Part 10 (1/2)
Palestine thus presents a prehistoric past parallel with the earlier years of Egypt. It has, however, a still earlier period, for in Palestine, as stated in a previous chapter, we have evidence of the existence of man long before the dispersion of the sons of Noah. To appreciate this evidence, we must go back, as in the case of Egypt, to the pre-human period. All along the coast of Palestine, from Jaffa to the northern limit of old Phnicia, the geological traveller sees evidence of a recent submergence, in the occurrence of sandstone, gravel, and limestone with sh.e.l.ls and other marine remains of species still living in the Mediterranean. These are the relics of that pleistocene submergence already referred to, in which the Nile valley was an arm of the sea and Africa was an island. No evidence has been found of the residence of man in Palestine in this period, when, as the sea washed the very bases of the hills, and the plains were under water, it was certainly not very well suited to his abode. The climate was also probably more severe than at present, and the glaciers of Lebanon must have extended nearly to the sea. This was the time of the so-called glacial period in Western Europe.
This, however, was succeeded by that post-glacial period in which, as already explained, the area of the Mediterranean was much smaller than at present, and the land encroached far upon the bed of the sea. This, the second continental period, is that in which man makes his first undoubted appearance in Europe, and we have evidence of the same kind in Syria, to which I have already directed attention in the description of the caverns of the Lebanon, in Chapter IV.
That the occupancy of these caves is very ancient is proved by the fact that the old Egyptian conquerors, who cut a road for themselves over these precipices before the Exodus, seem to have found them in the same state as at present, while farther south ancient Syrian tombs are excavated in similar bone breccias. But there is better evidence than this. The bones and teeth in these caves belong not to the animals which have inhabited the Lebanon in historic times, but to creatures like the hairy rhinoceros and the bison, now extinct, which could not have lived in this region since the comparatively modern period in which the Mediterranean resumed its dominion over that great plain between Phnicia and Cyprus. This we know had been submerged long before the first migrations of the Hamites into Phnicia, even before the entrance of those comparatively rude tribes which seem to have inhabited the country before the Phnician colonisation.[86] Unfortunately no burials of these early men have yet been found, and perhaps the Lebanon caves were only their summer sojourns on hunting expeditions. They were, however, probably of the same stock with the races (the Cro-magnon and Canstadt) of the so-called mammoth age in Western Europe, who have left similar remains. Thus we can carry man in the Lebanon back to that absolutely prehistoric age which preceded the Noachian Deluge and the dispersion of the Noachidae.[87]
[86] Some of these tribes also lived in caves, as that of Ant Elias, but the animals they consumed are those now living in the Lebanon.
[87] Dawson, _Trans. Vict. Inst.i.tute_, May 1884; also _Modern Science in Bible Lands_.
If in imagination we suppose ourselves to visit the caves of the Nahr-el-Kelb pa.s.s, when they were inhabited by these early men, we should find them to be tall muscular people, clothed in skins, armed with flint-tipped javelins and flint hatchets, and cooking the animals caught in the chase in the mouths of their caves. They were probably examples of the ruder and less civilised members of that powerful and energetic antediluvian population which had apparently perfected so many arts, and the remains of whose more advanced communities are now buried in the silt of the sea bottom. If we looked out westward on what is now the Mediterranean, we should see a wide wooded or gra.s.sy plain as far as eye could reach, and perhaps might discern vast herds of elephant, rhinoceros, and bison wandering over these plains in their annual migrations. Possibly on the far margin of the land we might see the smoke of antediluvian towns long ago deeply submerged in the sea.
The great diluvial catastrophe which closed this period, and finally introduced the present geographical conditions, we have seen good reason to identify with the historical Deluge, and the old peoples of the age of the mammoth and rhinoceros were antediluvians, and must have perished from the earth before the earliest migration of the Beni Noah.
Putting together the results referred to in the preceding pages, we may restore the prehistoric ages of the Eastern Mediterranean under the following statements:
1. In the period immediately preceding human occupancy, the land of Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia partic.i.p.ated in the great pleistocene depression, accompanied by a rigorous climate.
2. The next stage was one of continental elevation, in which the borders of the Mediterranean were dry land, and vast plains in this basin, and even in the Western Atlantic, were open to human migration. In this age palaeocosmic men took up their abode all over Western Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa, and probably occupied broad lands since submerged. At this period the region was inhabited by the mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, and other large animals now altogether or locally extinct.
3. The earlier part of this post-glacial or antediluvian period was one of mild climatal conditions, followed by a slight return of the conditions of the previous glacial age.
4. The period was terminated by a great submergence, accompanied with vast destruction of animal and human life; and of comparatively short duration, corresponding to the historical Deluge.
5. From this depression the more limited continents of the modern period were elevated, and man again overspread them from his primitive seats in the Euphratean region, as recorded in the tenth chapter of Genesis.
6. In this early migration the Biblical Hamites, forming one of the groups of men vaguely known as Turanian, first spread themselves over Palestine and Egypt, and founded the early Phnician, Canaanite, Mizraimite, and Cus.h.i.+te tribes and nations.
7. In early historic times Semitic peoples, Hebrews and others from the east, and Mongoloid peoples from the north, migrated into Palestine and dominated and mixed with the primitive tribes, finally penetrating into Egypt and establis.h.i.+ng there the dominion known as that of the Hyksos.
The historical Moabites, Ammonites, Ishmaelites, and Hitt.i.tes were peoples of this character, having a substratum of Hamite blood with aristocracies of Semitic or Tartar origin.
It will be observed that while archaeological evidence tends to ill.u.s.trate and corroborate that wonderful collection of early historical doc.u.ments contained in the Book of Genesis, and to prove their great antiquity, on the other hand these doc.u.ments prove to be the most precious sources of information as to the antediluvian age, the great Flood, the earliest dispersion of men, the old Nimrodic empire, the connections of Asiatic and African civilisation, and other matters connected with the origins of the oldest nations, respecting which we have little other written history.
We thus learn that, relatively to Bible history, there is no prehistoric age, since it carries us back beyond the Deluge to the origin of man, so that we might properly restrict this term in its narrower signification to those parts of the world not covered by this primitive history. It is true that a tide of criticism hostile to the integrity of Genesis has been rising for some years; but it seems to beat vainly against a solid rock, and the ebb has now evidently set in. The battle of historical and linguistic criticism may indeed rage for a time over the history and date of the Mosaic law, but in so far as Genesis is concerned it has been practically decided by scientific exploration.
Since writing the preceding pages I have met with a remarkable paper by Mr. Horatio Hale in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada_.[88] It is one which should commend itself to the study of every Biblical scholar and archaeologist; but is contained in a periodical which perhaps meets the eyes of few of them. In this paper he maintains the importance of language as a ground of anthropological cla.s.sification, and then uses his wide knowledge of the languages of American aborigines, and other rude races, to show that the grammatical complexity and logical perfection of these languages implies a high intellectual capacity in their original framers, and that where such complex and perfect languages are spoken by very rude tribes like the Australian aborigines, they originated with cultivated and intellectual peoples--in the case of the Australian, with the civilised primitive Dravidians of India. He thus shows that languages, like alphabets, have undergone a process of degradation, so that those of modern times are less perfect exponents of thought than those which preceded them, and that primitive man in his earliest state must have been endowed with as high intellectual powers as any of his descendants.
[88] Vol. IX. Sec. II. 1891.
On similar grounds he shows that it is not in the outlying barbarous races that we are to look for truly primitive man, since here we have merely degraded types, and that the primitive centres of man and language must have been in the old historic lands of Western Asia and Northern Africa. On this view the time necessary for the development of the arts of civilisation and of extensive colonisation would not be great. 'In five centuries a single human pair planted in a fertile oasis might have given origin to a people of five hundred thousand souls, numerous enough to have sent out emigrations to the nearest inviting lands.' The same lapse of time would have sufficed to develop agriculture, to domesticate animals, and to make some progress in architectural and other arts of life. He quotes the remarkable pa.s.sage of Reclus[89] as to the agency of woman in the inventions of early art, and shows that this accords with more modern experience among the less civilised nations. It is obvious that all this tends to bring scientific anthropology into the closest relation with the old Biblical history, though Hale, in deference, perhaps, to modern prejudices, does not refer to this.
[89] _Primitive Folk_ (Contemporary Science Series), p. 58.
In the pa.s.sage quoted by Hale, Reclus says: 'It is to woman that mankind owes all that has made us men.' Following this hint of the ingenious French writer, we may imagine the first man and woman inhabiting some fertile region, rich in fruits and other natural products, and subsisting at first on the uncultivated bounty of nature. With the birth of their first child, perhaps before, would come the need of shelter either in some dry cavern or booth of poles and leaves or bark, carpeted perhaps with moss or boughs of pine. This would be the first 'home,'
with the woman for its housekeeper. We may imagine the man bringing to it the lamb or kid whose dam he had killed, and the woman, with motherly instinct, pitying the little orphan and training it to be a domestic pet, the first of tamed animals. She, too, would store grain, seeds and berries for domestic use, and some of these germinating would produce patches of grain, or shrubs, or fruit trees around the hut. Noticing these and protecting them, she would be the first gardener and orchardist. The woman and her children might add to the cultivated plants or domesticated quadrupeds and birds; and the man would be induced, in the intervals of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, to guard, protect, and fence them.