12 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Still more startling are the results of the protracted researches 

 carried on by Herr J. Nuesch at the now famous station of 

 Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen in Switzerland 1 . This station 

 was apparently in the continuous occupation of man during both 

 Stone Ages, and here have been collected as many as 14,000 objects 

 belonging to the first, and over 6000 referred to the second period. 

 Although the early settlement was only post-glacial, a point about 

 which there is no room for doubt, Dr L. Laloy 2 has estimated 

 "the absolute duration of both epochs together at from 24,000 to 

 29,000 years." We may, therefore, ask, if a comparatively recent 

 post-glacial station in Switzerland is about 29,000 years old, how 

 old may a pre- or inter-glacial station be in Gaul or Britain? 



From all this we see how fully justified is Mr J. W. Powell's 

 remark that the natural history of early man be- 

 comes more and more a geological, and not merely 



Man a Geoiog- an ethnological problem 3 . We also begin to under- 



ical Problem. . 



stand how it is that, after an existence of some five 

 score millenniums, the first specialised human varieties have di- 

 verged greatly from the original types, which have thus become 

 almost "ideal quantities," the subjects rather of palseontological 

 than of strictly anthropological studies. 



And here another consideration of great moment presents 

 itself. During these long ages some of the groups- 

 most African negroes south of the equator, most 

 Outcome of Oceanic negroes (Melanesians and Papuans), all 



their several 



Environ- Australian and American aborigines -- have re- 



mained in their original habitats ever since what 

 may be called the first settlement of the earth by man. Others 

 again, the more restless or enterprising peoples, such as the 

 Mongols, Manchus, Turks, Ugro-Finns, Arabs, and most Euro- 

 peans, have no doubt moved about somewhat freely ; but these 

 later migrations, whether hostile or peaceable, have for the 

 most part been confined to regions presenting the same or like 



1 Das Schiveizersbild, eine Niederlassung aus palieolithischer tend neolitischer 

 Zeit, in Nouveaux Metnoires Soc. Helvttiqne des Sciences Naturdles, Vol. xxxv . 

 Zurich, 1896. 



! L' Anthropologie^ 1897, p. 350. 



3 Forum, Feb. i! 



