Part 4 (1/2)
Thus it may be affirmed that the land fauna of this primitive time was distinct from that now living. This implies either long time or a great physical break.
Thirdly, this change of fauna consists not so much in the introduction of new species as in the extinction of old forms, either absolutely or locally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since it seems to be a law of the geological succession that increasing land brings in new land animals; diminis.h.i.+ng land area leads to extinction, and not to introduction.
Fourthly, in accordance with this we find that, at the close of the palanthropic age, the continents of the northern hemisphere experienced a subsidence from which they have only partially recovered up to the present time, and which introduced the modern geographical and climatal features. This appears from raised beaches and beds of rubble, loam and loess of modern date overlying the _debris_ of the glacial period and holding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread over the whole northern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to high levels. An interesting ill.u.s.tration has recently been given by Dr.
Nuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen.[25] These show an overlying deposit with 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble and loam dest.i.tute of human remains, and below this a bed containing bone implements, worked flints, and traces of cookery of the palanthropic period. The whole rests on a bed of rolled pebbles, supposed to be the upper part of the glacial deposits. This shows the interval between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods, and also the post-glacial date of man in Switzerland, and it accords with a great many other instances.
[25] _Nouvelles archives des Missions_, &c. vol. iii. Noticed in _Natural Science_, 1893.
Were these changes sudden or gradual? Experience has no answer, for no similar events have occurred in historic times, and though there are records in the geological history of many mutations in the elevation of the land, we have no information as to their rate of progress, and we know little of their causes. The changes of this kind known to us in modern times are merely local, not general, and in regard to their rate are of two kinds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake shocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic activity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible, and are often of wider distribution. It is evident, however, that these slight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of past periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas.
We have no modern instances of these almost world-wide depressions of continents under the sea, though we know that these have occurred, one of them within the human period, and it is idle to speculate as to their rate or duration in the absence of facts. We know pretty certainly, however, from the gauges of time which can be applied to the close of the glacial period, that this latest subsidence must have occurred within six thousand years of our time.
With reference to the particular movement in question, we know that the close of the palanthropic period was accompanied by a movement at least equal to the difference between the wide lands of the second continental period and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we find on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess and plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable elevation, and evidences, as in Siberia, of large herds of animals peris.h.i.+ng on elevated lands on which they seem to have taken refuge.[26]
In short, no geological fact can be better established than the post-glacial subsidence.
[26] Prestwich, 'Evidence of Submergence of Western Europe,' _Trans.
Royal Society_, 1893; 'Possible Cause for the Origin of the Tradition of the Flood,' _Trans. Vict. Inst._, 1894; Dawkins, _Journal Anthrop.
Inst._, February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (_Nature_, November 10, 1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to extend far upward on the Caspian plain and the Pamirs, so that all Asia must have been submerged within a very recent period. See also _Fossil Man_, by the author, 1880.
Putting these facts together, we cannot doubt that the submergence at the close of the palanthropic age was very considerable, and that it was followed by a partial re-emergence. Further, there is no evidence of any serious fractures or folding of the crust taking place at the time, though it is possible that great lava ejections like some of those of Western America may belong to this period. It is therefore allowable to suppose that the cause of submergence may have been either depression of the land, or elevation of the bed of the ocean throwing its waters over the land, or possibly a combination of both. Movements of these kinds have recurred again and again in geological time. Their causes are mysterious, but their effects have been of the most stupendous character. Fortunately, they occur at rare intervals, and that to which we are now referring is the last of which we have any record, and differs from all others in having occurred at a time when man was widely spread over the world.
The geological chronometers already referred to inform us that the land of the northern hemisphere rose from the great pleistocene submergence about eight thousand to ten thousand years ago, and the second continental period with its forests and its teeming and widely-extended animal and human life, may have been established within two thousand years of that time, or say six thousand to eight thousand years ago. How long the second continental or palanthropic period continued intact we do not know, but we can scarcely allow it less than two thousand years.
Perhaps it was considerably longer. Now on historical evidence produced by Egypt, Chaldea, and other ancient countries in the Mediterranean region, we can trace the neanthropic age continuously back to, say, three thousand years B.C., or nearly five thousand years in all. Adding to this two thousand years for the palanthropic age, we are carried back to a time within one thousand years of the earliest we can a.s.sign on geological grounds to the termination of the great glacial period.
Therefore, unless we suppose the last continental subsidence to have begun some time before the close of the palanthropic age, and to have continued to some degree into the beginning of the neanthropic, we cannot a.s.sign to it a very long time. That it could not have been sudden in the sense of being instantaneous is evident, because in that case terrestrial denudation of a stupendous character must have ensued, and no animal life except that of mountain tops and elevated table-lands could have escaped its destructive effects, but that it was by no means secular or long-continued is certain.
Thus we seem shut up to the conclusion that the close of the palanthropic age was marked by great geological vicissitudes of the character of submergence, leading primarily to vast destruction of animal life, and secondarily to permanent changes both in geography and climate, under which new conditions the neanthropic age was inaugurated.
How this took place we have to inquire in the sequel. In the meantime we may merely remark that since the two princ.i.p.al races of primitive men known to us in Europe seem to have perished, we must infer that individuals of a third race beyond the limits of Europe were destined to survive, and again to replenish the earth in the new era, and that possibly these may be represented by the solitary Truchere skull. In the case of many of the more bulky and unwieldy animals inhabiting the plains the case was different. They perished, or if any survived the submergence they were unable to multiply under the new conditions.
Desperate attempts have been made in the interests of extreme uniformitarianism to discredit the abrupt change from palaeocosmic to neocosmic men. It has been supposed that the latter replaced the former as conquerors--a most unlikely theory, when their relative powers are considered. It has been conjectured that as the cold decreased the old races of men followed the reindeer to the north and became Arctic peoples. But why did they not rather attack the new animals, which in that case must have come in from the south? It has even been supposed that the Esquimaux may be their descendants; but they are quite different in physical characters, and have no nearer resemblance in their arts than other rude peoples. In opposition to all this we have not only the remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal a.s.sociates, but when we know that the whole geographical features of our continents have changed since the palanthropic age, and that not only are our continents reduced in size since the continental post-glacial period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as well as subsidence, and this within a short period--say eight thousand years less the historic period on the one hand and the early palanthropic on the other--it seems impossible to doubt the greatness and suddenness of the physical break that divides the anthropic age into two distinct portions. All this may be held to be certainly known as geological fact, and it would be folly to overlook it in any discussions as to primitive man, or in any comparisons of the evidence afforded by his remains with that of early human history or tradition.
But if man was a witness of and sufferer in this great catastrophe, and if any men survived it, did they preserve no tradition or memory of such a stupendous event? We may imagine this to be possible. The survivors may have belonged to the rudest and most isolated of the races of men, and may have had no means of knowing the extent of the disaster or of preserving its memory. On the other hand, they may have attained to a sufficient degree of culture to have had some means of perpetuating the memory of great events. If so, we may imagine that the great diluvial cataclysm which separates the human or anthropic period into two parts may have left an indelible mark in the history or tradition of mankind.
We shall inquire into this in the sequel, but must first consider what geological monuments remain of the early neanthropic age in Europe.[27]
[27] A valuable paper by Dawkins 'On the relation of the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic Period,' reaches me when correcting the proof of this volume. (Reprint from _Journal of Anthropological Society_, February 1894.)
In the meantime I may remark that, if we take the Canstadt people to represent the ruder tribes of the antediluvian Cainites, the feebler folk of Truchere to represent the Sethites, and the giant race of Cro-magnon and Mentone as the equivalent of the 'mighty men' or Nephelim of Genesis who arose from the mixture of the two original stocks, we shall have a somewhat exact parallel between the men of the caves and gravels and those we have so long been familiar with in the Book of Genesis.
CHAPTER VII
THE EARLY NEANTHROPIC AGE
There has been much confusion among anthropologists respecting the distinction of this from the preceding age. The Cro-magnon race has been cla.s.sed as neanthropic, and has been confounded with a very dissimilar people which succeeded it after an interval of some duration. The gap between the disappearance of the earlier race and the arrival of the newer has thus been overlooked, and no account has been taken of the great intervening faunal and geographical changes. This has arisen from neglecting or being unable to appreciate the geological part of the evidence; and the somewhat lamentable result has been that it is difficult for the ordinary reader to arrive at any certainty, in the midst of conflicting statements all based on imperfect data. In these circ.u.mstances it will be well to begin this chapter with some examples of the relations of these different races.
At Grenelle, near Paris, on the river Seine, there is a succession of old inundation beds of that river, extending from the oldest part of the anthropic to modern times, and furnis.h.i.+ng what may be regarded as a chronological series for Northern France, as many human remains have been from time to time deposited on this old eddy of the Seine and buried under newer acc.u.mulations. Belgrand has shown that in the lowest gravels of this deposit the long-headed Canstadt man is alone found.
Immediately above this occur remains of the Cro-magnon type, and these are a.s.sociated with and overlain by beds holding large stones or erratic blocks, a monument perhaps of the physical disturbances closing the palanthropic age. Above these the next remains are those of a race of men of smaller stature and with less elongated heads, which we shall find belong to the neanthropic age. Here, as Quatref.a.ges points out, we have a distinct stratigraphical succession, which accords with that in other localities.