definition of periods—passage from pliocene to quaternary—scarcity of human remains in tertiary—denudation—evidence from caves wanting—tertiary man a necessary inference from widespread existence of quaternary man—both equally inconsistent with genesis—was the first great glaciation pliocene or quaternary?—section of perrier—confirms croll's theory—elephas meridionalis—mammoth—st. prest—cut bones—instances of tertiary man—halitherium—bal?onotus—puy courny—thenay—evidence for—proofs of human agency—latest conclusions—gaudry's theory—dryopithecus—type of tertiary man—skeleton of castelnedolo—- shows no approach to the missing link—contrary to theory of evolution—- must be sought in the eocene—evidence from the new world—glacial period in america—pal?olithic implements—quaternary man—similar to europe—california—conditions different—auriferous gravels—volcanic eruptions—enormous denudation—great antiquity—flora and fauna—point to tertiary age —discovery of human remains—table mountain—latest finds—calaveras skull—summary of evidence—other evidence—tuolumne—brazil—buenos ayres—nampa images—take us farther from first origins and the missing link—if darwin's theory applies to man, must go back to the eocene.
the first difficulty which meets us in this question is that of distinguishing clearly between the different geological periods. no hard-and-fast line separates the quaternary from the pliocene, the pliocene from the miocene, or the miocene from the eocene. they pass from one into the other by insensible gradations, and the names given to them merely imply that such considerable changes have taken place in the fauna 344 as to enable us to distinguish one period from another. and even this only applies when we take the periods as a whole, and see what have been the predominant types, for single types often survive through successive periods. the course of evolution seems to be that types and species, like individuals, have their periods of birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death. thus fish of the ganoid type appear sparingly in the silurian, culminate in the devonian, and gradually die out in the later formations. so also saurian reptiles appear in the carboniferous, culminate in the lias, and die out with the secondary, or so nearly so that the crocodilia are their sole remaining representatives.
and this applies when we attempt to take our first step backwards in tracing the origin of man, and follow him from the quaternary into the pliocene. when did the pliocene end and the quaternary begin? within which of the two did the first great glacial period fall? does pre-glacial mean pliocene, or is it included in the quaternary? and to which do the oldest human remains belong, such as the skeletons of spy?
the difficulty of answering these questions is increased because, as we go back in time, the human remains which guide us in the quaternary age necessarily become scarcer. mankind must have been fewer in number, and their relics to a great extent removed by denudation. thus the evidence from caves, which affords by far the most information as to quaternary man, entirely fails us as to the pliocene and earlier periods. this may be readily accounted for when we consider the great amount of the earth's surface which has been removed by denudation. in fact we have seen that nearly 2000 feet of a mountain range must 345 have disappeared from denudation in the weald of kent, since the streams from it rolled down the gravels with human implements, scattered over the north downs as described by professor prestwich. what chance would tertiary caves have of surviving such an extensive denudation? moreover, if any of the present caves existed before the glacial period, their original contents must have been swept out, perhaps more than once, before they became filled by the present deposits. there is evidence in many caves that this was the case, from small patches of the older deposit being found adhering to the roof, as at brixham and maccaguone in sicily, in which latter case flakes of chipped stone and pieces of carbon were found by dr. falconer in these patches of a hard breccia.
there is another consideration also which must have greatly diminished the chance of finding human remains in tertiary deposits. why did men take to living in dark and damp caves? presumably for protection against cold. but in the miocene and the greater part of the pliocene there was no great cold. the climate, as shown by the vegetation, was mild, equable, and ranged from semi-tropical to south-temperate, and the earth was to a certain extent covered by forests sustaining many fruit-bearing trees. under such conditions men would have every inducement to live in the open air, and in or near forests where they could obtain food and shelter, rather than in caves. and a few scattered savages, thus living, would leave exceedingly few traces of their existence. if the pygmy races of central africa, or of the andaman islands, became extinct, the chances would be exceedingly small of a future geologist finding any of their stone implements, which 346 alone would have a chance of surviving, dropped under secular accumulations of vegetable mould in a wide forest.
it is the more important therefore where instances of human remains in tertiary strata, supported by strong prima facie evidence, and vouched for by competent authorities, do actually occur, to examine them dispassionately, and not, as a good many of our english geologists are disposed to do, dismiss them with a sort of scientific non possumus, like that which was so long opposed to the existence of quaternary man, and the discoveries of boucher-de-perthes. it is perfectly evident from the admitted existence of man throughout the quaternary period, already spread over a great part of the earth's surface, and divided into distinct types, that if there is any truth in evolution, mankind must have had a long previous existence. the only other possible alternative would be the special miraculous creations of men of several different types, and in many different centres, at the particular period of time when the tertiary was replaced by the quaternary. in other words that, while all the rest of the animal creation have come into existence by evolution from ancestral types, man alone, and that not merely as regards his spiritual qualities, but physical man, with every bone and muscle having its counterpart in the other quadrumana, was an exception to this universal law, and sprang into existence spontaneously or by repeated acts of supernatural interference.
as long as the account of the creation in genesis was held to be a divinely-inspired narrative, and no facts contradicting it had been discovered, it is conceivable that such a theory might be held, but to admit 347 evolution for quaternary, and refuse to admit it for tertiary man, is an extreme instance of "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel," for a duration of even 10,000 or 20,000 years is just as inconsistent with genesis as one of 100,000 or half a million.
in attacking the question of tertiary man, the first point is to aim at some clear conception of where the pliocene ends and the quaternary begins. these are after all but terms applied to gradual changes through long intervals of time; still they require some definition, or otherwise we should be beating the air, and ticketing in some museums as tertiary the identical specimens which in others were labelled as quaternary. this turns very much on whether the first great glaciation was pliocene or quaternary, and must be decided partly by the order of superposition and partly by the fauna. if we can find a section where a thick morainic deposit is interposed between two stratified deposits, a lower one characterized by the usual fauna of the older pliocene, and an upper one by that of the newer pliocene, it is evident that the glacier or ice-cap which left this moraine must have existed in pliocene times. we know that the climate became colder in the pliocene, and rapidly colder towards its close, and that in the cliffs of cromer, the forest bed with a temperate climate had given place to arctic willows and mosses, before the first and lowest boulder-clay had brought blocks of scandinavian granite to england. we should be prepared, therefore, for evidence that this first period of greatest cold had occurred within the limits of the pliocene period.
such evidence is afforded by the valleys which radiate from the great central boss of france in the 348 auvergne. the hill of perrier had long been known as a rich site of the fossil remains of the extinct pliocene fauna, and its section has been carefully studied by some of the best french geologists, whose results are summed up as follows by hamy in his pal?ontologie humaine—
"the bed-rock is primitive protogine, which is covered by nearly horizontal lacustrine miocene, itself covered by some metres of fluviatile gravels. above comes a bed of fine sand, a mètre thick, which contains numerous specimens of the well-known mammalian fauna of the lower pliocene, characterized by two mastodons (m. armenicus and m. borsoni). then comes a mass of conglomerates 150 mètres thick, consisting of pebbles and boulders cemented by yellowish mud; and above this a distinct layer of upper pliocene characterized by the elephas meridionalis.
"the boulders, some of which are of great size, are all angular, never rounded or stratified, often scratched, and mostly consisting of trachyte, which must have been transported twenty-five kilomètres from the puy de d?me. in short, the conglomerate is absolutely indistinguishable from any other glacial moraine, whether of the quaternary period or of the present day. it is divided into three sections by two layers of rolled pebbles and sands, which could only have been caused by running water, so that the glacier must have advanced and retreated three times, leaving each time a moraine fifty mètres thick, and the whole of this must have occurred before the deposit of the upper pliocene stratum with its elephas meridionalis and other pliocene mammals."
the importance of this will presently be seen, for the elephas meridionalis is one of the extinct animals 349 which is most directly connected with the proofs of man's existence before the quaternary period. it is also important as confirming the immense time which must have elapsed between the date of the first and second maxima of glacial cold, and thus adding probability to the calculations derived from croll's periods of maximum and minimum eccentricity.
the three advances and retreats of the great perrier glacier also fit in extremely well with the calculated effects of precession during high eccentricity, as about three of such periods must have occurred in the period of the coming on, culminating, and receding of each phase of maximum eccentricity.
this evidence from perrier does not stand alone, for in the neighbouring valleys, and in many other localities, isolated boulders of foreign rocks which could only have been transported by ice, are found at heights considerably above those of the more recent moraines and boulders which had been supposed to mark the limit of the greatest glaciation. thus on the slopes of the jura and the vosges, boulders of alpine rocks, much worn by age, and whose accompanying drifts and moraines have disappeared by denudation, are found at heights 150 or 200 mètres above the more obvious moraines and boulders, which themselves rise to a height of nearly 4000 feet, and must have been the front of glaciers from the alps which buried the plain of switzerland under that thickness of solid ice.
the only possible alternative to this evidence from perrier would be to throw back the duration of the quaternary and limit that of the pliocene enormously, by supposing that all the deposits above the great glacial conglomerate or old moraine, are inter-glacial 350 and not tertiary. this is, as has been pointed out, very much a question of words, for the phenomena and the time required to account for them remain the same by whatever name we elect to call them. but it still has its importance, for it involves the fundamental principle of geology, that of classifying eras and formations by their fauna. if the elephas meridionalis is a pliocene and not a quaternary species, we must admit, with the great majority of continental geologists, that the first and greatest glaciation fell within the pliocene period. if, on the other hand, this elephant is, like the mammoth, part of the quaternary fauna, we may believe, as many english geologists do, that the first glacial period coincided with and probably occasioned the change from pliocene to quaternary, and that everything above the oldest boulder-clays and moraines is not tertiary but inter-glacial.
as bones of the elephas meridionalis have been frequently found in connection with human implements, and with cuts on them which could only have been made by flint knives ground by the human hand, it will be seen at once what an interest attaches to this apparently dry geological question, of the age of the great southern elephant.
the transition from the mastodon into the elephant took place in the old world (for in america the succession is different) in the pliocene period. in the older pliocene we have nothing but mastodons, in the newer nothing but elephants, and the transition from the older to the newer type is distinctly traced by intermediate forms in the fossil fauna of the sewalek hills. the elephas meridionalis is the oldest known form of true elephant, and it is characteristic of all the different 351 formations of the upper pliocene, while it is nowhere found in cave or river deposits which belong unmistakably to the quaternary. it was a gigantic animal, fully four feet higher than the tallest existing elephant, and bulky in proportion. it had a near relation in the elephas antiquus, which was of equal size, and different from it mainly in a more specialized structure of the molar teeth, and the remains of this elephant have been found in the lower strata of some of the oldest bone-caves and river-silts, as to which it is difficult to say whether they are older or younger than the first glacial period. the remains of a pygmy elephant, no bigger than an ass, have also been found in the upper pliocene, at malta and sicily, and those of the existing african elephant in sicily and spain. it would seem, therefore, that the upper pliocene was the golden age of the elephants where they were most widely diffused, and comprised most species and most varieties, both in the direction of gigantic and of diminutive size. but in passing from the pliocene into the quaternary period, they all, or almost all, disappeared, and were superseded by the elephas primigenius, or mammoth, which had put in a first appearance in the latest pliocene, and became the principal representative of the genus elephas in europe and northern asia down to comparatively recent times.
this succession is confirmed by that of the rhinoceros, of which several species were contemporary with the elephas meridionalis, while the rhinoceros tichorinus, or woolly rhinoceros, who is the inseparable companion of the mammoth, appeared and disappeared with him.
in these matters, those who are not themselves specialists must rely on authority, and when we find 352 lyell, geikie, and prestwich coinciding with all modern french, german, italian, and belgian geologists, in considering elephas meridionalis as one of the characteristic upper pliocene fauna, we can have no hesitation in adopting their conclusion.
in this case the section of st. prest, near chartres, affords a first absolutely secure foothold in tracing our way backwards towards human origins beyond the quaternary. the sands and gravels of a river which ran on the bed rock without any underlying glacial débris are here exposed. it had no relation to the existing river eure, the bed of which it crosses at an angle, and it must have run before that river had begun to excavate its valley, and when the drainage of the country was quite different. the sands contain an extraordinary number of bones of the elephas meridionalis, associated with old species of rhinoceros, and other pliocene species. lyell, who visited the spot, had no hesitation in calling it a pliocene river. in fact it never would have been disputed if the question of man's antiquity had not been involved in it, for in these sands and gravels have been found numerous specimens of cut bones of the elephas meridionalis, together with the flint knives which made the cuts, and other stone implements, rude but still unmistakably of the usual pal?olithic type.
the subjoined plate will enable the reader to compare the arrow-head, which is the commonest type found at st. prest, with a comparatively recent arrow-head from the yorkshire wolds, and see how impossible it is to concede human agency to the post-glacial and deny it to the pliocene specimen.
pliocene.
arrow-head—st. prest.
(hamy, pal?ontologie humaine.)
post-glacial.
arrow-head—yorkshire wolds.
(evans, stone implements.)
in this and other instances, cut bones afford one of 353 the most certain tests of the presence of man. the bones tell their own tale, and their geological age can be certainly identified. sharp cuts could only be made on them while the bones were fresh, and the state of fossilization, and presence of dendrites or minute crystals alike on the side of the cuts and on the bone, negative any idea of forgery. the cuts can be compared with those on thousands of undoubted human cuts on bones from the reindeer and other later periods, and with cuts now made with old flint knives on fresh bones. all these tests have been applied by some of the best anthropologists of the day, who have made a special study of the subject, and who have shown their caution and good faith by rejecting numerous specimens which did not fully meet the most rigorous requirements, with the result that in several cases there could be no reasonable doubt that the cuts were really made by human implements guided by human hands. the only possible alternative suggested is, that they might have been made by gnawing animals or fishes. but as quatrefages observes, even an ordinary carpenter would have no difficulty in distinguishing between a clean cut made by a sharp knife, 354 and a groove cut by repeated strokes of a narrow chisel; and how much more would it be impossible for a professor trained to scientific investigation, and armed with a microscope, to mistake a groove gnawed out by a shark or rodent for a cut made by a flint knife. no one who will refer to quatrefages' hommes fossilés, and look at the figures of cut bones given there from actual photographs, can feel any doubt that the cuts there delineated were made by flint knives held by the human hand.
in addition to this instance of st. prest, quatrefages in his histoire des races humaines, published in 1887, and containing the latest summary of the evidence generally accepted by french geologists as to tertiary man, says that, omitting doubtful cases, the presence of man has been signalized in deposits undoubtedly tertiary in five different localities, viz. in france by the abbé bourgeois, in the lower miocene of thenay near pontlevoy (loir-et-cher); by m. rames at puy courny near aurillac (cantal), in the upper miocene; in italy by m. capellini in the pliocene of monte aperto near sienna, and by m. ragazzoni in the lower pliocene of castelnedolo near brescia; in portugal by m. ribiero at otta, in the valley of the tagus, in the upper miocene.
cuts with flint knife on rib of bal?onotus—pliocene. from monte aperto, italy. (quatrefages, histoire des races humaines.)
cut magnified by microscope.
to these may be added the cut bones of halitherium, a miocene species, from pouancé (maine et loire), by m. delaunay; and those on the tibia of a rhinoceros etruscus, and other fossil bones from the upper pliocene of the val d'arno. in addition to these are the numerous remains, certainly human and presumably tertiary, from north and south america, which will be referred to later, and a considerable number of cases 355 356 where there is a good deal of prima facie evidence for tertiary human remains, but where doubts remain and their authenticity is still denied by competent authorities. among these ought to be placed the instance from portugal, for although a large celt very like those of the oldest pal?olithic type was undoubtedly found in strata which had always been considered as miocene, the congress of pal?ontologists who assembled at lisbon were divided in opinion as to the conclusiveness of the evidence.
but there remain six cases in the old world, ranging from st. prest in the upper pliocene to thenay in the lower miocene, in which the preponderance of evidence and authority in support of tertiary man seems so decisive, that nothing but a preconceived bias against the antiquity of the human race can refuse to accept it.
i have already discussed this evidence so fully in a former work (problems of the future, ch. v. on tertiary man) that i do not propose to go over the ground again, but merely to refer briefly to some of the more important points which come out in the above six instances. in three of them, those of the halitherium of pouancé, the bal?onotus of monte aperto, and the rhinoceros of the val d'arno, the evidence depends entirely on cut bones, and in the case of st. prest on that of cut bones of elephas meridionalis combined with pal?olithic implements.
the evidence from cut bones is for the reasons already stated very conclusive, and when a jury of four or five of the leading authorities, such as quatrefages, hamy, mortillet, and delaunay, who have devoted themselves to this branch of inquiry, and have shown 357 their great care and conscientiousness by rejecting numbers of cases which did not satisfy the most rigid tests, arrive unanimously at the conclusion that many of the cuts on the bones of tertiary animals are unmistakably of human origin, there seems no room left for any reasonable scepticism. i cannot doubt therefore that we have positive evidence to confirm the existence of man, at any rate from the pliocene period, through the long series of ages intervening between it and the quaternary.
but the discovery of flint implements at puy courny in the upper miocene, and at thenay in the lower miocene, carry us back a long step further, and involves such important issues as to the origin of the human race, that it may be well to recapitulate the evidence upon which those discoveries rest.
the first question is as to the geological age of the deposits in which these chipped implements have been found. in the case of puy courny this is beyond dispute. in the central region of the auvergne there have been two series of volcanic eruptions, the latest towards the close of the pliocene or commencement of the quaternary period, and an older one, which, from its position and fossils, is clearly of the upper miocene. the gravels in which the chipped flints were discovered by m. rames, a very competent geologist, were interstratified with tuffs and lavas of these older volcanoes, and no doubt as to their geological age was raised by the congress of french arch?ologists to whom they were submitted. the whole question turns therefore on the sufficiency of the proofs of human origin, as to which the same congress expressed themselves as fully satisfied.
358
flint scraper from high level drift, kent. (prestwich.)
the specimens consist of several well-known pal?olithic types, celts, scrapers, arrow-heads and flakes, only ruder and smaller than those of later periods. they were found at three different localities in the same stratum of gravel, and comply with all the tests by which the genuineness of quaternary implements is ascertained, such as bulbs of percussion, conchoidal fractures, and above all, intentional chipping in a determinate direction. it is evident that a series of small parallel chips or trimmings, confined often to one side only of the flint, and which have the effect of bringing it into a shape which is known from quaternary and recent implements to be adapted for human use, imply intelligent design, and could not have been produced by the casual collisions of pebbles rolled down by an impetuous torrent. thus the annexed plate of an implement from the high level drift on the north downs, shown by professor prestwich to the anthropological society, is rude enough, but no one has ever expressed the least doubt of its human origin.
the chipped flints from puy courny also afford another very conclusive proof of intelligent design. 359 the gravelly deposit in which they are found contains five different varieties of flints, and of these all that look like human implements are confined to one particular variety, which from its nature is peculiarly adapted for human use. as quatrefages says, no torrents or other natural causes could have exercised such a discrimination, which could only have been made by an intelligent being, selecting the stones best adapted for his tools and weapons.
upper miocene implements. puy courny.
scraper, or lance-head.
puy courny. upper miocene (rames).
(quatrefages, races humaines, p. 95.)
scraper.
puy courny. upper miocene (rames)
(quatrefages, races humaines, p. 95.)
the general reader must be content to rely to a great extent on the verdict of experts, and in this instance of puy courny need not perhaps go further than the conclusion of the french congress of arch?ologists, who pronounced in favour both of their miocene and human origin. it may be well, however, to annex a plate showing in two instances how closely the specimens from puy courny resemble those of later periods, of the human origin of which no doubt has ever been 360 entertained. it is certainly carrying scientific scepticism to an unreasonable pitch to doubt that whatever cause fashioned the two lower figures, the same cause must equally have fashioned the upper ones; and if that cause be human intelligence in the quaternary period it must have been human or human-like intelligence in the upper miocene.
copare quaternary implements.
wokey hole—glacial.
(evans, stone implements, p 473.)
plateau drift.
north downs, kent (prestwich).
the evidence for the still older implements of thenay is of the same nature as that for those of puy courny. first as regards the geological horizon. subjoined is the section at thenay as. made by m. bourgeois, verified by mm. vibraye, delaunay, schmidt, belgrand, and others, from personal inspection, and given by m. hamy in his pal?ontologie humaine.
361 it would seem that there could be little doubt as to the geological position of the strata from which the alleged chipped flints come. the faluns are a well-known marine deposit of a shallow sea spread over a great part of central and southern france, and identified, beyond a doubt, as upper miocene by its shells. the orleans sands are another miocene deposit perfectly characterized by its mammalian fauna, in which the mastodon angustidens first appears, with other peculiar species. the calcaire de beauce is a solid freshwater limestone formed in the great lake which in the miocene age occupied the plain of the beauce and extended into touraine. it forms a clear horizon or dividing line between the upper miocene, characterized by the mastodon, and the lower miocene, of which the acrotherium, a four-toed and hornless rhinoceros, is the most characteristic fossil.
section at thenay.
9. quaternary alluvium.
8. falums—chipped flints.
7. orleans sands—chipped flints.
6b. calcaire de beauce—compact.
6a. " marly—no flints.
5. clayeye marl, with acrotherium—few flints.
4. marl with nodules—flints.
3. clay—chief site of cut flints.
2. marl and clay—very few flints.
1. marl and silex—no chipped flints.
362 the supposed chipped flints are said to appear sparingly in the upper deposits, disappear in the calcaire de beauce, and reappear, at first sparingly and then plentifully, in the lacustrian marls below the limestone. they are by far the most numerous in a thin layer of greenish-yellow clay, no. 3 of section, below which they rapidly disappear. there can be no question therefore that if the flints really came from the alleged deposits, and really show the work of human hands, the savages by whom they were chipped must have lived on the shores or sand-banks of this miocene lake. as regards the geological question, it is right to observe that professor prestwich, who visited the section a good many years ago in company with the abbé bourgeois, and who is one of the highest authorities on this class of questions, remained unconvinced that the flints shown him really came from the alleged strata below the calcaire de beauce, and thought that the specimens which appeared to show human manufacture might have come from the surface, and become intermixed with the natural flints of the lower strata.
the geological horizon, however, seems to have been generally accepted by french and continental geologists, especially by the latest authorities, and the doubts which have been expressed have turned mainly on the proof of human design shown by the implements. this is a question which must be decided by the authority of experts, for it requires special experience to be able to distinguish between accidental fractures and human design, in implements of the extremely rude type of the earlier formations. the test is mainly afforded by the nature of the chipping. if it consists of a number of small chips, all in the same direction, with 363 the result of bringing one face or side into a definite form, adapted for some special use, the inference is strong that the chips were the work of design. the general form might be the result of accident, but fractures from frost or collisions simulating chipping could hardly be all in the same direction, and confined to one part of the stone. the inference is strengthened if the specimen shows bulbs of percussion, where the blows had been struck to fashion the implement, and if the microscope discloses parallel stri? and other signs of use on the chipped edge, such as would be made by scraping bones or skins, while nothing of the sort is seen on the other natural edges, though they may be sharper. but above all, the surest test is afforded by a comparison with other implements of later dates, or even of existing savages, which are beyond all doubts products of human manufacture.
tried by these tests, the evidence stands as follows—
when specimens of the flints from thenay were first submitted to the anthropological congress at brussels, in 1867, their human origin was admitted by mm. worsae, de vibraye, de mortillet, and schmidt, and rejected by mm. nilson, hebert, and others, while m. quatrefages reserved his opinion, thinking a strong case made out, but not being entirely satisfied. m. bourgeois himself was partly responsible for these doubts, for, like boucher-de-perthes, he had injured his case by overstating it, and including a number of small flints, which might have been, and probably were, merely natural specimens. but the whole collection having been transferred to the arch?ological museum at st. germain, its director, m. mortillet, selected those which appeared most demonstrative of human origin, 364 and placed them in a glass case, side by side with similar types of undoubted quaternary implements. this removed a great many doubts, and later discoveries of still better specimens of the type of scrapers have, in the words of quatrefages, "dispelled his last doubts," while not a single instance has occurred of any convert in the opposite direction, or of any opponent who has adduced facts contradicting the conclusions of quatrefages, mortillet, and hamy, after an equally careful and minute investigation.
middle miocene implements.
scraper from thenay.
(hamy, pal?ontologie humaine, p. 49.)
scraper, or borer. thenay.
(showing bulb of percussion. quatrefages, races humaines, p. 92.)
in order to assist the reader in forming an opinion as to the claim of these flints from thenay, to show clear traces of human design, i subjoin some illustrations of photographs in which they are compared with specimens of later date, which are undoubtedly and by universal consent works of human hands, guided by human intelligence.
these figures seem to leave no reasonable doubt that some at least of the flints from thenay show unmistakable signs of human handiwork, and i only hesitate to accept them as conclusive proofs of the existence of man in the middle miocene, because such an authority as prestwich retains doubts of their having come from the 365 geological horizon accepted by the most eminent modern french geologists.
middle miocene implements.
borer, or awl. thenay. miocene.
(congrès préhistorique, bruxelles, 1872.(congrès préhistorique, bruxelles, 1872.)
knife, or scraper. thenay.
(gaudry. quatrefages, p. 92.)
the evidence of the authenticity of these implements from thenay is, moreover, greatly strengthened by the discovery of other miocene implements at puy courny, which have not been seriously impugned, and by the essay of professor prestwich, confirming the discovery of numerous flint implements in the upper level gravels of the north downs, which could only have been deposited by streams flowing from a mountain ridge along the anticlinal of the weald, of which 2000 feet must have disappeared by sub-a?rial denudation since these rivers flowed northwards from its flanks. how far back such a denudation may carry us is a matter 366 of speculation. certainly, as prestwich admits, into the pre-glacial or very early glacial ages, and possibly into the tertiaries, but at any rate for a time which, by whatever name we call it, must be enormous according to any standard of centuries or millenniums. and what is specially interesting in these extremely ancient implements is that, in prestwich's words, "these plateau implements exhibit distinct characters and types such as would denote them to be the work of a more 367 primitive and ruder race than those fabricated by pal?olithic men of the valley drift times."
compare quaternary implements.
scraper. yorkshire wold.
(evans, stone implements.)
quaternary. mammoth period.
river drift, mesvin. belgium.
quaternary. chaleux, belgium.
reindeer period. (congrès préhistorique, bruxelles, 1872.)
in fact we have only to look at the figures which accompany prestwich's essay,[12] to see that their types resemble those of puy courny and thenay, rather than those of st. acheul and moustier.
the following remarks of the professor would apply almost as well to the miocene implements as to those of the plateau—
"unlike the valley implements, the plateau implements are, as a rule, made of the fragments of natural drift flints, that are found scattered over the surface of the ground, or picked up in gravel-beds and merely roughly trimmed. sometimes the work is so slight as to be scarcely apparent; at others, it is sufficient to show a distinct design and object. it indicates the very infancy of the art, and probably the earliest efforts of man to fabricate his tools and weapons from other substances than wood or bone. that there was an object and design is manifest from the fact that they admit of being grouped according to certain patterns. these are very simple, but they answered to the wants of a primitive people.
"with few exceptions, the implements are small, from 2 to 5 inches in length, and mostly such as could have been used in the hand, and in the hand only. there is, with the exceptions before named, an almost entire absence of the large massive spear-head forms of the valley drifts, and a large preponderance of forms adapted for chipping, hammering, and scraping. with these are some implements that could not have been used in the hand, but they are few and rude. the difference 368 between the plateau and the valley implements is as great or greater than between the latter and the neolithic implements. though the work on the plateau implements is often so slight as scarcely to be recognizable, even modern savage work, such as exhibited for example by the stone implements of the australian natives, show, when divested of their mounting, an amount of work no greater or more distinct, than do these early pal?olithic specimens.
"some persons may be disposed to look upon the slight and rude work which these flints have received as the result only of the abrasion and knocking about caused by collision during the transport of the drift. this belief prevailed for a time even in the case of the comparatively well-fashioned valley implements. a little practice, and comparison with natural drift flints, will show the difference, notwithstanding the, at first, unpromising appearance of these early specimens of man's handicraft. it is as such, and from their being the earliest such work with which we are acquainted, that they are of so great interest, for they give us some slight insight into the occupation and surroundings of the race by whom they were used. a main object their owners would seem to have had in view, was the trimming of flints to supply them with implements adapted to the breaking of bones for the sake of the marrow, scraping skins, and round bodies such as bones or sticks, for use as simple tools or poles. from the scarcity of the large massive implements of the pointed and adze type, so common in the valley drifts, it would seem as though offensive and defensive weapons of this class had not been so much needed, whether from the rarity of the large mammalia, so common later on in the 369 low-level valley drifts, or from the habits and character of those early people."
the positive evidence is therefore extremely strong that men existed in the tertiaries, and if we add to it the irresistible inference that he must have done so to develop so many different races, and leave his rude implements in so many and such remote regions as we found early in the quaternary, i do not see how it is possible to avoid accepting it as an established fact.
but in using the term tertiary man, i do not venture to define the exact meaning of "man," or the precise stage in his evolution which had been attained at this enormously remote period. m. gaudry, an excellent authority, while admitting that the flints from thenay showed evidence of intentional chipping, thought that they might have been the work of the dryopithecus, a fossil ape, supposed to be nearer man than any existing anthropoid, whose remains had been found at sausan in the middle miocene. but the dryopithecus has been deposed from his pride of place by the subsequent discovery of a more perfect jaw, and he is now considered, though undoubtedly an anthropoid ape, to be of a lower type than the chimpanzee or gorilla.[13] the strongest argument however 370 for the essentially human character of the artificers of the flints of thenay and puy courny is that their type continues, with no change except that of slight successive improvements, through the pliocene, quaternary, and even down to the present day. the scraper of the esquimaux and the andaman islanders is but an enlarged and improved edition of the miocene scraper, and in the latter case the stones seem to have been split by the same agency, viz. that of fire. the early knowledge of fire is also confirmed by the discovery, reported by m. bourgeois in the orleans sand at thenay, with bones of mastodon and dinotherium, of a stony fragment mixed with carbon, in a sort of hardened paste, which, as we can hardly suppose pottery to have been known, must be the remnant of a hearth on which there had been a fire.
there must always, however, remain a doubt as to the nature of this ancestral tertiary man, until actual skulls and skeletons have been found, under circumstances which preclude doubt, and in sufficient numbers to enable anthropologists to speak with the same confidence as to types and races, as they can of his quaternary successors. this again is difficult from the rarity of such remains, and from the fact that after burial of the dead was introduced, graves must often have been dug down from the surface into older strata, with which in course of time their contents become intermixed. no case, therefore, can be safely admitted where the find was not made by well-known scientific authorities, under circumstances which preclude the possibility of subsequent interment, and vouch for the geological age of the undisturbed deposit. this test disposes of all the alleged discoveries of human remains in the tertiaries of the old world, except one, 371 and although it is quite possible that some may be genuine among those rejected, it is safer not to rely on them. there is one, however, which is supported by extremely strong evidence, and the discussion of which i have reserved for the last, as if accepted it throws a new and unexpected light on the evolution of the human race.
the following is the account of it, taken from quatrefages' races humaines—
"the bones of four individuals, a woman and two children, were found at castelnedolo, near brescia, in a bed identified by its fossils as lower pliocene. the excavations were made with the utmost care, in undisturbed strata, by m. ragazzoni, a well-known scientific man, assisted by m. germani, and the results confirmed by m. sergi, a well-known geologist, after a minute personal investigation. the deposit was removed in successive horizontal layers, and not the least trace was found of the beds having been mixed or disturbed. the human bones presented the same fossilized appearance as those of the extinct animals in the same deposit. the female skeleton was almost entire, and the fragments of the skull were sufficiently perfect to admit of their being pieced together so as to show almost its entire form."
the first conjecture naturally was that it must have been a case of subsequent interment, a conjecture which was strengthened by the fact of the female skeleton being so entire; but this is negatived by the undisturbed nature of the beds, and by the fact that the other bones were found scattered at considerable distances throughout the stratum. m. quatrefages sums up the evidence by saying, "that there exists no serious reason for doubting the discovery, and that if made in a quaternary deposit, no one would have thought of contesting its accuracy. 372 nothing can be opposed to it but theoretical à priori objections similar to those which so long repelled the existence of quaternary man."
but if we accept this discovery, it leads to the remarkable conclusion that tertiary man not only existed, but has undergone little change in the thousands of centuries which have since elapsed. the skull is of fair capacity, very much like what might be expected from a female of the canstadt type, and less rude and ape-like than the skulls of spy and neanderthal, or those of modern bushmen and australians. and the other bones of the skeleton show no marked peculiarities.
this makes it difficult to accept the discovery unreservedly, notwithstanding the great weight of positive evidence in its favour. the great objection to tertiary man has been, that as all other species had changed, and many had become extinct two or three times over since the miocene, it was unlikely that an animal so highly specialized as man should alone have had a continuous existence. and this argument of course becomes stronger the more it can be shown that the oldest skeletons differed little if it at all from man of the quaternary and recent ages. moreover, the earlier specimens of quaternary man which are so numerous and authentic, show, if not anything that can be fairly called the "missing link," still a decided tendency, as they get older, towards the type of the rudest existing races, which again show a distinct though distant approximation towards the type of the higher apes. the oldest quaternary skulls are dolichocephalic, very thick with enormous frontal sinuses; low and receding foreheads; flattened vertices; prognathous jaws, and slight and receding' chins. the average cranial capacity is about 1150 cubic centimètres, or fully 373 one-fourth less than that of modern european man, and of this smaller brain a larger proportion is in the posterior region. the other peculiarities of the skeletons all tend in the same direction, and, as we have seen in huxley's description of the men of spy, sometimes go a long way in the pithecoid direction, even to the extent of not being able to straighten the knee in walking.
it would, therefore, be contrary to all our ideas of evolution to find that some 100,000 or 200,000, or more probably 400,000 or 500,000 years prior to these men of spy and neanderthal, the human race had existed in higher physical perfection nearer to the existing type of modern man.
quatrefages meets this by saying that tertiary men with a larger brain, and therefore more intelligence than the other tertiary mammals, might have survived, where these succumbed to changes and became extinct. this is doubtless true to some extent, but it hardly seems sufficient to account for the presence of a higher and more recent type, like that of castelnedolo in the lower pliocene, that is a whole geological period earlier than that of the lower quaternary. it is more to the purpose to say with gaudry that the changes on which the distinction of species are founded are often so slight that they might just as well be attributed to variations of races; and to appeal to instances like that of the hylobates of the miocene, one of the nearest congeners of man, in which no genuine difference can be detected from the hylobates or gibbon of the present day; and if the discovery referred to at p. 264, of anthropoid primates in the eocene of patagonia, should be confirmed, it would greatly strengthen the argument for the persistence 374 of the order to which man belongs through several geological periods.
in any case we require more than the evidence of this one discovery before we can assume the type of tertiary man as a proved fact with the same confidence as we can the existence of something like man in those remote ages, from the repeated evidence of chipped stones and cut bones, showing unmistakable signs of being the work of human intelligence. and in the meantime, the only safe conclusion seems to be that it is very probable that we may have to go back to the eocene to find the "missing link," or the ancestral animal which may have been the common progenitor of man and of the other quadrumana.
i turn now to the evidence from the new world. i have kept this distinct, for there is no such proof of synchronism between the later geological phases of this and of the old world as would warrant us in assuming that what is true in one is necessarily true in the other. thus in europe the presence of the mastodon is a conclusive proof that the formation in which its remains are found is upper miocene or pliocene, and it has completely disappeared before the glacial period and the quaternary era. but in north america it has survived both these periods, and it is even a question whether it is not found in recent peat-mosses with arrow-heads of the historical indians.
the glacial period also, which in the old world affords such a clear demarcation between tertiary and recent ages, and such manifest proofs of two great glaciations with a long inter-glacial period, presents different conditions in america, where the ice-caps radiated from different centres, and extended further south and over 375 wider areas. there is no proof whether the great cold set in sooner or later, and whether the elevations and depressions of land synchronized with those of europe. the evidence for a long inter-glacial period is by no means so clear, and the best american geologists differ respecting it. and above all, the glacial period seems to have lasted longer, and the time required for post-glacial or recent denudation, and erosion of river-gorges, to be less than is required to account for post-glacial phenomena on this side of the atlantic.
the evidence, therefore, from the new world, though conclusive as to the existence of man from an immense antiquity, can hardly be accepted as equally so in an attempt to prove that antiquity to be tertiary in the sense of identifying it with specific european formations. with this reservation i proceed to give a short account of this evidence as bearing on the question of the oldest proofs of man's existence. the first step or proof of the presence of man in the quaternary deposits which correspond with the oldest river-drifts of europe, has only been made quite recently. mr. abbott was the first to discover such implements of the usual pal?olithic type in quaternary gravels of the river delaware, near trenton in new jersey, and since then they have been frequently found, as described by dr. wright in his recently-published ice age in america, in ohio, illinois, and other states, in the old gravels of rivers which carried the drainage of the great lake district to the hudson and the mississippi, before the present line of drainage was established by the falls of niagara and the st. lawrence. so far the evidence merely confirms that drawn from similar finds in the old world of the existence of man in the early glacial or 376 quaternary times, already widely diffused, and everywhere in a similar condition of primitive savagery, and chipping his rude stone implements into the same forms. but if we cross the rocky mountains into california, we find evidence which apparently carries us further back and raises new questions.
the whole region west of the rocky mountains is comparatively recent. the coast range which now fronts the pacific is composed entirely of marine tertiary strata, and when they were deposited, the waves of the pacific beat against the flanks of the sierra nevada. at length the coast range was upheaved and a wide valley left between it and the sierra of over 400 miles in length, and with an average breadth of seventy-five miles. the sierra itself is old land, the lower hills consisting of triassic slates and the higher ranges of granite, and it has never been under water since the secondary age though doubtless it stood much higher before it was so greatly denuded. all along its western flank and far down into the great valley is an enormous bed of auriferous gravel, doubtless derived from the waste of the rocks of the sierra during an immense time by old rivers now buried under their own deposits. while these deposits were going on a great outburst of volcanoes occurred on the western slope of the sierra, and successive sheets of tuffs, ashes, and lavas are interstratified with the gravels, while finally an immense flow of basalt covered up everything. the country then presented the appearance of a great plain, sloping gradually downwards from the sierra according to the flow of the basalt and lavas. this plain was in its turn attacked by denudation and worn down by the existing main rivers into valleys and gorges, and by their tributary 377 streams into a series of flat-topped hills, capped by basalt and divided from one another by deep and narrow ca?ons.
the immense time required for this latest erosion may be inferred when it is stated that where the columbia river cuts through the axis of the cascade mountains, the precipitous rocks on either side, to a height of from 3000 to 4000 feet, consist of this late tertiary or post-tertiary basalt, and that the deschutes river has been cut into the great basaltic plain for 140 miles to a depth of from 1000 to 2500 feet, without reaching the bottom of the lava. the american and yuba valleys have been lowered from 800 to 1500 feet, and the gorge of the stanislas river has cut through one of these basalt-covered hills to the depth of 1500 feet.
section of great californian lava stream, cut through by rivers.
a, a, basalt; b, b, volcanic ashes; c, c, tertiary; d, d, cretaceous rocks; r, r, direction of the old river-bed; r′, r′, sections of the present river-beds.
(le conte, from whitney.)
the enormous gorge of the colorado has cut its ca?ons for hundreds of miles from 3000 to 6000 feet deep through all the orders of sedimentary rocks from the tertiaries down, and from 600 to 800 feet into the primordial granite below, thus draining the great lakes which in tertiary times occupied a vast space in the interior of america which is now an arid desert.
evidently the gravels which lie below the basalt, and interstratified with the tuffs and lavas, or below them, and which belong to an older and still more extensive 378 denudation, must be of immense antiquity, an antiquity which remains the same whether we call it quaternary or tertiary. it is in these gravels that gold is found, and in the search for it great masses have been removed in which numerous stone implements have been found.
the great antiquity of those gravels and volcanic tuffs is further confirmed by the changes in the flora and fauna which are proved to have occurred. the animal remains found beneath the basaltic cap are very numerous, and all of extinct species. they belong to the genera rhinoceros, elatherium, felis, canis, bos, tapirus, hipparion, elephas (primigenius), mastodon, and auchenia, and form an assemblage entirely distinct from any now living in any part of north america. some of the genera survived into the quaternary age as in europe, but many, both of the genera and species, are among those most characteristic of the pliocene period.
the flora also, which is well preserved in the white clays formed from the volcanic ash, comprises forty-nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs, all distinct from those now living, without a single trace of the pines, firs, and other conifera which are now the prevalent trees throughout california.
tried by any test, therefore, of fauna, flora, and of immensely long deposit before the present drainage and configuration of the country had begun to be established, professor whitney's contention that the auriferous gravels are of tertiary origin seems to be fully established. it can only be met by obliterating all definite distinction between the quaternary and the pliocene, and adding to the former all the time subtracted from the latter. and even if we apply this to the physical 379 changes, it would upset all our standards of geological formations characterized by fossils, to suppose that a fauna comprising the elatherium, hipparion, and auchenia could be properly transferred to the quaternary. in fact no one would have thought of doing so if human implements and remains had not been found in them.
the discovery of such implements was first reported in 1862, and since then a large number have been found, but their authenticity has been hotly contested. the most common were stone mortars very like those of the indians of the present day, only ruder, and it was objected, first, that they were ground and not chipped, and therefore belonged to the neolithic age; secondly, that they might have slipped down from the surface or been taken down by miners. the difficulty in meeting these objections was that the implements had been found not by scientific men in situ, but by ignorant miners, who were too keen in the pursuit of gold to notice the particulars of the find, and only knew that they had picked them out in sorting loads of the gravels, and generally thrown them aside. this, however, had occurred in such a number of instances, over such wide areas, and with such a total absence of any motive on the part of the miners to misrepresent or commit a fraud, that the cumulative evidence became almost irresistible; and we cannot sum it up better than in the words of the latest and best authority, professor wright, in an article in the century of april 1891, which is the more important because only two years previously, in his ice age in north america, he had still expressed himself as retaining doubts.
he says, "but so many of such discoveries have 380 been reported as to make it altogether improbable that the miners were in every case mistaken; and we must conclude that rude stone implements do actually occur in connection with the bones of various extinct animals in the undisturbed strata of the gold-bearing gravel."
fortunately the most important human remains have been found in what may be considered as a test case, where it was physically impossible that they could have been introduced by accident, and where the evidence of a common workman as to the locality of the find is as good as that of a professed geologist.
during the deposition of the auriferous gravel on the western flanks of the sierra there were great outbursts of volcanoes near the summits of that range. towards their close a vast stream of lava flowed down the shallow valley of the ancient stanislas river, filling up its channel for forty miles or more, and covering its extensive gravel deposits. the modern stanislas river has cut across its former bed, and now flows in a gorge from 1200 to 2000 feet deeper than the old valley which was filled up by the lava stream, the surface of which appears as a long flat-topped ridge, known as table mountain. in many places the sides of the valley which originally directed the course of the lava have been worn away, so that the walls on either side present a perpendicular face one hundred feet or more in height.
the gravel of the ancient stanislas river being very auriferous, great efforts have been made to reach the portion of it which lies under table mountain. large sums have been spent in sinking shafts from the top through the lava cap, and tunnelling into it from the sides. great masses of gravel have been thus quarried and removed, and a considerable amount of gold 381 obtained, though in most cases not enough to meet the expenses, and the workings have been mostly discontinued.
section across table mountain, tuolumne county, california.
b, lava; g, gravel; s, slate; r, old river-bed; r′, present river-bed. (le conte.)
it is evident that objects brought from a great depth below this lava cap must have remained there undisturbed since they were deposited along with the gravels, and that the evidence of the simplest miner, who says he brought them with a truck-load of dirt from the bottoms of shafts, or ends of tunnels pierced for hundreds of feet through the solid lava, is, if he speaks the truth, as good as if a scientist had found them in situ. and this evidence, together with that of mining inspectors and respectable residents who took an interest in scientific subjects, has been forthcoming in such a large number of instances as to preclude any supposition of mistake or fraud. three of the latest of these discoveries were reported at the meeting of the geological society of america on the 30th december, 1890, and they seem to be supported by very first-class evidence.[14] mr. becker, one of the staff of the united states geological survey, to whom has been, committed the responsible work of reporting upon the gold-bearing gravels of california, exhibited to the society a stone mortar, and some arrow or spear-heads, with the sworn 382 statement from mr. neale, a well-known mining superintendent, that he took them with his own hands from undisturbed gravel in a mine of which he had charge under the lava of table mountain.
a second object exhibited was a pestle found by mr. king, who was at one time general director of the united states geological survey, and is an expert whose judgment on such matters should be final, and who had no doubt that the gravel in which he found the object must have lain in place ever since the lava came down and covered it. the third object was a mortar taken from the old gravel at the end of a tunnel driven diagonally 175 feet from the western edge of the basalt cliff, and 100 feet or more below the surface of the flat top of table mountain, as supported by evidence entirely satisfactory to professor wright, who had just visited the locality and cross-examined the principal witnesses. this may prepare us to consider the case of the celebrated calaveras skull as by no means an isolated or exceptional one, but antecedently probable from the number of human implements found in the same gravels, under the same beds of basalt and lava, at table mountain and numerous other places.
professor wright in the article already referred to, which is the latest on the subject, and made after his visit to california in 1890, which he says enabled him to add some important evidence, sums up the facts as follows—
"in february 1866, mr. mattenson, a blacksmith living near table mountain, in the county calaveras, employed his spare earnings in driving a tunnel under the portion of the sierra lava flow known as bald hill. at a depth of 150 feet below the surface, of which 100 383 feet consisted of solid lava, and the last fifty of interstratified beds of lava, gravel, and volcanic tuffs, he came upon petrified wood, and an object which he at first took for the root of a tree, thickly encased in cemented gravel. but seeing what he took for one of the roots was a lower jaw, he took the mass to the surface, and gave it to mr. scribner, the agent of an express company, and still living in the neighbourhood, and highly respected. mr. scribner, on perceiving what it was, sent it to dr. jones, a medical gentleman of the highest reputation, now living at san francisco, who gave it to professor whitney, who visited the spot, and after a careful inquiry was fully satisfied with the evidence. soon afterwards professor whitney took the skull home with him to cambridge, where, in conjunction with dr. wynam, he subjected it to a very careful investigation to see if the relic itself confirmed the story told by the discoverer, and this it did to such a degree that, to use professor wright's words, the circumstantial evidence alone places its genuineness beyond all reasonable question."
this is not a solitary instance, for the professor reports as the result of his personal inquiries only a year ago in the district, that "the evidence that human implements and fragments of the human skeleton have been found in the stratum of gravel underneath the lava of table mountain seems to be abundantly sufficient;" among others a fragment of a skull which came up with a bucketful of dirt from 180 feet below the surface of table mountain at tuolumne.
dr. wallace, in an article on the "antiquity of man in north america," in the nineteenth century of november 1887, thus enumerates some of the principal instances—
384 "in tuolumne county from 1862 to 1865 stone mortars and platters were found in the auriferous gravel along with bones and teeth of mastodon 90 feet below the surface, and a stone muller was obtained in a tunnel driven under table mountain. in 1870 a stone mortar was found at a depth of 60 feet in gravel under clay and 'cement,' as the hard clay with vegetable remains (the old volcanic ash) is called by the miners. in calaveras county from 1860 to 1869 many mortars and other stone implements were found in the gravels under lava beds, and in other auriferous gravels and clays at a depth of 150 feet. in amador county stone mortars have been found in similar gravel at a depth of 40 feet. in placer county stone platters and dishes have been found in auriferous gravels from 10 to 20 feet below the surface. in nevada county stone mortars and ground discs have been found from 15 to 30 feet deep in the gravel. in butte county similar mortars and pestles have been found in the lower gravel beneath lava beds and auriferous gravel; and many other similar finds have been recorded....
"even these californian remains do not exhaust the proofs of man's great antiquity in america, since we have the record of another discovery which indicates that he may, possibly, have existed at an even more remote epoch. mr. e. l. berthoud has described the finding of stone implements of a rude type in the tertiary gravels of the crow creek, colorado. some shells were obtained from the same gravels, which were determined by mr. t. a. conrad to be species which are 'certainly not older than older pliocene, or possibly miocene.'"
i do not dwell on the discoveries which have been 385 made of human implements and skeletons in the cases of minas geraes in brazil, and in the drift or loess of the pampas of buenos ayres, for although associated with extinct animals usually considered as pliocene, there is a difference of opinion among competent geologists, whether the deposits are really tertiary or only early quaternary.
there is, however, one discovery, made since the date of these above recorded, of human work below the great basalt cap of north-western america, brought up from a great depth of underlying gravels and sands of a silted-up lake, formerly forming part of the course of the snake river at nampa in idaho, which is as startling in its way as that of the calaveras skull. the following account of it is given on the authority of professor wright, who, having visited the locality in the summer of 1890, states that he found "abundant confirmatory evidence"—
the nampa image was brought up in boring an artesian well, at nampa in ada county, idaho, through a lava-cap 15 feet thick, and below it about 200 feet of the quicksands and clays of a silted-up lake, formed in a basin of the snake river, which joins the columbia river, and flows into the pacific, forming part, therefore, of the same geographical and drainage system as the californian gravels. at this depth the borers came down to a stratum of coarse sand, mixed with clay balls at the top, and resting at the bottom on an ancient vegetable soil, and the image came up from the lower part of this coarse sand. the borer, or liner of the well, was a six-inch iron tube, and the drill was only used in piercing the lava, while the sands below it were all extracted by a sand pump. mr. king, a respectable citizen of nampa, who was boring the well, states that he had 386 been for several days closely watching the progress of the well and passing through his hands the contents of the sand pump as they were brought up, so that he had hold of the image before he suspected what it was. mr. cumming, superintendent of that portion of the union pacific railway, a highly-trained graduate of harvard college, was on the ground next day and saw the image, and heard mr. king's account of the discovery, and mr. adams, the president of the railway, happening to pass that way about a month later, he brought it to the notice of some of the foremost geologists in the united states. the image was sent to boston by mr. king, who gave every information, and it was found to be modelled from stiff clay, like that of the clay balls found in the sand, slightly if at all touched by fire, and incrusted like those balls with grains of oxide of iron, which professor putnam considers to be a conclusive proof of its great antiquity. mr. emmons, of the state geological society, gives it as his opinion that the strata in which this image is said to have been found, is older by far than any others in which human remains have been discovered, unless it be those under table mountain, in california, from which came the celebrated calaveras skull. so much for the authenticity of the discovery, which seems unassailable, but now comes the remarkable feature of it, which to a great extent revolutionizes our conception of this early pal?olithic age. the image, or rather statuette, which is scarcely an inch and a half long, is by no means a rude object, but on the contrary more artistic, and a better representation of the human form, than the little idols of many comparatively modern and civilized people, such as the ph?nicians. it is in fact very like the little statuettes so abundantly found 387 in the neighbourhood of the old temple-pyramids of mexico, which are generally believed to be not much older than the date of the spanish conquest.
the nampa image—actual size.
(drawn from the object by j. d. woodward.)
in the face of this mass of evidence, from both the old and new worlds, it seems more like obstinate incredulity than scientific caution to deny the existence of tertiary man. indeed the objections put forward by those who still cling to the notion that any proofs of greater antiquity of man take them further back from the orthodox standpoint of genesis, are sufficient of themselves to show the straits to which they are driven to explain the facts. a conspiracy has been imagined of many hundreds of ignorant miners, living hundreds of miles apart, to hoax scientists, or make a trade of forging implements, which is about as probable as the theory that the pal?olithic remains of the old world were all forged by the devil, and buried in quaternary strata in order to discredit the mosaic account of creation. it is enough to say that the great majority of the implements had been thrown away as rubbish, 388 and that not a single instance has ever been adduced in which money was asked or offered for any of them.
another equally wild theory is that gold-mining tunnels had been driven by some race of prehistoric indians through hundreds of feet of solid basalt and quicksands, who left their implements in them; and this on the face of the fact that no such tunnels or evidences of ancient mining have ever been found in california, and that gold was unknown there until its recent discovery.
in accepting, however, the evidence for tertiary man, we must accept with it conclusions which are much opposed to preconceived opinions. in the two best authenticated instances in which human skulls have been found in presumably tertiary strata, those of castelnedolo and calaveras, it is distinctly stated that they present no unusual appearance, and do not go nearly as far in a brutal or pithecoid direction as the quaternary skulls of neanderthal and spy, or as those of many existing savage races. the nampa image also appears to show the existence of considerable artistic skill at a period which, if not tertiary, must be of immense antiquity. how can this be reconciled with the theory of evolution and the descent of man from some animal ancestor common to him and the other quadrumana? up to a certain point, viz. the earliest quaternary period, the evidence of progression seems fairly satisfactory. if we take the general average of this class of skulls as compared with modern skulls, we find them of smaller brain-capacity, thicker and flatter, with prominent frontal sinuses, receding foreheads, projecting muzzles, and weaker chins. the brain is decidedly smaller, the average being 1150 cubic centimètres as 389 compared with 1250 in australians and bushmen, and 1600 in well-developed europeans; and of this smaller capacity a larger proportion is contained in the posterior part.[15] other parts of the skeleton will tell the same story, and in many of the earliest and most extreme instances, as those of neanderthal and spy, a very decided step is made in the direction of the "missing link."
but if we accept the only two specimens known of the type of tertiary man, the skulls of castelnedolo and calaveras, which are supported by such extremely strong evidence, it would seem that as we recede in time, instead of getting nearer to the "missing link," we get further from it. this, and this alone, throws doubt on evidence which would otherwise seem to be irresistible, and without a greater number of well-authenticated confirmations we must be content to hold our judgment to a certain extent in suspense. this, however, it must be remarked, extends only to the type of man as shown by these two skulls, and does not at all affect the fact that man, of some type or other, did exist in the pliocene and miocene periods, which is established beyond reasonable doubt by the numerous instances in which chipped implements and cut bones have been found by experienced observers, and pronounced genuine by the highest authorities.
all we can say with any certainty is, that if the darwinian theory of evolution applies to man, as it does to all other animals, and specially to man's closest kindred, the other quadrumana, the common ancestor must be sought very much further back, in the eocene, which inaugurated the reign of placental mammalia, and 390 in which the primitive types of so many of the later mammals have been found. nor will this appear incredible when we consider that man's cousins, the apes and monkeys, first appear in the miocene, or even earlier in the eocene, and become plentiful in the later pliocene, and that even anthropoid apes, and one of them, the hylobates, scarcely if at all distinguishable from the gibbon of the present day, have been found at sansan and other miocene deposits in the south of france, at ?ningen in switzerland, and pikermi in greece; while if professor ameghino's discoveries are to be credited, anthropoids already existed in the eocene, and their development may be traced from the oldest eocene forms.
