4-fOCICEO I ANlHKUfOLOGY LIBRARY UC-NRLF B 3 15fl 722 \ V THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID Til E PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF Western Europe. In 1829, an excavation made in the shore of the Lake of Zurich, near Meilen, brought Up fragments of wooden piles and other remains, which attracted no at- tention at the time, and were thrown, with the mud in which they were imbedded, into the deep part of the lake. In the winter of 1853-4, the water in the Swiss lakes fell one foot lower than the mark of 1674, which had been considered the lowest known in history. Several gentlemen of Meilen took advantage of this low water to extend their land into the lake, inclosing por- tions laid bare, and filling up the inclosed spaces with neighboring mud. ■ The workmen, as soon as they began to excavate, found the mud, forming the bottom of this portion of the lake, filled with wooden piles, horns and bones of animals, implements of stone, and fragments of pottery. The interest of antiquarians was at once excited. Investigations were set on foot. It was soon found that the shores of the Swiss lakes were The Primitive Inhabitants dotted with abounding remains of an ancient people, whose habitations were built in the water, and who passed away without leaving a tradition. Further research found similar remains in Germany and the lakes of Northern Italy. The traces of one such set- tlement were found adjoining Pliny's villa. Yet Pliny seems to have had no suspicion of their existence — to have heard no tradition of its builders. The few years that have passed since the dis- covery of the winter of 1853-4, have been so busily used in the study of these remains, that a new chapter of history has been sketched, the lake dwellers have be- come a familiar name, and their epoch has become an established starting point for reaching still further back into the past. Their villages were built in shoal water, in a few cases within twenty feet — sometimes several hundred yards — from the shore. Piles, sometimes whole trunks, sometimes split, were driven within a few feet of each other, and cut off at top so as to make a level surface. In many cases they were filled in between, with stones, for firmness. A boat has been found lying on the bot- tom, still holding its load of stones, just where it cap- sized some thousands of years ago. In other cases, the piles were strengthened with cross-pieces. On the outer edge, toward the lake, a wattling of wicker-work pre- vented waves from washing in. Over the surface was laid a floor of cross-timbers and saplings; and this being covered with clay and pebbles, made the groundwork of the settlement. Huts were built in rows. All the huts appear to have been square, and their main timbers to be long piles projecting above Of Western Europe. the general surface. A weather-boarding of a single O CD D plank surrounded each hut at the bottom, keeping out wet. So far no indications have been found of more than a single row of boards being so used. Apparently, each hut contained but one room ; each contained one fire-place of stone slabs. Some had trunks of trees with branches lopped short, as if used for hanging up articles to keep them from the floor. Nearly all had clay weights used in weaving. The sides of the huts were made by weaving small wythes among the upright supports and covering the walls so made with a thick coating of clay. Where the villages were burnt, large fragments are found of the clay with the impression of the burnt wicker-work on the inner side. The inhabitants kept their domestic animals out in these villages. The researches have already brought up whole museums full of implements of stone, bone, bronze, and iron ; arrow-heads, lance-heads, swords, hatchets, hammers, chisels, knives, needles, pins, hair- pins, brooches, necklaces, and other ornaments ; pottery, linen stuffs, and wearing apparel, and even charred frag- ments of bread, and seeds of berries and fruits. We do not yet know certainly the race, language, gov- ernment, or religion of these people. The pile villages only indicate a certain stage — an early one — of develop- ment. Hippocrates mentions villages of this sort in the river Phasis, in Colchis. Herodotus relates that the inhabitants of a similar village in Lake Prasias, in Thrace, escaped unharmed during the invasion of Xerxes. Abulfeda described one such in the Apa- mean lake, in Syria, in the thirteenth century. The crannogs of Ireland — analogous structures, though used The Primitive Inhabitants only as strongholds to withdraw to in times of danger — continued in use to a later day. A village precisely similar, inhabited by the Indians on the northern coast of South America, was discovered by Ojeda, before 1500, and named by him Venezuela. It is mentioned in Navarrete's account of the voyage, and described more fully in the letters ascribed to Vespucius. The natives of New Guinea, when discovered, dwelt in vil- lages precisely like those of the Swiss lakes. These habitations, therefore, have no ethnological value, but are resorted to by nations in early and rude states, in lake countries, just as steep hills and battlemented castles are resorted to in other ages and situations. But these people, though rude, were not entirely bar- barous. If they navigated the lakes in canoes, each scooped from a single trunk, they fished with hooks that might be used now, and with nets. Their atten- tion to agriculture is indicated by the manure which seemed to have been heaped up and saved, and by their sickles. Though they depended, particularly in the most ancient settlements, largely upon hunting as well as fishing, yet they kept domestic animals — cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. Their mechanical skill ranged from rudely chipping stone implements to casting and working bronze and iron with some skill. Their pot- tery, though made by the hand, not with the lathe, and baked in open fires, was sometimes wrought in shapes not without elegance, and ornamented with taste. Frag- ments of linen cloth have been found, some of which must have been made upon a simple species of loom, and one, embroidered with regular designs in needle-work. Of Western Europe. They had some communication with other nations. They had quartz from Gaul ; some bits of amber, which must have come from the Baltic; and nephrite, from Asia. A small bar of pure tin has been found, and some vases have thin strips of tin pressed into the sur- face for ornament. This, with the glass beads found at some of the older settlements, must have been brought to their maritime neighbors by the Phoenicians. It was taken for granted, at first, that their bronze came from the same source; but crucibles have been found with dross yet adhering to the edge, and a well-constructed bronze mold has been discovered. Besides, it has been noticed that the bronze implements which appear most ancient, are modeled after the stone implements that were in use before the introduction of metal ; while those made when metal became more common, appear to have been gradually fashioned in shapes better suited to metal. Finally, chemical analysis, by Professor Von Fellenberg, of Berne, has shown that much of the bronze used contains nickel, which is not the case with bronze found elsewhere. Now, in Switzerland, in the vale of Anniviers, mines of copper and nickel are found close together. Hence these early people seem to have been, to some extent, miners. The remains of food indicate that the villages were inhabited throughout the year. Seeds of fruits and berries mark all the months of summer; beech-nuts and hazel-nuts point to autumn ; and the bones of the swan, which visits the Swiss lakes only in December and January, mark the winter. The stores of grain found in one village destroyed by fire, show they laid up food ; and the quantity of loose flax and thread indicate that io The Primitive Inhabitants they had occupation for the indoor season. They found leisure to fabricate ornaments, as well as implements for use. Bracelets, necklaces, brooches, are not rare, and the abundance of hair-pins, ornamented as well as plain, suggests that the ladies of the lakes had ample tresses, and took pride in them. The identity of the grain cultivated, and the weed of southern origin mingled with it, indicate intercourse with southern Europe. The duration of these settlements must have covered a considerable lapse of time. The amount of remains and refuse could only accumulate in centuries. The settlement of Robenhausen presents proof of a different sort. Here are found the ruins of three settlements, one above the other; the first two apparently destroyed by fire, the last abandoned. The growth of several feet of peat, upon each bed of debris, between it and the next succeeding, shows that a long interval elapsed be- tween the destruction of the successive villages. More- over, the villages belong to three different stages of civilization — the ages of stone, of bronze, and of iron. In all parts of the world stone implements appear to have been used first. Then the soft metals, copper and tin, were brought into use. And, finally, when the less obvious iron was detected in its ore, and contriv- ance for blast heat to smelt it was invented, civiliza- tion took another advance. These three stages are rep- resented in the lake dwellings. It is possible, indeed, that three different types of civilization might exist side by side, even in the narrow compass of Switzerland. But they appear, in fact, to have been successive. In the villages where metal is not found, the bones of wild animals predominate ; w7hile those belonging to the Of Western Europe. 1 1 bronze epoch abound chiefly with bones of domestic animals. In the first, fox bones are common. In the others, they are few; and skeletons of a large variety of dog appear. Now these different successive stages of society, — though not the pure result of spontaneous ef- fort and development of these people, but stimulated and hastened by intercourse with more advanced nations, — must still represent a period of long duration. How long this duration was, can not, of course, be determined ; but suggestions, which are something more than guesses, have been made. The absence of cat, mouse, or rat, and still more, the entire absence of the domestic fowl, which was introduced into Greece in the time of Pericles, and is first known in Italy by coins struck about a hundred years before Christ, and the presence of the sweet cherry, which was introduced into Italy from the East by Lucullus, fix one limit. These settlements did not last after about the begin- ning of the Christian era. On the other hand, the re- mains of birds found are precisely such as are found in Switzerland now. The wild plants and trees of their day are identical, in the minutest particular, with the flora of the same localities at the present day. The bones of only two animals are found that do not live in Switzerland now: the urus, or great ox; and the au- rochs, or bison. Caesar saw both of these in Germany, where, indeed, they did not wholly perish till the mid- dle ages ; and although the urus is now extinct, the bison is still preserved in a forest in Lithuania, for the special hunting sports of the Czars. Hence, whatever date may be assigned to the origin of these settlements, it must be within the present geological epoch. 12 The Primitive Inhabitants Professor Morlot, of Switzerland, has tried to fix the date from geological data. He noticed in a rail- road cut through a bank thrown up, sand and gravel deposit at the mouth of a little stream emptying into one of the lakes, in which, at different depths, were a stratum of rubbish, containing Roman remains, another containing bronze implements, and a third, containing stone implements. In another lake,- where, at the mouth of a similar stream, made land has extended into the lake, the remains of a convent, and of one of the lake settlements, denote the position of the shore at the re- spective dates of these two settlements. M. Morlot argues from the date of the Roman remains in the one case, and of the convent in the other, that the Swiss lake village must have existed from six thousand to seven thousand years ago. By a similar calculation he fixes the date of a settlement (Yverdun) of the transition period at three thousand three hundred years ago. These calculations are generally not regarded as based upon sufficient data; but Sir Charles Lyell, who speaks more favorably of them than any one else, says "they deserve notice, and appear to me to be full of promise." Calculations from other data arrive at a different result. The settlement of Marin, the distinctive set- tlement of the iron period, has an entirely distinctive character, altogether the most modern type. When the Emperor Napoleon was preparing his Life of Caesar, he instituted careful explorations of the site of Alesia, which was taken by Caesar after a memorable siege. The iron swords found there are identical with the swords found at Marin. Moreover, at this settlement Of Western Europe. 1 3 were found coins of Gaul, of Marseilles, and some Ro- man coins, one as late as Claudius. This, the latest village, must therefore have lasted till about the Chris- tian era. No rye has been found. Their grains were the small-grained, primitive wheat, and the six-rowed bar- ley. The six-row barley is found upon Italian coin struck about five or six hundred years before Christ. Bronze, wheat, and barley are the distinctive marks of Greece in the times of Hesiod and Homer. As civiliza- tion traveled westward, the period of bronze, wheat, and barley must have been later in Switzerland than in Greece. At the settlement of Wauvvl, which belongs to the stone period, and is regarded as one of the old- est, were found glass beads, such as were made in Phoe- nicia and Egypt, and must have come by means of Phoenician commerce. This settlement must therefore have been in existence as late as fifteen hundred years before Christ. By this calculation, these villages would not extend back more than two thousand years before our era, and this is the limit fixed by Keller, the most careful student of the whole subject. The nationality of the lake dwellers has been much discussed. The French appear to have settled in the statement or assumption that the inhabitants of the stone age were a primitive race; that the Celts, an Arian race, acquainted with bronze, surging from the East, and filling Western Europe, exterminated the original settlers, took possession of their habitations, and drop- ped into their mode of life. But, if this were true, the lakes should have some traces of the struggle, and yield human skeletons in attestation of it. Yet, in all the lakes, only five human skulls and few other human 14 The Primitive Inhabitants bones have been found. There are no traces of sudden change. From first to last the villages appear to have been constructed upon the same plan, and the mode of life in them appears to have been substantially the same. The earliest bronze implements appear to have been cast after the model of those of stone in use, and new forms adopted with increased knowledge of the capabil- ities of metal. So, too, the earliest iron weapons ap- pear to have been wrought into the shape of bronze castings, and only later advantage was taken of the malleable property of iron. The progress of these people was gradual, and has every indication of having been continuous. Hence, as we know the inhabitants of these villages were, in their latter days, what is called Celtic, we may reasonably infer that the lake settlements were from the first of Celtic origin. There is, however, one consideration which I have not seen presented, which might be urged in favor of the theory that the introduction of bronze came with a new immigrant race. In many of the settlements have been found horned or crescent-shaped objects, the pur- pose of which is not known. Mr. Keller plausibly sug- gests that they were connected with the Druidical wor- ship of the moon. Now, these relics are not found in the earlier settlements of the stone age; they are only found where bronze instruments are also found. If the supposition of Mr. Keller is correct, then these ob- jects tend to indicate the presence of a new religious worship cotemporaneous with the introduction of the use of metal. And the cotemporaneous introduction of both would favor the opinion that they were also co- temporaneous with the incoming of a new race. Of Western Europe. 1 5 Groping in the dark for the history of these early people, we can deal only in hypotheses and probabilities. So, as to the period of the abandonment of the pile dwellings, it can only be said that they were probably abandoned gradually. The increasing sense of confine- ment and discomfort accompanying the development of new wants, which necessarily came with new acquisitions and improvements; or, perhaps, the growth of confi- dence and security which came with the use of metal weapons, or both together, seem to have led to a grad- ual abandonment of these habitations. Villages of the stone age are found in all the lakes; villages of the bronze age are found only in the western lakes. And villages where iron is found have been discovered only in two lakes. The whole system seems to have been finally abandoned about the beginning of the present era. Sir Charles Lyell is probably mistaken in saying that such villages existed at Chavanne and Noville in the sixth century, for they are not named in Sir John Lubbock's later and fuller notice, or in Keller's exhaust- ive account. But some faint traces have lingered to our day. The fishermen in the Limmat built their huts upon the same plan down to the last century, and in a secluded valley in the Vorder Rhine, where an antique dialect is yet heard, the cattle and sheep and pigs show clear traces of the varieties whose bones are found among the remains of the lake dwellings. The lake dwellings thus lose much of their mystery. Their buildings differed from their cotemporaries in Western Europe only in the accident of situation. They sought for security in their lakes, as those upon the mainland did upon steep hills. Throughout France, i 6 The Primitive Inhabitants the British Isles, Germany, and Denmark, the same successive eras of stone, bronze, and iron prevailed. The' straight-bladed iron swords, the leaf-like bronze swords, the metal ornaments, and the ruder implements of stone, are found alike in all these countries. The old monuments which have perplexed antiquaries, though still without date in years, range themselves in a certain order of succession. The tumuli take place in the age of bronze, and the barrows in the age of stone. The venerable circle of stonehenge takes its place in history in the age of bronze. On the Baltic shores of Denmark are remains which belong to a ruder, if not an earlier, epoch. These are simple heaps of oyster-shells, which have received an unpronounceable Danish name, meaning "kitchen re- fuse." The tribes now living in the Straits of Terra del Fuego and the northern coast of Australia live chiefly on shell fish, and the debris of their repasts ac- cumulate in great masses of shells. So, in former days, lived and fed an oyster-loving tribe on the shores of Denmark. Bones of animals and birds, and occasional stone arrow-heads and hatchets mingled in the heap, have been studied as carefully as the remains found in the lakes. The stone implements are very rude and simple. The bones indicate no domestic animal but a small dog. There are no indications of wheat, barley, 'or other vegetable food. The bones of deep-sea fish indicate that the people used boats. The different stages of growth of deer's antlers found, indicate that the shores were not a mere summer resort, but were the permanent dwelling-place of an extremely rude people. The only extinct animal whose bones are found there Of Western Europe. 1 7 is the urus. But the oyster is no longer found in the brackish water of the Baltic, and the muscle and other shell-fish now reach there only one-third of the size that is shown in these refuse heaps, and which they still at- tain in the ocean. But it is known that, at no remote period, ocean currents swept through Denmark in straits now closed, and Sweden has been gradually rising at the rate of two feet in a century in the southern part, and five feet in a century in the north. The shores of Den- mark, however, it is said, rise only at the rate of two or three inches per century. If these shores have been rising at the rate of two or three inches per century, the shell heaps are now so near the level of the water that they can not be credited with any antiquity exceeding four thousand years. Hence, though they certainly be- long to an earlier type of civilization, there seems no reason for making them chronologically belong to a more remote date than the more advanced races who built the barrows and tumuli. This view is corroborated by the fact that the remains of no extinct animal but the urus are found here. One circumstance has been seized to give them a more venerable antiquity. Denmark has been covered with beech forest as long as we have any account of it. But trunks of trees found in peat beds show that it was preceded by oak, which in turn was preceded by for- ests of pine. In a peat bed, under the trunk of a huge pine, which itself lies under superimposed oak and beech, a flint arrow-head has been found. And in the shell heaps are found the bones of a bird {capercailzie) which is supposed to have fed on pine buds. So with guessers at the unknown duration of the unknown for- 1 8 The Primitive Inhabitants ests, a remote conjectural antiquity is commonly ascribed to these simple remains. But it is not in the lake dwellings, or the shell mounds, or the peat beds, that we are to look for the primitive inhabitants of Western Europe. The archae- ologist indeed goes no further. But the geologist, peering beyond, descries a fossil man. Not every pet- rifaction, however, is a fossil. We must define what is properly meant by this term. The forces of nature are still at work ceaselessly changing the surface of the earth. The sea eats away its shores, the waves grind up the fragments, and the currents bear away the debris, deposit it, and form sub- marine strata. Rivers in like manner washing away the soil of their valleys, create new formations. Vol- canoes still scatter their ashes and lava, and dripping caves sheet their floors with stalagmite. The deposits formed by erosion and transportation of currents go by the general name of alluvium. This name, however, is particularly given to the deposits formed by streams flowing in their present beds. The older alluvium, resting directly upon the tertiary strata, some geolo- gists ascribe to a catastrophe different from the opera- tions we now witness, and which they call the diluvium of the north. Hence, they call this old deposit dilu- vium, and also call the era of its formation the quater- nary period. Any remains, therefore, found in the proper alluvium belong to history and archaeology. They must be found in the diluvium, or quaternary, to be ranked as fossils. Other geologists, noting the slow change of level which is still going on in the world — some shores ris- Of Western Europe. ing and others sinking — find existing phenomena suf- ficient, if lapse of time enough is allowed, and des^- nate ages by the nature of the remains found in them. Sir Charles Lyell and others, noticing that different strata of the tertiary formation contain different pro- portions of extinct and still living species, have divided that formation, accordingly, into three periods — eocene, miocene, and pliocene. Giving the name post-tertiary to all subsequent to the tertiary, they still find in some of the post-tertiary formations remains of animals now extinct. To this portion of the post-tertiary they give the name of post-pliocene. The other, which contains only the remains of animals now existing, they call re- cent. Hence it is in this formation, by whatever name we call it, whether diluvium, quaternary, drift, or post- pliocene, that the geologist must find human remains before he can show us fossil man. In the museum in Paris is a petrified skeleton of a woman imbedded in a calcareous rock, found in the island of Guadaloupe. But this rock is still in process of formation. The sea washing up shells, with detritus of the rock of the island, forms a conglomerate, in which all the shells are such as now live on the shore, and the skeleton appears to belong to the Carib tribe, which inhabited the island at a recent date. In a peat-bog in Sweden was found the skeleton of a bison, bearing marks of a wound made by a hatchet. Near it was found a stone hatchet, which, on being ap- plied, fitted the wound. Close at hand was a human skeleton, the hunter and his prey imbedded together. But the bison is not yet extinct; it still lives in the Lithuanian forest, and peat still grows. 20 The Primitive Inhabitants Messrs. Lartet and Christy, great names in these in- vestigations, described, in 1861, the cave of Lombrines, in the Pyrenees, where human bones were found im- bedded under stalagmite, which were pronounced cotem- porary with the mammoth. But Mr. Garrigou read a paper before the Societe d'Anthropologie, in Paris, on the 15th of December, 1864, in which he stated that, upon a subsequent examination of this cave and others in the Pyrenees, by careful scrutiny of the way in which the bones had been washed in through crevices by a stream still running, he became convinced that there was no proof that they were introduced at this early period, but that they should be regarded as cotem- porary with the lake dwellings. He added that Lartet, Christy, d'Archiac, Milne Edwards, and others, con- curred in this conclusion, and applied it to other caves in the Pyrenees. But there are cases which can not be so summarily disposed of. Of the animals which lived in the post- pliocene period, some are extinct, though the greater number still survive. To fix man as belonging to that period, it is necessary to show that he was cotemporary with the animals now extinct. This might be done by showing his remains in such juxtaposition with the ex- tinct species as to exclude any hypothesis but the one that they lived together; or else to show human re- mains naturally inclosed in a deposit which was made at that period. The post-pliocene period was marked by a cold climate m Western Europe. Among the ani- mals now extinct, which flourished then, are the cave bear, cave lion, cave hyena, gigantic Irish elk, the hairy ele- phant or mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the urus or Of Western Europe. i\ great ox ; to which may be added — as extinct in Western Europe, though still surviving in colder regions — the reindeer. The urus was extinct in Gaul before the campaigns of Julius Cassar, though it survived in Ger- many long after. The reindeer must have disappeared then, at a still earlier day, and has been kept alive to this day in Sweden and Norway, only by rigid game laws. The mammoth and rhinoceros appear to have vanished at a still more remote period, as only a few of their bodies have been found in Siberia, incased in ice, which enveloped them before the flesh had begun to de- cay. Of the cave bear and others we have nothing but fossil remains. Hence, Mr. Lartet, assuming epochs of successive disappearance, divides the post-pliocene age into four periods — those of the cave bear, of the mammoth and rhinoceros, of the reindeer, and of the urus. The proposition is, therefore, to show that man was a cotemporary with the first three of these periods. The caves of Perigord furnish part of the proofs. These caves have yielded numerous instruments made of reindeer horn. Some fragments appear to have been sawed. One is fashioned into a delicate, fine-pointed needle, with an eye so small it seemed impossible it could be made with the rude implements of those prim- itive people. But this doubt was removed when Mr. Lartet, with one of the sharp-pointed pieces of quartz, which seemed to have been used as awls, made a punc- ture as fine. Some of the reindeer horns have designs engraved upon them, representing- the deer, elk, ox, boar, and other animals. These are not all mere out- line sketches ; some are shaded drawings. The most interesting is an unfinished dagger, the handle carved to 22 The Primitive Inhabitants represent a reindeer with his head thrown back, his ant- lers lying along his shoulders, his fore legs drawn under his belly, and hind legs extended along the mid- dle of the blade. The spirit of the design, and the skill with which the natural form of the horn is adapted to it, make it a veritable work of art. All who have seen these objects unite in saying that they obviously were carved from the bones of recently killed animals, not from fossils dug up. In the cave of Eyzies was found embedded in breccia, part of the vertebra of a young reindeer, still perforated with a flint arrow-head, which, unquestionably, penetrated there when the bone was soft. Man was, therefore, cotemporary with the reindeer in Southern France. Similar evidence connects him with the mammoth. A tusk has been found engraved with the head of two oxen. A piece of ivory has also been exhumed bearing a spirited and unmistakable sketch of a mammoth. The animal having been found entire, frozen in Siberia, • his appearance is now known, — not merely from infer- ence from the skeleton, but from actual view. And here is found a portrait taken from life by a man who hunted the mammoth when he ranged the valleys of Southern France. A wood-cut of this can be seen in the February number of the "Salem Natural History Magazine." The cave of Aurignac, in Upper Garonne, near the Pyrenees, brings man in contact with the cave bear and hyena, as well as the mammoth rhinoceros and reindeer. A peasant working on the highway, near Aurignac, in 1865, noticed that rabbits took refuge in a hoie in the hill-side. Putting his hand into the hole one day, he Of Western Europe. 23 drew out a human bone. He began to remove the earth, and found an upright stone slab. Removing the slab, he found a small cavern nearly filled with human bones. The mayor of Aurignac hearing of it, removed the skeletons, and buried them in the village cemetery. But, being a physician, he first examined them suffi- ciently to perceive that they were the bones of eighteen persons, — men, women, and children. Mr. Lartet repaired to the spot as soon as he got wind of the discovery, and made a thorough explora- tion. He found in the cave a level floor, apparently of made earth, in which were still left a few human fragments. Besides these were a flint knife which had never been used, eighteen perforated disks of shell which had apparently once formed a necklace, a carved bear's tusk, and a few teeth of a lion. He also found the skeleton of a cave bear, the bones lying in such order and juxtaposition as to show that they had been covered with flesh when placed in the cave. These bones were all undisturbed, and suggest that with the quartz and shell and carved bone, they had been left there as a funeral rite with the buried dead. When the earth outside the cave was removed, a hearth of flint sandstone was found, laid upon a smooth surface, exca- vated underneath. Upon this were evidences of fire. Scattered about were the bones of seventeen animals, including all the extinct species I have named. Many of them were charred by fire and scraped as if by the quartz knife, which had removed the meat. Scattered about were more than a hundred objects of flint, knives, arrow-heads, chips, a flint block from which some of these had been chipped, and one of those pulley-shaped 24 The Primitive Inhabitants utensils of rough stone, which have so puzzled archae- ologists, but which the Danish antiquaries take to be implements used in chipping off and forming flint im- plements. The bones about this fire-place were many of them gnawed by some carniverous beast, the soft ends quite eaten away, and among the ashes were found fossil excrements of the hyena. Here was indubitable evidence that man had eaten the mammoth and rhinoc- eros; that he had interred a cave bear while the bones were still covered with flesh, and that the hyena had banqueted on the remains of his feast. In England, in a cave containing bones of those ex- tinct animals, a well-formed flint arrow-head was found lying under the entire leg of a cave bear, all the most delicate bones of which were in position, showing that it had been deposited there when bound together with its ligaments at least, if not covered with flesh. In the cave of Engis, in Belgium, a human skull was found with the same surroundings, imbedded in breccia, under a floor of stalagmite. The caves are not the only repositories of evidence. Strata of drift, filled with post-pliocene remains, have also yielded stone arrow-heads and hatchets. M. Bou- cher de Perthes first discovered them in the valley of the Somme, in Northern France. Excavations made to obtain earth for the fortifications of Abbeville, and railway cuttings, gave him ample opportunity to explore this formation. In 1841, he began to collect the im- plements so found ; but all his statements were met with quiet skepticism, or turned off with the remark that his so-called arrow-heads and hatchets were acci- dental natural forms. He set about collecting all the Of Western Europe. 25 flints of natural form most resembling them; and the difference between the manufactured and the natural flint was obvious. After years of scientific disdain, one geologist of repute, Dr. Rigollot, of Amiens, visited him, saw at a glance that the collection was of manufac- tured implements, and, returning to Amiens, explored the same stratum there, and found the same objects of stone. It was objected that M. Boucher de Perthes might be deceived; that these implements might be given to him by workmen who falsely pretended to find them in situ. He followed the excavations in person, and with his own hands took the hatchets from their beds. It was then objected that they might have sunk through the superincumbent earth to their present position long after the stratum was formed. But the soil was, in its natural state, free from fissure; the implements were diffused all through the drift, were found from eighteen to thirty feet below the surface, and often found under- neath animal fossils. But the cave discoveries had not yet become rife, and M. Boucher de Perthes could not yet find credit. In 1859 a party of leading English geologists visited him, saw his collection, explored the excavations, found the implements there in situ, published an account of their visit, and the scientific world at length accepted the facts. The same formation was explored where it exists in England, and with the same result. Objection still was raised that no human bones had yet been found along with these implements. To this it was answered by Sir Charles Lyell, by Lubbock, and others, that this drift was the deposit of a rapid cur- 0.6 The Primitive Inhabitants rent, and much compressed by the heavy winter ice of the quaternary period, so that human bones might well have been destroved ; and, besides, that the Swiss lakes and Danish shell heaps were almost devoid of human bones. But, finally, at the meeting of the Societe d'Anthropologie, of 13th August, 1864, M. Boucher de Perthes announced that he had found fragments of hu- es man bones, representing all ages. Remembering the captiousness which had met his former statements, he had persuaded the mayor and several of the leading men of Abbeville to accompany him to the excavations, stand by the workmen as they dug, and receive with their own hands the human fragments from their bed as they were reached. Of all the relics found, no others have excited so much interest as the human skulls — one found in the cave of Neanderthal, near Dusseldorf; the other in the cave of Engis, in Belgium. The Neanderthal skull has given rise to unusual discussion. The brain capac- ity, seventy-five cubic inches, is verv near an average between a Hindoo and the largest known healthy European skull. But while the brain capacity is so near an average, the shape and formation are the most brutal of any known human skull. The extraordinary prominence of the superciliary arches, the unparalleled flattening of both the forehead and the occiput, and the straightness of the sutures, make this the most ape-like of human skulls. Learned men who claim to know, say it bears no marks of having been the skull of an idiot, and no marks of artificial compression. The rest of the skeleton has nothing peculiar. The stout- Of Western Europe. 27 ness of the bones and the development of the muscular ridges show that the man must have had great physical strength. It is, of course, impossible to say whether this remarkable skull was an individual instance, or the ordinary type of some race. It is undoubtedly very ancient, but nothing found in the cave with it, and nothing in the manner in which it seems to have been deposited there, warrants the statement that it is en- titled to belong to the post-pliocene -period. It may have been cotemporary with the mammoth, but it may be much more recent. The Engis skull, however, was found so associated with other fossils, that it is accepted as an unquestion- able relic of the days of the mammoth and the cave bear. This skull is in no wise peculiar. Its dimen- sions are almost precisely identical with two modern skulls, one Australian, and one an English skull, noted in Hunterian museum as typically Caucasian. So tar as the scanty human fossil remains give indication, the physical structure of man has undergone no change since he first appeared on earth. Like existing ani- mals that have come down from the post-pliocene period, his type remains the same. During that whole era, man made little advance in civilization in Western Europe. In the last few thou- sand years, civilization has accelerated in a geometrical ratio. But as we dimly peer into the conjectural past, the advance appears to have been, with occasional fluc- tuations, more sluggish, till we get back to a uniform degree lasting through cycles. The data we have are certainly* scanty. The stone implements then used, so 28 The Primitive Inhabitants far as yet discovered, are of the ruder type, simply chipped, not polished. No specimens of their pottery have as yet been found. There is nothing yet to show they knew anything of agriculture. At the same time, their carvings became a lost art. During all the period of the lake dwellings, no imitations of leaves, animals, or other natural objects were attempted before the in- troduction of iron. The attempt, even then, to intro- duce animal shapes into their ornamentation, showed, in that particular, very great inferiority to the cave dwell- ers of Perigord. The men of the fossil time, living in caves, undoubtedly were as rude as some savage tribes now living; but their works and their funeral rites show that infant man, a new comer upon the world, dwelling among mammoths and gigantic elks, from the beginning asserted his supremacy over other created beings, and showed himself endowed with intel- ligence, aspiration for art, and belief in his immor- tality. But I am checked in calling this the beginning of man. Certain bones have been lately picked up in Southern France. These bones have scratches upon them. They are the bones of the tropical elephant. The scratches are said to be marks made by a sharp quartz implement in scraping off the meat. Hence it has been intimated that the primitive inhabitants of Western Europe may have been cotemporary with the tropical elephant. This suggestion carries us back to an epoch as remote to the time that we have been con- sidering, as that is to the present day. But the sugges- tion that man lived then, is based on no discovery of remains of a degraded human type, or of skeleton in- Of Western Europe. 29 termediate between man and gorilla, but is founded upon the supposed presence among the remains of that day of the traces of human intelligence.* *The recent discovery by Mr. Calvert of engraved bones in strata of the miocene period, in the Dardanelles, is considered as having established the fact of man's existence as early as the miocene epoch. DARWINISM AND DEITY. Darwin claims to have established the existence of a law of nature, which regulates the progressive appear- ance on earth of the diversified forms of life. I pro- pose to say a few words about his theory, and to add some suggestions about laws of nature in general. It is accepted by all, that the first forms of life were the simplest; that higher forms appeared later, and man last of all. Whether we read the written account in Genesis, or try to decipher the fossil record inscribed on the earth's strata, this general statement is equally discerned. In trying to account for this progressive appearance of diversified forms of life, the most obvious method is, to ascribe it to successive acts of creative power. This theory of successive creation is upheld by some men of science. They say that not only was the beginning of the world a creation, but there is reason for holding that the creative power is not in abeyance, but is still in daily exercise. It is said that the spiritual part of man, the soul, the Me, is not an aggregation of particles, but is an absolute, indivisible unit. It is impossible to im- agine the consciousness of a person to be divided into separate consciousnesses. But an absolute, indivisible Darwinism and Deity. 3 1 unit, not made up of particles, is itself an ultimate par- ticle, and can not be made from anything else. Hence, the soul of each person, the Me, must be an original creation. Plato held that the soul of each person, or what he called the spiritual and immortal body, was brought into being by a direct act of creative power; but also maintained that all souls were created in the beginning, and that they transmigrate from body to body. Now, if we reject the doctrine of transmigration, but agree that the birth of each human soul is an act of di- rect creation, there arises an antecedent probability that the coming into being of every new form of life, every species, has been due to acts of specific creation. Men of science have said that this antecedent prob- ability is verified by the facts of geology. It is agreed by all that the earth's surface has undergone great changes ; that continents have been submerged, and again elevated ; that arctic and torrid climates have suc- ceeded each other in territories now lying in the tern- perate zone. And it is said by some that the different superimposed strata indicate that there have been breaks in the continuity of life; that at times some great ca- tastrophe has destroyed all life, leaving only fossil epi- taphs ; and that new forms of life followed with nothing to generate them, with no way of their coming into being but by a new exercise of creative power. It is further said that these successive creations are all in harmony with a purpose or design ; and that this same purpose or design is exhibited even in certain present phases, as in the progressive stages of the hu- 2 2 Darwinism and Deity. man brain before birth, which resemble successively the brain of various orders of animals from the lower, up. In the same way, it has been observed that in many animals, including man, there are rudimentary parts which are of no use, but serve only as reminders of earlier and preceding species to which such parts were important, — -just as the form of the earliest metal im- plements (and the form of an implement bears the same relation to the inventor that created things do to the creator) retained peculiarities which were of use in stone implements, though of no use in the new material, metal. This whole theory, however, is falling, or perhaps has fallen, into disfavor among men of science. The main fact on which it rests as a theory of science, is now said not to exist. It is generally denied that there has been any break in the continuity of life. It is said that the great changes which have visited the earth's surface were not due to catastrophes which destroyed life, leaving a void to be filled by renewed acts of creation ; but were wrought by causes which are still in operation. Strata are still forming at the bottom of lakes and seas. Rocks are still cracking and crumbling into soil. Hills are washing away ; rivers are still cutting channels, and forming alluvium and deltas. Land is still rising and sinking. Venice has sunk fifteen inches since the Doges' palace was built. Crete has tilted up since the days of the Roman Empire. The ports on its western shore have risen twenty feet out of the water, while the cities on its eastern coast are submerged. The penin- sula of Norway and Sweden has been rising and tilting Darwinism and Deity. 33 steadily, the southern extremity rising at the rate of two feet ; North Cape at the rate of five feet per century. Climates are changing. In the last tour centuries there has been a constant increase in the severity of the cli- mate in all the region about the upper part of Baffin's Bay. Deserted habitations of Esquimaux are found in tracts where there are no longer inhabitants. At the same time, the glaciers of Greenland have very largely increased. Some of the glaciers of Switzerland are steadily growing, others diminishing, others alternating. Coral reefs are still forming, volcanoes are still in erup- tion, and volcanic islands still at times thrust them- selves above the surface of the sea. These operations are precisely the same indicated by geology. It is said that give time enough, allow a duration in which a mill- ion years will count as a fleeting moment, these opera- tions would produce all the changes that the earth's sur- face is said to have undergone. Now, if the world has always gone on as it is now going on, the presumption arises, and this presumption accords with what we know of the phenomena of the universe, that there has always been a certain sequence of events ; that every fact of nature is related to and dependent on other facts, and has grown out of facts which preceded it. Hence, it is said that every new form of life, every new animal and plant, has been evolved or developed from already existing species. Darwin claims that this progressive development is de- termined and regulated by a law of nature, which he has eliminated, and which he calls the law of Selection. A great many marked varieties of domesticated ani- mals and plants have been produced by the care of man. 34- Darwinism and Deity. They have not been produced by manufacture or cre- ation, but by eliminating and perpetuating peculiarities which have naturally appeared in individuals. A horse, a bull, a dog, having some special quality, is carefully mated. The best of his progeny is selected, and care- fully mated. The process is repeated till a new variety is introduced. This variety is not a true species, per- manent and self-perpetuating; but it lasts as a determi- nate variety, as long as the supervening care of man preserves it. Now it is conceivable that some natural cause might operate in the same manner as this care of man, and by operating permanently, produce a perma- nent natural difference, and so create a species. Among men, hereditary traits are often noticed. A heavy lower jaw has been a feature of the Hapsburg family for centuries. And it is said that the ladies of a certain English ducal family still are distinguished by the beautiful form of the neck, which they inherited from their ancestor, one of the ladies of the court of Charles II. Besides these minute peculiarities, climate, food, and the other conditions of life affect physical traits. When I was in Colorado a few years ago I was told that the chests of persons and of horses that had lived several years at Georgetown, some 9,000 feet above the level of the sea, had become expanded. The necessity or breathing a larger amount of the rarified air of that ele- vated region required larger lungs. And persons who follow a calling requiring especial use of particular muscles or organs find those muscles and organs largely develop; while, on the other hand, parts of the body long disused have a tendency to shrink and diminish. Darwinism and Deity. 35 In the same way, diet and mode of life affect the body. Each nation in Europe has its characteristics, and the American people, though so recent, are already dis- tinguishable from their ancestors. Now two facts are quite certain. One is, that no two animals, even of the same species, are precisely alike. Every individual has its own peculiarities. The other fact is, that vastlv more are born than arrive at matu- rity. If all animals born reached maturity, the world would soon be heaped up with the crowd. Hence, there is a continual competitive struggle for existence, and in this struggle those mostly survive which are best fitted to survive in the existing conditions of life. It, for example, various species should migrate to the Arctic regions, the sustenance of animal heat would be- come a matter of vital importance. White is the color that protects against external heat or cold. Hence, those animals which should happen to have white or nearly white fur would, other things being equal, have the best chance of surviving. Besides, a white-furred animal would be least distinguishable on the snowy surface, and so would have the best chance of escaping from its pursuers, and at the same time, the best chance of coming unperceived upon its own prey. These con- stant chances operating through cycles would tend to eliminate all dark-skinned animals, leaving only the white to survive. So in animals that trust to speed, either for their own safety, or for overtaking their prey, the swiftest would have the best chance for life, and in long course of ages, the swift-footed of those species would tend to predominate, and the slow to disappear. So of an insect tribe infesting trees, if one should o6 Darwinism and Deity. happen to be born somewhat resembling the bark of the tree in appearance, it would have a chance of escaping unobserved the birds that snap up its brighter-colored kindred. Of the progeny of this one, such as inherited this peculiarity would have the same chance of preserv- ing life; and so, in the long course of time, would grow of a species so closely resembling the bark of the tree on which it lived, as to find its safety therein. In the same wav, if any individual should happen to be born with increased facility for securing subsistence, either greater efficiency in obtaining food, or greater capacity for assimilating the food at hand, such indi- vidual would have increased chance of surviving in the struggle for life; and its progeny inheriting the same peculiarity would, by having the same chance of sur- viving, increase the tendency to propagate this peculiar- ity of structure. The great changes which the earth's surface has under- gone would give greater room for the display of this struggle for life. Change of climate and soil would change vegetation. And this change of the conditions of life would impose new conditions upon the chances of survivorship. It might intensify the chances of the predominating varieties, or it might nullify their chances and give increased chances to some new peculiarity. Besides the law of survivorship of the fittest, which is called the law of Natural Selection, there is another ele- ment, somewhat analogous, called Sexual Selection. The males of certain animals have a contest for the possession of the female. She remains an indifferent spectator, and quietly goes off with the victor. Here the strongest and most agile males have progeny, while Darwinism and Deity. 37 the weaker leave no offspring. Hence there is a tend- ency to produce a race of strong active males. In other races, particularly among birds, the female makes her selection. One species is carried away by song. The males exercise all their vocal powers, and the sweetest singer carries away the prize. Another species is attracted by brilliant plumage; and here the lucky male endowed with the brightest feathers succeeds. This course of selection tends in the long lapse of ages to increase the musical power in the one species, and the brilliancy of plumage in the other. However minute any single variation from existing types might be, it is said that give time enough, time without stint, time without limit, these processes of natural selection, together with the changes of climate and surface, would be sufficient to account for the pro- duction of the various diversified forms of life which have appeared since the first were brought into being. But not only might new forms of life be so produced. It is further said, there are reasons for believing they have been actually so produced. The fact that new breeds, that new temporary varieties are produced in a short time by superintending human care, raises the presumption that permanent changes of structure, that is, new species, would be produced by natural causes, operating for an indefinite duration in a way analogous to human care. Some facts strengthen this presumption. For in- stance: pigs in Florida feed on an herb which rots off the hoofs of all but black pigs. This cause has not been operating long enough to prevent the birth of light or party-colored pigs; but it prevents any but the black 3 S Darwinism and Deity. from arriving at maturity. Further it is said, that parts that are serviceable in the lower orders of animals are found in a rudimentary state in the higher, as if they had gradually disappeared by disuse. For instance, the os coccyx in man is a rudimentary tail. And the punc- ture in the lower part of the os humerus, which is the passage for a nerve in monkeys, is of no use in the human frame. Yet it is found in one per cent, of human skeletons of the present day, and in a larger per cent, of human skeletons three or four thousand years old, in some parts of France. So far I have offered, not a sketch, but only a rude indication of the general drift of the theory of spe- cific creation and of Darwin's theory of the laws of selection. As to the respective merits and probabilities of these theories, I do not pretend to offer an opinion. Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites. Men who devote their lives to scientific investigations will toil to a determination, and the world will accept the result. But there are some suggestions that any of us may make about Darwin's theory. He does not pretend to solve the question, as to the origin of life, or the essence of life, or the power that produces the initial variations in the forms of life which give opportunity for selection. Accepting these, his aim is to ascertain and determine a law by which they produce the permanent forms of life, which we call species. His theory as to the existence of this law, is gaining ground daily among men devoted to natural science. But his theory can hardly yet be called "the law" of the development of species. For a true law of nature explaining the phenomena of a certain class, must ex- Darwinism and Deity. 39 plain all the phenomena of that class. It can not be accepted as a law of nature, if it be inconsistent with a single fact of nature. And the law of selection con- fessedly does not explain all the phenomena of the de- velopment of species. For Darwin says, there are in man, and other animals, parts which do not appear to be of any present use, or to have ever been of use in any previous form of life. And such parts can not be accounted for bv the law of selection. Further, even so far as the law of selection is con- sistent with known facts, it can not now be taken as ab- solutely true, but only as provisionally true. For a larger acquaintance with the facts of nature may show it to be incorrect, and require it to be modified and aban- doned. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe was a good scientific theory in its day, for it was consistent with all the facts then known of the heavenly bodies. But a larger acquaintance with the movements of those bodies required that theory to be dropped and sup- planted by the Copernican theory. Finally, although several species have disappeared within the last two thousand years, it is not known that a single new species has appeared since the last fossil era. It must therefore take, so far as we know, thousands of years, to produce any, even the smallest, permanent change in the structure of either animal or vegetable life. But though we thus know that a very long period is necessary, we do not know how much would be sufficient. We have not yet, therefore, attained at anything like a unit of measurement of time required for the workings of Darwin's law. But late discoveries have shown that the people who 4