Part 6 (1/2)
RELA- TIVE TOTAL TIME TIME HUMAN ANIMAL AND GLACIERS UNIT YRS. YRS. LIFE PLANT LIFE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post-Glacial 1 25,000 25,000 Cro-Magnon Horse, Stag, Rein- Daum Azilian deer, Musk-Ox, Geschintz Magdalenian Arctic Fox, Pine, Buhl Solutrian Birch, Oak Aurignacian ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4th Glacial 1 25,000 50,000 Mousterian Reindeer, period of Wurm Ice Neanderthal Tundra, Alpine, Steppe, Meadow ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q 3d Inter- 4 100,000 150,000 Pre-Neander- Last warm Asiatic U glacial thal and African ani- A Piltdown mals R --------------------------------------------------------------------------- T 3d Glacial 1 25,000 175,000 Woolly Mammoth, E Riss Rhinoceros, R Reindeer N --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A 2d Inter- 8 200,000 375,000 Heidelberg African and Asiatic R glacial Race Animals, Ele- Y Mindel-Riss phant, Hippo- potamus ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2d Glacial 1 25,000 400,000 Cold weather Mindelanimals ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st Inter- 3 75,000 475,000 Pithecan- Hippopotamus, glacial thropus Elephant, Afri- Erectus can and Asiatic plants ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st Glacial 1 25,000 500,000 ============================================================================= T E R T I A R Y -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Prehistoric Types of the Human Race_.--The earliest record of human life yet discovered is the _Pithecanthropus Erectus_ (Trinil), the apelike man who walked upright, found in Java by Du Bois, about the year 1892. Enough of the skeletal remains of human beings were found at this time to indicate a man of rather crude form and low brain capacity (about 885 c.c.), with possible powers of speech but with no probably developed language or no a.s.sumption of the acquaintance with the arts of life.[4]
The remains of this man a.s.sociated with the remains of one other skeleton, probably a woman, and with the bones of extinct animals, were found in a geological stratum which indicates his age at about 500,000 years. Professor McGregor, after a careful anatomical study, has reproduced the head and bust of Pithecanthropus, which helps us to visualize this primitive species as of rather low cultural type. The low forehead, ma.s.sive jaw, and receding chin give us a vision of an undeveloped species of the human race, in some respects not much above the anthropoid apes, yet in other characters distinctly human.
There follows a long interval of human development which is only conjectural until the discovery of the bones of the Heidelberg man, found at the south of the River Neckar. These are the first records of the human race found in southern Europe. The type of man is still apelike in some respects, but far in advance of the Pithecanthropus in structure and general appearance. The restoration by the Belgian artist Mascre {65} under the direction of Professor A. Rotot, of Brussels, is indicative of larger brain capacity than the Trinil race.
It had a ma.s.sive jaw, distinctive nose, heavy arched brows, and still the receding chin. Not many cultural remains were found in strata of the second interglacial period along with the remains of extinct animals, such as the ancient elephant, Etruscan rhinoceros, primitive bison, primitive ox, Auvergne bear, and lion. A fauna and a flora as well as a geological structure were found which would indicate that this race existed at this place about 375,000 years ago. From these evidences very little may be determined of the Heidelberg man's cultural development, but much may be inferred. Undoubtedly, like the Pithecanthropus, he was a man without the tools of civilization, or at least had not developed far in this way.
About 150,000 years ago there appeared in Europe races of mankind that left more relics of their civilization.[6] These were the Neanderthaloid races. There is no evidence of the connection of these races with the Java man or the Heidelberg man. Here, as elsewhere in the evolution of races and species, nature does not work in a straight line of descent, but by differentiation and variation.
In 1856 the first discovery of a specimen of the Neanderthal man was found at the entrance of a small ravine on the right bank of the River Dussel, in Rhenish Prussia. This was the first discovery of the Paleolithic man to cause serious reflection on the possibility of a prehistoric race in Europe. Its age is estimated at 50,000 years.
This was followed by other discoveries of the Mid-Pleistocene period, until there were a number of discoveries of similar specimens of the Neanderthal race, varying in some respects from each other. The first had a brain capacity of 1230 c.c., while that of the average European is about 1500 c.c. Some of the specimens showed a skull capacity larger than the first specimen, but the average is lower than that of any living race, unless it be that of the Australians.
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Later were discovered human remains of a somewhat higher type, known as the Aurignacian, of the Cro-Magnon race. These are probably ancestors of the living races of Europe existing 25,000 to 50,000 years ago.
They represent the first races to which may be accorded definite relations.h.i.+p with the recent races.
Thus we have evidences of the great antiquity of man and a series of remains showing continual advancement over a period of nearly 500,000 years--the Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg, Piltdown, and Neanderthal, though expressing gradations of development in the order named, appear to be unrelated in their origin and descent, and are cla.s.sed as separate species long since extinct. The Cro-Magnon people seem more directly related to modern man. Perhaps in the Neolithic Age they may have been the forebears of present races, either through direct or indirect lines.
_The Unity of the Human Race_.--Though there are evidences, as shown above, that there were many branches of the human race, or species, some of which became extinct without leaving any records of the pa.s.sing on of their cultures to others, there is a pretty generally concerted opinion that all branches of the human race are related and have sprung from the same ancestors. There have been differences of opinion regarding this view, some holding that there are several centres of development in which the precursor of man a.s.sumed a human form (polygenesis), and others holding that according to the law of differentiation and zoological development there must have been at some time one origin of the species (monogenesis). So far as the scientific investigation of mankind is concerned, it is rather immaterial which theory is accepted. We know that mult.i.tudes of tribes and races differ in minor parts of structure, differ in mental capacity, and hence in qualities of civilization, and yet in general form, brain structure, and mental processes, it is the same human being wherever found. So we may a.s.sume that there is a unity of the race.
If we consider the human race to have sprung from a single {67} pair, or even the development of man from a single species, it must have taken a long time to have developed the great marks of racial differences that now exist. The question of unity or plurality of race origins has been much discussed, and is still somewhat in controversy, although the predominance of evidence is much in favor of the descent of man from a single species and from a single place. The elder Aga.s.siz held that there were several separate species of the race, which accounts for the wide divergence of characteristics and conditions. But it is generally admitted from a zoological standpoint that man originated from a single species, although it does not necessarily follow that he came from a single pair. It is the diversity or the unity of the race from a single pair which gives rise to the greatest controversy.
There is a wide diversity of opinion among ethnologists on this question. Aga.s.siz was followed by French writers, among whom were Topinard and Herve, who held firmly to the plurality of centres of origin and distribution. Aga.s.siz thought there were at least nine centres in which man appeared, each independent of the others. Morton thought he could point out twenty-two such centres, and Nott and Gliddon advanced the idea that there were distinct races of people.
But Darwin, basing his arguments upon the uniformity of physical structure and similarity of mental characteristics, held that man came from a single progenitor. This theory is the most acceptable, and it is easily explained, if we admit time enough for the necessary changes in the structure and appearance of man. It is the simplest hypothesis that is given, and explains the facts relative to the existence of man much more easily than does the theory in reference to diversity of origins. The majority of ethnologists of America and Europe appear to favor the idea that man came from a single pair, arose from one place, and spread thence over the earth's surface.
_The Primitive Home of Man May Be Determined in a General Way_.--The location of the cradle of the race has not {68} yet been satisfactorily established. The inference drawn from the Bible story of the creation places it in or near the valley of the Euphrates River. Others hold that the place was in Europe, and others still in America. A theory has also been advanced that a continent or group of large islands called Lemuria, occupying the place where the Indian Ocean now lies, and extending from Ceylon to Madagascar, was the locality in which the human race originated. The advocates of this theory hold to it chiefly on the ground that it is necessary to account for the peopling of Australia and other large islands and continents, and that it is the country best fitted by climate and other physical conditions for the primitive race. This submerged continent would enable the races to migrate readily to different parts of the world, still going by dry land.
There is little more than conjecture upon this subject, and the continent called Lemuria is as mythical as the Ethiopia of Ptolemy and the Atlantis of Plato. It is a convenient theory, as it places the cradle of the race near the five great rivers, the Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, and the Nile. The supposed home also lies in a zone in which the animals most resembling man are found, which is an important consideration; as, in the development of the earth, animals appeared according to the conditions of climate and food supply, so the portion of the earth best prepared for man's early life is most likely to be his first home.
Although it is impossible to determine the first home of man, either from a scientific or an historical standpoint, there are a few well-acknowledged theories to be observed: First, as the islands of the ocean were not peopled when first discovered by modern navigators, it is reasonable to suppose that the primitive home of man was on one of the continents. As man is the highest and last development of organic nature, it is advocated, with considerable force of argument, that his first home was in a region suitable to the life of the anthropoid apes.
As none of these, either living or fossil, are found in Australia or America, these continents are practically excluded from the probable list of places for the early home of man.
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In considering the great changes which have taken place in the earth's surface, southern India and southern Africa were large islands at the time of man's appearance; hence, there is little probability of either of these being the primitive home. None of the oldest remains of man have been found in the high northern lat.i.tudes of Europe or America.
We have then left a strip of country on the southern slope of the great mountain chain which begins in western Europe and extends to the Himalaya Mountains, in Asia, which appears to be the territory in which was situated the early home of man. The geological relics and the distribution of the race both point to the fact that in this belt man's life began; but it is not determined whether it was in Europe or in Asia, there being adherents to both theories.
_The Antiquity of Man Is Shown in Racial Differentiation_.--Granted that the life of the human race has originated from a common biological origin and from a common geographical centre, it has taken a very long time for the races to be differentiated into the physical traits they possess to-day, as it has taken a long time for man to spread over the earth. The generalized man wandering along the streams and through the forests in search of food, seeking for shelter under rocks and in caves and trees, was turned aside by the impa.s.sable barriers of mountains, or the forbidding glacier, the roaring torrent, or the limits of the ocean itself, and spread over the accessible parts of the earth's surface until he had covered the selected districts on the main portions of the globe. Then came race specialization, where a group remained a long time in the same environment and inbred in the same stock, developing specialized racial characters. These changes were very slow, and the wide difference to-day between the Asiatic, the African, and the European is indicative of the long period of years which brought them about. Certainly, six thousand years would not suffice to make such changes.
Of course one must realize that just as, in the period of childhood, the plastic state of life, changes of structure and appearance are more rapid than in the mature man, after {70} traits and characters have become more fixed, so by a.n.a.logy we may a.s.sume that this was the way of the human race and that in the earlier period changes were more rapid than they are to-day. Thus in the cross-fertilizations and amalgamation of races we would expect a slower development than under these earlier conditions, yet when we realize the persistence of the types of Irish and German, of Italian and Greek, of j.a.panese and Chinese, even though the races become amalgamated, we must infer that the racial types were very slow in developing.
If we consider the variations in the structure and appearance of the several tribes and races with which we come in contact in every-day life, we are impressed with the amount of time necessary to make these changes. Thus the Anglo-American, whom we sometimes call Caucasian, taken as one type of the perfection of physical structure and mental habit, with his brown hair, having a slight tendency to curl, his fair skin, high, prominent, and broad forehead, his great brain capacity, his long head and delicately moulded features, contrasts very strongly with the negro, with his black skin, long head, with flat, narrow forehead, thick lips, projecting jaw, broad nose, and black and woolly hair. The Chinese, with his yellow skin, flat nose, black, coa.r.s.e hair, and oblique, almond-shaped eyes, and round skull, marks another distinct racial type. Other great races have different characteristics, and among our own race we find a further separation into two great types, the blonds and the brunettes.
What a long period of time must have elapsed to have changed the racial characteristics! From pictures made three thousand years ago in Egypt the differences of racial characteristics were very clearly depicted in the hair, the features of the face, and, indeed, the color of the skin.
If at this period the racial differences were clearly marked, at what an early date must they have been wanting! So, also, the antiquity of man is evinced in the fact that the oldest skeletons found show him at that early period to be in possession of an average {71} brain capacity and a well-developed frame. If changes in structure have taken place, they have gradually appeared only during a long period of years. Yet, when it is considered that man is a migratory creature, who can adapt himself to any condition of climate or other environment, and it is realized that in the early stage of his existence his time was occupied for a long period in hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, and that from this practice he entered the pastoral life to continue, to a certain extent, his wanderings, it is evident that there is sufficient opportunity for the development of independent characteristics. Also the effects of sun and storm, of climate and other environments have a great influence in the slow changes of the race which have taken place. The change in racial traits is dependent largely upon biological selection, but environment and social selection probably had at least indirect influence in the evolution of racial characters.