550 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



20,000 B.C., he had created the first great art in liuman history : tlie 

 magnificent paintings and other artifacts found in certain caves in 

 southern France and nortliern Spain. He engraved and carved bone 

 and ivory with faithful representations of his women and of tlie ani- 

 mals he knew so well: the mammoth, the bison and others. These 

 were believed to have had magic significance — to bring fertility to 

 the clan and success to the hunter. 



No birth rates or death rates have ever been found on the walls of 

 the prehistoric caves. Thus, what is the puzzle of man to the anthro- 

 pologist and the paleontologist becomes the enigma of man to the 

 demographer. A United Nations Keport, "The Determinants and 

 Consequences of Population Trends," published in 1953, presents a 

 comprehensive survey of world population through the whole of man's 

 history. Readers are referred to it for a more complete historical 

 survey than this limited space permits. The report states : 



That men, using tools, have been living on this planet for at least 100,000 

 years, and possibly for over a million years, is proved by various types of 

 evidence. For example, the definitely human skeletal remains found at Chou- 

 koutien, China, in association with artificial stone and bone implements and 

 possible indications of the use of fire, were deposited during the second intergla- 

 cial period, or earlier. There is evidence, also, that several divergent types 

 of men emerged, some of whom had specialized characteristics which place 

 them outside the ancestral line of all living races today. The Neanderthal 

 people, who were dominant in Europe during the last (Wiirm) glaciation, were 

 apparently such a divergent race. 



PERIOD 11—6000 B.C. TO 1650 A.D. 



Starting with the beginning of the New Stone Age, this period 

 extends through the Bronze and Iron periods, througli classical antiq- 

 uity and the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. It is 

 estimated that world population increased one hundredfold during 

 the period, growing from 5 million to half a billion, and that about 

 42 billion births occurred. 



It is believed that at the beginning of the era the earth was still 

 very sparsely settled and population was widely dispersed. Vast 

 areas of the globe were not inhabited, partly because the last glacia- 

 tions had just receded. 



It was during this period that man began to produce food instead 

 of simply consuming what nature had laid before him. In the Near 

 East, he had already passed the stage of the most primitive village- 

 farming communities which grew out of the earliest agriculture with 

 its domestication of animals. Some of these ancient communities 

 developed into the earliest known urban settlements. The develop- 

 ment of agriculture with its settled farming community spread to 

 other areas of the earth during this period. Eventually, it was to 

 change drastically man's pattern of survival and his way of life. 



