies and strong jaws with sharp teeth,
this branch of fishes with lobed fins is true to type in certain
anatomical structures : besides the fins that were carried on small
limbs of the kind already seen in the Coelacanth, and the inner
nostrils (choanas), they had a cranium very like that of present-day
batrachians, showing a certain degree of evolution towards the
FIG. 61. One of the best known of Devonian fish: Osteolepis.
terrestrial vertebrate form. These Rhipidistia developed very
quickly and it was from them that the first terrestrial vertebrates,
properly so called, the first amphibia derived.
In their general appearance these first amphibians were still fish
on four feet : they had a long dorsal fin, a flattened tail and short
limbs ending in five fingers. They are called Ichthyostega and little
is known of them, since only a few fragmentary bony remains
were discovered in Greenland a few decades ago by a Swedish
expedition under Professor Save-Soderbergh and by an English
expedition under the palaeontologist Westoll. However, in its main
lines it is not impossible to imagine how the conquest of the
continents was affected: when the rainy season ended and the
water-levels began to fall, certain fish with lobed fins and certain
primitive amphibians were able to resist the dry period by making
their way on to dry land and, breathing pure air, making towards
the lakes or water-courses which were not completely dried up,
or by awaiting patiently the return of the wet season. From that
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 147
moment life had achieved the conquest of the land, since certain
vertebrates were no longer obliged to die when water was lacking.
By a strange paradox it is possible to maintain that the fish with
lobed fins and the primitive amphibians achieved this conquest
simply because they were better adapted than others of their kind
to aquatic life: it was just because they were better fitted than the
heavy Coekcanths or the Dipnoi which were too specialized to
take foot on terra firma in order to go in search of water, that they
ended by adapting themselves to life in the air. Other hypotheses
have sometimes been suggested to explain this emergence from
the water. Since they were carnivorous, the scarcity of prey is one
suggestion; but it is a difficult one to maintain, for fish were
always very abundant in Devonian seas. The need of these
creatures with lungs to come out and breathe pure air has also
been suggested, but this could be done very easily by breaking
surface, without having to take foot on the shore. In fact, it is
FIG. 62. One of the first vertebrates to set foot on dry land
Icbtbyosttga.
because they were better equipped to endure the climatic condi-
tions of the Devonian that these creatures were able to conquer
the continents.
*
Now is the moment to summarize rapidly the principal zoo-
logical characteristics that differentiate the terrestrial vertebrates
from the aquatic vertebrates.
It is necessary first of all to recall briefly the characteristics of
the Crossopterygii, or fish with lobed fins, which must be placed
at the origin of all terrestrial vertebrates through the Rhipidistia.
These fish had choanae and lungs, and were thus able to breathe
pure air; they had fins with bony bases which are comparable to
those in the limbs of terrestrial vertebrates ; finally, they had a
lightened skull and a microscopic dental structure identical to
those of the first terrestrial vertebrates.
i 4 8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
The Rhipidistia are thus incontestably at the origin of our first
amphibians. But between these amphibians (and beyond them all
the other terrestrial vertebrates up to and including man) and the
fishes are essential differences of which the principal are as follows.
Fishes live in a dense medium and the Archimedean pressure they
receive as a result of the weight of the water they displace supports
them in their medium, so that one can say that the problem of
gravity does not arise in practice. It is exactly the reverse for the
terrestrial vertebrates, whose bodies have to resist a very consider-
able pressure which tends to flatten them to the earth. So in
terrestrial vertebrates one sees the limbs strengthened and
lengthened: these are the three bones in the fins of the Crossop-
terygii, homologous to the humerus, radius and ulna, which are
at the origin of the general structure of the limbs of terrestrial
vertebrates. On the other hand, fishes breathe the oxygen dis-
solved in the water through their gills, while terrestrial vertebrates
breathe gaseous oxygen through their lungs, which involves the
existence of inner nostrils and a more or less complex respiratory
passage.
Fishes, because they live always in the water, are not subject to
dessication, while in the atmosphere evaporation is continuous :
vertebrates have to resist evaporation of the liquids of the system
by various mechanisms, such as the thickening of the skin and
the appearance of a protective covering of scales, hair, feathers,
and so on. Finally, another essential difference between fishes and
terrestrial vertebrates concerns the locomotor system: it is by
undulations of the body and tail that a fish moves through the
water and, contrary to what is often thought, the fins are above all
the organs which assure balance and prevent the fish from rolling
on its side. Contrariwise, in terrestrial vertebrates it is the limbs,
which are directly derived from fins, which are the essential
organs of locomotion, while the tail becomes simply an organ of
balance, counterbalancing the weight of the head, short of losing
all functional utility and even disappearing.
The Coelacanths of the Mozambique Channel and the Dipnoi
of Central Africa, the Australian deserts and the Amazon have
akeady achieved the essential requirement of terrestrial life. But,
in full conformity to the laws of evolution, the Coekcanths as well
as the Dipnoi are only living fossils, retarded creatures which
survive to-day as evidence of the existence of a certain stage of
Professor Millot (left) and his assistants with the first Coelacanth to be
examined in a good state of preservation,
ThrCoekcanth here reveals one of its main anatomical peculiarities :
its pectoral fin, the rays being supported by what is really a small limb.
(Service General de Plnformation, Madagascar.)
The most terrible of the carnivorous reptiles of the Cretaceous period:
Tyrannosaurus, reaching a height of 50 feet.
Three enormous 'boars' (Dimohyrus) of the Miocene period,
(Paintings by C, R. Knight, Chicago Natural History Museum.)
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 149
COMPARISON BETWEEN FISH AND CHOANICHTHYES
FISH
CHOANICHTHTES
Nostrils opening into olfactory
cavities without outlet
Respiration of dissolved oxygen
Gills
Fins
Nasal cavities connecting with the
throat through inner nostrils
Respiration of gaseous oxygen
Lungs
Limbs with five bony rays, ending
in five fingers
evolution through which life has passed, but they in no event
gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. And for this there is an
excellent explanation : if the Coelacanths and Dipnoi had been on
the direct line of evolution to the terrestrial vertebrates we would
not have the pleasure of making their acquaintance to-day, except
as fossils. If we should one day, for example, find 'the abominable
snowman' in the Himalayas and discover that he is half ape and
half man, we shall not have laid hands on our ancestor, but will
simply have found the proof of a certain evolutionary stage
through which the ancestors of man have passed : like this hypo-
thetical snowman, the Coelacanths and Dipnoi are only the
'failures' of evolution, they are the ends of evolutionary series
which have continued until our day without transformation for
200 million years. Thus the Coelacanth from the Comoro Islands,
though interesting to the zoologist and palaeontologist, cannot in
any way be regarded as our 'grand-father', but at best a first cousin
once removed.
*
Therefore, something like 275 million years ago, at the end of
the Devonian and the beginning of the Carboniferous, the first
true amphibians appeared, called Labyrinthodonts because the
internal structure of their teeth, like those of the fish with lobed
fins, had the appearance of a labyrinth. The first of these amphi-
bians, those of the Carboniferous, had limbs that were still quite
weak and they led a life that was almost wholly aquatic. On the
other hand, in the Permian, some 220 million years ago, there
appeared amphibians of great size, with very strong limbs, that
led a terrestrial life. The best known of these was a sort of enor-
mous crocodile, heavy, strong and thick-set, its dental structure
i 5 o MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
indicating that it was undoubtedly a formidable carnivore; this
was the Texan Eryops. Later still, in the Trias, 190 to 150 million
years ago, the amphibians returned to an aquatic life, with forms
of great size, but with long and flattened bodies, and with very
weak limbs. Then, at the end of the Trias, came the most impor-
tant forms of our present-day amphibians, the Anura (toads and
frogs), which are derived from Labyrinthodonts of small size; it
was from other amphibian forms that the Urodeles are derived
(salamanders and newts), but the palseontological studies that have
been resumed in recent years no longer allow us to make the
Dipnoi derive from them as was once thought. Thus, from the
middle of the Secondary era, when the first giant reptiles began to
FIG. 63. A primitive vertebrate: Eryops.
dominate the world, the main types of our present amphibians,
very modest both in size and number, were already fixed.
But it must not be forgotten that it was through an amphibian
stage that life passed on to complete the conquest of the
continents.
However, the amphibians were not yet equipped to bring this
conquest to success and finally to exploit it, for, although they
effected the necessary anatomical adaptations, they had not
acquired that indispensable perfection which concerns the method
of reproduction. It can be said that the amphibians have kept a
memento, even a bad memento, of their fish ancestors: they
remain tied to the water for reproductive purposes. It is in the
water that their eggs must be laid, it is in the water that they have
to hatch, and it is in the water that the first larval forms must
develop - the tadpoles - which are provided only with gills and
only acquire lungs at the critical moment of their metamorphosis.
It is the reptilian stage of the terrestrial vertebrates that definitely
THE ASSAULT OF THE CONTINENTS 151
threw off that servitude to water; at this stage appeared the funda-
mental improvement in the mode of reproduction which is the
incubation of the young inside a shell egg. And this is the place,
still in the ascent to man, to sketch the astonishing domination of
the Secondary world by the giant reptiles.
CHAPTER VI
In the Days of the Reptiles
THE curtain rises on a tropical landscape, though the scene
corresponds to the modern American state of Wyoming in the
Rocky Mountains, almost at the spot where the Colorado now has
its source. But there are no mountains yet; at most, a few hills
stand out here and there from an immense, swampy and sombre
expanse. Plants of great size, some rooted in the shallows of the
swamps and others definitely terrestrial, in most of these places
form a protective screen through which the sun's rays find
difficulty in passing. Tree-ferns and gigantic conifers mingle with
giant horsetails. The heat is suffocating and the air, supersaturated
with water vapour, is almost unbreathable, for it is difficult for the
winds to stir through the exuberant vault of vegetation.
Elsewhere the dense tropical forest opens up a little; a water-
course winds its way along and empties into a deep swamp from
which spring a few aquatic plants of striking greenness. And
further off is the sea, a sea of over- warm water, perpetually heated
by the implacable rays of the eternal sun.
Suddenly the scene wakes up. From the water emerges a
flattened head with small eyes standing out from the level of the
skin; a head borne upon a neck 7 or 8 yards long. A scaly back,
quite as long, breaks the surface. The JSrontosaurus slowly, lazily
turns its head; a little further away another Brontosaurus soon
appears, and then another. On seeing these heavy aquatic crea-
tures, one cannot refrain from thinking of the herds of hippo-
potomuses to-day. But that is far from correct, for although the
hippopotamus of two tons can seem of considerable size, Bronto-
saurus, with its 40 tons and a length of 25 yards, beats it hollow.
Suddenly the creature is on the alert. Clearing a way for itself
through a mass of ferns, standing up on its hind feet, which apart
from their size cannot be better compared than with those of a
chicken, with long, strong, clawed toes, an Allosaurus, covered
152
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 153
with large scales, moves forward. With its body leaning forwards,
carrying its head some 10 to 12 feet above the earth, its huge
mouth, stretching to behind the eyes and showing many pointed
teeth, its long tail waving to secure balance, and its ridiculously
short fore-feet pressed to its body, the Allosaurus soon reaches the
swamp and hurls itself upon the nearest Brontosaurus. Despite its
apparent strength, the latter is vanquished at once. How can it
escape effectively, even if all it has to do is submerge, since it has
a neck and tail of such inordinate length, offering a prize to the
attacker at the least movement ? How can it escape since it weighs
40 tons, and cannot even react effectively in the torpor engendered
by this heavy humid heat, having only a minute and rudimentary
brain ?
*
Elsewhere, in other parts of this Jurassic landscape, 150 million
years ago, similar scenes were enacted. In the shadow of huge
plants gigantic reptiles struggled for life. For more than 100
million years the earth, peopled with giant animal and vegetable
forms, was a world seen through the magnifying glass. On the
lines oRrontosaurus (a massive body supported by four short thick
limbs, the fore-limbs being a little shorter than the hind-limbs, a
large tail, and a large neck ending in a little head) was a whole
FIG. 64. Qrnithokstes
capturing the first
known bird, Archa-
opteryx . (after Col-
bert.)
i 5 4 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
series of aquatic herbivores: Diplodocus, 20 yards long, with
nostrils at the top of its head, just in front of the eyes, Camara-
saurus, Cetiosaurus, etc. Elsewhere, in the swamps which covered
the greater part of East Africa and Europe, were the Atlanta-
saurus, a giant among giants with a length of 40 yards, and the
Brachiosaurus which, as an exception, had fore-legs longer than the
hind-legs, which gave it a sharply sloping back-line like a giraffe's,
which it otherwise resembles in general appearance, with its very
long neck and relatively short tail.
All these huge creatures were aquatic herbivores. On the model
of the terrestrial carnivores (Allosaurus) were the Megalosaurus and,
of a notably smaller size (5 to 6 feet, including the tail), the very
agile Ornitholestes.
However, other herbivores were better armed to face the
carnivores than Diplodocus and its cousins of the marshes. Stego-
saurus, also terrestrial, was one of the most curious animals of the
Wyoming fauna. A quadruped about 8 yards long, with fore
limbs half the length of its hind-limbs, it moved with its back
sharply arched, raised to the level of its haunches and sloping
down fairly steeply to end in a long flat tail. Like the hedgehog,
the Stegosaurus practised passive defence; it was capable when
occasion demanded of rolling itself up and presenting its adver-
sary with a hard armour, while along its back was a double line
of large triangular bony plates; but it could also defend itself
actively with very formidable blows from a powerful tail that
ended in four sharp spikes. Imagine the difficulty a carnivore
would find when faced with this well-protected creature, larger
than an elephant 1
*
A little further off, in seas that are filled with coral reefs, or on
their shores, are other equally strange creatures, like l&hamph-
orhynchus, a caricature of a bat : a little smaller than a pigeon, it
perches at the top of a cliff with wings outstretched; it springs into
the air, hovers, maintains itself with a few wing-beats, soars,
descends, makes a turn or two, profiting by the rising currents of
warm air above the sea, and finally, having caught its prey during
flight^comes to rest on the beach.
On this beach marine crocodiles sun themselves before setting
off to hunt; with long bodies and long tnimles, with paddle-like
feet and tails flattened like rudders, these Jurassic crocodiles,
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 155
Geosaurus and Metriorhyncus, are remarkably adapted for under-
water hunting.
Exclusively aquatic and mercilessly carnivorous, the giant
reptiles still dominate the marine sphere in the shape of Plesio-
saurus and Ichthyosaurus. Ichthyosaurus gives the impression that it is
a fish because of its general shark-like appearance; it has a stream-
lined body and limbs that are truly fins, a long and narrow snout
filled with many pointed teeth, and a forked tail, which is asymme-
trical and has two unequal lobes, the upper one large and rounded
and the lower one narrow and pointed. Moreover, in a wholly
fish-like manner it moves rapidly by lateral undulation of the
body, amplified by a vigorous thrust from the tail, the lateral fins
allowing the creature to turn and to stop and assuring stability of
the body after the manner of a balancer.
Plesiosaurus> on the contrary, has a large flat body, its inter-
FIG. 65. Mesosaurus, marine reptile of the Cretaceous.
minable tail and neck making it look like a turtle with a long
serpent passing right through it. Its four short limbs are like
paddles and serve to propel it along, the tail playing the part of a
rudder. Thrusting its strong carnivorous jaws in every direction,
it captures the fish which are its food.
*
We shall pass over some tens of millions of years and bring our
attention to a landscape of the Cretaceous, 75 million years more
recent than the Jurassic, just described. Few changes have actually
taken place.
The climate is certainly milder, more bearable; or rather, there
now exist three clearly divided climatic zones; an equatorial zone,
hot and humid, stretching round the globe like a belt and separ-
ating two relatively temperate zones to north and south.
On the whole, the same reptilian types as in the Jurassic are
i 5 6
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
still to be found. There are giant carnivores like Tyrannosaurus, the
largest ever of all the carnivores, more than 50 feet long and
weighing about 10 tons, and able to raise its head something
like 20 feet above the ground. It is rather like an enlarged Allo-
saurus. Somewhat smaller than this creature, but constructed on
the same lines, are Gorgosaurus and Ceratosaurus, which is distin-
guished by the horn on top of its nose.
The giant herbivores, Diplodocus, Brontosaurus, etc., have
vanished, but other herbivores, no less curious though smaller,
almost take their place. These are Iguanodon and the duck-billed
dinosaur. Very alike in their general appearance these animals
FIG. 66. Tyrattnosaurus, one of the most formidable of Cretaceous
carnivores.
sometimes move on their hind feet only and sometimes on all four.
They lead a semi-aquatic life, scarcely moving far from the
swamps which provide them with an abundance of green plant
life. They have very stout down-turned beaks, very effective for
biting and tearing off the leaves, while powerful molars, situated
at the back of the mouth complete the mastication. Their webbed
feet even permit them to venture into a liquid environment. The
series of duck-billed dinosaurs is distinguished by the exuberant
bony crests which decorate their noses or skulls.
Corresponding to the strongly armoured Stegosaurus is the
Ankylosaurus, entirely covered with strong bony plates like our
modern armadillos, and possessing a formidable weapon in its
M.egaceros,*ot Great Irish Deer, the contemporary of man's earliest
ancestors.
The American Mastodon, an attempt in the direction of the elephant,
dating from some millions of years ago.
(Paintings by C. R. Knight, Chicago Natural History Museum.)
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 157
heavy stubby tail. Beside it are new forms remarkably equipped
for defence: the horned dinosaurs, the most representative of
which is Triceratops. Thirty feet long, it has an enormous head,
representing more than a third of its body length and ending in a
vast collar covering its neck and shoulders; on the parrot-beak
muzzle are one shorthorn above the nose and two others above the
eyes. All the cousins of the Stegosaurus also have horns and a vast
collar which make them resemble more or less a modern
rhinoceros.
Flying reptiles are represented by Pteranodon which often
FIG. 67. Triceratops, a reptile of the Cretaceous.
confines itself to hovering, keeping itself in the air by slight wing-
movements and making best use of the ascending currents of
warm air. On the fresh-water shores, as at the edge of the sea, our
modern crocodiles are already in existence; the giant type, the
Phobosuchus, 50 feet long, has now vanished. The seas themselves
are the domain of enormous water-lizards, 20 feet long or more,
their bodies ending in very long tails ; they move with the aid of
short, paddle-like limbs. These are Mososaurus and Tylosaurus.
One of the first discoveries of the giant reptiles of the Secondary
era to be identified with any precision was probably Mososaurus^
found in 1780 in a gravel pit at Pietersberg, near Maestricht in
Holland. It at once attracted the attention of the quarrymen and
work was suspended to give Dr. Hofmann, a French military
surgeon, the time to hurry to the site where he had earlier disco-
158 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
vered some fossils that were worthy of interest. The skill of this
amateur palaeontologist has enabled us to possess the fossil intact:
the 1 6-foot skeleton was inbedded in a block of stone and was
extracted from the quarry unbroken. But a Dutchman then inter-
vened: Dr. Goddin, Dean of the Cathedral Chapter. As proprietor
of the land above the quarry, he claimed the fossil as his personal
property; Hofmann had not only to hand his Mososaurus over to
Goddin but was charged with costs by the court to which Goddin
appealed.
In 1794 the French armies invaded Holland and kid siege to
Maestricht, which was cruelly bombarded, with the exception of
the suburb where Dr. Goddin had sheltered his Mososaurus.
Thinking that such clemency could have only one object - the
triumphant reconquest of the Mososaurus - Goddin took precau-
tions and hid the fossil in a nearby cave. It required nothing less
than the promise of 600 bottles of wine for a group of French
grenadiers, after searching the country for several days, to return
with Mososaurus; it was at once sent to Paris, where it can still be
admired.
The history of the discovery of the reptiles of the Secondary
continued in the admirable finds of the Englishwoman, Mary
Arming. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the shores of
the English south coast were reputed for sea odours that were
regarded as especially invigorating. Here was established a
souvenir seller, Richard Anning, whose speciality consisted in
selling 'old shells' to the visitors, fossil shells found in the chalk
and dating from the Secondary. His daughter Mary helped him in
this hunt for souvenirs, and in 1811, when she was 12 years old,
she discovered the skeleton of Ichthyosaurus. Ten years later she
provided the scientific world with the first skeleton of Plesiosaurus,
and in 1828 that of the first flying reptile found in England, not to
mention the many other skeletons of Ichthyosaurus discovered in
the meantime.
It was in 1822, also in England, that the wife of Dr. Gideon
Mantell, a doctor interested in palaeontology, discovered some
strangely shaped teeth in Sussex. They were sent for proper
identification to the eminent geologist, Charles Lyell, who in turn
sought the advice of Baron Georges Cuvier, who after 1798 was
the great authority on palseontological matters. After mature con-
sideration, Cuvier declared they were the teeth of a rhinoceros.
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 159
But, unsatisfied with the diagnosis, Dr. Mantell returned to the
quarry and had the good fortune to extract a few bones. Once
more solicited by Lyell, Cuvier this time declared that it was a
hippopotamus. After this Mantell resumed the study of the teeth
and bones he had discovered and saw that he was faced with a new
type of reptile of great size, its teeth being somewhat like those
of modern iguanas ; hence the name Iguanodon. Mantell and other
palaeontologists at first regarded Iguanodon as a quadruped, and it
took nothing less than the discovery in a Belgian coal-mine at the
end of the last century of 17 skeletons of Iguanodon to restore its
bipedalism to this animal; in the process it became one of the best
known of the dinosaurs. These 17 skeletons, raised eventually on
their hind legs, to-day welcome the visitor to the Natural History
Museum at Brussels, and the effect is truly striking.
During the nineteenth century the hunt for dinosaurs was
pursued with the greatest energy in the plains and mountains of
the western United States, thanks to the scientific rivalry of two
eminent American palaeontologists, Edward Cope and Othniel
March, each with but one desire, to discover one dinosaur more
than the other. More recently, further discoveries have been made
in Russia, Mongolia and South Africa.
But it is now time to take a general view of the reptile group in
order to study the various lines and to emphasize at the same time
the evolutive importance of this stage in the history of life, a stage
which is in the long run that of the conquest of the dry land by
living creatures.
Actually it was at the end of the Primary - say 250 million years
ago - that the problem of life in the air was solved : from that
moment vertebrates were able to live on the earth's surface, were
even able to adapt themselves to life in the air without being
forced to return to the water in order to reproduce. This final
adaptation resulted from the new method of reproduction
acquired by the reptiles : the shell egg. The wonderful flight of the
birds, the spread of the mammals, and man's conquest of the
earth, have all been made possible by this marvellous achievement.
The essential - fundamental - difference, in so far as the history
of life is concerned, between the amphibians and the reptiles is in
their method of reproduction. This biological phenomenon can-
i6o
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
not be over-emphasized. Amphibians, either past or present,
always have to return to the water to lay their eggs and to spend
the first stage of their lives there as larvae, which are generally
known as tadpoles. To reproduce themselves, amphibians are
therefore obliged to find lakes, pools, swamps and streams in the
region where they live. Reptiles, on the contrary, by reproducing
themselves through the intermediary of eggs with shells, have
acquired the ability to reproduce wherever they may be, no longer
having to take into account the proximity of any water whatever.
It is the shell egg that constitutes the great revolution in the
history of life at this reptilian stage through which all the verte-
brates have passed; the shell egg, within which the embryo is
enclosed in a double protective envelope, the calcareous shell
being lined on its inner face with a membrane called the amnion
Amuotic
cavity
" Allaufaks
FIG. 68. A vital
reptile 'inven-
tion' : the shell
egg-
on
Shell
(or chorion). In this, through the pores in the calcareous shell, the
embryo gets its oxygen by means of a respiratory membrane, the
allantois. Thanks to this new method of reproduction, the reptiles
set out to the conquest of the world and to occupy the most
diverse regions, advancing to the heart of the continents without
fear of the torrid heat of the deserts, since they no longer needed
water for reproductive reasons.
The first conquest of the dry land was thus effected by the
reptiles. It began at the end of the Primary and found its apogee
during the Secondary, during the 120 million years which
separate the beginning of the Triassic from the end of the
Cretaceous.
This conquest of the continents is in itself an important fact
in the history of life, but it is not all. In fact the birds and the
mammals directly descend from the primitive reptiles, so that the
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 161
reptiles take on a very great importance from the fact that the
most developed animals on our planet to-day have all passed
through a reptile stage, have all known their 'reptile hour'.
It is essential first of all to search for the origin of the reptiles,
for what was the first creature on the surface of the earth to begin
to lay eggs with shells. This first animal is called Seymouria, because
it was found in the environs of a town in Texas called Seymour.
Like the amphibians, this first reptile, despite its lizard-like look,
had a powerful body, a massive skull of thick bone, and limbs
springing horizontally from the body, just like our modern
lizards. In fact, it is difficult to know if this animal, possessing the
FIG. 69. Seymouria> one of the first
animals to lay shell eggs.
majority of the features of its ancestors and contemporaries, the
Labyrinthodonts, is still an amphibian or already a reptile. How-
ever that may be Seymouria^ prototype of the order of Cotylo-
sauria, must be regarded as the direct ancestor of the giant reptiles,
the mammals and the birds.
Then life, having reached the vertebrate stage independent of
the water, blazed up fiercely. In a few million years the earth was
peopled with gigantic creatures whose names, from Diplodocus to
Iguanodoti) TSrontosaurus and Pterodactyl, are in all the textbooks.
Furthermore, reptilian life, not content with having finally
achieved the capacity to live without anxiety on terra firma,
launched its armies by land, sea and air to effect the conquest of
the whole world.
From the cotylosaurian ancestor several evolutive lines branched
off, which we must follow one after the other from the Triassic to
162 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the Cretaceous in order to know the principal personages of the
landscape in the Secondary.
On the one hand, by way of reptiles of small size, the Thecono-
donts, the lines of the giant dinosaurs, crocodiles, flying reptiles
and birds were to split off; while on the other hand, also stemming
from the Cotylosauria, the lines of the turtles and mammals and
two lines of aquatic reptiles (Plesiosaurus and Ichthyosaurus) were to
appear.
All these evolutionary branches of the reptile class should not
lead us to forget their common features :
reproduction by shell egg;
a variable internal temperature; 1
respiration of air by means of lungs ;
scale-covered skins ;
differentiation of the vertebral column into clearly demarcated
regions (cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral and caudal) ;
the position of the limbs, characterized by their parallel
direction to the body;
the appearance, behind the eyes, of one or two temporal fossae
in the cranial bone. This 'fenestration' of the cranium helps
to lighten it.
Only the turtles and a few reptiles of lesser importance do not
show all these features.
The Thecodonts, the main group from which many reptiles
were derived, were bipeds. For the first time in the history of life
vertebrates stood up on their hind feet and only used their fore
feet for gripping or for defence. This bipedalism is an important
phenomenon, and much later in the history of life it was to receive
its final expression with the appearance of man. Yet for the
reptiles of the Secondary it already involved a certain number of
important modifications to the skeleton and muscular system; the
hind limbs became long and strong, making rapid movement
possible, while the fore limbs became relatively short and slender
and ended in a sort of hand. Another important consequence was
1 That is to say, rising by a few degrees above the surrounding temperature. The
term cold-blooded vertebrates, used in respect of the reptiles as well as fishes and
amphibians, is incorrect: it is a matter of animals with a variable temperature, or
pcecilothermal, as distinct from animals with a constant inner temperature, or
homeothermal - mammals and birds, generally known as warm-blooded vertebrates.
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES i6j
COTVLOSAVIR.1A
MAMMALS
ICHTHYOSAUR
THECODONTS,
OR.N1THOLSTS)
DINOSAURS
SAURJ5CHIA
CROCODILS
'OFINISTHISCHIA
PTER.OSAUR.IA
The Principal Lines of the Secondary Reptiles, etc.
164 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the great development of the bones forming the pelvic girdle (the
hips), in fact this girdle had simultaneously to serve for the
articulation of the hind legs and to carry the weight of the body,
which the hind legs now had to support alone. Also, the six bones
which formed the pelvic girdle (ilium, ischium and pubis,
grouped to form a half-girdle on each side of the body) assumed
a size and thickness much greater than in the quadrupeds.
Furthermore, the biped reptiles had long tails which, more or less
symmetrical with the trunk in relation to the head, counter-
balanced to some extent the weight of the forward part of the
body. Several forms of these Thecodonts are known, both in
South Africa and Europe; they were between 20 and 40 inches
tall.
Of the different groups of reptiles that sprang from the Theco-
donts, the Dinosaurs were probably among the most spectacular.
Actually, this word dinosaur is a rather broad term conveniently
covering a certain category of prehistoric reptiles of great size.
The name was originated in 1842 by the English paleontologist,
Sir Richard Owen, at a time when only a few giant reptile forms
had been discovered with no possibility of setting up a strict
classification. For these giant forms Owen therefore made up a
name from two Greek words : deinos, terrifying, and sauros, lizard.
However that may be, the name was lucky. It is now well
known to the general public. The dinosaurs have also been
honoured in literature, as for instance in that extravagant tale by
H. G. Wells, in which the hero obtains the eggs of a giant reptile
and they soon begin to hatch; or in the book by Conan Doyle,
The Lost World, which takes us to the forests of South America
where a few reptiles from the Secondary were imagined as sur-
viving to our own day. Consequently, the general public has
acquired a few false notions. No prehistoric man had ever seen
the dinosaurs, which vanished from the surface of the earth
about 70 million years before the first man made his appearance.
On the other hand, all the dinosaurs were not formidable giant
carnivores; there were some of small size and the majority were
actually quite stupid herbivores, which could not have been very
dangerous.
It was in the Jurassic, 160 million years ago, that the first true
dinosaurs differentiated themselves from the small biped reptiles,
the Thecodonts. The general evolutive tendencies within the
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES
165
FIG. 70. Above= the reptile pelvis and scissor-like jaws of
Saurischia. Below the bird-like pelvis and nut-cracker-like
jaws of Ornithischia.
dinosaur group were gigantism on the one hand and bipedalism
on the other. But at first the dinosaurs split up in the two follow-
ing ways, forming two distinct orders, which is why the word
dinosaur, used for both, has no precise zoological meaning. It is
easy to enter this or that dinosaur in one or the other of the two
orders, on the basis of its pelvic form and the articulation of its
jaws.
Some dinosaurs had a pelvis constructed like that of a modern
bird : the ilium and ischium were relatively narrow and long, and
the pubis, also narrow and long, stretched backwards in a bony
projection known as the post-pubis, parallel to the ischium. This
order therefore bears the name Ornithischia (from the Greek
words for bird and hips) or Avipelvians (from the Latin words).
The jaws functioned like a pair of nutcrackers.
The other order of dinosaurs was distinguished by a pelvis
1 66
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
analogous to that of modern reptiles; ilium, ischium and pubis
were relatively squat and the pubis had no bony prolongation.
The jaws functioned like a pair of scissors. This was the order of
Saurischia or Sauripelvians (names derived respectively from the
Greek or Latin terms for lizard' and hips).
These two orders began to appear in the Jurassic in two biped
forms; later came the quadruped forms. Furthermore, the animals
of both orders were at first of modest size, then they showed a
clear and increasing tendency to gigantism as their evolution
proceeded.
*
Saurischia included biped carnivorous forms with sharp dagger-
FIG. 71. An ostrich
without feathers : the
reptile Struthiomimus.
shaped teeth, and quadruped herbivorous forms with teeth
generally flattened for grinding. Among the carnivorous bipeds
(or Theropods) were Ornithokstes and Allosaurus of the Jurassic,
and Tyrannosaurus, Gorgosaurus and Ceratosaurus (with horned nose)
of the Cretaceous. A single exception should be noted: one of the
Theropods was not carnivorous, but herbivorous; this creature,
with the general appearance of an ostrich without feathers -
whence its name Struthiomimus - had a long neck and a toothless
beak.
Among the herbivorous quadrupeds, or sauropods, were the
famous giant dinosaurs, so well-known to the public. With the
exception of a few whales, these are the largest and heaviest
animals that have ever lived on the surface of the earth. Their
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 167
general appearance was still that otDiplodocus, with a massive body
supported on four short and pillar-like limbs, a long tail and a long
neck ending in a small head. However, despite their robust
appearance, the legs seem to have been too weak to support the
weight of several tens of tons on dry land : the herbivorous giants
were only able to live in the water, and if they risked themselves
outside their liquid element, they would inevitably have collapsed
under their own weight. Moreover, other arguments militate in
favour of this aquatic habitat: in the majority of them - and this
is especially clear with Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus - the nostrils
and eyes were situated on the upper part of the head, as with the
hippopotamus and the majority of aquatic animals of to-day, thus
permitting the animal to breathe and to look around without
raising its body or head out of the water, that is to say, by attract-
ing the minimum of attention from a possible enemy. Moreover,
the remains of these sauropods are to-day found in the geological
deposits corresponding to ancient rivers or marshes. All these
forms - Plateosaurus, Brontosaurus, Diplodocus^ Camarasaurus,
CetiosauruS) T&rachiosaurus^ etc. are from the Jurassic age.
The order Ornithischia also includes biped forms (Iguanodon and
the duck-billed dinosaurs) and quadruped forms (Stegosaurus and
horned dinosaurs).
The former lived very probably at the edges of lakes, swamps
and rivers, feeding upon leaves from the trees and aquatic grasses,
which they tore with jaws shaped like horned beaks and after-
wards crushed with their innumerable grinding teeth at the back
of the mouth.
The duck-billed dinosaurs, or Trachodonts, resembled ducks
not only in their beaks - flat, toothless, and covered with a horny
sheath - but also in their webbed feet; they had to spend much
of their lives in the water and in turning over the mud in search of
food, just as do the palmipeds of to-day. Only in size does the
comparison fail. Otherwise, these Trachodonts are almost all
distinguished by bony excrescences on the nose that rise above the
beak or behind the head. With Kritosaurus the thickening of the
bones formed simply a beaked nose; Corythosaurus had a flattened
vertical crest resembling that of the modern cassowary; Lambeo-
saurus had a double crest, one part flattened and the other raised
i68
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
FIG. yzA. Direction of air passage in the
endless [nostrils of Parasaurolophus.
(after Colbert.)
FIG. 72. Nasal ornaments of
the duck-billed dinosaurs:
the hooked nose of Krito-
saurus\ the cassowary-like
headpiece of Corythosau-
rus\ the double crest of
Lambeosaurus-, the long
horn of Parasaurolopbtts,
through which the air made
a long journey both in and
out. (after Colbert.)
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES
169
above the eyes like an axe-blade, with a backward-sloping point;
finally, Parasaurolophus was distinguished by a long and narrow
horn-shaped crest pointing backwards. These crests have been
dissected : inside was found an enlarged nasal passage, forming an
air chamber, a supplementary feature demonstrating the adapta-
tion of these animals to the aquatic life, permitting them to remain
under water for a long time without rising to breathe. In brief,
the Trachodonts show their adaptation to an aquatic life by their
webbed feet, by the anatomy of their primary respiratory passages
and by their flat and narrow tails, all of which lead one to think
FIG. 73. In this impressive
armour, Pachycephalosaurus
sheltered a brain the size
of a marble.
that these animals could live like seals, swimming with some skill
and in certain circumstances coming to rest on dry land.
Other Trachodonts were devoid of excrescences, but the bone
of the skull was thickened in an abnormal way, forming a dome
to protect the brain, while the part of the face in front of the eyes
and the back of the head were covered with nodules, spikes and
spines. The strangest-looking was Pachycephalosaurus, with a skull
about 10 inches thick, enclosing a minute brain.
Beside the biped Ornithischia were quadruped Ornithischia,
which all show this common characteristic of being protected
either by a carapace (Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus\ or by powerful
horns, a little like the present-day rhinoceros (horned dinosaurs
17
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
FIG. 74. Formid-
able in appear-
ance, but prob-
ably a quite
peaceful herbi-
vore: Stegosaurus
of the Jurassic.
or Ceratopsta). Like the Ornithischia just described, their jaws
ended in a horned beak: all these animals were herbivorous.
The Jurassic Stegosaurus^ already described, was typical in the
double series of triangular plates on its back and its strong tail
ending in four long spines. But apart from its strange appearance,
Stegosaurus owes its fame to the small size of its brain; an animal
of the size of an elephant but with cerebral hemispheres not
exceeding the volume of a nut! The spinal cord, on the other
hand, shows a swelling at the level of the lumbar vertebras which
is 20 times larger than the brain : this lumbar swelling controlled
the movements of the hind limbs and the tail, which was truly a
powerful weapon of defence.
To Stegosaurus in the Jurassic corresponded the Ankyksaurus in
FIG. 75. The three brains of Stegosaurus.
A. Lumbar swelling on the spinal cord.
B. Cervical swelling.
C. Encephalus.
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES
171
FIG. 76. Anklyosaurus:
the most heavily
armoured of the
Cretaceous reptiles.
the Cretaceous, with plates formed of a bony sheet lined with a
sheet of horn overlapping one another over the whole body
surface from the head to the tail, as with armadillos, forming a
protective armour.
The last of the dinosaurs to appear on the earth, where they only
had a short stay of a few million years, were the Ceratopsia, or
horned dinosaurs, forming the last group of Ornithischia. The
oldest of them, called Psittacosaurus because of the shape of its
upper jaw, which ended in a hooked bill like that of a parrot, was
found in Mongolia. It was there, too, that were discovered the
remains of Protoceratops, of which we possess a fakly large number
of skeletons, especially skulls, showing the various phases of its
development. Several nests of this animal have also been disco-
vered, including eggs almost the size of turkey eggs ; inside two
of them we have been able to isolate small embryos on the point
of hatching.
All the horned dinosaurs had a bony collar to protect the neck
and shoulders ; it was a prolongation of the skull and was typical
of the family. The many fossils of the Mongolian Protoceratops
have shown that the bony collar was non-existent in the young
when they left the egg and that it developed progressively as they
grew up. In addition, the final forms of this group which lived at
FIG. 77. Protoceratops:
several of its egg-
filled nests have been
found in Mongolia.
172 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the end of the Cretaceous had horns that were more or less
numerous and developed.
It is interesting, in concluding this rapid review of the various
types of dinosaur, to examine the group's different types of
adaptation to defence. Some - the great carnivores of the Jurassic
and Cretaceous - passed over to the attack so as not to have to
defend themselves. Others, like the little carnivores, Iguanodons
and the duck-billed dinosaurs, found safety in flight, taking refuge
when necessary in the depths of the waters. Others, again, found
protection in their back plates and the strength of their tails,
whether spined or not; this was the case with the Stegosaurus and
Ankylosaurus which seem - at least Stegosaurus does - to have been
able to roll up into a ball or to flatten itself against the earth,
offering the enemy only an unassailable rampart of bony or horned
plates. Finally, the horned dinosaurs, like our rhinoceros, seem to
have practised both attack and defence, aided in this by their
strong horns and by the collar that truly formed a protective
shield.
Thus, when the various orders of dinosaur reached the ultimate
point of their evolution, carnivorous forms with large teeth and
herbivorous forms protected by large horns were face to face:
simplifying this a little, one can say that Tyrannosaurus and
Triceratops were face to face. The parallel between reptiles
and mammals revealed by this specialization must be stressed:
in fact, no animal has both powerful teeth and horns at the same
time, only one or the other. This is the moment to emphasize
that the reptiles of the Secondary and the mammals of the Tertiary
have evolved by following completely comparable lines. At a
distance of 150 million years, both have effected the conquest of
the earth by almost the same means, occupying equally well the
dry land and the air and the waters. To this phenomenon the
palaeontologists have given the name of 'convergence'.
Another important problem raised by the dinosaurs is that of
their gigantism. As a result of recent studies, in particular the close
examination of the casts of their brains, it certainly seems that we
may attribute the great size of the majority of these reptilian forms
to the great development of the pituitary gland. This ductless
gland, which has very many functions, controls amongst other
things the growth of the organism; medical men are familiar with
cases of gigantism and acromegaly (abnormal size of the extre-
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 173
mities, head, hands and feet) which are associated with the
exaggerated activity of an enlarged pituitary.
Finally, a few words must be said concerning the manifest
disproportion between the size of these dinosaurs and the size of
their nervous systems. A typical example is that of Stegosaurus
already cited: an animal of 6 tons, as big as an elephant but with
a brain no greater than that of a two-months kitten. This is
certainly an extreme case, but all the other dinosaurs had nothing
to begrudge him. It is beyond doubt that, like the reptiles of to-
day, the reptiles of the Secondary were relatively slow in their
movements and reactions : the most active and lively of them led
a slow life. At the beginning of this chapter some scenes of the
Secondary world were described, but it is very necessary to realize
that these scenes unfolded without haste and that no carnivorous
reptile ever had to hurl itself upon a herbivorous reptile with the
speed of a lion or a tiger upon its prey. On this Secondary earth,
where neither the plants nor the animals were on our scale,
gigantism was accompanied by unquestionable slowness. And
this is probably one of the reasons (but we shall discuss the pro-
blem later) why the reptiles were supplanted by the very much
smaller but much more agile mammals.
Among the forms deriving from the biped Thecodonts were
the flying reptiles and birds. Their development was a very
important event in the history of life : vertebrates for the first time
freed themselves from the servitude of weight and acquired the
power of manoeuvring in the air.
To understand the importance of this achievement, the three
following characteristics essential to all vertebrates aspiring to fly
must be emphasized :
the fore limbs had first of all to change into wings ;
while retaining a strong skeleton and powerful muscles neces-
sary for beating the wings, the body had to be lightened to
the maximum, which was generally effected by a partial
hollowing out of the bones;
the animal had to possess a nervous system sufficiently deve-
loped to be sensitive to a certain number of external
influences, thereby assuring the animal a particularly acute
sense of balance.
174
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
The first of these three conditions is very interesting, for it
makes useful comparisons possible between the various groups of
vertebrates that acquired the ability to fly. Actually, the transform-
ation of the fore limbs into wings was effected in three different
ways in the three groups of flying vertebrates. In one group, the
FIG. 78. Comparison
of the wings of (a)
flying reptiles, (b)
birds, and (i) fly-
ing mammals.
reptiles, a membrane made its appearance between the very much
lengthened last finger of the hand (our 'little finger') and the body.
Rather like a wing, this membrane permitted the animal to make
gliding flights and the other fingers were transformed so as to end
in hooked claws. With the birds, on the contrary, the whole arm
was transformed, the fingers being united to form a single line of
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 175
bone to support a membrane that was somewhat reduced in size.
The long feathers fixed into this arm assured sustentation. Finally,
the mammals effected their adaptation to flight by means of a
membrane supported by four much lengthened fingers of the
hand, the fifth finger - the thumb - being hooked and used by the
animal to suspend itself upside down in the position characteristic
of bats. It is in fact in this group of mammals that the transfor-
mation of the fore limbs into wings was brought about.
The various types of mammals will be studied later and it will
be sufficient here to examine rapidly the different forms of flying
reptiles and the ancestors of the birds. All the flying reptiles be-
longed to the order Pterosauria, and lived in Europe, Africa, and
North America. Most of their bones were hollow and the skull
bones were welded into a solid mass in which it is difficult to
recognize the separate bones. All this contributed to the lightening
of the animal's body. The breast bone was very much enlarged and
gave a very strong point of attachment to the pectoral muscles
that moved the wings.
The majority of these reptiles must have been gliders, using
the currents of warm air to sustain themselves, rather than real
flying animals : in fact the wing, consisting only of a fairly fragile
membrane stretched between the bones of the arm and the body,
could not have had the same propulsive power as the wing of a
bird or a bat. The Pterosaurs of the Jurassic had many pointed
teeth. Two main forms existed: JLhawphorhyncus with a long tail
and the famous Pterodactyl with a short tail. The flying reptiles of
the Cretaceous were devoid of teeth and had short tails : the giant
among them was Pteranodon, which had a wing-spread of about
25 feet.
Finally, we should note two special characteristics of these
flying reptiles which make them like our modern birds. The brain
was considerably developed as compared with the usual size of
reptile brains ; in fact flight requires a great development of the
centres of vision, a development that is accompanied by a certain
atrophy of the centres of smell. Further, it is not impossible that
the Pterosauria were more or less 'warm-blooded' animals
(homeothermal) ; wing-movement requires a considerable expen-
diture of energy and it is among the birds that we find to-day the
vertebrates with the highest internal temperature (104 to 107-5
P.). It seems that on the tail ^.^hamphorhyncus certain marks have
i 7 6
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
been observed that correspond to the sebaceous glands, which
to-day are always found at the roots of hairs, secreting a special
fatty matter that makes the hair more supple; therefore, if
fJhamphorhyncus had a hair system, at least on some part of its body,
it was equipped to counteract the loss of heat and therefore
possessed a certain power of thermal regulation. All the other
reptiles - as has been stated already - were, and still are, animals
whose internal temperature followed the variations of the
external temperature (poecilothermal); moreover, their skin was
FIG. 79. Above: Pteranodon: with a wing-span of about 25 feet.
"Below: left and right, ILhamphorbynchus: with a wing-span of
only 1 8 to 24 inches, (from Discovery)
bare, covered only with scales that could not protect them against
loss of heat.
The ancestors of the birds were curiously composite animals,
presenting simultaneously the features that ally them to the
reptiles (teeth and certain peculiarities of the skeleton) and others
that ally them to real birds (feathers, a skull formed of more or less
fused bones, and wings). Another feature of adaptation to flight
is very clear: the development in the brain of the visual areas at
the expense of the olfactory areas.
The first birds with teeth made their appearance in the Jurassic
in the form of Anh&opteryx. Von Mayer, a German naturalist,
discovered the outline of a feather near Solenhofen in Bavaria in
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES
FIG. 80. The first of the birds
teeth: Archaopteryx.
with
June 1 86 1 ; it was imbedded in a bed of lithographic limestone, an
extremely thin geological deposit formed at the bottom of lagoons,
in which delicate structures like those of a feather are perfectly
preserved. On August 1 5th of the same year the almost complete
skeleton (only the head was missing) and several feathers of a bird
were discovered ; this remarkable skeleton is to-day at the Natural
History Museum in London. In 1877 a second bird was disco-
vered, this time with its head; it was purchased at once by the
Berlin Museum.
These first ancestors of the birds would undoubtedly have been
classed with the reptiles if the imprint of feathers had not been
found beside their skeletons. Archceopteryx was a bird the size of
a pigeon. (Ehmichen's studies of flight have shown that Archa-
opteryx moved in the following way : it had to cling by its claws
to a support, head down, exactly like our modern bats ; then it let
FIG. 8 1. Diatryma: a giant bird of the Tertiary.
i 7 8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
itself fall freely, which gave it the necessary impetus for flight.
On the other hand, it was assisted by its long tail in clinging to
trees or rocks like a wood-pecker and was thus able to perch upon
a suitable starting point.
In the Cretaceous there was another ancestor of the birds, much
more developed in the sense that the majority of its anatomical
characteristics made it a real bird, except that it still had teeth.
However, Hesperornis was a very specialized bird; a skilful
swimmer and diving virtuoso, it had lost its wings. It was about
3 feet tall and was in every way comparable with modern
penguins.
Later, in the Tertiary, appeared birds that were already modern,
together with several birds of great size but devoid of wings, very
like our ostriches, especially the celebrated Diatryma of the United
States, which was 6 feet tall.
*
The crocodiles constitute the last group of Secondary reptiles
deriving from the biped Thecodonts, although at first sight this
relationship might not be evident. To-day the crocodiles still
represent an interesting order of the reptile class in that they have
maintained a Secondary mode of life in surroundings very like
Secondary surroundings for 150 million years. The first crocodiles
made their appearance in the Jurassic, seeming to descend from
one ancestor, Protosuchus, discovered in Arizona, almost assuring
the passage on the anatomical plane between the Thecodonts and
the true crocodiles. In the Jurassic certain of these crocodiles, with
paddle-like feet and flat rudder-like tails, led a marine life.
Finally, in the Cretaceous there appeared small forms very like our
modern crocodiles; but it was only at the beginning of the
Tertiary that the existing forms appeared, alligators, caimans,
gavials and crocodiles properly so-called, preceded meanwhile by
a giant Cretaceous form, Phobosuchus, 50 feet long, with jaws about
6 feet long.
We have now passed in review the different evolutionary lines
of the reptiles deriving from the small group of biped Theco-
donts. It remains to examine rapidly the other reptilian lines which
derived, independently of each other, directly from Cotylosauria.
There is little to say of the turtles, which to-day represent a very
specialized order of the reptile class. They are distinguished
especially by their jaws, devoid of teeth and transformed into a
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 179
horny beak, and by a carapace formed from the modified ribs :
when the embryology of turtles is studied, it is observed that at a
certain moment the increase in growth is very rapid and that the
ribs, extending laterally, soon encircle the whole of the rest of the
skeleton, as if inside a cage. One of the ancestors of our turtles,
Eunotosaurus, has been found in South Africa and it dates from the
end of the Triassic; its enlarged ribs stretched one behind the
other and in contact, thus creating the beginning of the dorsal
Amphickelydia,
FIG. 82. The genealogical tree of the turtle: 150 million years
ago ULunotosaurus already showed enlarged ribs which fore-
shadowed the joined plates of the future carapace.
plates of the carapace. A little later, in Europe, there lived another
reptile, Triassochelys, which was already a normally formed turtle.
More interesting are the marine reptiles, but there is no point
in spending much time on them, since their essential features have
already been described at the beginning of this chapter. Some, by
a typical phenomenon of convergence, had externally a very fish-
like appearance : the Ichthyosaurs, of which it has been said that
if they were seen alive to-day it would be difficult to distinguish
them from sharks. The others, the Plesiosaurs, were like casks
180 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
furnished with paddle-like limbs, a long tail and a long neck.
Finally, Mososaurus and Tylosaurus; they looked like very long
lizards, moving in the water by means of their flat paddle-like
limbs; they were veritable sea-serpents.
In the seas of the Jurassic they were the neighbours of the marine
crocodile known as Geosaurus. They were to be found especially
in the Secondary seas together with those strange molluscs,
the ammonites. For although in the vertebrate domain the Secon-
dary era could be called the Age of Reptiles, it ought, so far as
invertebrates are concerned, to be regarded as the Age of Ammo-
nites, which literally swarmed in every ocean. The ammonites
are found in great abundance in the terrain dating from the
Secondary era; their helical shape has always made them notice-
able and has given them their name. In fact, their fossillized shells
make us think, by their clearly marked transverse divisions, of
FIG. 83. An ammonite, a typical mollusc of the
Secondary seas.
rams' horns, and the early naturalists so named them in memory
of the ram that accompanied Jupiter Ammon in Greek mythology.
They were for a long time thought to be petrified serpents and
were regarded as of great value either as medicine or charms.
Ammonites were very often used in decorating monuments and
in the sixteenth century Canon Bartole d'Anjou had one embedded
in the lintel of a small door leading to the towers of Bayeux
Cathedral.
Zoologically, the ammonites were molluscs belonging to the
cephalopod class, which also includes octopuses, cuttle-fish and
squids. They therefore ranked with the most highly developed
invertebrates, especially so far as their nervous system was con-
cerned. They lived inside a shell, just like the modern nautilus,
which is, moreover, a survivor from the Tertiary. To understand
how the shell grew, one must imagine that the ammonite lived
inside a shell chamber a little after the fashion of our snails, except
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 181
that during its life the ammonite secreted a partition that separated
an empty compartment at the end of the shell from an inhabited
compartment opening to the outside. The secretion of successive
partitions thus led the shell to be divided into many compartments
of which the animal occupied the last. The outlines of these parti-
tions are always very visible on the fossil shell.
During the 150 million years of the Secondary era the ammo-
nites, like reptiles, evolved in different directions. This is no place
to examine even rapidly the different orders and different families
in the midst of which these cephalopods divided. It will suffice
simply to indicate their two main evolutionary tendencies. On the
one hand, while at the beginning of the Secondary they showed
simple partitions, these gradually became more complicated, with
hollows and swellings that were ornamented with scallops ; these
various patterns on the partitions, known to palaeontologists as
sutures, permit us to identify the different families and genera.
On the other hand, with the passing of the Secondary era, we
find the ammonites uncurling, and at the end of the Cretaceous we
find that the majority of them are no longer formed like small coils
but as crooks, of which the uncoiled end is slightly curved.
Finally, from Cotylosauria arose a last line of reptiles, that
which led to the mammals. It will not be studied in this chapter
but will form the introduction to the next. It is sufficient for the
moment to remember that from the reptiles of the Secondary era
came the birds and the mammals. It is in this sense that one can
say that these two groups of vertebrates both passed through the
reptile stage, regarding the reptiles not as a properly individua-
lized class but as an evolutionary stage.
But this very diversified world of the Secondary reptiles had its
term. After having reigned over the planet for 150 million years
the reptiles were abruptly extinguished, leaving as evidence of
their splendid past only a number of relatively small species,
crocodiles, serpents, lizards and turtles.
Though not exceptional in palaeontology, this disappearance of
a group so varied, the representatives of which were masters of all
the habitable regions, is nevertheless surprising, especially as it
182 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
was effected with great rapidity. It all took place like the scene-
changing in certain theatres : in a few million years (a very short
time, geologically speaking) the stage revolved, the decor of the
Tertiary occupied the scene, the reptiles were finally whisked
away into the wings and the mammals took the lead, replacing the
failing reptiles with much more success.
To explain this extinction we must discuss a number of argu-
ments that come under four main headings. Some people have
suggested that a particularly deadly epidemic attacked the dino-
saurs at the end of the Secondary (one can reflect on the present
epidemic of myxomatosis which decimated the rabbits in 1954);
but this is pure hypothesis, unsupported by any scientific verifica-
tion. Others have sought to connect the disappearance of the
dinosaurs with their gigantism, that is to say, with a hypersecre-
tion of the pituitary hormones ; actually, it is a fact that in palae-
ontology gigantism seems to toll the bell for the orders or families
that are overtaken by it. A sickness of the ductless glands has also
been suggested, but there, too, no indisputable proof can be
provided.
Still others stress the disproportion between the small and
rudimentary brain of the dinosaurs and the enormous size of their
bodies. In this respect a comparison between the reptiles and the
mammals is justified, one of the main characteristics of the latter
being the relatively great size of the highly differentiated nervous
system as compared with the other organs. Furthermore, the
reptiles were animals with a variable internal temperature and the
mammals were animals with a constant internal temperature.
With 'cold blood' is associated the relative immobility of the
reptiles and their great liability to fatigue, while the 'warm-
blooded' animals can move very quickly and find, in the cellular
combustion which takes place at a rapid pace, the energy necessary
to recuperate very easily.
For it must not be forgotten that at the end of the Cretaceous
and the beginning of the Tertiary, great geological changes were
taking place : the surface of the earth had been disrupted by the
upthrust of the alpine chains, the Himalayas, the Rocky Moun-
tains, and so on; the climates changed quite violently, too, and the
average temperature fell, resulting in a profound transformation
of the flora. All the reptiles were affected by these changes ; the
herbivores found their favourite plants more difficult to get than
IN THE DAYS OF THE REPTILES 183
before, and less directly, the carnivores suffered too. Having great
powers of adaptation, thanks among other things to their thermal
regulation and their more responsive nervous system, the mam-
mals were better equipped than the reptiles to face up to these new
conditions. It is justifiable to explain - in part, at least - the
extinction of the reptiles by the competition of the mammals. It
was the triumph of mind over matter, so to speak.
In conclusion, when attempting to explain the abrupt disap-
pearance of the reptiles at the end of the Secondary, the fact must
not be forgotten that zoological groups, just like individuals, seem
to experience a period of youth, followed by an adult period, then
a period of old age, a phenomenon known by the more or less
suitable name of racial senescence. This racial senescence reveals
itself at the moment when the groups begin to specialize very
strictly. This should always be remembered when trying to
account for the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the
Secondary; two other factors to be taken into consideration are
the reptiles' small capacity for adaptation when faced with new
climatic and ecological conditions created by the geological
changes that marked the beginning of the Tertiary, and the
competition of the mammals.
CHAPTER VII
The Penultimate Conquest of the
World
WHILE the throne of France was tottering to its fall, and while
the Terror was at its height, on the Normandy coast a young man
of about 20 was quietly fishing for crabs, sea-urchins and other
strange creatures and studying them in peace. About 15 years
later this young man had become Baron Georges Cuvier, and as
Professor at the Imperial Museum of Natural History he had
invited a few particularly competent naturalists to his office. He
showed them a small slab of stone, a little longer than it was wide,
on the surface of which a small skeleton was outlined : a long and
delicate head could clearly be distinguished and jaws with short
pointed teeth, also the vertebral column and the four limbs. This
was unquestionably the skeleton of a small opossum embedded in
FIG. 84. Cuvier 's opossum (a. the marsupial bones).
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 185
gypsum, that had lived about 50 million years ago at the spot
where the hill of Montmartre now stands. Cuvier then began his
demonstration: since this was an opossum and therefore a mar-
supial, it should be possible to find at the level of the pelvis the
two small bones which in all marsupials support the familiar
pouch where the young live after they are born. Now these bones
were not visible on the slab that Cuvier held in his hand. Accord-
ing to the general appearance of the skeleton they should be found
a few millimetres below the surface and at a spot which Cuvier
pointed out to his audience. Then, taking up a slender steel blade,
he gently scraped the stone and in a few moments revealed the
two small flat branches of the marsupial bones.
Founded by Georges Cuvier, palaeontology and comparative
anatomy had just come into being.
Jean-Leopold-Nicolas-Frederic Cuvier, who passed into pos-
terity under the name of Georges Cuvier, was born at Mont-
beliard in 1769, the second son of a retired non-commissioned
officer of Louis XV's armies. In 1769 Montbdliard was already a
small administrative capital of some importance, since it had been
for a long time the seat of the small Duchy of Montbeliard which,
after having been attached to France for a century, was at this time
a dependency of the German prince who ruled over the Duchy of
Wurtemberg. So it was not surprising that the young Cuvier,
after very creditable studies in his native town, should go to
continue them as an exhibitioner at Stuttgart. Georges had already
shown a lively taste for the natural sciences and it is said that at a
very early age, very much interested by BufFon's Histoire generate
des animaux which he had found among his mother's books, he
had coloured them all with crayon. At Stuttgart, he was a very
brilliant student and continued to interest himself especially in
zoology. But he soon had to abandon the Academy and in 1788,
when he was 19, he took a post as tutor at the home of the Comte
d'Hricy, whose property was in Normandy, near Valmont. This
stay in Normandy was very important for Cuvier from several
points of view. First of all, because he was able to collect very
many marine animals on this coast where the fauna is particularly
rich and abundant; it was there that he acquired his zoological
training in the very many dissections, descriptions and sketches
186 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
he was able to carry through with tireless patience and a great
capacity for work. It was in Normandy, too, that, with the help
of the only book on zoology in the Count's library, Linnaeus'
System a nature of 1735, he learned or revised all the zoological
knowledge of his day, and often, without fully realizing it,
clarified very many points concerning the zoology of marine
animals and so made some important discoveries.
In Normandy, moreover, he made the acquaintance of the Abb6
Tessier, an expert in agronomy and former encyclopaedist, who
lived there more or less secretly in order to escape the persecutions
of the Terror. He was very interested by Cuvier's work, encour-
aged him in his researches and occasionally gave him advice; then,
as soon as he could, the Abbe Tessier put Cuvier in touch by
letter with the most eminent zoologists of the time. Astonished
by this young man's zoological knowledge, Saint-Hilaire made
him come to Paris and in 1795, at the age of 26, obtained for him
the post of Professor of Zoology at the Ecole Centrale du Pan-
theon in Paris. He continued his researches while he conducted
his courses, the documentation, clarity and novelty of which soon
made him famous. The result was that in the following year, when
only 27 years old, he was appointed deputy to the Professor of
Anatomy at the Museum, a function which he soon combined
with that of Professor at the College de France. Moreover, he was
elected a member of the Institut de France. On January 2ist, 1796,
he presented to the Academy of Science the famous paper in
which he compared the species now living with the 'extinct or
lost' species. This was the first time, except perhaps in some of
Buffon's chapters, that anyone had dared publicly to proclaim,
without being regarded as a visionary or insane, that the world
had not always looked the same, that there had once been species,
now known only by their fossil remains, very different from
existing species both in their anatomical structure and in the way
they lived.
In 1798, from the lessons in zoology that he had been giving
for three years, he produced his Tableaux elementaires de Vhistoire
naturelle des animaux, a basic work in which classification of the
animal kingdom and the diagnostic characters of various groups
were set forth. Finally, in 1802, when he was 33, Georges Cuvier
became Professor of Anatomy at the Natural History Museum.
Then it was that he was able to give his best : he undertook noth-
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 187
ing more nor less than the systematic study of the anatomy of all
the vertebrates.
Shortly afterwards there came into his hands by chance some
small fossil bones of which, he was told, a considerable number
were to be found in the gypsum quarries of the Paris region,
especially at Montmartre. Then Cuvier, helped by his friend
Alexandre Brongniart, carried out a systematic exploration of all
the places where gypsum was extracted. He was soon in possession
of a hundred bones and teeth, but very often fragmentary. He had
a real puzzle to solve : if he wanted to reconstitute the fauna of
this vanished age, he had to discover which bones went together,
which teeth went with which bones, which heads went with
which limbs, and so on. Here, therefore, is the jig-saw puzzle to
which he devoted himself in order to resuscitate two of the
principal species whose skeletons were found in the Montmartre
gypsum.
He was faced with a certain number of anatomical fragments
which he had to assemble in order to reconstitute a complete
animal. First of all there were the teeth : some molars, all more or
less alike, thick-set, massive, and bearing two or three crescent-
shaped crests forming the concentric arcs of a circle, but so worn
that the tops had given place to two lines of enamel marking the
boundaries of a ridge of ivory, pointed at each end; then some
canines, some of which were very long and certainly projected
above the level of the molars, while others were of more modest
size and did not project. Besides this collection of teeth were some
flat bones which, patiently assembled, made possible the recon-
struction of the essential parts of two heads (the bones of the face
and cranium) ; one of these heads bore a close resemblance to that
of a modern camel, while the other, with nasal bones developed
in such a way that one could not but suspect the existence of a
short trunk, was like the head of a tapir. The final pieces of the
puzzle were the more or less complete limbs, on which there were
sometimes two and sometimes three toes.
Cuvier 's first conclusion was that all the molars were alike and
completely comparable with those of a modern rhinoceros, so
that these animals from the Montmartre gypsum must first of all
be regarded as herbivorous, and next as pachyderms. But since
there were two kinds of canines it had to be admitted that two
species of herbivorous pachyderms existed side by side. To that
i88 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
which combined the molars of a rhinoceros and the low canines he
gave the name Anoplotherium which means c wild beast without
weapons' and to the other, which was provided with projecting
canines, he gave the name Palaotherium, which means 'old wild
beast'. But the next stage in this game was to assign the teeth to
the skulls. It was to Palaotherium that Cuvier assigned the canines
that rose above the dental surface because in modern tapirs the
canines always projected in some degree. By the process of
elimination, it was to the camel-headed Anoplotherium that he
assigned the jaws with the smaller canines; furthermore, this
hypothesis agreed very well with zoological information, since
camels do not have canines rising very far above the dental
surface.
It was finally necessary to assign the two groups of recon-
structed feet to the two heads which have just been described.
Cuvier had already established that some of these feet had two
toes and others had three. Now the herbivores mostly have the
same number of toes on both fore and hind feet (for example, in
the horse one toe in front and one toe behind; in the camel two
toes in front and two toes behind; in the elephant five toes in front
and five behind). Cuvier therefore decided that the herbivorous
pachyderm he had undertaken to study had the same number of
toes on both the fore and hind limbs. Consequently, he decided to
assign all the limbs with three toes to the head with the small trunk
and to assign to the same head the projecting canines, such as exist
in the modern tapir. This ancestor of the tapir was therefore
'Palaotberium. To the camel skull he assigned the short canines
and the limbs with two toes : this was Anoplotherium. Thus, skil-
fully sorting out the collection of a hundred bones and teeth, often
incomplete, Cuvier was able to reconstruct in their general lines
the skeletons of two herbivores that disappeared 50 million years
ago.
He had scarcely revealed the identity of these two reconstruc-
tions than a complete skeleton was discovered in the Montmartre
gypsum. This skeleton was that of 1? alaotherium and, apart from
some minute details, it was entirely similar to the one which
Cuvier had reconstituted. The skeleton is exhibited to-day in the
palxontological gallery of the Natural History Museum in Paris
and it is very striking to see, beside it the two sketches made by
Cuvier before it was discovered. Equally striking is the attitude
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 189
of this 'PalcBotherium with its twisted feet and outstretched neck,
and its head thrown back, an attitude which has led certain experts
to agree that the animal had died by sinking slowly into the mud,
desperately thrusting its nostrils upwards to breathe its last gasps
of air.
This example is typical of the method perfected by Cuvier in
the study and reconstruction of fossilized vertebrates. Probably
only his impressive knowledge of anatomy and zoology had made
it possible for him to carry out such a task. But by doing so Cuvier
Anoplotherium commune
Anoplotberium gracile
FIG. 85. Cuvier's reconstructions of the mammals in the
Montmartre gypsum.
really established two new sciences : palaeontology and compara-
tive anatomy. In comparative anatomy Cuvier had quite simply
discovered the principle of the correlation according to which,
concerning any animal, "chaque par tie peut etre donnee par chaque
autre et toutes par une'\ as he himself said. Thus, if for example one
considers a cat, or in a more general way the carnivores (lion,
tiger, panther, bear, dog, wolf, fox, etc.) one always associates
them with long and pointed canines, flat molars, high and sharp,
toes that end in claws, and many other anatomical characteristics ;
one cannot conceive of a carnivore with feet ending in little hoofs,
or with sharp canines as well as molars made for grinding. On the
190 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
other hand, if one considers a herbivore like a horse or a cow, one
immediately associates it with sharp incisors, small canines or even
none at all, and strong, flat, rough molars, while the feet, which
are no longer instruments for attack but organs of defence in the
sense that they make it possible for the animal to flee, are long and
slender and end in hoofs. These are two typical examples, a little
simplified, of course, of what can be drawn from this law of
correlations which forms the basis of comparative anatomy.
It was by listening to 'the voice of comparative anatomy', to
use his own words, that Cuvier founded palaeontology, and in so
doing directed it into extremely original channels which clearly
marked the work of the very important French school throughout
the nineteenth century. In studying the fauna of the Montmartre
gypsum, Cuvier was not content to sort out a few fragments of
bone and tie them together with iron wires in order subsequently
to write a dry description that would be discouraging to a layman
and even an expert would have to read carefully; he wanted to
devote himself to a real resurrection of the past, and on one occa-
sion regretted that he had not the 'omnipotent trumpet' at his
disposal.
Anoplotherium^ a creature with the teeth of a rhinoceros, the
head of a camel, and feet with two hoofed toes, shows clearly the
spirit in which Cuvier worked. The geologists have established
that gypsum is a sediment deposited at Montmartre, and elsewhere
in the Paris region, by invasions of the sea. Anoplotherium therefore
lived by the edge of the water in the briny lagoons or marshes.
Furthermore, he had a long tail. Cuvier found these two facts
enough to establish that Anoplotherium, like the otters, must very
often have lived in the water, where it found its essential food in
the form of aquatic plants, since it was a herbivorous mammal.
Further, pursuing the analogy, he gave Anoplotherium smooth hair
like the otter, even a naked or partly naked skin like the hippo-
potamus. Finally, he gave Anoplotherium the very much reduced
ears which are the attribute of all aquatic animals (otherwise it
would have been hindered in diving and swimming). Without
doubt Cuvier exaggerated a little, for nothing proves that the
anatomy of Anoplotherium answered to the details of this descrip-
tion, although one must agree that it had semi-aquatic habits. But
this description admirably illustrates the way Cuvier's mind
worked; in a few years he really brought to life before the eyes of
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 191
his contemporaries the 5o-million-year-old fauna that haunted the
marshes at the spot where the hill of Montmartre now rises to-day.
The essential works of Cuvier were published in five volumes
in 1812 and 1813 ; four of them dealt with mammals. In 1828 he
published his Natural History of Fishes, and in 1830 his History of
Natural Science. He died of cholera on May i3th, 1832, during an
epidemic that had spread from Poland and Russia. But before he
died, Cuvier had known during 30 years all the honours to which
a man might aspire. Little interested in politics, he showed great
flexibility towards the different regimes, a flexibility which con-
trasted sharply with the obstinacy he showed towards his scientific
opponents, even when it was a matter of detail. Thus, undaunted
and triumphant, he pursued his career under three different
regimes: the Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire and the
Restoration.
One is often very vexed with Cuvier, not for his attitude
towards the political powers, but for his scientific attitude when
faced with certain problems, of which the principal was trans-
formism. It is in this respect that Cuvier's career is often con-
trasted with that of one of his colleagues at the Museum, the ,
Professor of Zoology, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, who in 1809
had expounded his theories in Philosophic ^pologique. The career of
this enthusiastic military man, who became a botanist by accident
and a professor of zoology by chance, will be described in due
course, but it is sufficient to say here that in his views of life on
the earth Lamarck was fundamentally opposed to Cuvier. It was
Cuvier's view that the vanished species he had resuscitated had
been wiped off the surface of the globe following a gigantic
cataclysm, after which new animal and vegetable species had
peopled the earth. But for Lamarck, doubtless due in part to the
fact that he knew plants and invertebrates better than the verte-
brates (it was exactly the converse with Cuvier), there had been no
successive revolutions; living things slowly and progressively
changed from one to another, the more simple forms preceding
the more complex. Cuvier was the champion of discontinuity and
he succeeded in getting his ideas accepted thanks to the fame he
had acquired by his brilliant researches. Lamarck was the cham-
pion of continuity but, more modest and less brilliant, and
i 9 2 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
working less in the public eye, he was totally ignored by his
contemporaries, was even ridiculed, and acquired prestige only
with the English geologists, especially Charles Lyell. Moreover,
it was through Lyell that Darwin absorbed Lamarck's ideas and
thereby brought transformism to success in scientific circles
throughout the world. By his violently anti-transformist attitude
Cuvier doubtless hindered to some extent the development of
certain branches of biology in France. But the credit of having
laid the essential foundations of palaeontology and comparative
anatomy can never be taken from him. In fact, following Cuvicr's
discoveries, and using the research methods he had brought to
perfection, the world's palaeontologists set out in pursuit of the
fossil vertebrates.
In France the palaeontological school was very brilliant and,
not having space here to name all the experts, we will mention
only one, Albert Gaudry, who first of all studied the fossil
mammals of Greece, and afterwards those present in many beds
in France, especially the curious fauna in the phosphorite pockets
in the Quercy chalk and the mammals in the terraces of the Somme
near Amiens and Abbeville. In America, besides Cope, who
became famous especially for his study of fossil reptiles, we must
mention Osborn for his remarkable work on vanished pachy-
derms. Moreover, all these authors and their pupils were quickly
won over to transformism and did much for the propagation of
these ideas.
Thus the grouping of fossil faunas gradually took shape. As
they came back to life they could be seen to take their places in
the landscapes which geology and palaeobotany have enabled us to
imagine with very great accuracy, so that to-day two main
tendencies are developing in the i5o-year-old science of palae-
ontology. On the one hand, as all the fossils of the principal
countries have been to all intents and purposes studied in their
smallest details and the beds that held them are also well known
to the geologists, attention is being given to the reconstruction of
the environments in which these fossil animals evolved, and to
finding out how these animals that vanished millions of years ago
lived, were born and died, what they ate, how they reproduced
themselves, and so on. In this way the palaeontologist now seeks
to pursue the science of ecology (the study of living things in
rektion to their environment) and ethnology (the study of habits).
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 193
On the other hand, new fossils are being sought in regions where
scientific expeditions are very difficult to organize; in other words,
to extend the field of pakeontological research and to cover the
whole world. Thus in 1948, for example, at the cost of a very
difficult exploration, the Russians found in Siberia a splendid
series of reptiles in process of transition between reptiles properly
so-called and mammals; this series has helped to fill the gaps in
two related series discovered not many years ago, partly in the
Rocky Mountains and partly in South Africa, the excavations in
South Africa having been done around 1930 by Broom, who is
better known for his discoveries of a great number of members of
the Australopithecus family, the ape-men of the Kalahari desert.
It was precisely these new techniques of comparative anatomy,
perfected by Cuvier, that in the long run made the triumph of
transformism possible. They have revealed the conditions of the
transition from the fish to the amphibians, then from the amphi-
bians to the reptiles, thereby describing the means by which the
continents were conquered. It is with the aid of comparative
anatomy that, pausing to study the fossil reptiles of Siberia, South
Africa and North America, we can now describe how the pen-
ultimate conquest of the world by the mammals was prepared.
Richard Owen, the most famous of Cuvier's successors, was the
first to have insisted on the strange relationship between the
reptiles and the mammals when, about 1850, he heard from South
Africa about the remains of a reptile 200 million years old, con-
sisting mainly of the bones of the skull. Born in 1804, Richard
Owen pursued an eventless career, very comparable to that of his
master Cuvier in that he quickly climbed all the stages of univer-
sity life smoothly and without a struggle, teaching and doing
research work simultaneously. He later turned to medicine and,
having obtained his diploma, entered the Royal College of
Surgeons in London as a professor. But, devoting himself to the
study of anatomy, Owen was very soon attracted to palaeontology
after becoming acquainted with the work of the French experts,
and it was in this field eventually that he especially shone. Very
soon he was specializing in the study of fossil vertebrates and soon
after that he brought his attention to bear upon reptiles. It was he
who in 1842 invented the name 'dinosaur' for the giant reptiles
I 9 4 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
that were becoming well known by the middle of the nineteenth
century. Soon he was appointed Director of the Natural History
Department of the British Museum in London, which had just
been created; in this capacity he excelled and was able to arrange
for the transfer of his work to the large building at South Ken-
sington where the collections could be shown to the public in their
entirety and with proper artistic care. Under the stimulus of its
first director the Museum enriched itself with large collections of
stuffed animals, skeletons and fossil casts.
About 1850, as an expert on fossil reptiles, Owen received the
most important parts of a skeleton from South Africa. He had
scarcely begun to examine them when he was struck by the fact
that this creature showed a curious mixture of reptilian features
and those which until then had been regarded as peculiar to the
mammals. It was a reptile in its general appearance, but when
certain details of its skeleton were considered, especially the bones
FIG. 86, Dicynodon: half
reptile, half mammal.
of the head, Owen could not fail to be struck by the clearly mam-
malian characteristics. The first thing to be observed was that the
teeth were slightly differentiated, in the sense that there was a
typical canine, a real fang, contrasting with teeth constructed for
grinding that could already qualify as molars; there were no teeth
to qualify as incisors, but there was a horned beak like that to be
found in some of the fossil herbivorous reptiles. Now this differ-
entiation of the teeth into several distinct types is characteristic of
the mammals, whereas in reptiles all the teeth are always alike.
Further, still considering the head of this South African mammal,
Owen observed the existence of a zygomatic arch, that is to say
that sort of bony bridge that starts from the temporal bone, in
front of the inner auricular duct, and ends at the level of the cheek :
this, too, is a typical feature of mammals. He noted also the
anatomical configuration of the bones of the nasal region, which
was exactly like that of that strange Australian beaked mammal
Ornithorhyncus (the duck-billed platypus). Finally, he stressed the
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 195
existence of a thin bony plate which formed a sort of second palate
partially lining the floor of the nasal cavities : it was a rudimentary
secondary palate which one finds complete in mammals. The
general appearance of the head led Owen to call this strange
composite fossil Dicynodon, because of its fairly considerable
resemblance to the skull of a dog.
The other parts of the skeleton in Owen's possession made it
possible for him to describe Dicynodon as a carnivorous quadruped
the size of a small bear and to emphasize the very definite kinship
between the pelvis of this reptile and that of certain modern
mammals. With an audacity that was admirable considering this
was a 100 years ago, Owen declared that it was necessary to seek
the origins of modern and fossil mammals in the heart of certain
reptile groups. And now, during the last 20 years, important
FIG. 87. Dimetrodon: a carnivorous reptile with some mammalian
features.
excavations carried out in North America, Siberia and South
Africa have fully confirmed this hypothesis by revealing a whole
series of fossil reptile forms which have established an almost
continuous link between reptiles and mammals, to the extent that
of some of these species one can justifiably ask whether they are
still reptiles or already mammals.
It was something like 200 million years ago, in the Permian,
that appeared the first animals to evolve in this direction, the
principal types being fairly abundant both in North America
(Texas) and in France (the Autun region), as well as in various
parts of the North Atlantic continent. The most curious of these
Pelycosaurs was the carnivorous Dimetrodon., which had long
spines on its back that were none other than the abnormally
elongated projections of certain dorsal vertebrae, serving as a
framework for a sort of membranous sail which could fold down
196 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
on the back or to stand up vertically at will. Some have tried to
assign a protective role to this great sail, which could reach to a
yard high on an animal which was only 2 yards long : carnivorous
animals could not have attacked it without getting these long
spines in their mouths. Actually this hypothesis is very thin, for it
seems that the Dimetrodon was just about the most carnivorous of
all the carnivores of the Permian fauna of Texas. Others have put
forward a more fanciful explanation: they have imagined the
Dimetrodon navigating the lakes with the help of this sail which it
was able to trim at will according to the direction of the winds.
Actually it is probably unnecessary to seek any functional explana-
FIG. 88. Moscbops: a curious
reptile with clearly differen-
tiated teeth.
tion whatever and one has only to admit quite simply the existence
of the organ and no more. Similar membranous sails, supported
by spiny apophyses of the dorsal vertebrae, are also found in other
Pelycosauria, like the herbivorous Edaphosaurus, as well as in the
modern chameleon. Although these Pelycosauria are still defi-
nitely reptilian in the aggregate of their characteristics, they took
a step in 'the direction of the mammals in the structure and
reciprocal disposition of certain bones of the skull. In the fine
Russian Dinocephalus series two characteristics appeared that were
new in reptiles : instead of the legs growing at right angles from
the body, the humerus and the femur being parallel to the earth
in such a way that the elbow and knee were very far from the body,
the limbs became parallel to the body, all their bones being aligned
one after the other in a perpendicular line to the earth. Amphi-
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 197
bians, the 'classic* reptiles and the Pelycosauria moved with limbs
apart, while the reptiles of mammalian appearance and the
mammals themselves moved 'elbows to side', just like we do.
Dinocephalus also showed three clearly differentiated kinds of
teeth: incisors, canines and molars, which is definitely a mam-
malian characteristic. So we find, 175 to 200 million years ago,
carnivorous forms like the Siberian Inostran^evia, a kind of serpent
10 feet long, with stumpy limbs and a tiger's head, and herbi-
vorous forms like the South African Moschops, a rhinoceros-like
creature with a giraffe's neck and thick, short limbs.
Finally we came to the Theriodontia of the Triassic, 175 million
years old, with clearly differentiated teeth, with two successive
dentitions (the milk teeth and the adult teeth), and a secondary
palate more clearly formed in the later specimens. It is in a deposit
in the Karroo, in the northern regions of South Africa, that we
can best follow the stages of this progressive transformation.
First of all we find Ericolacerta, a large and heavy quadruped,
prototype of the group sometimes called the 'reptiles with cats'
whiskers' because some have thought that in the holes in the cheek
bones were the channels for the nerves which, in cats and other
Felidse, coupled with the long stiff hairs of the moustache, give
these animals an additional sense of touch. Actually it seems wiser
to regard these as orifices through which the blood vessels and
nerves supplying the facial muscles passed. These facial muscles
are another mammalian feature, being almost totally missing from
either fossil or modern reptiles.
Almost contemporaneous with lELricolacerta was Cygnognathus^ a
sort of large bear with a skull anatomically exactly like that of a
mammal; it also had three different sorts of teeth and, since its
vertebral column was divided into three distinct regions, one
must attribute to it the possession of a diaphragm. Finally, still in
South Africa, in the very old Jurassic terrains dating from 150
million years ago, a quite small reptile the si2e of a rat has been
discovered : Karoomys> all the characteristics of which are those of
a mammal, excepting the articulation of the mandible to the base
of the skull and the articulation of the skull to the vertebral
column.
It is necessary to emphasize this last point, for it concerns a
vital factor. In fact, the palaeontologists have often to establish
their criteria of identification on complex anatomical structures,
i 9 8 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
and since the appearance of the mammals is an important event in
the history of life, we shall have to stress the differences between
mammals and reptiles.
The most obvious diagnostic difference is in the covering of the
skin and no great effort is needed to contrast the reptiles, which
are covered with scales, with the mammals, which are covered
with hair. Another characteristic is also well known, since our
revulsion from reptiles is often due to the fact that they feel cold :
reptiles are animals of variable temperature, whereas mammals are
animals with a temperature that remains constant. If we now take
our attention to the teeth, we note that those of mammals are
divided into three categories. There are the incisors for cutting,
the canines for biting and the molars for grinding; further, in
mammals there are two successive dentitions, first the milk teeth
and then the adult teeth. But in reptiles the teeth, which are often
very numerous, are all of the same type and when a tooth is worn
out it is discarded and another grows in its place.
Other differences between reptiles and mammals are more
subtle, because they arise from anatomical characteristics that are
not assimilable at first glance. One of these essential characteristics
concerns the formation of the lower jaw, the mandible as it is
known to the experts, and the way it is articulated with the rest of
the head. In reptiles the mandible is actually made up of three
different bones, which are arranged in line and fused together : the
first of these bones carries the teeth and is therefore known as the
dentary, the second is the angular and is so named because of the
shape it takes in some inferior vertebrates, and the third is the
articular, the bone which serves to articulate the jaw with the skull
by means of a fourth small bone called the quadrate. In mammals
this anatomical structure is extremely simplified in that the
dentary alone forms the whole mandible and articulates directly
with the base of the skull. Of the three other bones present in
reptiles, the angular simply disappears, while the articular and
quadrate form part of the chain of ossicles of the middle ear; in
fact, the vibrations of the tympanum produced by sounds are
transmitted to the inner ear (which is accommodated inside the
temporal bone and is the organ of hearing properly speaking)
through a set of small ossicles aligned one behind the other and
called respectively malleus (or hammer, which corresponds to the
articular), incus (or anvil, which corresponds to the quadrate),
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 199
stapes (or stirrup, which corresponds to the columella auris or
hyomandibula).
Still in the field of cranial anatomy, the skull of a mammal
moves on the vertebral column through the medium of two bony
bosses known as the occipital condyles, the presence of which
permits the head to move in almost all directions and especially
from right to left, and up and down. On the contrary, in reptiles
the skull moves on the vertebral column by one condyle only,
singularly limiting the movements of the head, which is practically
in one piece with the vertebral column. Two other differences
should be noted. One is the appearance in mammals of a bony
partition lining the floor of the nasal cavities to form what is
called the palate, which is actually a secondary palate. The other
is the differentiation of the vertebral column into quite distinct
RPTIL
^Stirrup
FIG. 89. The articulation of the jaw in reptiles and mammals.
regions, known as cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal.
To this differentiation is connected the existence of a muscular
partition, known as the diaphragm, separating the thoracic cage
from the abdominal cavity.
Palaeontology and comparative anatomy thus reveal the exist-
ence 200 million years ago of creatures intermediate between
reptiles and mammals. But some of these creatures still exist to-day
to bear witness through some of their characteristics to the repti-
lian origin of mammals. This curious composite creature,
Ornithorhyncus (duck-billed platypus), with the flat beak and
webbed feet of a duck, the body of an otter, the tail of a beaver
and the claws of a dog, is to be found in Australia. It lays eggs and
some regard this as sufficient reason not to allow it the name of
mammal. However, although the females have no udders properly
speaking, they nevertheless secrete milk; all the small lacteal ducts
200 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
open by a simple orifice at the ventral skin level and it is by suck-
ing the hairs, which become bunched together like the hairs of a
paint-brush dipped in liquid fat, that the young feed. In Tas-
mania, and therefore not far away from Ornithorhyncus, lives
Echidna (spiny ant-eater); this animal, which is curiously covered
with spines, like a hedgehog or porcupine, cannot be denied the
name of mammal, since it nurses its young; but it must be
admitted that it is an extremely primitive mammal, with some
characteristics that are very definitely reptilian. One of these
characteristics is well defined by the very name of the group to
which these two curious creatures belong, monotremes, that is to
say 'animals with only one orifice'. In fact, as in reptiles and also
in birds, the intestine, the urinary passage and the genital passage
FIG. 90. (Left) Ornithorhyncus, or duck-billed platypus;
(right) Tachyglossus, or five-toed Echidna. Two egg-laying
mammals (monotremes) from Australia. (From Young's
Life of the Vertebrates^)
all open into a cloaca and communicate with the exterior through
it; but in the more developed mammals these three systems -
digestive, urinary and genital - open separately to the exterior, or
at least they do in the female. Another characteristic which clearly
distinguishes monotremes is the laying of eggs. It was through
the shell egg that reptiles succeeded in escaping from servitude to
an aquatic life that was obligatory to their ancestors the amphi-
bians, but in mammals reproduction achieves its perfect form in
the sense that the young are protected in the body of the mother,
sheltered from all external dangers, until they are able to face the
external world. Thus vertebrate reproduction reaches its final per-
fection in mammals and gives them a total liberty of movement
over the surface of the continents.
But it is in relation to reproduction that the difference between
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 201
reptiles and mammals is most clearly revealed; the matter turns on
the existence in mammals of a placenta that closely unites the
foetus to its mother. It is again from Australia that we obtain the
main information on this subject.
In fact, for 150 million years, throughout the Secondary, when
the gigantic herbivorous and carnivorous reptiles ruled the world,
there lived between their feet, so to speak, tiny mammals that
descended apparently from creatures very like the South African
Karootnys: the oldest known of these mammals - known more-
over only by a single jaw was Tritylodon, which had molars
covered with many small protuberances and was thus the proto-
type of the Multituberculata. These Multituberculata lived very
quietly until the beginning of the Tertiary. Very little is known
about them except that their minute size enabled them to escape
the teeth of the carnivorous reptiles and that, very little specialized,
they developed slowly while their reptile cousins dominated the
FIG. 91. The jaw, still little differ-
entiates, of one of the first
mammals: Plagiaulax with cauli-
flower-like molars.
globe : they thus prepared the way for the penultimate conquest of
the world. The reproductive method of the Multituberculata is
also known, and it is quite comparable with that of modern
marsupials. In fact, although marsupials begin their development
as a foetus in the mother's uterus, they are attached to that organ
in a very precarious way : between the foetus and the uterine wall
the tissue known as the placenta, which is rich in blood vessels,
never appears. It is not therefore surprising that something like
an abortion results very soon after conception : the mother soon
expels the young, a miserable naked foetus, blind, inert and uncon-
scious, and only an inch or so long. But the mother has a ventral
pouch, the well-known marsupial pouch which so greatly
astonished the first zoologists to come face to face with Australian
animals. The young are immediately deposited in this pouch;
inside they attach themselves to the teats that hang there and a
veritable extra-uterine gestation begins. It lasts several weeks,
sometimes several months, before the young really comes into the
202 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
world, opens its eyes, puts out its head and, still continuing to
travel in its mother's pouch for a few more days, interests itself in
everything around, even beginning to browse on the lower
branches of trees while its mother feeds on the higher leaves.
Thus the first mammals passed through a marsupial stage. Then
the placenta appeared, and the Tertiary began some 70 million
years ago. Abruptly all the reptiles vanished from the surface of
the globe, except for a few species of lizards, turtles, serpents and
crocodiles. Then, also quite abruptly, the mammals made sensa-
tional progress: just like the reptiles that preceded them, they
came to occupy every kind of environment, so that not only were
there terrestrial mammals (the most numerous), but flying
mammals and marine mammals too. Moreover, they eventually
specialized in a number of different directions which, for simpli-
city's sake, can be reduced to three principal types. There were the
FIG. 92. The progressive compli-
cation of the grinding surfaces
of the molars of herbivores :
A. Phenacodus;
B. Eohippus;
C. Modern horse.
carnivores and the herbivores, each of these two main types being
characterized by acquiring means of attack or defence. While the
carnivores developed long and pointed canines, sharp molars and
paws with five toes and strong claws, the herbivores acquired
sharp incisors, molars for grinding and long slender feet that
assured safety in flight. The third specialization was distinguished
by the absence of any natural means of attack or defence, an
absence which was made good by the development of the brain,
whence followed the more or less systematic use of artificial
instruments to assure the survival of the species: it is to this
specialization that the Primates turned and found their consum-
mation in the appearance of the human species.
We must first study some typical examples of how these
specializations occurred within the mammal class. The history of
the ancestors of the horse is classical. The first representatives
were small animals about the size of a fox, to which the name
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 203
FIG. 93. Phenacodus > the ancestor of numerous mammals.
Phenacodus is given : it had a long body, a pointed muzzle, a long
tail and quite short limbs ending in five hoofed toes. Its teeth were
still very simple, the molars being of medium height and bulk,
furnished with two small crests of enamel of little importance. But
it was from Phenacodus that all the branches of the great group of
ungulates seem to have split off, that is to say the hoofed mam-
mals: horses, rhinoceroses, elephants (pachyderms), pigs and
boars, and finally the ruminants, with the five great families of
Bovidse, Giraffidx, Camelidse, Cervidas and the Chevrotains.
With the passing of time - that is to say, throughout the 70
million years of the Tertiary - the ancestors of the horse progres-
sively adapted themselves to running and to an herbivorous
FIG. 94. Progressive reduction of the
number of toes with adaptation to
running in the ancestry of the horse.
A. Phenacodus;
B. Mesohippus:
C. Modern horse.
r B
204 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
regime. The short, thick-set, five-toed limbs of Phenacodus turned
into the already slightly longer four-toed limbs of Eohippus, then
into limbs with three toes (the central toe, the only one used in
running, being prominent) of Mesohippus\ finally only the very
long toe of the modern horse survived, flanked at wrist level by
two small rudimentary bony stylets, which still bear witness to
the existence in its ancestors of three toes. While this evolution
proceeded, the molars of Phenacodus, in the line of the horse,
increased in height above the gum and also in bulk, at the same
time as their grinding surfaces became complicated by the
FIG. 95. Mesohippus, an ancestor of the horse.
appearance of crescents of enamel increasingly elaborate in
outline.
One could similarly trace the evolution of teeth and feet
which, from Phenacodus, leads either to the modern rhinoceros,
or to the elephant, or to various types of ruminants or pigs.
It was from an animal undoubtedly very close to Phenacodus that
the carnivores sprang. In this line we are faced with the abrupt
replacement of hoofs by claws, while the evolution of the dental
types is extremely typical. It is by following this evolution in the
Felidae family - to which, besides the domestic cat, belong the lion,
tiger, panther and jaguar - that we can best appreciate the char-
acteristics of this dental specialization. The ancestors of the
Felidae were small animals which must have strongly resembled
our ferrets or skunks, with small and sharp incisors, pointed
canines extending somewhat beyond the level of the molars,
which were flattened and provided with sharp lengthwise crests.
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 205
It was then that appeared, at the beginning of the evolution of the
carnivorous line, a special tooth which seemed intended to grind
the bones and to break the tendons. This tooth was the fourth
premolar in the upper jaw and the first of the large molars in the
lower jaw; it had a sharp edge followed by a flattened and
enlarged heel and is called the carnassial.
From these small skunk-like carnivora there first arose some
larger carnivores, like Nimravus which, besides an already well
defined carnassial, showed canines that were beginning to
lengthen, especially in the upper jaw, while the size of the
incisors was diminishing. Nintravus was followed by animals of the
genus Felix, comparable to modern cats or lions, and then
appeared two species of tiger that have now vanished, of which
the upper canines were enormously lengthened and shaped like a
FIG. 96. Progressive reduction of the number of teeth, with
increase in the fangs of certain carnivores: A. Smilodon:
B. Machairodus: C Lion: D. Nimravus. (after Romer).
dagger, while the anterior crest of the carnassials was formidably
sharp. These were the Machairodus tiger and Smilodon y both con-
temporary with men of the Reindeer Age. Deep grooves on either
side of the lower lip permitted the enormous fangs to pass ; in
attacking its prey the animal used them like a dagger, as attested
by the considerable impression left on the skull by the muscles
that moved the head. It was by an abrupt movement of the neck
that these tigers killed their victims.
During this time, still deriving from small ancestors similar to
modern insectivora, flying mammals like bats, and marine
mammals like dolphins, porpoises and whales, evolved and
adapted themselves to an aerial medium and an aquatic medium
respectively. We are almost totally ignorant of the respective
ancestors of these two divergent lines of mammals.
206 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Therefore, when the Tertiary began some 70 million years ago,
the earth was occupied, so far as mammals are concerned, only by
small animals with cauliflower-like molars, the Multituberculata,
which were neighbours of other small marsupials strongly
resembling our modern opossums. There were also present in
very small numbers some forms of small size which already had a
placenta, small shrew-mice without interesting specialization. But
these animals are not the direct ancestors of any modern line; like
many others, they were the 'failures' of evolution that disap-
peared from the surface of the earth after a term that was fairly
brief.
Then in various parts of the globe appeared several types of
marsupials, some carnivorous and others herbivorous, all distin-
FIG. 97. Brontops, an attempt in the direction of the rhinoceros
type.
guished by their very peculiar method of reproduction, that is to
say, by the existence of the pouch inside which the young com-
pleted their development. But the marsupials were abruptly driven
back to the periphery of the inhabited lands. Fifty million years
ago they were only to be found in Australia, South America and
South Africa. They were thrust aside by the sudden development -
one is even tempted to speak of an evolutionary explosion - which
produced the placental mammals.
Next began a warm period which lasted about 25 million years ;
during this time the earth was encircled by a wide equatorial zone,
flanked to north and south by wide temperate zones. This was
the epoch when, starting from Phenacodus, the principal ungulate
split off. It was also the epoch when there came into being several
types like the rhinoceros, with the North American Dinocerata,
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 207
FIG. 98 Megacamelus: an ancestor of FIG. 99. Alticamelus: an-
the camel. other ancestor of the
camel.
about 10 feet high, with three pairs of horns, one on top of the
head, one in front of the eyes and the third at the end of the snout.
It was the epoch when the Titanotheres appeared in both North
America and the Gobi Desert, as big as our elephants but built like
our rhinoceros and possessing two great horns to right and
left above the nostrils. Finally, this was the epoch when, in the
FIG. 100. Paleomastodon: one of the first elephants.
208 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
marshes of Montmartre, Cuvier's Anoplotherium and falceotherium
lived side by side, while among the carnivores there was a giant
kind of skunk the size of a fox.
Next came the last part of the Tertiary; in about 20 million
years the principal animal types that we know to-day came fairly
rapidly into being. An American naturalist has said that if by
chance a monumental Noah's Ark had preserved all the animals of
this epoch, a child would have no hesitation in naming each of
them, while its parents would think they were the victims of an
hallucination, so surprised would they be by the abnormal size
and appearance of these animals. A single example will illustrate
this idea well: it is provided by the order of Proboscidea. All
FIG. 101. Glyptodon: a sort of giant armadillo.
animals of this order evolved in the direction of the elephant type.
This was the moment when on the one hand there appeared the
mastodons, giants with four tusks which, starting out from South
Africa, progressively invaded Europe, crossed the Asiatic deserts
and the Bering Straits, and reached the two Americas. During this
time the more modest ancestors of our elephants remained in
obscurity, but it was from them that the modern elephants and the
gigantic mammoths that were contemporary with prehistoric man
were born.
It was also at the end of the Tertiary that the ungulates with
uneven numbers of toes - Artiodactyla - developed in a formid-
able way. Though until then they had been represented only by a
few forms of which Oreodonta (ruminant pigs) was the most
important, there was a sudden expansion, so that the ruminants
THE PENULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD 209
FIG. 102. Megatherium: a giant edentate
(toothless mammal).
to-day form the largest group of mammals. It was also at the end
of the Tertiary that giant Edentata developed in South America,
like Glyptodon, an armadillo-like creature, 1 1 feet 6 inches long, as
well as that huge species of bear, Megatherium -, that had a long
prehensile tongue like our modern ant-eaters.
Finally, in the Tertiary, too, from those small insectivora
resembling shrew-mice the primates split off, passing successively
through the types already described, the lemurians, the dog-faced
monkeys, the apes, then the anthropoids and finally man.
PART THREE
The Why and How of the
History of Life
CHAPTER VIII
The Indisputable Evolution of the
Living World
HAVING reached this point, a pause is desirable, since the search
for our ancestors must now be pursued in a rather different way.
In their proper historical order, the first seven chapters have
permitted us to show that in former times the earth was inhabited
by vertebrates that to-day have vanished, and that it is possible to
sketch the main branches of a genealogical tree from fishes to men.
The question that remains concerns the roots of that tree, that is,
what were the different stages which preceded the appearance of
the first vertebrates on the surface of the earth, since traces of life
can be found in the oldest rocks, dating from something like 1,500
million years ago, though the first fishes only made their appear-
ance in the middle of the Primary, about 350 million years
ago.
The great mass of invertebrates must now be noted, so that
from their study we may deduce the main trends of life on earth
that succeeded one another through the ages and found their end
and blossoming in the large-brained primates. But it is important
first of all to define, with the aid of the researches and techniques
of study perfected during the kst two centuries, how palaeontology,
stumbling upon the marine shells and petrified fishes, then disco-
vering the great fossilized mammals and giant reptiles, permits us
to close this history of life with a complete panorama of the
sequence of the animal kingdom.
In simple terms the problem is as follows: since the main
branches of the invertebrates were already differentiated at the
time of the oldest legible rocks, a biological method must be found
that will permit us to retrace by indirect methods the stages
M.S.H.A. 213 P
2i 4 MAN. IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
the invertebrate world passed in its evolution towards the
vertebrate. This method is fully summed up in the very word
'evolution'. Until now it has only been implied, but not decisively
demonstrated, that in both the animal and vegetable species there
is a continuous line of derivation, the simple species giving rise to
the more complex with the passing of time. This important
biological proposition will soon have been in existence for two
centuries, and in systematic use by zoologists and palaeontologists
for one century. Two French scholars and one English naturalist
originated it.
Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon, a Burgundian, was born at
Montbard on September yth, 1707, the son of a jurist and adviser
to the Burgundy parliament. Brought up by Jesuits in Dijon, he
continued his studies at the University of Angers. Throughout his
youth he worked assiduously, but nothing in his tastes or reading
yet suggested that he would one day devote himself to natural
history. In fact, the only major event in his time at Angers that
any one has thought fit to reveal is that in a duel he had killed an
officer with whom he had quarrelled. His earliest scientific inclina-
tions were towards mathematics and physics, and it was he who
translated into French the work in which Newton stated his theory
of gravitation. Above all, it was at Angers that he formed a
friendship with a young Englishman, Lord Kingston, who was
visiting France with his tutor, Mr. Hickmann, an enthusiast for
botany. So Buffon set off across France, Italy and England with
his British friends. In their company he initiated himself a little
into natural history, particularly on the plant side. It was in this
capacity that in 1733, when he was 26, he was elected to the
Academy of Science without having made any important scientific
researches, which was quite the reverse to the case of Cuvier.
But shortly after he had finished his studies, he found himself
in control of the large estate at Montbard, the most important
place in the Cote d'Or. Very anxious for the prosperity of this
inheritance from his mother, he set out to study the problems
involved in the exploitation of its timber, the upkeep of the
forests, the reproduction of young trees, the cutting, transport
and preservation of the wood, and so on; but, being the owner of
a few blast-furnaces, he improved his knowledge of chemistry and
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 215
geology at the same time, in order to acquire a proper under-
standing of ores and their extraction, as well as their metallurgical
treatment.
Undoubtedly it was in 1738 that occurred the decisive event in
Buffon's life, at the age of 3 1. On his deathbed Dufay, the physicist
and Intendant-General of the Jardin du Roy (that is, in fact,
Director of the Natural History Museum) named Buffon as his
successor, having been struck by the clarity of his scientific
writings. Thus he became director of a botanical garden and
obliged by professional conscience to study botany and in a
general way all the natural sciences, for which, however, he was
already prepared by his agricultural interests and by the botanizing
expeditions he had made with Hickman and his young English
friend. He carried these studies through quickly and with great
keenness, so that in 1749 he was in a position to publish the
beginning of his Histoires nature lies, a monumental work; its
publication was to continue for 50 years (though it was completed
by his close collaborators) and in it he undertook to describe
completely all the known species of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms. From various points of view it was one of the most
important scientific works of the eighteenth century. Its style was
most elegant, and despite some anachronisms it remains a very
pleasant work to read.
In 1753, simply for his literary style, Buffon was unanimously
elected to the Academic Francaise, without having to offer himself
as a candidate. This was the opportunity for him to deliver his
famous Discours sur le style at his admission, in which he insisted on
the necessity of presenting the most complex and serious ideas in
a clear, precise and elegant fashion.
So far as geology and palaeontology are concerned, Buffon
advanced some very sound ideas, cutting right across the opinions
prevalent at that time, and he appears as something more than a
forerunner; he is indeed an initiator of these sciences, and the
father of transformism too (better known as the theory of evolu-
tion), for he exercised a very great influence over Lamarck as well
as Cuvier. Buffon's ideas on the subject were never expressed as a
coherent whole: in general his works are rather confused and the
boldest propositions are mingled with the most pointless exercises
in style. The various works he published, or at least those that
were published under his direct inspiration, have to be studied
216 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
closely if his thoughts on the history of life are to be properly
understood.
In his Theorie de la terre (1749), Buffon remarked upon the exist-
ence of fossilized shells embedded in the rocks and he did not
hesitate a moment to regard them as the remains of marine
animals that had vanished from those parts long ago. The idea was
certainly not entirely new, since it had already been voiced several
times, as far back as the days of Ancient Greece. But through
Buffon this view at last received a place in natural science without
arousing subsequent dispute.
*
One of Buffon's precursors was Bernard Palissy, a potter, who
entered into legend because it is said that he burned his furniture
in order to continue the firing of his pots. But Palissy was, above
all else, a very great student of nature, and during numerous
journeys through France, simultaneously practising glazing,
portraiture and surveying, he concentrated his attention on
natural objects, exploring caves, forests and quarries, and
collecting shells with which he decorated what he himself called
'rustic earthenware'. But he used the shells that he found in beds
of sandstone and chalk not only for the decoration of his pots ; he
preserved them in great numbers and made a valuable collection
that formed a palaeontological record of his native Saintonge, as
well as of the Ardennes, Touraine and the Low Countries.
Thus, at the age of 65, in 1 575, having collected fossil shells and
petrified fishes from his earliest years, he ventured an opinion on
their origin and significance. He had the courage to present these
views to a Paris that was troubled with the 'war of the three
Henrys', in a series of lectures given between 1575 and 1584.
Many scholars came to these talks, especially doctors and surgeons
and the whole of the medical corps attached to the royal family.
Palissy energetically declared that the shells and petrified fishes
found embedded in the rocks were not by any means the natural
freaks that they had until then been^regarded; when a shell was
found in a rock it was because in former times, very long ago, the
shell-fish had been alive, but it had died when its receptacle had
suddenly solidified. That is to say, before the existence of the
marine world as we know it to-day, one or several marine worlds
existed of which the most representative creatures have to-day
disappeared. But despite the potter's convincing arguments and
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 217
the specimens he showed to support his statements, the doctors
of the Sorbonne systematically refused to admit the existence of
fossilized shells and fishes. They stuck to the simple and uncom-
promising explanation that they were natural freaks. Completely
ignored or misunderstood by his contemporaries, Palissy ended
his days in the Bastille in 1590, having been imprisoned for his
opinions at the age of 80 years.
However, this interpretation was not altogether new, for it had
already been maintained by a Dominican, Albert of Bollstadt,
300 years earlier. At Bollstadt in Swabia, north-east of the Lake of
Constance, was born in 1193 one of the most illustrous monks of
the Middle Ages. After his theological studies at Padua, he
became Bishop of Ratisbon and ended by joining the order of
preaching friars founded by St. Dominic in 1215. He had already
shown himself very competent in natural philosophy - that is to
say, in the science of man and in physics and biology. In 1 240 he
came to the Sorbonne. There is nothing surprising in the fact that
a foreigner, and particularly an ecclesiastic, should come to study
at one of the most famous universities in the whole world; later,
the Italian monk who eventually became St. Thomas Aquinas, did
the same thing. Latin was then the international language and it
was in Latin that the professors gave their lectures.
Albert of Bollstadt was most interested in reconciling the
teachings of the scriptures with those of the Greek philosophers,
handed down by Byzantium to the Western Middle Ages through
the Arabic Near East. This concern was shared by St. Thomas
Aquinas, but the latter was more successful in effecting a recon-
ciliation between the Church and Greek paganism in a philosophy
that spread over the whole Christian world.
Albert of Bollstadt had a truly scientific mind: he began a
true classification of the sciences, defining each of them as far as
he was able, clearly showing the differences that must exist
between mathematics, physics, biology and anthropology. Further,
probably for the first time since the advent of Christianity, he
insisted without equivocation on the necessity of observation and
experimentation; until then there was only too great a tendency
to accept revealed truth without taking the trouble to verify it.
It is in this respect that Albert of Bollstadt must be counted as one
of the leading scientific minds of the Middle Ages.
Applying himself especially to the study of what was not yet
218 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
known as palaeontology, he had observed during the excursions
he made into the country that in the surroundings of Paris he
could collect very many stones in which animal remains were
embedded, the marine origin of which could not be doubted by
an experienced mind. He was thus led to recognise that these
were creatures that had lived in the oceans that had once occupied
the Paris area. They had been engulfed in the mud of the sea
bottom; then the earth and the water had mixed in such a way as
to cause a solidification in which the essential parts of the shell-fish
or its bones were preserved, the coldness and dryness of the stone
preventing putrefaction. Thus Albert of Bollstadt was forced to
admit that marine fauna once lived in regions now occupied
by the continents. Although his explanations might well be
disputed, they were nevertheless ingenious for the time, for he
had discovered that certain animals had been 'fossilized', that is to
say preserved, at least in their essential parts, inside the rocks long
after their deaths. He therefore had to admit that in former times
the fauna had not always been identical with modern fauna, and
by implication that the face of the earth had not remained
unchanged since its creation.
This was an extremely daring position to take up at that time;
only one such as Albert, competent in all the sciences, could
support it with valid arguments. By doing so, moreover, he made
the link with Aristotle, whose work he knew very well. What had
Aristotle to say about geology and palaeontology ? Thanks to his
personal observations and to the travellers' tales he w^s able to
collect from the mouths of his contemporaries (especially Hero-
dotus, who had travelled much in Egypt), Aristotle had already
defined one of the essential facts of geology. For example, in the
mountains that flank the valley of the Nile on the west a very large
number of fossilized shell-fish are to be found, so that it is not
ridiculous to maintain that the whole of the Nile valley had at a
certain epoch been nothing but a gigantic gulf, a long and narrow
arm of the Mediterranean extending as far as Ethiopia. Later, this
arm of the sea had disappeared, giving place to the long valley
and to the delta through which the river now flows into the sea.
In other words, the respective situations of the sea and the conti-
nents had not been changeless throughout the ages: sometimes
the seas had covered the land, while at other times the seas had
receded, leaving fairly large parts of the continents dry.
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 219
What can we conclude from this ? Simply, according to Albert
of Bollstadt, and, through him, Aristotle - that it is possible to
know the former appearance of the earth by studying the shells
and petrified fishes to-day embedded in the rocks. Thus the
essential principles of geology were laid down: the remains of
vanished animals found in the rocks permit us to restore the
fauna of former times : the study of the rocks themselves permit
us to restore the landscapes and climates of those times. Finally,
and above all, these observations decisively demonstrate that the
history of the earth has been very varied and that several episodes
followed one another, in which sometimes the seas and sometimes
the dry land prevailed.
However, the teachings of Albert of Bollstadt, just like the vehe-
ment declarations of Palissy, were to remain a dead letter for a
long time. Leonardo da Vinci, another universal mind, also con-
sidered that the shells found in the rocks were the remains of
vanished animals. But the mind of the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance was never aware that the earth had in former times
shown a different face from that of to-day, that life on the earth
could have been different from what it was in the sixteenth
century. Meanwhile, an increasing number of amateurs began to
take an interest in what were still considered to be freaks of
nature: this was the epoch in which the first private collections
were made that formed the origins of our museums. Of all these
collections, one particularly deserves mention: that of Pope
Sixtus V, which was studied and classified by Mercati, already
mentioned at the beginning of this book in connection with his
posthumous work, Metallotheca Vaticana y in which he discussed
prehistoric flints. Nevertheless, Mercati was less successful in his
study of the shells and petrified fishes, for he did not know how
to make the comparison with existing species. This was the case
also with Aldrovandi at the end of the sixteenth century, who
possessed a very fine collection, the catalogue of which extended
to 87 volumes all in the handwriting of the author. But he never
expressed a rational opinion regarding these fossil remains:
Aristotle, Albert of Bollstadt, Palissy and Leonardo da Vinci
remained unrecognised forerunners. Nevertheless, they had seen
things rightly : the surface of the earth had not always been peopled
with animals like those before our eyes ; the limits of the ocean
and the dry land had not always been those that we now know.
220 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
So Buffon brought these ideas concerning the past life of the
earth to eventual triumph, and by his precise observations he laid
the first foundations of geology and palaeontology. Once again he
demonstrated that in former ages, as evidenced by the fossilized
shells, the seas had widely covered certain lands that to-day are
dry. On the other hand he stressed the fact that certain animal
forms now no longer exist : in support of this thesis he cited the
famous ammonites, the cephalopods that flourished in the Secon-
dary. Finally - still in his Thtorie de la terre - Buffon clearly distin-
guished, among the fossilized shell-fish, between marine species
of the open sea and others that were confined to the shore. It was
therefore the essential base of the sciences of the earth (geology
and palaeontology) that Buffon discovered when he laid stress on
the changes in the appearance of the earth through the ages in so
far as the rocks, the flora and the fauna are concerned.
But Buffon went even further. In other works, especially in his
Epoques de la nature (1778), he revealed the way in which the rocks
were formed: the geological beds were deposited one upon the
other during several thousands of years (this is the phenomen
now known to the geologists as stratification) and the study of
these different beds should permit us to retrace the history of the
earth and the history of life. Unfortunately, Buffon spent eight
months of the year at his property at Montbard and four months
at Paris superintending the Jardin du Roy, and never himself
carried out any real practical work; he was unable to carry his
theories concerning the history of the earth to their conclusion.
However, it is clear that for the age in which he was writing he
took an extremely daring stand in both geological and biological
matters.
What seems to have been his most revolutionary stand is that
by which he disagreed that the superimposed geological beds were
laid down during the 40 days of the Flood : he maintained that it
took thousands and thousands of years to form these sedimentary
rocks, and this led him into giving the earth an age of at least
75,000 years and into dividing the history of the earth into six
successive epochs. These ideas were not very well received by his
contemporaries and for the sake of peace Buffon had to compro-
mise a little with the ecclesiastical authorities, without however
making any large concessions. As to the laity, who were aston-
ished by the figure he gave, he answered them substantially in this
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 221
way: 'Why does it seem to you more difficult to reckon 100,000
years than to reckon 100,000 pounds in money?' The estimate was
not a casual one; Buffon had made his calculations and the
following quotation from his Epoques de la nature still remains, by
its ckrity and elegance of style, one of the best demonstrations
possible of the methods which were long used by geologists for
calculating the age of the fossil beds :
*To make it easier to appreciate this idea, let us take an example :
let us find out how long it took to construct a hill of clay 1,000
toises 1 high. The successive sediments of the waters formed all the
beds of which the hill is composed from base to summit. Now, we
can judge the successive daily deposits of the water by the thin
layers of clay; they are so thin that a dozen can be counted within
the thickness of a line. Let us therefore suppose that each tide
deposits a sediment one-twelfth of a line thick, that is to say one-
sixth of a line each day; the deposit will increase by one line in six
days, by six lines in 36 days and therefore by something like 5
inches a year, which gives us more than 14,000 years as the time
required for the formation of a hill of clay 1,000 toises high.'
Finally, applying himself to the study of fossil types, Buffon
clearly established that in the course of ages certain forms had
been replaced by others and he stressed that 'the less perfect
species, those that were more delicate, heavier, less active or less
well armed have already vanished or will vanish with time.' In
this little phrase, Buffon had quite simply laid the basis of modern
transformism which Lamarck and Darwin brought to success ; it
summarizes in a few words what his book has dealt with in its first
200 pages. Thus, when he died in Paris on April loth, 1788, aged
8 1 years, he had laid the first foundations of the natural sciences
which were to make such fine progress during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
Then, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, very different
from one another in their scientific opinions, in their careers and
their relations with their contemporaries, came Lamarck and
Cuvier, Darwin and Saint-Hilaire : three Frenchmen and one
Englishman, four contrary temperaments, four pioneers of zoo-
logy, biology and palaeontology.
Jean-Baptiste de Monnet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born at
Bazentin on the Somme on August ist, 1744. Though he was not
1 One toise = 1-78 metres. = 5 ft. 10 ins.
222 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
in the least attracted to an ecclesiastical career, he entered a
seminary in response to his father's wish; but on the death of his
father the young Lamarck, aged 17 years, fled from the Jesuits and
joined the armies of Louis XV. Shortly afterwards he was obliged
to leave the army as the result of a wound. Without resources, but
not at all discouraged, he went to seek his fortune in Paris, and in
order to live eventually found work in a bank; articles which he
sent to various journals assured him the means to live a decent life.
But the Chevalier de Lamarck was anxious above all to attend
lectures and discussions, and to be able to pay for books and
concert seats. Indeed, it was rather a self-taught mind that sought
to learn everything and to know everything in all fields of human
thought. Perhaps it is rightly reserved to intelligences of this kind
to elaborate scientific or philosophical syntheses more vigorous
- and because they always stray a little from officially recognized
facts, more daring, too - than those produced by minds that stick
closer to the strict observance of facts, and facts alone, which
eventually hold them in bondage. This is the moment to point out
the contrast between Cuvier and Lamarck, although the com-
parison should be even more fruitful when Lamarck's views on
palaeontology have been clearly defined.
During his first 10 years in Paris, from 1766 to 1776, Lamarck
certainly seems to have touched upon almost everything without
settling anywhere. He was a musician with an enthusiasm for
medicine, a botanist with an interest in methods of weather fore-
casting, who moreover published several Annuaires mtteorologiques
at the end of his career. But it was botany that eventually held his
attention and his assiduousness brought him the friendship of old
Bernard de Jussieu, creator of the Trianon gardens. For Bernard
de Jussieu botany was the only subject worthy of study, and when
he died at the age of 78 years, despite royal favours, he was still
what he had been all his life, a simple botany demonstrator at the
Jardin du Roy, a modest position which he took on so as to be
able to work in peace. Lamarck was indebted to him for the
opportunity to learn theoretical and practical botany during the
many botanical excursions they made together, in which they were
sometimes joined by Jean- Jacques Rousseau.
It is not surprising that in 1778 Lamarck was in a position to
publish a Flore gtnerah de la France, a noteworthy book that at once
went through two editions, with a third edition in 1802; it was
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 223
warmly received by the director of the future museum, Buffon.
The latter soon appointed Lamarck as Correspondent of the
Jardin du Roy, which permitted him to go abroad to continue his
botanical studies, notably in Germany and Austria, together with
Buffon's son. Lamarck's career was settled from that time on.
Returning to France in 1790, he became librarian at the Natural
History Museum, a post which he held for four years. At that
moment the Convention, which was completely reorganizing
higher education in France, decided to give the botanist a chair
for which no candidate seemed worthy of interest - the chair in
invertebrate zoology. With remarkable courage, at the age of
50 years, Lamarck undertook the study of the invertebrates about
which he had now to teach his pupils. Between 1815 and 1822 he
published seven volumes on the Histoire naturelle des animaux sans
vertebres. Yet he remained the best botanist of the Revolution and
the Empire, and his Histoire generate des vegetaux, published
between 1802 and 1826 in collaboration with Brisseau-Mirbel,
another eminent botanist, was for a long time an authoritative
work.
But Lamarck's vital work, certainly more theoretical than
practical, had sensational repercussions; it was that which dealt
with the relations between living creatures and their evolution on
the surface of the earth : the ULecherches sur ^organisation des corps
vivants (1800). Two main ideas, very different from one another,
are contained in this work; they must not be confused, because
one of them has retained almost all its value for 150 years, while
the other, which only aimed at providing a rational explanation
of the first, can no longer be maintained, at least not in its original
form.
On the one hand, and probably because he had especially
studied plants and invertebrate animals, Lamarck claimed that all
species derived one from another, the more simple having given
rise to the more complex, following progressive anatomical and
physiological changes which had lasted for thousands and thou-
sands of years. Essentially this was an idea of Buffon's, which
Lamarck took over, expounding it perhaps more clearly and more
explicitly. But in expressing his thoughts without equivocation,
he must truly be regarded as the father of transformism or, as we
say to-day, of evolution. It was to him that nineteenth-century
authors referred when they finally accepted this doctrine.
224 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
What exactly is meant when we speak of the theory of evolu-
tion? Simply, that the study of the remains of animals that have
now vanished from the surface of the globe shows a continuous
chain: that the history of life has progressed from the simple to
the complex, passing from single-celled creatures to the exceed-
ingly complicated mammals; that throughout the ages, for the
thousands of millions of years since the earth separated from the
sun, the animal species, and also the plant species, differentiated,
became complicated and increasingly better fitted to lead autono-
mous lives. Some examples of this have already been given in the
preceding studies of the zoological groups most familiar to the
lay public: amphibians sprang from certain fish, reptiles sprang
from amphibians, and in their turn the mammals sprang from
certain reptilian stocks, as did the birds too. Such successions are
proved to-day with the aid of many arguments calling upon many
branches of natural science. Two of the most typical of these
arguments can be mentioned here. The groups just referred to
appear one after the other in the history of the earth, the mammals
being younger than the reptiles, which are younger than the
amphibians, which are younger than the fishes : this is the palx-
ontological argument. On the other hand, in the last 20 years there
has been no end to the discovery of what are called missing links,
that is to say intermediate and composite creatures, simultaneously
uniting the characteristics of two neighbouring groups, as is the
case with the Coelacanth, the ape-men of South Africa or the
man-apes of Java and China, and also the series of Siberian and
South African fossil reptiles which provide the link between the
reptiles and the mammals. So much for the anatomical argument.
One could go further still and seek even more convincing
proofs by reference to embryology, which reveals the resem-
blances between larval forms of which the adults seem zoolo-
gically quite separated one from the other, by reference to the
study of blood groups when possible, and by reference to studies
of the hereditary transmission of certain characteristics.
One of the best demonstrations in support of evolution seems
to have been presented a few years ago by Father de Saint-Seine,
a well-known French palaeontologist. He confined himself to
various examples, that of the Coelacanth in particular and a
strange fossil amphibian from Madagascar. Professor Jean
Piveteau of Paris made this Protobatrachus known in 1937; it shows
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 225
certain features of our modern frogs and toads - the lymphatic
system, the essential structure of which can be deduced after the
manner of certain vertebrates, and certain other characteristics
typical of very primitive amphibians, like the absence of the
urostyle which assures the maximum efficacy in leaping move-
ments whether on terra firma or in swimming. Furthermore, the
ankle bones of Protobatrachus are rather elongated, not quite as
much as in modern frogs and toads but much more than in
salamanders. Once again, this is an intermediate animal, of a form
that shows the means by which the transition from the
primitive amphibians, deriving from the fish with lungs, into
FIG. 103. Reconstruction of
Protobatrachus
the very specialised amphibians of the modern world,
made. Now, knowing the laws of palaeontology and accepting the
theory of evolution, one could foresee that such an intermediate
form should be found - if at all - in Triassic rocks dating from 200
to 1 50 million years ago: in fact, the already clearly distinguished
Salentia date from the end of the Triassic, while the non-speci-
alized amphibians, likely to have given rise to such forms, are
found in the Permian rocks. It was precisely in the Triassic rocks
of Madagascar that Protobatrachus was found. Once more, as
Father Saint-Seine picturesquely says, the fossil was found at the
estimated rendezvous. Can a better indirect proof or neater
demonstration in support of evolution be conceived ?
226 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
None of this is far removed from Lamarck, since for 150 years
zoology and palaeontology have only brought grist to the mill he
set in motion. Certainly, several attempts have been made to bury
transformism. One of the most convincing - and most honest -
of its adversaries was Vialleton, a Genevese anatomist of repute
at the beginning of this century; his arguments are to-day largely
superseded.
Lamarck had few admirers and left no direct disciples. He ended
his life almost in poverty, abandoned by his fellows and living on
a modest pension; moreover, he became blind, probably through
the daily use of a magnifying glass while examining plants and
invertebrate animals. He presented transformism clearly for the
first time, but he died unrecognized, overwhelmed by the glory of
his rival Cuvier, who was nevertheless his colleague.
Before presenting Lamarck's second thesis concerning the
working of evolution in living creatures, it will be interesting to
bring the diametrically opposed opinions of Cuvier and Lamarck
face to face. Cuvier was an impenitent and intransigeant believer
in the fixity of species. For him the different animal species were
created independently of one another, without any connection
whatever between them. The earth changed its face several times -
six times to be exact - and earlier types of fauna were replaced by
new and different fauna; the disappearances were the work of
cataclysms affecting the entire planet, following which the new
fauna arose from nothing and so peopled the globe. The palae-
ontologist should simply study these fauna and flora as six
independent blocks, separated from one another by 'revolutions'.
I" What could Lamarck the transformist do against such peremp-
tory statements? He was an unobtrusive person, neither very
talkative nor demonstrative, and not very brilliant in company;
although he enjoyed a certain fame as a botanist, he was at most
regarded as a conscientious professor whose work had scarcely a
chance of passing to posterity. Moreover, it must be admitted that
Lamarck sometimes took it into his head to leave his own field for
those of chemistry, physics and meteorology, which was a catas-
trophe, since the ideas he defended in these fields a little more than
a century ago now deserve a place only in a joke book. Finally, to
read his Philosophic %pologique y with its confusion of ideas and feeble
style, unredeemed by the elegance that we find in Buffon, is to be
convinced that such an amateur had no chance of interesting
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 227
minds under the spell of Cuvier. That is why both France and
Europe were ignorant of transformism for many years. Almost
alone, Charles Lyell, the greatest British geologist of the nine-
teenth century and the one who went to Abbeville in 1859 to
support Boucher de Perthes, revived and confirmed (at least in
their general outline) the fundamental ideas that Lamark had
published in his Principes de geologic in 1830. The question may
certainly be raised as to how French geologists and palaeonto-
logists at the beginning of this century would have come to know
the works of their colleagues but for the existence of Charles Lyell
on the other side of the Channel.
However, in France itself the transformist dispute had some-
thing of an echo when, in 1830, at a memorable meeting of the
Academy of Science, it brought the two friends, Cuvier and
Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, into opposition. Saint-Hilaire, a
talented zoologist, had been teaching at the National History
Museum since 1784 and for the first time in France conducted a
course on birds and mammals. When he had secured this post at
the age of 22 years, he made Georges Cuvier (his senior by three
years) come to Paris the next year to occupy a post at the Ecole
Centrale du Pantheon. These two followed brilliant careers on
parallel lines. But Saint-Hilaire soon conceived an idea that he
took very much to heart; it was his theory of a general plan of the
organization of living creatures. He maintained, often in the face
of a certain amount of abuse, that all animals are constructed on
the same lines and that all their parts - comparing for example, a
horse and an actopus - should be capable of being related one to
another. This was no more nor less than a transformist thesis,
stated in a different form and with less precision than Lamarck,
since this pre-established plan assumed a close relationship
between the species, quite the contrary of the successive and
independent creations conceived by Cuvier. This was the origin
of the famous squabble between the two friends in 1836, especially
as Saint-Hilaire had some sympathy for Lamarck's ideas. An
impassioned dispute began that was, however, always courteous
and friendly; a synthesis rich in future discoveries could perhaps
have emerged from it but for the death of Cuvier shortly after-
wards, in 1832. Two different types of mentality had clashed;
Cuvier showed respect for facts while Saint-Hilaire defended *he
right of hypothesis. But it was finally this right of hypothesis that
228 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
swept Cuvier away when, in the last decades of the nineteenth
century, transformism made its official entry into science. It
returned from England in the works of Charles Darwin who, like
Lamarck, besides his final achievement in bringing the idea of the
evolution of the living world to success, applied himself to giving
it a rational explanation.
If the history of antiquity had had to reckon with Cleopatra's
nose, the history of science, 2,000 years later, had very nearly to
reckon with Darwin's nose when, with a warm recommendation
from Henslow, the 22-year-old Charles Darwin presented himself
to Captain Fitz-Roy the commander of the Beagle, who was pre-
paring to make a voyage round the world and looking for a
naturalist to go with him. Now, Fitz-Roy claimed to be an expert
in physiognomy: young Darwin's nose showed signs of such lack
of energy that he was very nearly left behind. Nevertheless, he was
accepted at the last minute and in December 1831 the Beagle got
under way for a five-year voyage. Without this voyage who would
dare to say that transformism would have known such success and
that the publication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species, exactly
50 years after Lamarck's Philosophic ^pologique, would have marked
one of the crucial dates in the history of biology?
Charles Darwin's childhood had not been exemplary. Born on
February i2th, 1809, this grandson of Erasmus Darwin, one of
the greatest English biologists of the eighteenth century, and son
of Robert Darwin, one of the best known doctors in Shropshire,
had been a very inattentive scholar. Scarcely anything mattered to
him except birds'-nesting or pinning out butterflies, unless it was
gathering shells on the sea-shore or medicinal pknts for pressing
or drying in his herbarium. He thus showed a much developed
taste for the natural sciences in the extremely practical way of the
English, in the appreciation of the bursting of the buds in spring
and the ripening of the fruits in autumn, in the study of the best
way to recognize a tree in winter by its stature and its bark, or the
best way to identify a bird or a small rodent at 30 yards or to
follow the daily growth of a plant or the germination of an acorn
or beech-nut. This is in fact a particularly British taste.
The young Darwin thought he would be able to satisfy this love
of nature by undertaking the study of medicine; but he soon
abandoned the project when as a young probationer he was
present at a surgical operation which left him half fainting. He
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 229
then decided to turn to an ecclesiastical career and when he was 19
entered Cambridge University; there he formed a friendship with
the botanist, Professor Henslow who, by the daily example he set,
both in the practical field of botanical observation and in the field
of scientific criticism, greatly contributed to shaping the mind of
Charles Darwin.
From the voyage of the "Beagle he returned to Europe in 1836,
and until his death in 1882 he devoted himself with equal success
to the most minute botanical and zoological researches (e.g. the
monographs on barnacles, the fertilisation of orchids, insecti-
vorous plants) and to the most daring biological syntheses (The
Origin of Species, 1859; The Descent of Man^ 1 870).
It is impossible in a few pages to summarize the ample harvest
of scientific observation which Darwin brought back from his
voyage in October 1836, when he was 27 years old. It is sufficient
to summarize the principal facts that he himself brought to notice.
Of these facts two deserve special emphasis : the exhumation in
South America of skeletons of giant armadillos that have now
vanished, so like modern armadillos that Darwin at once con-
cluded that the modern armadillos were the direct descendants of
very old extinct forms. This was a revival of Lamarck's trans-
formist ideas - with which he was familiar, for throughout the
expedition his bedside book had been Ly ell's Principles of Geology.
But now it was more convincing, for it was easier to influence
scientific opinion that had been freed from its quasi-religious
respect for Cuvier and shaken by the publications of Lyell,
Boucher de Perthes and Albert Gaudry.
The other fact that had struck Darwin forcibly was the distribu-
tion of tortoises in the Gakpagos Islands of the Pacific Ocean, off
the South American coast. On each of the six islands which form
this archipelago there lived a species of giant tortoise reaching to
3 or even 6 feet in length. All these tortoises had an indisputable
family likeness, so that one might regard them all as of the same
genus. But each island had its own different species, as if, isolated
when the islands separated one from another, and starting from
the same primitive giant type, several secondary types of tortoise
became clear in a few million years. This once more proved that
animal types are capable of transforming themselves and that the
animal species are not unchanging.
But Darwin went further. He brought back from his voyage
230 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
many observations that permitted him not only to demonstrate
the reality of evolution but also to account for the biological
phenomena that caused it. This is the moment to contrast the
Lamarckian and Darwinian theories concerning the inner
workings of transformism and to present a short synthesis of
modern ideas on the subject. For in recent years an American
palaeontologist, George G. Simpson, has published a long and
very difficult study of the problem from which one is reason-
ably justified in expecting a clarification of speculative
palaeontology.
A complete analysis cannot be made here, but we may state the
question clearly in the way it faced the author himself. George
Simpson is a paleontologist, that is to say he has been led through-
out his career to concentrate on fossils with the object of describ-
ing them, of placing them in their true ( ?) position in the classifi-
cation of living creatures and, on a higher plane but also a more
'public' one, to face the problem of the relationships of living
creatures that have vanished with one another, and also between
them and modern creatures. But to study evolution, the existence
of which, for any real scientific significance, cannot be doubted,
is automatically to raise the question of the mechanism of evolu-
tion. Darwin answered the question in an authoritative way, by
urging the importance of natural selection or, as is often said, the
struggle for existence; he thus took up a position diametrically
opposed to that of Lamarck, who gave priority as a factor in
evolution to the influence of environment. We can illustrate these
two positions very shortly by means of the two following
illustrations.
If, for example, it is a question of explaining why the giraffe
has a long neck, this is how Darwin and Lamarck differ. Lamarck
explained that the giraffe formerly lived in places where the only
food accessible in great quantity consisted of the leaves of very
high trees. To reach these high leaves the giraffes had to stretch
their necks ; so, from generation to generation, their necks grew
longer. But, according to Darwin, among the 'pre-giraffes' with
fairly short necks there were some slight variations: some pre-
giraffes had necks slightly longer than had others, just as some
men have arms slightly longer than their fellows. But the giraffes
with slightly longer necks were able to feed better, had a better
chance of surviving and reproducing their kind than those with
INDISPUTABLE EVOLUTION OF LIVING WORLD 231
shorter necks; so, progressively, the giraffe's neck attained its
present length.
To summarize these slightly over-simplified theories, it may be
said that according to Lamarck the giraffe stretched its own neck
in order to reach higher, while according to Darwin the modern
giraffe has a long neck because it gradually eliminated his shorter
necked congeners.
So Simpson, by way of his researches, came face to face with the
problem of the appearance of new characteristics. Furthermore,
he had to try and solve the problem of the hereditary transmission
of acquired characteristics, a problem that Lamarck and Darwin
regarded as solved.
But other scientists too have faced the problem of the heredi-
tary transmission of characteristics : they were the geneticists who
in 1900 rediscovered the Mendelian laws. The strides made by
genetics in these last 50 years can only be compared with those
made by nuclear physics; genetics has overtaken, if not surpassed,
palaeontology, which has more than 200 years of long and difficult
research behind it. Now it is an incredible fact that palaeontologists
and geneticists have until recently systematically ignored one
another. The geneticists, and more generally the biologists, have
become neo-Darwinians, maintaining the primordial importance
of the "struggle for existence' as the motive element in evolution;
the palaeontologists, often without admitting it frankly, insist on
the influence of environment.
The biologist is interested in discussing what happens to a
100 rats in the course of 10 years under single given conditions,
while the palaeontologist has to ask himself what has happened to
1,000 million rats in the course of 10 million years in the fluc-
tuating conditions of the history of the earth.
In 30 generations of rats only modifications of small importance
are observed : the rats still remain rats, they simply change colour
or become susceptible to this or that cancer or organism, and at
the most they lose or gain a digit on a given foot. On the other
hand, in 30 million generations, if one can carry out such a study
on all the rats in nature, it is more than probable that one would
see them change into another genus of rodents, or even quite
simply become extinct, giving place to another animal family.
This, in rough form, according to Simpson, is the grounds for the
divorce between the palaeontologists and the geneticists.
Q2
232 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Now Simpson has attempted what is really a preliminary to
reconciliation. Judge and party to the case, he brings the geneti-
cist and the palaeontologist together. What, he asks, is a geneticist ?
He is one who shuts himself up in a room, draws the curtains,
watches small flies frisking about in a flask and thinks he is
studying nature. The palaeontologist? One who undertakes to
study the principle of internal combustion engines by standing at
the corner of the street to watch passing cars. Such is the amusing
way the American scientist has described the complaints of the
parties that face one another. Yet the two branches of science must
settle the problem of the evolution of the species, since this
problem comes back in the end to knowing the mechanism by
which hereditary characteristics appear and are transmitted. In
this matter, therefore, Simpson has brought about a veritable
revolution. To the geneticists who know only one aspect of the
problem (the 30 generations of rats aspect) an expert has brought
the viewpoint of 30 millions of rats. This viewpoint is extremely
complex and varied, although in simplifying it in the extreme, it
must be admitted that Simpson remains a neo-Darwinian. What
he proposes to the palaeontologists throughout his work is rather
a new line of research than a new theory of evolution.
But it is naturally impossible, without straying beyond the
framework of this work, which has simply to retrace the principle
stages in the history of life, to dwell long on the inner determinism
of evolution. One can only speak of it briefly, to satisfy a very
justifiable curiosity on the part of the reader. Moreover, it would
be better to leave the neo-Darwinians and the neo-Lamarckians
face to face for a few more years, to be patient in our curiosity and
await the more satisfying explanations which the collaboration of
the geneticists and palaeontologists will soon give. It will suffice
for the moment that the proofs brought to the support of trans-
formism may be sufficiently convincing to justify this history and
to provide a method that will permit the study of the first stages
through which life passed between its appearance on the earth and
the differentiation of the first vertebrates.
CHAPTER IX
Life, the Queen of the Seas
THE history of life, and therefore the erratic path that man has
followed in search of his ancestors, is not yet ended. It is all very
well to have traced the general outline of the vertebrate branch
but, when the palaeontologist has identified the most primitive
fishes, he has not even then definitely revealed the deepest roots
of living creatures.
Long before Cuvier, throughout the period covered by Albert
of Bollstadt, Palissy, Leonardo da Vinci and Aldrovandi, the
fossilized shell-fish and fishes had been identified, but often with-
out fully understanding their general significance. It was seen that
life had come into being in the sea and after much discussion,
many hesitations and controversies, the palaeontologists returned
in the end to the propositions of the Greek philosopher Anaxi-
mander, that were later revived by several writers of the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance in the more compact form, Omne vivum
ex aqua (every living creature comes from the water). The first
fishes having made their appearance towards the middle of the
Primary era, it is therefore to the Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian and
Silurian seas that we must turn in order to discover the stages
crossed by life before the vertebrate stage was reached. The search
is very disappointing.
*
Take, for example, the face of the earth more than 1,000 million
years ago. We can know it by studying the Pre-Cambrian rocks.
But unfortunately these rocks have been reformed several times
in the course of the ages ; thrust deep into the bosom of the earth
under the pressure of marine sediments which have been deposited
on their surface for 1,500 million years, they have been so com-
pressed and raised to such a temperature that the principal
mineral elements contained in them have melted, then recrystal-
lized when movements of the earth's crust have cooled them
233
234 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
again by thrusting them up towards the surface. These are known
as 'metamorphic' rocks, although a strict definition of meta-
morphism cannot be given here, for it is a complex phenomenon
and all geologists are not agreed about its inner mechanism.
Anyway, the animal remains contained in the rocks that have been
subjected to metamorphism have in their turn been so heated and
compressed that they are rare and often fragmentary. Despite all
this, it has been possible to reconstruct in a rough way what could
have been the appearance of the earth at this distant epoch and
what could have been the fauna that lived in it.
The dry land formed four large continental shelves, on which
the sediments settled as relatively light beds or beds that have
been raised at a recent epoch in the history of life, in such a way
that one can still make geological explorations in them to-day.
These old continental shelves are known as shields. They are : the
North Atlantic shield (comprising Canada and the northern part
of the United States, and also Greenland, which was separated
from Canada in the Precambrian era by a long and narrow arm of
the sea), the Baltic shield (corresponding to Sweden, Finland and
the north-western part of Russia), the Saharan shield (covering the
greater part of modern Africa), and finally the Brazilian shield
(corresponding to the eastern shoulder of South America). In
some parts of Canada the Precambrian rocks are found at the
surface; elsewhere, they are buried deep in the earth, and in North
America, for example, it is at the very bottom of the gigantic gash
of the Colorado canyon that they are to be found. In general, the
boundaries of these ancient shelves are clearly outlined on the map
by the existence of a chain of lakes situated one behind the other
and connected by water courses. In North America it is the almost
continuous chain of the Bear Lake, the Slave Lake, then the
frontier lakes of the United States (Superior, Michigan, Huron,
Erie and Ontario, the last two being separated by the Niagara
falls). In Northern Europe we have the Finnish lakes Ladoga and
Onega, then all the little lakes that roughly correspond to the
frontier between Norway and Sweden. It is to the north of them
that, in the oldest rocks in the world, the remains of a very varied
fauna are found, already very complex since, after a fashion and
despite the mutilation they have undergone, the existence of
molluscs, crustaceans and worms can be observed, that is to say
widely differentiated types of zoological organization.
LIFE, THE QUEEN OF THE SEAS 235
When we take a look at the surface of the earth several million
years later our observations are even more disappointing. In fact,
at the beginning of the Primary, a walk along the Cambrian and
Silurian shores would not disclose a strange world; not very much
could be learned about the evolution of life before the appearance
of the first vertebrates, that is to say the first fishes, the jaw-less
Ostracoderms of the end of the Silurian, about 350 million years
ago. But for 700 to 1,000 million years, very many invertebrates,
very varied in form, had already preceded them and, however far
one goes into the past, these already widely differentiated inverte-
brate types are familiar. Furthermore, despite a certain number of
invertebrates that are interesting in the strangeness of their forms
or in their abnormal size, all these types tell the palaeontologist
very little, for they scarcely differ from types existing to-day.
The sponges and jelly-fish and (very numerous in some
tropical seas) the coral-forming polyps, madrepores and coral-
loids, were already there. Then, fixed to the rocks or spread over
the shells or carapaces of other marine creatures, were colonies of
Bryozoa, some in the form of minute trees and others like
wrinkled and irregular plates ; these creatures, although generally
ignored because of their small size, are very abundant in most of
the seas to-day, just as they were in the Primary seas. These
colonies of Bryozoa are formed from very small sac-shaped
individuals, but more complicated than the hydras and polyps,
secreting a small protective shell made of lime or of that organic
matter called chitin, which forms the external covering of insects.
The tiny individuals join together into an encrusting or bush-like
colony.
The shellfish were there, too : all the molluscs - the gastro-
pods, with their houses on their backs, and the lamelli-branchs,
roughly reminiscent of our oysters, mussels and scallops,
although there were some giant forms with shells more than 3 feet
across and, above all, the cephalopods, though our octopuses
and cuttle-fishes can give no idea of the variety and palxonto-
logical importance of this group during the Primary and Secon-
dary eras. We have already spoken of the spiral creatures known
as ammonites, which literally filled the seas of the Secondary.
There were two strange types of crustaceans, the Trilobites and
the Gigantostraca (also known as Eurypterida), both covered, as
our crustaceans still are, by a carapace of chitin entirely or partly
236 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
divided into rings. The Trilobites owe their name to their external
appearance, which is divided into three main parts : a e head' more
or less flat and covered with a one-piece carapace; then an abdo-
men, broken up into rings of varying width and length according
to the species, comparable to what is almost the 'tail' of our
shrimps and crayfish; and finally a tail, called the telson, flat and
flanked with blades functioning simultaneously as fins and
elevators, but atrophied in almost all species. The majority of
Trilobites were of modest size, from an inch or so to the size of
the hand, but there were also giant forms, one of them attaining
a length of nearly 5 feet. These crustaceans, so typical of the
Primary seas, moved upon the bottom and occasionally buried
themselves in the mud, feeding on small animal prey and small
molluscs, and browsing on the algae.
The Gigantostraca, which easily reached to 6 feet long, had
heads protected by a flat carapace that extended into a long
'tail', segmented or not, and a pointed telson. They seem to have
been formidably carnivorous and to have competed in some
degree with the armoured fish in the seas of the late Primary.
Finally there were the marine worms, sea-urchins and starfish,
while the first insects, a kind of giant dragon-fly, began to fly
about the Carboniferous forests.
This is a very rapid panorama of marine life for more than 5 oo
million years. But there is no question here of a treatise on
palaeontology, and even less of making an exhaustive list of all the
invertebrate species that inhabited our planet in former ages. To
present the various forms of invertebrates, it would be necessary
to give a long description of each one of about ten main types,
and to provide a new vocabulary, with adequate definitions. This
is something that can safely be ignored as of use only to the expert,
but there is no question of passing over in silence the general
succession of living creatures that take us from microscopic forms
to man.
*
The simplest way to an understanding of the essential basis of
zoological classification still depends on embryological studies.
Whether in the animal or vegetable species, reproduction always
results (with few exceptions, which confirm the rule!) from the
union of a male element, called the sperm, and a female element,
called the ovum. The union of these two microscopic elements is
LIFE, THE QUEEN OF THE SEAS
called fertilization. The fertilized
ovum divides up rapidly to give
two daughter cells, and each of
these daughter-cells itself divides
and forms two daughters, and
so on, quickly developing into
a small sphere of some hundreds
of cells. Soon, following embryo-
logical processes which vary
with every species, the cells
draw apart to form a hollow
sphere called the blastula. At a
later stage it is found that the
cells of the blastula, all identical
until then, split up into two
different types: by the pheno-
menon of gastrulation, some of
the cells that form the wall of
the sphere penetrate to its in-
terior, so that a small cellular
canal now runs down to the bot-
tom of the sphere with a small
orifice at its surface. Gastrula-
tion thus ends in the separation
of the embryo into an external
cellular wall, called the ectoderm,
and a sort of glove-finger that
hangs into the interior of the
sphere, called the endoderm. In
other words, in its gastrula stage
the embryo has the appearance
of a double- walled sac.
There are some animals that
remain more or less at this stage
of embryological development:
sponges, medusas and polyps, or
to put it more scientifically, the
Spongise and the Coelenterata.
Some fairly large cells form the
external layer of the gastrula;
Tke egg , a, single cell
changes into
a hollow blastula,
then into a cjastrula
in wtiich ectoderm,
and endoderm are
indii/.i Alkali zed
and in which the
-mesoderm soon appears
FIG. 104.
238 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
they play a protective role and in the Coelenterata sometimes give
rise either to tentacles (certain medusas, sea anemones, freshwater
hydras, etc.) or to minute organs of defence that throw out a spike,
barbed with tiny spines, at its prey or enemy; these cells, that
secrete a venomous liquid that stings like the liquid elaborated by
the leaves of nettles (it is moreover a matter of common experi-
ence that medusas - or jellyfish - stranded on our beaches can
cause quite painful if not dangerous burns) are called nematocysts
and are characteristic of the Coelenterata. Then there are the small
cells that form the inner wall of the sac : they play an essential role
in the digestion of the prey captured by the tentacles or the
nematocysts. Thus, ignoring certain structural details of little
importance here, the medusas and sea anemones are the simplest
of all animals : they are double-walled sacs, the ectoderm playing
a protective role and the endoderm a digestive role. During their
embryological development the majority of invertebrates and all
the vertebrates pass through such a stage : at a certain moment in
their lives they are nothing more than two differential layers of
cells and are therefore diploblastic animals. However, it would be
a mistake to try and put the Coelenterata at the origin of the
animal branch, for certain peculiarities of their structure reveal
that they are already fairly specialised in certain directions, as
witnessed by the appearance of stinging cells and of cells
specialized in receiving messages from the external world, that is
to say cells that behave more on less like nervous cells.
But this first outline of zoological classification permits us to
make a clear contrast between the diploblastic animals (Spongiae
and Coelenterata) and all other animals, which continue their
embryological development by acquiring a third layer. In fact,
at the moment of gastrulation or soon after it is finished, certain
cells, some originating from the ectoderm, some from the endo-
derm, and some from these two simultaneously, come to form
small cellular masses which spread in the cavity between the glove-
finger and the outer wall. To this third cellular group the name
mesoderm has been given because of its intermediate position.
The embryo has thus become triploblastic; it will give rise to
triploblastic animals, that is to say all invertebrates and all
vertebrates with the exception, once again, of the Spongiae and the
Coelenterata.
The larva thus formed evolves progressively towards the adult
LIFE, THE QUEEN OF THE SEAS 239
type. The ectoderm differentiates so as to produce both the
external covering of the body and the nervous system; from the
endoderm originate all the organs of the digestive tract and, in the
vertebrates, the pulmonary apparatus too; finally, from the meso-
derm develop the organs of excretion, the muscles, the blood and
most of the skeleton, where there is one. The triploblastic animals
have pursued two parallel evolutionary lines, characterized by
a progressive complication of the anatomical organization and
physiological functioning. The zoologists and palaeontologists
easily distinguish between these two lines by studying the position
of the nervous system in relation to the digestive tract. In the
majority of the invertebrates the nervous system is always in a
ventral position below the digestive tract: this structure is
characteristic of the hyponeural line, in which are found the prin-
cipal types of invertebrate organization in the modern world, as
well as the marine and terrestrial worms (leeches, earthworms,
many marine worms like the lug-worm, etc.), the molluscs,
crustaceans, insects and arachnids. It is with the insects that the
hyponeural line seems to have reached its maximum evolutive
capacity,
On the other hand, the epineural line in which the nervous
system is in a dorsal position, stretching along the body above the
digestive tract, is more interesting to consider since it ends in man.
The first epineural creatures known to us were the graptolites, all
of them fossillized. They appear to have had a trunk bearing on
all sides small beads like hollow cells, inside each of which a small
polyp lived: these animals, dating from the beginning of the
Primary, are called graptolites because the whole creature
resembles somewhat the characters of cuneiform script. Failing
further information, we find in them the animal world's first
attempt in the vertebrate direction. The trunk that carried the cells
is called the virgula; this small chitinous axis was covered with
cells arranged in rows of one, two or four tiers, inside each of
which an individual lived. The virgula complete with cells there-
fore formed a stick bristling with geometrically arranged blisters :
it is called the rhabdosome. Furthermore, recent discoveries have
proved what was long surmised, that all the rhabdosomes were
attached to a sort of hollow sphere, surmounted by a float, and
that between the points of attachment of the rhabdosomes there
were small spheres that must be regarded as reproductive organs.
240 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
In other words, we have here a colonial animal; the colony
increased by the budding of additional cells from an original cell,
but all the individuals remained united by their dependence on the
large supporting sphere. An idea of what these graptolites must
have been like is to-day provided by certain colonial Coelenterata
called Siphonophora. But we no longer try, as we once did, to
relate these two types of invertebrates, for new zoological
relationships have recently been discovered.
Some graptolites were doubtless very similar to some aberrant
animals that have existed for 75 million years and, just like the
Coelacanth, have continued until to-day with scarcely any change
fLOAT
reproductive
FIG. 105. Very simpli-
fied sketch of a Grap-
tolite colony ; the
rhabdosomes are
shown pointing
downward and in
each of the cells is a
separate individual.
of shape. They constitute an order of the Pterobranchia, and are
two in number: Cephalodiscus and Rhabdopleura, which are
kinds of colonial marine worms housed in small chitinous cap-
sules and developing by budding. Now, a minute study of the
structure of the cells and the method of budding shows beyond
dispute that they are very similar to the graptolites. Further, it has
been possible to study the larval forms of the Pterobranchia and
to ascertain the outline (which, moreover, disappears in the adult)
of a small dorsal nerve cord reminiscent of our own vertebral
column, both by its position above the digestive tract and by its
head-to-tail extent.
The epineural line continued with the appearance of the
echinoderms at the very beginning of the Primary, some 550
million years ago; they probably derived from the graptolites.
LIFE, THE QUEEN OF THE SEAS 24!
The earliest types already closely resemble - at least in their
general structure - the types we know to-day, the most familiar
of which are the sea-urchins and starfish. They have a very com-
plex network of interconnected pockets and canals inside
which the sea-water circulates; the nervous system is very
clearly situated above the digestive tract and some outline of an
internal skeleton makes its appearance in the form of calcified
plate deriving from the mesoderm.
Still further invertebrates belong to the epineural line and are
definitely very like adult vertebrates, or at the very least very like
vertebrates in a larval stage. There is a long marine worm called
Balanoglossus with a small dorsal nervous axis and gill slits
through which water charged with dissolved oxygen penetrates
Notocord *.^^*^ Myotomes
FIG. 1 06. Jaymoyttusi an ancestor of the vertebrates.
to the interior of the pharyngeal cavity and makes respiration
possible.
Finally, 400 million years ago, the first undoubted vertebrate
appeared, Jaymoytius : it had the elements of a vertebral column in
the shape of a small supple trunk, called the notochord, formed of
large cells, a dorsal nervous system which, to judge by this
minute creature's large eyes, must have been already roughly
differentiated into two distinct parts which can be distinguished
for convenience as brains and marrow; further, it had a digestive
tract in a ventral position and the rudiments of fins. It was not a
vertebrate properly speaking, because it yet had no internal carti-
lagenous or bony skeleton, but it already had all the characteristic
elements of vertebrate structure, that is to say, a dorsal skeletal
axis corresponding to the vertebral column of more developed
vertebrates, a dorsal nervous system situated immediately below
this axis (but in the earliest vertebrates this is already enclosed in
the vertebral column), and finally a ventral digestive tract.
Ascending from diploblastic creatures to the graptolites, then
242 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
following the epineural line as far as Jaymoytius ; next passing to
the armoured fishes, the Crossopterigii, the first amphibia, the
Theromorpha, the mammals and the lemurians, man has acquired
a clear picture of the living creatures which preceded him upon
the earth during 1,500 million years. Man is an animal, but he has
the undoubted satisfaction of assuring himself that he is an animal
'unlike the others', for, says Father Teilhard de Chardin, 'the
animal knows, but man knows that he knows'. Yet he has still to
face the ultimate problem, that which is revealed as the starting
point and the conclusion of this history of life and is formulated
in the still unanswered question : where did life begin ?
CHAPTER X
Life, the Daughter of Light
IN order to fill the gap in our pateontological knowledge that
separates the appearance of life on the earth from the first already
very complex living forms - the algse, worms, sponges, echino-
derms, Coelenterata, etc., that peopled the Pre-Cambrian seas -
we shall have to indulge in hypotheses.
But is it permissible to set ourselves this problem of the origins
of life on the earth ? There are some who do not think so. But
whatever the philosophical conceptions each one of us may hold,
we have to admit that a vast gulf exists between the creatures that
form the animate world and the minerals that form the inanimate
world. This gulf was one day crossed and from inorganic matter
life emerged.
That is not the opinion of everyone. Eminent scientists in the
last century and a few contemporary philosophers have taken a
stand in favour of the eternity of life, from which perhaps even
matter itself may have derived. Such seems to have been almost
the opinion of Pasteur, at least at a certain moment in his scientific
career, when, following his memorable experiments, he found it
difficult to admit the ' possibility of spontaneous generation at a
given moment in the history of the earth. Actually, this view (of
the eternity of life) is to-day untenable. Life demands such
physical conditions on the earth's surface - especially conditions
of temperature and humidity - that its appearance must have come
after the earth itself came into existence. Our planet, whatever its
origin - which will not be discussed here - began its journey round
the sun some 2,000 million years ago. Its temperature was about
7,000 C. and it was therefore nothing but a shapeless mass of free
atoms revolving around one another without producing stable
chemical combinations, which were impossible in those condi-
tions. The existence of even very rudimentary living creatures is
unthinkable at that epoch in the earth's history. The pyrozoa,
243
244 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
living creatures resistant to fire with which one physicist has
sought to people the sun, and the earth before it cooled, are only
myths.
Revolving around the sun in 365 days each of 24 hours, our
earth, which was then only a vaguely shaped gaseous sphere,
progressively cooled, and it was only when, at the end of chemical
changes with which this book is not concerned, it reached a
temperature well below 300 G, that the first living forms could
survive. In our own day some bacteria, called thermophiles, live
in hot springs, but even the most hardy of them can scarcely bear
a temperature of 8 5 C.
There is therefore no option but to agree that matter preceded
life and that life could only have appeared on the planet at a
certain favourable moment in the chemical development of the
earth's surface. Accepting this, only two possible hypotheses
remain to explain the origin of life on the earth : either life came
from elsewhere, from some other planet in the Universe (this is the
theory of panspermy), or life was born on the earth itself by spon-
taneous generation as a result of certain complex chemical
reactions.
The theory of panspermy, although it was maintained by
eminent scientists of the last century (Arrhenius, Lord Kelvin and
others) is not very satisfying intellectually, for to say that life was
'sown' on the earth by means of seed reaching it from an unknown
planet is to evade the problem of the origin of life and not to solve
it. Further, for the seed to have crossed interstellar space and to
land on the earth such physical conditions would have been met
(intense cooling during the journey, then heating to several thou-
sand degrees on contact with the earth's atmosphere) that the
theory is scientifically unacceptable; no living matter could have
survived an interplanetary journey like that.
So it is on the earth itself, at a certain stage in its geochemical
history, that life was born in circumstances that must be made
explicit.
The physicist, the chemist and the biologist must explain the
transition from the inanimate to the animate. How was it possible
for life to be created from inorganic matter? This is a purely
scientific question requiring a scientific answer. Why was life
created from matter? In answer to this second question, of a
purely philosophical nature, each will explain as suits himself the
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 245
determinism of biogenesis, by reference either to transcendent or
chance action; the question is beyond the purpose of this book.
But in the wholly scientific field we are completely justified in
seeking to know how - whether by chance or under the influence
of some superior will - the creation of life took place, working on
the basis of our existing physico-chemical and biological
knowledge.
It was by 'spontaneous generation', as we say to-day, that life
rose out of matter. Spontaneous generation was formally con-
demned by Pasteur, following experiments too well known to be
described here in their entirety.
It is sufficient to note that the idea of spontaneous generation is
a matter of common observation to those who are content with
superficial appearances. If a piece of meat is thrown away in
summer, it is soon covered with maggots which may seem, if one
does not look closely, to have been engendered by the meat itself.
Up to the seventeenth century the idea of the spontaneous genera-
tion of mildew or small animal parasites was generally accepted in
scientific circles ; the literature of the period even went so far as to
give very precise recipes for the most effective way of producing
toads and mice cheaply and quickly. All this has now only a
documentary interest. But in the seventeenth century, Francesco
Redi (1626-1691), set out to demonstrate that such spontaneous
generation does not occur and that the maggots were only the
larvae of flies : if the meat was wrapped in paper or cloth or covered
with a bell jar, the maggots would not appear. Redi's conclusions
did not prove popular. It is interesting to observe that he had in
fact invented the meat-safe: indeed, every important discovery
made in respect of spontaneous generation (a problem that has
excited scientific thought for three centuries) has led to some
practical applications.
With the invention of the microscope at the end of the seven-
teenth century and all the new researches into microbes, the ques-
tion of spontaneous generation was pursued into the realm of the
invisible. The experiments went on, but people were hard to
convince. In the eighteenth century, the Abb6 Spallanzani, an
Italian celebrated for his researches into the mechanism of
generation and also for having carried out the first artificial
insemination, began a resounding controversy with the English
scientist Needham. During a series of experiments of rare scien-
246 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
tific precision, he demonstrated that microscopic animalcules
did not appear in culture media that were enclosed in sealed
bags and had been boiled for at least three-quarters of an
hour. But Spallanzani was accused of having doctored the
vegetable infusions which he used in demonstrating the non-
existence of spontaneous generation. Incidentally these experi-
ments established the principles of sterilization by heat - a pro-
cess which Appert, a Paris confectioner, brought into practice
in 1811.
Spallanzani's researches were continued on a bigger scale by
Louis Pasteur, who improved his techniques. Pasteur's experi-
ments forced him into a lively controversy with the Englishman
Bastian and with Pouchet the director of the Natural History
Museum at Rouen, but the old dogma of spontaneous generation
had received its death blow. From its death important practical
consequences arose, particularly sterilization by autoclave and
surgical asepsia.
Thus the famous adage Omne vivum ex vivo (everything that lives
is born of a living thing) pronounced by Harvey in the seventeenth
century was finally confirmed: spontaneous generation never
occurs in the world to-day. For about 75 years this truth was
officially accepted in scientific circles. But in 1935 the biologists
were stirred by incredible news : an American named Stanley had
just for the first time isolated a virus, and this virus . . . crystallized,
just like a mineral!
At that time the viruses had been known for half a century.
Pasteur had suspected their existence during his studies of rabies,
and in 1892 Iwanowsky had produced decisive proofs. He was
then studying a very contagious disease of the tobacco plant
which showed up in patches of fairly regular shape on the leaves ;
for this reason it was called tobacco mosaic. In the full flood of
Pasteurian discovery, he could not do other than search for the
microbe responsible for so contageous a disease. Using techniques
that are now classic, he nevertheless had to admit that he was
beaten. The most efiective dyes and the greatest microscopical
enlargements never succeeded in making the agent of the mosaic
visible; the 'juice' of the diseased parts of the leaves could pass
through the finest pores of the Chamberland filter, but ultra-
filtration stopped nothing and the c juice' remained contageous to
healthy plants. The agent of the mosaic was therefore an extremely
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 247
small body, smaller than the smallest bacteria known. This body
received the name Virus'.
Other virus diseases were soon identified: various plant
mosaics, poliomyelitis, eruptive fevers of infancy (measles,
scarlatina, etc.), foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, canine dis-
temper, cat typhus, rabbit myxomatosis, etc. But despite great
efforts, the viruses of these diseases always remained invisible to
the microscope and they always passed through the finest filters.
Further, when an attempt was made to cultivate them in natural
or synthetic media (beef, broth, egg yolk, etc.), as is done with
bacteria, the cultures proved impossible unless the medium con-
tained living cells, the normal hosts of the parasitical viruses.
Until then it was thought we were faced with very primitive
living creatures, ultramicroscopic kinds of bacteria which excited
the interest of researchers on the theoretical level by the exas-
perating impossibility of isolating them and seeing them, and on
the practical level by their formidable strength as disease pro-
ducers, which makes them terrible enemies of man indirect
enemies, too, by the economic havoc they cause.
But when, following long and patient research, Stanley suc-
ceeded in 1935 in isolating the virus of tobacco mosaic, the
problem at once took on a new aspect. Because a method had been
perfected for isolating one virus, it could be hoped to isolate
others and thus to study them better. This is what has happened
in the last 1 5 years. In this, the improvement of microchemical
techniques and the invention of the electron microscope have
been of great assistance.
Because, on the other hand, we were faced with a living body
that was able to crystallize like a mineral, a new landmark had
been set up that brought the animate world closer to the inani-
mate. This aspect of the virus problem interests anyone who seeks
the origin of life by spontaneous generation.
Now the viruses are very tiresome. For some years the question
whether they are living things or not has been seriously discussed.
If they are living, why do they crystallize and why do they not
contain those characteristic bodies, the carbohydrates (starches
and sugars) and the lipids (fat bodies) in their molecules. If they
are not living, why do they reproduce themselves, ceaselessly
infesting the healthy cells and making them sick ?
One is also tempted to see in the viruses the intermediate beings
248
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
which alone can explain perfectly the transition between the living
and the non-living. But there is one weak point in this proposi-
tion: the viruses, as we know them in the modern world, are
parasites that are unable to exist apart from living cells.
It is therefore necessary to study, from the viewpoint of nutri-
tion, the relationships between living beings and the environment
in which they develop. In fact there are living creatures which,
like the viruses, cannot develop unless they receive the complex
OXYGEN CYCLE
respiration
animals
02 from
organic compounds
FIG. 107.
nutriment provided by other living creatures. On the other hand,
other living creatures, the green plants, are capable of feeding
upon inorganic substances drawn from the earth or the air. If we
wish to understand the possible processes by which life made its
appearance on the earth, a fairly long explanation of various
nutritional methods is called for.
One can roughly say that the green parts of leaves absorb
carbon dioxide and combine it with water taken up by their roots
to make molecules of the simple sugar called glucose. In this
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 249
process oxygen is released and passes back into the atmosphere.
Part of the sugar the plants synthesize is later transformed into
more or less complex nitrogenous bodies by combination with
the nitrogenous mineral salts drawn from the soil through their
roots. To effect this synthesis energy is required: and this energy
is provided by sunlight. The plant absorbs this with the help of
its chlorophyll, the green pigment present in the leaves and in
some stems in the form of microscopic grains called chloro-
plasts. This special function of green plants has been called carbon
assimilation or photosynthesis.
By extreme simplification, one can say that the net result,
N1TR.O6EN CYCLE
* A/ in tke $oi I ^t
Plants putrefaction
Organic J\
compounds ^f I
^r
^
FIG. 1 08.
photosynthesis, is the opposite of respiration: during photo-
synthesis the green plant absorbs carbon dioxide and water
vapour and frees oxygen; in respiration, plants, like animals,
absorb oxygen and give out carbon dioxide and water vapour.
Meanwhile, it must not be forgotten that green plants respire
continually, while the chlorophyllian function takes place only in
the presence of sunlight, that is to say during the day; respiration
and photosynthesis take place simultaneously in daylight, but at
night only respiration continues.
This idea of photosynthesis is very important. Because it
permits the synthesis of organic compounds from mineral sub-
stances it assures the permanence of the living world. In fact, one
250 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
can very roughly say that living creatures have to satisfy two
essential needs. In order to live it is necessary to oxidize certain
aliments and so procure the necessary elements for the functioning
of the cells and therefore of the organs, that is to say, for instance,
for movement, for digestion (absorption and transformation of
CARBON CYCLE
(respiration)
tkesoifi
^
CarniVorci
FIG. 109.
nutriment, excretion of wastes) and so forth. The foodstuffs that
provide this energy are carbohydrates and fats. On the other hand,
to live is to maintain the integrity of the organism, to replace
worn-out cells ; to take a single example, in the depths of the skin
new cells have to be made continuously to replace the superficial
cells of the epidermis, which are dead cells and are sloughed off
(generally invisibly, though in certain pathological cases they do
so in a spectacular fashion). This replacement of dead cells by
young cells, the result of ceaseless cellular division, takes place in
all the organs of the animal body except the nervous system.
Certain organic compounds, including amino-acids, are necessary
to the construction of living matter.
Now, animals are incapable of making these organic com-
pounds themselves. They must find them in their foods and these
are, in the end, the plants which originate these foodstuffs,
directly in a herbivorous diet and indirectly in a carnivorous one.
Thus there are several cycles in the living world, the only ones of
particular interest being those involving nitrogen, carbon and
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT
251
oxygen. To describe these cycles in detail is not the business of
this book, and the accompanying simplified sketches will do the
job well enough.
The term symbiosis can therefore be applied to the association
on the surface of the globe of green vegetation and animals, and
their dependence on each other. By their function of photo-
synthesis the plants create organic substances necessary to the
building up of the animal organism and the oxygen necessary for
its respiration; the animals for their part give out the carbon
dioxide which is necessary to photosynthesis.
When one speaks of photosynthesis, it is necessary always to
make clear that only the "green plants' can carry out this process ;
FIG. no. The Interdependence of the Living World.
such plants are the only living things able to effect the synthesis
of organic substances by using the energy of sunlight. Some other,
non-green plants (certain orchids, for example) live simply as
parasites on other plants, or as saprophytes on decomposing
animal or plant debris (as do mushrooms). Meanwhile, it should
be noted that some bacteria, instead of practising photosynthesis,
practise a kind of chemico-synthesis in the soil or fresh water;
that is to say they effect the synthesis of organic compounds not
by using the energy derived from sunlight, but by using the
energy provided by special chemical reactions (for example, the
transformation of sulphuric acid into sulphur by certain sulphur
bacteria).
From what has just been said, two important definitions must
252 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
be given. First there are the autotrophs, living things able to main-
tain themselves in a purely mineral environment by means of
photosynthesis or chemicosynthesis : all green vegetation and
certain free bacteria (i.e. non-parasitic bacteria) are autotrophic.
Then there are the heterotrophs that would be doomed to early
extinction if the autotrophs should disappear : animals and mush-
rooms, for example, cannot manufacture some of the key organic
compounds that are needed for body-building or energy produc-
tion; they have to borrow these compounds, directly or indirectly,
from green vegetation.
How, then, does the problem of the origin of life stand in the
light of the two problems just discussed, of the viruses and of the
carbon and oxygen cycles ?
At some moment in the history of the earth these cycles had to
begin; that is to say, organic matter had to arise from the mineral
world during syntheses, of which the working must be made
clear. Further, this organic matter had to come alive, and we must
ask ourselves what is the significance of the viruses in the world
to-day, so that we may know whether, at a certain moment in the
history of life, they had been able to effect the bridge between the
inanimate and the animate.
The first question concerns what was the agent of the syntheses
which transformed mineral matter into organic matter. Of the
very many answers that have been given, the only one worth
discussing is the hypothesis formulated by Dauvillier and Desguin
in 1939, known as the photochemical theory of the origin of life.
The majority of biologists are now agreed that things must have
happened more or less as suggested by these authors, who claim
to explain not only the transition from inorganic to organic
chemistry, but also, in the field of cosmic physics, to set up a plan
of the evolution of the earth from its 'birth' to the formation of
widely differentiated living creatures.
After studying the successive chemical changes of the earth
from the moment it became separated from the sun (or from a
twin of the sun) Dauvillier and Desguin describe as follows the
surface of our planet at the moment when life was ready to make
its appearance.
Continents and oceans already existed, though it is impossible
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER, OF LIGHT 253
to delineate their contours. The relatively warm water of the
oceans contained great quantities of carbon dioxide and ammonia,
and appreciably less mineral salts than to-day. As to the primitive
atmosphere, it contained only very small quantities of nitrogen
and no oxygen at all; water vapour, carbon dioxide and ammonia
were its major constituents. The majority of experts are to-day
agreed about this lack of oxygen in the original atmosphere of the
earth.
Life now made its appearance. In the first stage, syntheses of
organic matter were effected from mineral elements. But these
syntheses required an external contribution of energy : they were
endothermic. What were the possible sources of energy at that
epoch? There were four: the heat given out by the earth as it
cooled, radiactivity, terrestrial electricity and sunlight. In choosing
between these four sources of energy, one essential characteristic
of living matter must be taken into consideration: the dissymetry
of the molecules.
This dissymetry is extremely important. In fact, the molecules
of organic compounds are not always quite alike. Though they all
have the same chemical composition they do not all have the same
physical structure; in any organic substance there may be two
sorts of molecules, the right-handed molecules and the left-handed
molecules, which resemble one another, yet are different in the
same kind of way as your right hand and left hand. In other words,
the molecules of organic compounds can exist in two forms,
whose molecular structure differs in that one is the mirror image
of the other. Physicists can distinguish between the right-handed
and left-handed molecules by their action on light. It is only
important for us to note this dissymetry of the molecules in the
respect that living creatures always produce right-handed mole-
cules or left-handed molecules - that is to say always one to the
exclusion of the other - while in the laboratory, when we synthe-
size organic compounds, we always make an equal number of
both, producing a racemic mixture, as it is called. Thus although
there are two kinds of glucose, living creatures always produce
left-handed glucose.
Furthermore, in the matter of food, living creatures always
show a very clear preference for one or the other molecular form.
Thus, for example, the mould Penicillium glaucum that covers cer-
tain spoiled foods with a greenish fur (a related species produces
254 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
penicillin) consumes only right tartaric acid, while another
mould, Aspergillus niger, prefers left tartaric acid.
Molecular dissymetry is thus one of the essential characteristics
of living organic matter. Mineral compounds have molecules that
are always all alike.
So, if we wish to explain the synthesis of organic compounds
from mineral elements, it will be necessary also to explain how the
synthesizing factor was able to create dissymetrical syntheses.
Now, of the four possible synthesizing agents, only light (and,
moreover, a certain kind of light) was able to produce dissymetry.
It must therefore be agreed that the first organic syntheses were
the work of light, were photosyntheses, just as in our day. But
chlorophyll did not then exist and it is quite impossible to imagine,
as some have tried to do, that it had appeared before life itself, for
it is an organic substance of very complex structure, always inti-
mately linked to living matter. But there is an important difference
between the sunlight that the earth received at that early epoch
and that which green vegetation uses to-day. In fact the astro-
nomers and the geophysicists are agreed that the primitive
atmosphere was devoid of oxygen and that its major constituents
were carbon dioxide, ammonia and water vapour; it therefore
permitted ultra-violet rays to pass through, though they are now
halted by a layer of ozone, situated about 1 2 miles up.
In the laboratory we have just succeeded in carrying out
organic syntheses by using ultra-violet rays of very short wave-
lengths. Dauvillier reminds us that C H. Slosse in 1898, at the
Solvay Institute in Brussels, achieved the synthesis of sugars by
submitting a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen to the
discharge of distant ultra-violet rays. D. Berthelot and H. Gaude-
chon in 1910 achieved the synthesis of ternary and quaternary
compounds by submitting a mixture of water vapour, carbon
dioxide and ammonia to the rays from a mercury arc lamp/
Syntheses of the same type are conceivable at the origin of life
on earth, and one would expect them to have occurred at the
surface of the oceans where there was a greater quantity of carbon
dioxide and ammonia. One further condition must have been
fulfilled: the organic molecules thus synthesized should be dis-
symetrical. Physicists, of whom Pierre Curie was the first, have
demonstrated that only one physical agent is able to effect such a
synthesis : circularly polarized solar light.
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 255
It is impossible to give a definition of this light in a few lines,
for reference would have to be made to ideas in physics that have
no place here. It is sufficient to say that light can exist in two
forms, natural or polarized. Further, light can be polarized either
in straight lines or circularly. When light falls on the surface of
the water, some of the rays (those which touch the water at an
incidence under 37 degrees) are plane polarized. If these rays
thereafter happen to pass through a doubly-refractive crystal
(quartz, for example) circularly polarized light is produced.
Can we conceive that sunlight was circularly polarized at a
certain moment in the history of the earth ? The answer is : yes.
It was simply necessary that this light should pass through a
quartz crystal. It may certainly be admitted - and this seems to me
to be the best hypothesis - that quite by chance the light that
achieved the first photosyntheses had been circularly polarized,
and we may see in this the fundamental cause of dissymetry in
living matter.
Others refuse to admit such a chance, and seek to attribute the
dissymetry to some cosmic phenomenon (such as the direction of
the earth's rotation, the direction of terrestrial magnetism, etc.).
This opinion has some value but no scientific fact has so far come
to its support.
THE DAUVILLIER AND DESGUIN THEORY
1. Synthesis of organic matter from carbon dioxide gas and
ammonia under the influence of circularly polarized sun-
light.
*
2. Appearance of reproduction centres (virus stage).
*
3. Appearance of membranes around centres of reproduction
(bacteria stage).
*
4. Appearance of pigment (cyanophycese stage).
*
5. Definitive differentiation of the nucleus and the cytoplasm
(protozoa stage).
256 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Thus, the light of the sun, rich in short-wave ultra-violet rays
that had not been halted by the primitive atmosphere (that was
devoid of oxygen and therefore of ozone) effected a photosyn-
thesis of carbon dioxide, ammonia and water- vapour, and caused
the appearance of vast layers of gelatinous organic matter which
may be compared, for convenience, to the white of egg. These
gelatinous masses were presumably denser than water, and when
they formed on the shores of the warm seas they must have
settled at the bottom of the briny lagoons. Moreover, it was on
the sea shores that solar light had the greatest chance of encoun-
tering the crystals which changed it into circularly polarized light.
This is perhaps the place to recount briefly the picturesque story
of HaeckePs monera, the subject of one of the most resounding
quarrels that have ever taken place regarding the origin of life.
Haeckel is not unknown to the reader, since it was because of
his ideas - partly mistaken, however - about the origin of man
that Dubois left for Java and there discovered his Pithecanthropus.
Fully and imaginatively exploiting evolutionary ideas, then much
in vogue, Haeckel conceived between 1870 and 1890 a vast
panoramic picture of the origin and development of life on the
earth. Haeckel wrote the first history of life, but because of the
considerable gaps in our pabeontological knowledge at that date,
his history was a little imaginative. Further, Haeckel did not
hesitate to invent the intermediate types necessary to complete his
general outline and thereby created the man-ape which was
actually discovered in due course. At the origin of life the German
naturalist placed the moneron, a sort of organic gelatinous
particle of completely rudimentary structure. In 1878 one of
Darwin's most ardent supporters, Thomas Huxley, discovered at
the bottom of the ocean, during deep oceanic dredges, a sort of
amorphous organic jelly corresponding in every way to HaeckePs
moneron. Huxley dedicated his discovery to the German scientist
by naming it Bathybius Haeckelii (Bathybius signifying 'a creature
living in the depths'). But a year later he had to retract hurriedly
and to confess ti&tBafhybius, of whom so much had been expected,
was only a gelatinous precipitate of calcium sulphate that had
absorbed some organic matter in its descent.
But to return to the organic matter that had settled in large
viscous sheets at the bottom of the lagoons that fringed the oceans
of the infant earth: a step forward was certainly made when
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 257
Dauvillier and Desguin succeeded in explaining the synthesis of
organic matter from mineral elements.
Meanwhile, this mass of organic matter has to be studied from
two viewpoints: the new physico-chemical conditions that its
creation had established on the earth's surface, and the fact that
living organisms had not yet made their appearance. The trans-
formation of this inert organic matter into living organic matter
has yet to be explained.
From the chemical point of view, organic matter tends to react
with the oxygen that its synthesis has freed. This reaction takes
place in our day through the phenomenon of respiration, the
oxidation of organic matter which regenerates carbon dioxide and
water vapour. Another transformation process occurs in the
modern world: during fermentations promoted by certain
bacteria, organic matter is progressively destroyed until carbon
dioxide and water vapour are liberated once again. Although
respiration and fermentation may be two very different pheno-
mena, they acliieve the same result and provide living creatures
with the energy necessary to the manifestations of life ; in other
words they animate the living world.
What then was to happen, since, in the absence of living crea-
tures, this organic matter was still in metastable equilibrium?
Dauvillier and Desguin's reply is that, since these organic com-
pounds were in existence and they had to be dissociated into
carbon dioxide and water vapour, not only was life on the point
of appearing (all the necessary physical and chemical conditions
being in conjunction) but the appearance of life was an absolute
necessity, for organic matter could not remain in this state of
metastable equilibrium. Thus, to follow Dauvillier and Desguin,
the organic syntheses effected by ultra-violet rays became the
cause of life, the appearance of which was inescapable from the
moment these syntheses began. This is certainly one of the most
interesting aspects of the photochemical theory of biogenesis.
We have still, however, to make the transition from inanimate
organic matter to living matter. In this connection we must recall
the studies carried out on viruses. In the end these viruses are only
specially complex molecules : each virus is a molecule. Although
it does not possess the power to breathe, that is to say to oxydize
organic matter into carbon dioxide and water vapour, the virus is
able to reproduce by repeated binary fission; one virus particle
258 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
divides into two particles, each of which proceeds to divide into
two, and so on. So, in order to explain the evolution of these
sheets of organic matter, Dauvillier and Desguin justifiably
suggest the formation in the midst of this matter of molecules of
great size, some of the largest of which at a certain moment
acquired the power to multiply by binary fission. Stanley, who
studied the tobacco mosaic virus, made several pertinent remarks
in this connection. By assimilating the usable foods in their
environment, the virus molecules reach such a size that rupture
into two daughter-molecules becomes inevitable; further, this
rupture is favoured by the fact that similar electrical charges
accumulate in the molecule and naturally repel one another, thus
leading to fission.
In this way Dauvillier and Desguin conceive the appearance in
the midst of this newly formed organic matter of 'centres of
chemical activity endowed with the ability to reproduce them-
selves, or at least with the capacity for binary fission.' These
centres therefore present one of the principal characteristics of
life : the ability to reproduce. These centres 'feed' themselves by
breaking down organic matter through fermentation.
The development of these centres of reproduction into more
complex living forms is relatively easy to explain. The surface
phenomenon associated with large molecules have been studied
by physicists and provide the basis of an explanation of how
membranes could appear in the midst of this organic matter,
partitioning it off without depriving it of its continuity, a process
comparable to what we can see happening in colonies of bacteria.
Respiration and fermentation, assuring the energy necessary to
the fulfilment of vital phenomena, brought about a continuously
increasing liberation of oxygen; in its turn, this oxygen was
partly transformed into ozone, a gas which soon formed a pro-
tective layer that prevented the ultra-violet rays of the sun from
destroying the first living creatures.
Finally, complex pigments like chlorophyll were able to make
their appearance and the first photosyntheses began. The essen-
tial cycles characteristic of life on the surface of our planet were
established. The Cyanophycese and the Protista were not long in
appearing.
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 259
To explain even in a hypothetical fashion life's first stages on
the surface of the earth is therefore, in the end, to reply to three
questions. Here are the questions and the replies that Dauviller
and Desguin give.
How were complex organic molecules able to develop from
relatively simple mineral substances? Dauvillier and Desguin
answer that the ultra-violet rays given out by the sun (rays of
short wave-length), passing through an atmosphere devoid of
oxygen, effected the combination of carbon dioxide and water
vapour to form formaldehyde, simultaneously liberating oxygen;
this formaldehyde afterwards polymerized into simple sugars.
The chemical reactions are formulated thus :
CO 2 + H 2 O->H - CHO + O 2
After the fashion of green vegetation to-day, combinations took
place between these sugars and certain nitrogen compounds,
effecting the synthesis of the proteids for which the formula is as
follows :
C 6 H 12 O 6 + NH 3 > amino acids.
How was the agent of this synthesis able to create dissymetrical
molecules ? Dauviller and Desguin's reply that short-wave ultra-
violet rays, passing accidentally through a doubly refracting
crystal, had alone been able to create dissymetrical molecules.
How was the power of reproduction acquired within this
organic matter? Dauvillier and Desguin say that the great size of
certain molecules bearing similar electrical charges and therefore
capable of repelling each other resulted in reproduction by binary
fission. Organic matter in a form resembling a modern virus was
evolving.
Finally, two particularly original points in Dauvillier and
Desguin' s theory should be emphasized; firstly, in the succession
of geochemical changes, the formation of the layers of organic
matter was inevitable at a certain moment in this evolution;
secondly, the formation of this organic matter was the cause of
life, the appearance of which was also inevitable at a certain
moment in the history of the earth.
A certain number of scientists have taken a stand in advance
against this photochemical theory of the genesis of life, by
260 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Insects
Arachnids
Cod
ustaceaxs
"Balcinoqlossi
' Annelids
Ptervbrnnchs
R&und
worms
Molluscs
Sponq
C5
PR.OTOZ.OA
TBACTE^IA
Genealogical Tree of the Living World.
LIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF LIGHT 261
declaring that it is impossible to put forward any reasonable
hypothesis whatever to explain the origin of life.
They assert that the theory of probability makes it necessary to
visualize a very long time for the creation of highly dissymetrical
molecules, like all the molecules of living matter ; they believe it
would require much longer than the 1,000 million years at our
disposal. Leconte du Noiiy declares that it is impossible to admit
the existence of life in the first ages of the earth; it is all the more
impossible to formulate an acceptable scientific hypothesis to
explain the genesis of life at any moment whatever of terrestrial
evolution, since this hypothesis will be in contradiction with the
probabilities of the appearance of dissymetrical molecules.
To these objections Pierre Auger has provided a pertinent reply
by remarking that in a molecule of great size certain atoms in
small number alone play a vital role. And the appearance of these
essential atomic combinations, by pure chance, is not very
improbable.
So the light of the sun has played and still plays a key role on
the surface of our planet. It has created life and, by means of
chlorophyll photosynthesis, plays its part in maintaining it.
EPILOGUE
S o the History of Life comes to an end.
And, as usual, a short conclusion is required. But writing a
conclusion should be something better for the author than carry-
ing out a traditional procedure, and something better for the
reader than passing a distracted eye over three or four pages so as
to be able to say with a clear conscience that he has got to the end
of the book. In a work of this kind at least, a real conclusion
should be, first, a clear and precise summary of the preceding
chapters, and next, an expression of the sentiments that have
moved the author in his task.
To summarize the history of life is a very simple thing. For
convenience, this book has been intentionally written in reverse,
because it seemed preferable to place a discovery in its historic
framework rather than to display the results drily, being in this
way more or less easily understandable. Was it not the case of
the Piltdown fraud, or the miraculous catch of the Coelacanth,
that in recent years has drawn the attention of men to the problem
of our biological origins ? Moreover since there was no question
here of presenting a treatise for experts, the diversification of the
ammonites into numerous genera and species, or the funda-
mentals of the classification of armoured fish at the beginning of
the Primary, would have been of small importance. Thus both
the shape and the numerous gaps in this book can be justified.
To summarize the book is first of all to present in their chrono-
logical sequence the various living forms which have followed
one another on the surface of our globe for at least 2,000 million
years. It is, in other words, to recapitulate the nine essential dates
in the history of life, and to express in the form of a genealogical
tree the lessons of this chronology. The tree is derived largely
from the works of two great contemporary French zoologists,
Lucien Cu6not and Albert Vandel, whose philosophical ideas I
shall shortly elucidate at greater length.
Here are the dates in approximate figures - approximate because
262
EPILOGUE 263
the present uncertainty of geological measurements scarcely
allows us to reckon them more exactly, and also because I have
deliberately rounded some of them off to make them clearer and
easier to remember.
From 3,000 to 2,000 million years ago the earth was detached
from the sun or from its twin.
1,500 million years ago life made its appearance on the earth
and successively passed through the Virus', 'bacteria', 'cyano-
phycese' and 'protozoa' stages.
1,000 million years ago the protozoa ruled over the seas and,
beside them and deriving from them, the simplest forms of organi-
zation in the invertebrate world.
500 million years ago the principal types of organization of the
animal kingdom were already fixed in their main lines, numbering
about 30. One of these types, the vertebrates, seemed privileged.
400 million years ago certain vertebrates began to adapt them-
selves to life in the air: hence the appearance of fish with lobed
fins and lungs.
350 million years ago life set out to the assault of the dry land
with the most primitive amphibians.
200 to 100 million years ago the reptiles achieved the first con-
quest of the continents; that is to say, life for the first time
definitely freed itself from its servitude to an aquatic habitat.
100 to i million years ago the mammals achieved the second
(and penultimate) conquest of the continents, which they carried
further than the reptiles. They possessed in fact a system of ther-
mal regulation, a method of reproduction and a nervous system
better adapted than those of the reptiles to the conditions imposed
by life in the air.
500,000 years ago man, in the form of pre-man, made his
appearance on the surface of the earth and distinguished himself
especially by thought and language.
This outline, expressing our essential knowledge of palaeonto-
logical matters, should lead first of all to this conclusion: evolu-
tion is an indisputable fact, and this fact is moreover now well
supported by a mass of proofs which, besides pathology, derive
from such varied branches of knowledge as anatomy, physiology,
embryology, geology and geography.
264 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Evolution, once again, demonstrates that on the surface of the
earth the simplest living forms were progressively transformed
into more complex forms ; these theories are to-day accepted by
all biologists and philosophers worthy of the name, despite some
attempts at refutation made with evident awkwardness by certain
persons who may be either mere publicity-seekers or ignorant
fanatics.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the anti-
transformists sometimes enjoyed themselves by bringing forward
proofs which more recent discoveries have broken down. Further,
the misinterpretation of the writings of transformists clashed
violently with some religious minds which often had no desire to
admit that man had descended from the ape - which Darwin
himself never said.
This long misunderstanding has now ended and there is no
case for dwelling long upon it here. What need is there to work
over the facts of current observation and experiment in order to
make them agree with religious convictions which do not require
it ? On the contrary, the Abb6 de Lapparent, one of the greatest
of contemporary geologists, said one day : c lf I had to summarize
in a few lines the main events in the history of the earth, I would
copy out again the first paragraphs of Genesis' ~ where in fact can
be seen the successive appearance of light, the continents, plants,
fish, terrestrial animals, and finally man.
The fact is that evolution is an incontestable fact and that we
must now try to elucidate its principal laws, workings and
philosophy.
Probably no one has been able to elucidate so precisely a
panoramic view of the world in evolution than has Father
Teilhard de Char din in a paper called 'JLtf vision du passf delivered
in 1949; for it is not only animal life on the earth's surface that
changes and during the ages presents an ever-renewed face, but,
indeed, the whole universe, the living and the non-living.
Assimilating the teachings of biology and the recent work of
geologists and astrophysicists, Father Teilhard shows that in the
last 10 years we have succeeded in perfecting a veritable 'means
of condensing time'. This machine, of a very special type since its
existence is purely intellectual, is the creation of very diverse
EPILOGUE 265
scientific techniques, the result of progress in mathematics,
physics, chemistry, biology and palaeontology, a progress which
goes from statistical methodology to palseontological micro-
examination, by way of optics, electronics, radioactivity, and so
on.
What does this e means of condensing time' teach us when we try
to co-ordinate its results into a coherent whole ? It teaches us that
despite the abrupt variations that have affected this or that part,
animate or inanimate, of the earth during some millions or
thousands of millions of years, the universe in evolution is the
centre of slow and continuous movements, one of the most
important of which is orthogenesis. By this word we mean that
systems in evolution, despite the failures they show, despite the
blind alleys in which they sometimes become involved, seem
always to direct themselves towards a well-defined end, which
is eventually reached despite all obstacles. And not the least of
these orthogeneses - probably the most important - is the one
revealed by the progressive complication of the nervous system.
From the simplest bacteria and protozoa to complex mammalian
forms, by way of Coelenterata, Echinoderms and lower verte-
brates, the living world in evolution reveals a progressive
tendency to the superior organization of the nervous system, with
perfect co-ordination of movements and rapid response to
external stimuli. It is in this sense that Father Teilhard can speak
of c the irreversible complexification and cephalization of the
nervous systems.'
Viewed in its details, there is something disconcerting about
the history of the universe, for it seems that one cannot deduce
any comprehensive law. If one seeks, for example, to draw up a
genealogical tree for the human species, one can do so only with
difficulty: from the pre-apes of the early Tertiary to Homo sapiens
of the Quaternary one can only trace a dotted line. If one tries to
set up a genealogical tree for any family in the animal or vegetable
kingdoms, the result is just as disappointing, even when there are
- as in the case of the horse - many intermediate forms and this
abundance of missing links seems to permit, at first sight, the
tracing of an uninterrupted line. Never, in practice, is it possible
to decide with certainty that one species directly derives from
some other.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that usually
266 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
various attempts have been made in the direction of any given
animal type, although all but one of these attempts were doomed
to failure. What can be called the rhinoceros type came into being
five or six times in the Tertiary without surviving, not to mention
identical forms produced by some reptiles of the Secondary.
Therefore there is, says Pierre Teilhard, a 'fan-like' evolution;
only one line in this fan-like process is able to rise above the others
and continue its evolutionary destiny.
Finally, if we take our attention away from the general aspect
of a line to its beginning, we discover that other law that Father
Teilhard calls 'the law of the concealment of origins', a fairly
characteristic example of which is given by the history of the
Coelacanth, or more exactly by that of its cousins, the Rhipidistia,
from which all the terrestrial vertebrates of aerial respiration have
derived : all the Rhipidistia have vanished long since and nothing
but a very few fossil specimens are known, and they certainly
seem to have lived only a few hundred thousand years. Similarly,
we do not know how, or by what intermediaries, the transition
was made between reptiles and mammals, between pre-apes and
men, and so on.
Father Teilhard asks: c How is it that, although everything is
born, in a Universe in genesis, we can find nothing of a real
beginning ?' The answer is that the forms which were at the origin
of a zoological group were necessarily not very numerous, were
very plastic and therefore very fragile. In conclusion the author
cites this example: c ln the case of undoubted beginnings, of which
we have direct evidence (automobiles, airplanes, etc.), is it not
certain that, if our engines were fossilized, future palaeontologists
would never (except by unearthing a museum) suspect or recover
the rudimentary types which preceded the most perfected, most
standardized and therefore most abundantly distributed machines.'
So, justifying the extrapolations to which the palaeontologist
who claims to trace a history of life on the earth must devote
himself, one can only conclude with Pierre Teilhard, 'that it is
therefore from the observation not of the past but of the present
that the study of the processes of origins emerges.'
Regarding the processes themselves, enough has been said in
the foregoing pages about the clash between neo-Darwinians and
neo-Lamarckians, but over and above these quarrels of the
biologists it is more interesting to conclude with an outline of the
EPILOGUE 267
main lines of a philosophy of evolution, first following Albert
Vandel and then, once more, Father Teilhard de Chardin.
For Vandel, a panoramic view of the history of life leads to the
conclusion that man seems to be not only the consummation of
evolution but, even more, that all evolution seems to have
developed in relation to man, that is to say that it has had as its
aim the appearance on the earth of an individual with a large brain,
with an intelligence much more developed than that of the most
intelligent of the animals. And this individual is man. Two typical
sentences from the work of Vandel summarize this point of view
well: c Man is the epitome of the world 5 and 'Man rests on the
immense edifice of the organic world which maintains and
explains him.' Thus the universe in evolution has at last become
aware of its evolution, an evolution that is itself an "emergence of
the consciousness beyond material and organic things.'
This leads us quite naturally to an outline of the principal
conclusions which Father Teilhard de Chardin has reached in an
essay - now already some years old - called Du prehumain a
Fultrahumain.
By analogy with the existence of the atmosphere and its exten-
sion, the stratosphere, the German geologist Suess at the end of
the last century named the terrestrial crust the lithosphere. Thus a
succession of superimposed beds takes shape and the whole
constitutes our planet, the Earth, Between the lithosphere and the
atmosphere is sandwiched the biosphere, that is to say the sphere
of living creatures, animals and plants which, by their very
presence, considerably modify the superficial aspect of the earth's
crust. Above this biosphere Father Teilhard suggests inserting a
new sphere, the 'noosphere' or the sphere of thought, having
been struck by the ceaselessly growing importance of the human
mind during the past few thousands of years.
Now this 'noosphere', he adds, stretches to-day over the whole
surface of the planet, which it envelopes completely. It is a recent
phenomenon.
At the beginning, 25,000 years ago for example, only a few
'centres of thought' existed, scattered about the globe where the
first Homo sapiens was to be found (Cro-Magnon, Chancelade,
Grimaldi), while the two Americas were yet unvisited by man.
2 68 MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS
Gradually, these scattered 'centres of thought' spread from their
points of greatest concentration, spread out and reassembled in
proportion as the human masses stretched into the area and
reassembled: 'On a thinly inhabited planet', Father Teilhard
writes, 'the various civilizations succeeded in growing and keeping
together without serious trouble'. But in less than a century, as a
result of industrial development, a compression of the human
masses has developed so that to-day they are not only in contact
but they interpenetrate both economically and intellectually.
The human substance has 'planetized' itself, says Teilhard, and
from this 'planetization' will come an ultrahuman phenomenon
that we can only foreshadow and which will have its centre in the
'noosphere'.
Probably some of us immediately think of the superman. It
must be said at once that the biologists, despite a certain mastery
of the mechanism of transmitting single hereditary characteristics,
are still very far from creating supermen; between producing giant
wheat on the one hand and superman on the other there is a wide
gap.
On the other hand, the extension of the 'noosphere' to the
entire planet and, whether we like it or not, the phenomena of
collectivisation (in the wider sense and not in the political sense)
which result from it, could well lead us towards a sort of psychical
superman without visible anatomical modifications.
This is certainly a debatable idea, but we cannot remain
unaffected by it. We are here on shifting ground where I would
not want to lead the reader except to show to what ideas biology
and palaeontology are leading us to-day.
The story of palaeontology ends neither well nor badly. Because
each of us writes a few words or a few lines of it each day, the
greater part of the time without knowing it, it is a story without
end.
INDEX
Abbeville, n ff., 33-6
Abbevillian implements, 12 ff., 86
Acheulean implements, 19, 87
Acromegaly, 172
Africantbropus , 114
ALBERT OF BOLLSTADT, 217-9
ALBERT I OF MONACO, 59, 65
ALDROVANDI, 219
Allosaurus, 152-3, 166
Altamira (cave), 61-2, 64, 65, 70
Alticamelus ', 207
Amblystoma^ 124-5
AMEGHINO, 132
America, human origins in, 132
AMI BOUE, 20
Ammonites, 180-1
Amphibians, 146, 149-51, 159-60,
224-5
ANDERSSON, DR., 48-9
Ankylosaurus, 156-7, 169, 170-1, 172
ANNING, MARY, 158
Anoplotherium , 187-91, 208
Anthropoids, characteristics of, 104-8,
109
Anura, 150
ARAMBOURG, C., 121
Archceopteryx, 176-8
ARISTOTLE, 13, 218, 219
Armoured fish, 144-5
ARRHENIUS, 244
Art, Prehistoric, 61 ff.
Arthritis, 96-7
AtlantosauruSy 154
AUGER, PIERRE, 261
Aurignac, 25
Aurignacian cave-paintings, 67-71
Aurignacian implements, 88
Australian aboriginal cat, 72
Australopithecus, 53-8, no-i, 118-23,
126, 193
Autotrophs, 252
Axolotl, 124-5
Bai'ssoum, 80
Balanoglossus y 241
BALZAC, HONORE DE, 16
BARDON, Louis, 45
BARLOW, 55-6
BARNES, 84
BASTIAN, 246
Bathybius, 256
Batons de Commandement, 72, 73
BEAUMONT, ELIE DE, 18, 19, 21, 22
BERGOUGNIOUX, P., 116
BERTHELOT, D., 254
BERTHOUMEYROU, G., 62
Birds, 175-8
Bise (cave), 21
BLACK, D., 48, 49-5 1
BOLK, 123
BORDES, F., 84
BOUCHER DE CREVECOEUR, 12, 14-16
BOUCHER DE PERTHES, JACQUES, 12, 14-
32, 33-36, 37, 40, 85, 89, 227
BOULE, M., 13, 24, 27, 28, 40, 45-7, 65,
86
BOURGEOIS, ABBE, 85
BOUYSSONIE, THE ABBES, 45
Bovidae, 203
Brachiosaurus ', 154, 167
BREUIL, ABB H., 24, 63, 64, 65, 68, 70,
72, 76, 86
British Museum, 39
BROCA, P., 58
BRONGNIART, A., 18, 182
Br on tops, 206
Brontosaurus, 152-3, 156, 161, 167
Bronze Age, 26
BROOM, DR. R., 52-3, 55-8
Bryozoa, 235
BUCKLAND, 58
BUFFON, GEORGES DE, 17, 214 ff.
Bushman, South African, 57, 59
CamarasauruSy 154, 167
Cambrian period, 235
Camelida!:, 203
Canary Is., 128
Cantabrian art, 61-2, 65, 66, 68, 70, 78
Cap Blanc, 76
CAPITAN, L., 24, 63, 64, 80
Carboniferous period, 149, 236
CARTAILHAC, EMILE, 64-5
Castillo cave, 117
Cephalic index, 105
CephalodiscuS) 240
Cephalopods, 235
Ceratodus, 146
Ceratopsia, 171
Ceratosaurus, 156, 166
Ceraunites, 12-14
Ceryidse, 203
Cetiosaurus, 154, 167
2 7
INDEX
Chancelade man, 59, 64, 127, 267
Chellean implements, 86-7
Chcvrotains, 203
Qiina, Prehistoric man in (see Sinan-
tbropus),
Chlorophyll, 249-52, 261
Choanichthyes, 149
Chou Kou Tien, 48-51, 113, 117
CHRISTY, H., 25, 58, 63
Chronology of Prehistoric Time, 26-32
Clactonian implements, 87
CLARK, W. LE GROS, i, 2
Coelacanth, 137 ff., 262
Ccelenterata, 237-40
Collias (cave), 117
Comoro Is., 138 F.
CONYERS, 20
COPE, E,, 192
Coproliths, 116
Coralloids, 235
Corythosaurus, 167-8
Cotylosauria, 161-2, 163
COUTIER, L., 84
Cranial capacity, 4-5, 46, 54, 104-6
Cretaceous period, 155-7, 160, 161,
171-2, 175-6
Cro-Magnon man, 58-9, 64, 127-8, 267
Crocodiles, 157, 178
Crossopterygii, 137-44, M7-9
Crustaceans, 235-6
CUENOT, LUCIEN, 262
CURIE, PIERRE, 254
CUVIER, GEORGES, 20, 21-3, 24, 174, ff.
214, 215, 226-9
Cynognathus, 197
Cynophyceae, 258
DALEAU, F., 63
DART, PROF. R., 54-5, uo-i
DARWIN, CHARLES, 37, 38, 39, 40-1, 60,
192, 228-32, 264
DAUVILLIER and DESGUIN, 252 rT.
DAWSON, CHARLES, 3-5.
Defence, organs of, 104
Devonian period, 144-7, 149
Diatryma, 177-8
Dicynodon, 194-5
Dinosaurs, 156, 164-73
Dimetrodon, 195-6
Dinoceras t 206
DIOGENES, 102-3
Diploblastic animals, 238
Diplodocus, 96, 141, 154, 156, 161, 167
Dipnoi, 143-50
Dissymetry, molecular, 253-4
Dryopitbectts, 25, 101, in
DUBOIS, E., 6, 40-5, 256
DUMERIL, A., 23, 124-5
Echidna, 200
Echinoderms, 240-1
Edaphosaurus, 196
Edentates, 209
Egg, reproduction by shell, 157, 159-
161
Egyptians, ancient, 13, 98, 131-2
Eohippus, 202, 204
Eoliths, 85-6
Epineurians, 23941
Ericiolacerta, 197
Eryops, 150
Eskimos, 127
Eunotosaurus> 179
Euripterida t 144, 235
EVANS, J., 19, 35-6
Evolution, theory of, 223-32
Eyzies, les, 25, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65
FALCONER, 19, 34
Fayoum, 98-9, 101, 108
Felis, 204-5
Fermentation, 257
Fertility cults, 74-5
FiTZ-Roy, CAPT., 228
Flint implements, 12-14, 18-21, 23-4,
26-30, 33-6, 58, 63, 64, 66, 83-9, 90
Flood, the, 17, 220
Flora of Reindeer age, 90-1
FLOWER, 19
Font-de-Gaume (cave), 64-5, 66, 70, 75,
76
Font^chevade man, 118, 120-3
Foramen magnum, 107
Frauds in Prehistoric Archaeology, 1-8,
33-4, 36-7
FRERE, J., 20
FUHLROTT, DR., 37
Funerary cults, prehistoric, 79-82
Galapagos Is., 229
Gastropods, 235
Gastrulation, 237
GAUDECHON, H., 254
GAUDRY, A., 21, 100, 192
Generation, spontaneous, 245-6
GEOFFREY-SAINT-HILAIRE (see St.
Hilaire)
Geosaurus, 155, 180
GIBB, 37
Gigantism, 52-3, 172
Gigantopithecus, 52-3
Gigantostraca, 235-6
Giraffidae, 203
GLORY, ABBE, 68
Glyptodon, zo8~g
Gorgosaurus, 156, 166
INDEX
271
GOSSE, 21
Graptolites, 239-40
Grimaldi caves, 58-9, 65
Grimaldi negroids, 58-9, 81, 127, 267
Guanches, 128
HABERER, DR. K. A., 48
HAECKEL, E., 40-1, 256
HAMY, DR., 24, 58
HARVEY, 246
HENSLOW, PROF., 232
H.esperornis 9 178
Heterotrophs, 252
HlCKMANN, 214, 215
Hissar mountains, 80
HOFMANN, DR., 157
HORACE, 13
Horse, ancestry of, 202-4
Hottentots, 59
Hoxne, 22
HRDLICKA, PROF. A., 119
HUXLEY, THOS., 38, 60
Hyponeurians, 239
Ice Ages, 28-30, 115-6, 126
Ichthyosaurus,, 155, 158, 162, 163
Ichthyostega, 146-7
Iguanodon and Iguanodonts, 141, 156,
1589, 161, 167, 172
Inostran^evia, 197
Insects, 145, 236
Institut de France, 16, 18, 19
Invertebrates, 213-4, 233-4, 243
Iron Age, 26
Iwanowsky, 246
Java man, 6, 37, 40-5, 51-3, 117
Jaymoytius, 241
Jelly-fish, 235
JOANNY-DURAND, 47
JOUANNET, 20
Jurassic period, 152-5, 164-70, 175-6,
178, 197
JUSSIEU, B. DE, 222
Kalahari Desert, no
Karoomys, 197, 201
Karoum, Lake, 98
KEEPING, 35-6
KELVIN, LORD, 244
Kent's Hole, 20
Kenya, fossil primates of, 100-1, 109
KING, DR., 38
KINGSTON, LORD, 214
KOEHLER, 79, 101
KOENIGSWALD, G. H. R. VON, 37, 52
Krapina (cave), 117
KREUGER, IVAR, 49
Kritosaurus, 167-8
La Baume de Latrone (cave), 67, 70
Labyrinthodonts, 149-50
La Chapelle aux Saints man, 45-7, 80
La Colombiere cave, 30
La Ferrassie, 80
LALANNE, G., 71
La Madeleine, 25, 26, 68, 69, 73, 81
LAMARCK, JEAN-BAPTISTE, 191, 215, 221
ff.
Lambeosaurus, 167-8
Lamellibranchs, 235
LAMOTTE-PICQUET, 21
La Mouthe (cave), 62-3, 64, 65, 72, 75
LAPEYRE, 62
La Pilcta (cave), 70
LAPPARENT, ABB DE, 264
La Roche (cave), 79
LARTET, EDOUARD, 21, 24-26, 41, 58, 62,
72, 88, 99, 100
LARTET, Louis, 58, 63
Lascaux (cave), 66, 70, 72
LATIMER, Miss, 137-8
ILatimeria chalumna, 137-8
Laugerie-Basse (cave), 62, 69, 80
Laugerie-Basse skeleton, 64
LAUSSEL, 71
LEAKY, J. B. S., 100-1
LECONTE DU NOIRY, 261
Lemur and lemurians, 99, 103
LEONARDO DA VINCI, 219
ILepidosiren, 144
Les Combarelles (cave), 64, 65, 75, 77
Levalloisian implements, 87, 88
Liege, caves near, 20
Life, origins of, 243-61
'Limnopithecus ', 101, no
Living world, genealogical tree, of 260
LUCRETIUS, 13
Lung-fish, 143-4
LYELL, CHARLES, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 192,
227
Macaronis, 68-70, 73
Machiarodus, 205
Madagascar, 99, 103, 138-140, 224-5
Madrepores, 235
Magdalenian ca^e art, 70, 71-2
Magdalenian implements, 88, 90
Magdalenian life, conditions of, 90-4
Magic, ritual, 74-9
MALAN, DR., 139
Malania anjownis, 138-9
272
INDEX
Mammals, emergence of, 193-209
Marsoulas (cave), 65, 80
Marsupials, 199-202, 206
Mas d'Azil (cave), 129
Mauer man, 115, 119, 123
MAYER, 38
McENNERY, 2O
Mediterranean race, 128
Megacamelus, 207
Megaliths, 132
MegalosauruSy 154
Meganthropus, 52-3
Megatherium, 209
Menton man, 5 8-9
MERC ATI, MICHEL, 12-13, 2I 9
Mesohippus, 203, 204
Mesolithic, 27-32, 128-30
Mesoscwrus, 155
Metamorphic rocks, 233-4
MetriorhyncuSy 155
MILLOT, DR. J., 139-40
MILNE-EDWARDS, 35
Miocene, 109
Molecular dissymetry, 254
Molluscs, 235
Monera, HaeckeFs, 41, 256
Monotremes, 200
Montmartre gypsum, fauna of, 187-91
Moraines, 28-30
MORGAN, J. DE, 28
MORTILLET, A. and G. DE, 24, 27
MososauruSy 157-8, 180
Mos chops, 196, 197
Moulin-Quignon jaw, 23, 33-6
Mousterian implements, 39, 87-8
Multituberculata, 201, 206
Musical instruments, prehistoric, 79
Natchez man, 133
Natural History Museum (London), i,
194
Neanderthal man, 6, 7, 37-47, 57, 80, 81,
83, 114-5, H7- 2 3
NEEDHAM, PROF., 245
NeoceratoduSy 144, 146
Neolithic age, 27-32, 130
Neotony, 123-6
Niaux cave, 3 1, 77
Nimravus, 205
OAKLEY, K. P., 2
OBERMAIER, H., 72
Old Red Sandstone, continent of, 144,
146
Oligocene period, 108
OPPENHEIMER, PROF., 3
Qreodonta, 208
Ornithischia, 164-9
Qrnitholestes, 154, 166
Ornithorhyncus, 194, 199-200
OSBORN, H. F., 192
OsteolepiSy 146
Ostrachoderms, 144, 145, 235
OWEN, RICHARD, 193-5
PAALES, DR., 94
PachycephalosauruSy 169
Pachyderms, 203
Pair-non-Pair (cave), 63, 64
Paleolithic, 27-32, 126-8
PaleomastodoHy 207
Paleopathology, 94-7
Paleotheriumy 187-91, 208
PALISSY, BERNARD, 216-7, 2I 9
Panspermy, 244
Papio antiquuSy 54
ParanthropuSy 57
ParapithecuSy 98-9, 101, 108-9, 119, 120
ParasaurolophuSy 1 6 8-9
PASTEUR, Louis, 245, 246
Paviland, Red Lady of, 58, 8 1
Pebbles, coloured, 128-9
PEI, W. C, 50
Pekin man (see Sinanthropus).
Pelycosauria, 195-6
Permian period, 149, 196, 225
PEYRONY, D., 24, 63, 64, 72, 80
PhenacoduSy 202, 203-4, 206
PhobosuchuSy 157, 178
Photosynthesis, 248-52
PICARD, CASIMIR, n ff.
PIETTE, E., 24, 62
Pigments, prehistoric, 71-2
Piltdown man, i rl., 36, 49, 262
Pithecanthropus, 41-5, 50, 51-3, 114, 115
120, 256
PITTARD, PROF., 95
PIVETEAU, PROF., 224
Placoderms, 144
Plateosaurus, 167
PLATO, 13
Platypus, 194, 199-200
PlesianthropuSy 56
Plesiosaurus, 155, 158, 162, 163, 179
Pliocene period, no
PliopithecuSy 24, 25, 100, 101, 109
Polarized light, 254-5
Polyps, 235
POMAREL, 64
POUCHET, 246
Pre-cambrian period, 233-4, 243
PRESTWICH, 19, 35
Primates, definition of, 101-8
Proconsul, 101, 109, in
Propliopithecus, 99, 100, 101, 109, 119
INDEX
273
Protista, 258
Protoceratops, 171-2
Protopterus, 143-4
Protosuchus, 178
PRUNER-BEY, 38, 58
Psittacosaurus, 171
Pteranodons, 157, 175
Pterobrancbia, 240
Pterodactyl, 141, 161, 175
Pterosauria, 175-8
PUYDTS (DE) and LOHEST, 39
QUATREFAGES, DE, 24, 58
REDI, FRANCESCO, 245
REINACH, SALOMON, 65
Reindeer age, 27, 58-9, 61-97, 126-32
Religious manifestations, prebistoric,
79-83
Reptile jaw, articulation of, 199
Reptiles, 152-83
Reptiles, flying, 173-8
Respiration, 257
Rhabdopleura, 240
"Rbamphorhyncus, 154, 175-6
Rhipidistia, 146, 147-8
Rhodesian man, 117
RIGOLLOT, DR. A., 19, 23
River terraces, 29-30
RIVIERE, E., 59, 63, 65, 72
Rockefeller Foundation, 50
ROUSSEAU, J.-J., 222
Saint Acbeul, 19, 21, 87
SAINT-HILAIRE, ETIENNE, 186, 227-8
SAINT-SEINE, P. DE, 225
Salamander, 22, 124-5
SALMONS, JOSEPHINE, 54
Sansan, 24, 25, 99
SANTUOLA, DON MARCELINO DE, 61, 63
Saprophytes, 251
Saurischia, 165-7
Sauropods, 166-7
SA'VE-SODERBERGH, PROF., 146
SCHAAFFHAUSEN (palaeontologist), 37
SCHLOSSER, MAX, 48, 98-9
SCHMERLING, DR. P. C, 2O
SCHOETENSACK, O., 115
SESOSTRIS II, 98
Seymouria, 161
Shedet, 98
Shields, continental, 234
Shrew-mice, 206
Silurian period, 235
SIMPSON, G. G., 230-2
SinanthropuS) 48-5 3,11 2-4, 115, 1 20
Siwalik mountains, 111-2, 126
SLOSSE, H., 254
Smilodon, 205
SMITH, PROF. J. L. B., 137-9
SMITH-WOODWARD, SIR A., 4-5
Snowman, the abominable, 149
Solutre, 8 1
Solutrean implements, 88-9
South Africa, prehistoric man in, 5 3-8,
110-12, 114, 118
SPALLANZANI, ABB], 245-6
Spanish Levant art, 70, 78
Spongia, 235, 237-8
Spy, caves at, 39
STANLEY, 246
Stegosaurus, 154, 156-7, 167, 169, 170,
172, 173
STENSIO, E., 145
Sterkfontein, 55-6
Stone Age, 26-32, 83-9, 126-32
StruthiomimuSy 166
Sunda Is., 99, 100, 114
Swanscombe man, 118, 120-3
Symbiosis, 248-52
Syphilis, 95-6
Syphonophora, 240
Tarsiers, 99, 102
Tayacian implements, 87
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, PIERRE, 50, 51,
117, 242, 264, 266-7
TERBLANCHE, G., 56-7
Terraces, river, 29-30
TESSIER, ABBE, 186
Thecodonts, 162-3
Theriodonts, 162-4, 197
Theropods, 166
Thunderstones, 12-14
Titanotheres, 207
Tools, prehistoric, 83-9
Tortoises and turtles, 178-9
Tournal, 21
Trachodonts, 167-8
Trepanning, 94-6
Triassic period, 150, 160, 161, 179, 197,
225
Triassochelys, 179
Triceratops^ 157, 172
Trilobites, 235-6
Trinil, 42
Triploblastic animals, 239
Tritylodon, 201
Trois-Freres (cave), 31, 72, 74, 75
Trou-Violet (cave), 81
Tuc d'Audoubert bas-relief, 72
Tylosaurus, 157, 180
Tyrannosaurus, 156, 166, 172
274
INDEX
Urodeles, 150
USSHER, ARCHBISHOP, 17
VALLOIS, H. V., 127-8
VANDEL, ALBERT, 262, 267-8
VAYSOK DE PRADENNE, 36
VELLARD, 83
VIALLETON, 226
Victoria, Lake, 100
VILANOVA, J., 6 1
VIRCHOW, 37
Viruses, 246-8, 257-8
Wadjak skull, 42
Weapons, prehistoric, 8389
WEIDENREICH, F., 51, 52
WEINER, DR., 2
WESTOLL, T. S., 146
WlLBERFORCE, JBlSHOP, 38
Wyoming fauna, 1 5 2-4
YOUNG, C. C., 50
ZAMBOTTI, PIA, 130-1
ZDANSKY, I., 49
ZUCKERMANN, PROF. S., 79
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