528 



NATURE 



[September 29, 1898 



to an individual who stood upright, and I presume that the 

 capacity of the skull being greater than that of any known 

 anthropoid is consistent with the same inference. The sig- 

 nificance of that has been most clearly set forth by my prede- 

 cessor, Dr. Munro, in his address to this Section at Nottingham 

 "in 1893. He showed that a direct consequence of the upright 

 position was a complete division of labour as regards the func- 

 tions of the limbs — the hands l)eing reserved for manipulation 

 and the feet lor locomotion ; that this necessitated great changes 

 in the general structure of the body, including the pelvis and 

 the spinal column ; that the hand became the most complete 

 and effective mechanical organ nature has produced ; and that 

 this perfect piece of mechanism, at the extremity of a freely 

 moving arm, gives man a superiority in attack and defence over 

 other animals. Further, he showed that, from the first moment 

 that man recognised the advantage of using a club or a stone in 

 attack or defence, the direct incentive to a higher brain develop- 

 ment came into existence. The man who first used a spear 

 tipped with a sharp flint became possessed of an irresistible 

 power. In his expeditions for hunting, fishing, gathering fruit, 

 ■&c. , primitive man's acquaintance with the mechanical powers 

 of nature would be gradually extended ; and thus from this 

 vantage point of the possession of a hand, language, thought, 

 reasoning, abstract ideas would gradually be acquired, and the 

 functions of the hand and the brain be developed in a corre- 

 sponding manner. I do injustice to Dr. Munro's masterly 

 argument by stating it thus crudely and briefly. It amounts to 

 this — once the erect position is obtained, the actions of man 

 being controlled by a progressive brain, everything follows in 

 •due course. 



The next stage which we are yet able to mark with certainty 

 as the palaeolithic, but there must have been a great many inter- 

 mediate stages. Before man began to make any implements 

 at all, there must have been a stage of more or less length, 

 •during which he used any stick or stone that came to his hands 

 without attempting to fashion the one or the other. Before he 

 acquired the art of fashioning so elaborate an implement as the 

 ordinary palaeolithic axe or hammer, there must have been other 

 ■stages in which he would have been content with such an im- 

 provement on the natural block of flint as a single fracture would 

 produce, and would proceed to two or three, or more fractures 

 by degrees. It must have been long before he could have 

 acquired the eye for symmetry and the sense of design, of 

 adaptation of means to ends, which are expressed in the fashion- 

 ing of a complete palaeolithic implement. It is probable that 

 «uch rude implements as he would construct in this interval 

 would be in general hardly distinguishable from flints naturally 

 fractured. Hence the uncertainty that attaches to such dis- 

 coveries of the kind as have hitherto been made public. Prof. 

 McKenny Hughes, who speaks with very high authority, con- 

 cludes a masterly paper in the ArchcEological Journal with the 

 statement that he has ' ' never yet seen any evidence which would 

 justify the inference that any implements older than palaeolithic 

 have yet been found." The name "palaeotahth " which had been 

 suggested for pre- palaeolithic implements seems to him unneces- 

 sary at present, as there is nothing to which it can be applied ; 

 and as it will be long before it can be asserted that we have 

 •discovered the very earliest traces of man, he thinks it will 

 probably be long before the word is wanted. An elaborate work 

 on the ruder forms of implement, just published by M. A. 

 Thieullen, of Paris, who has for many years been engaged in 

 collecting these objects, adds materially to our knowledge of 

 thelsubject. 



Another line of argument bearing strongly in the same direc- 

 tion is afforded by the discovery in various places of works of 

 art fabricated by early man. The statuettes from Brassempouy, 

 the sculptures representing animals from the Bruniquel, the 

 •well-known figure of the mammoth engraved on a piece of ivory 

 from Perigord, and many other specimens of early art attest a 

 facility that it is not possible to associate with the dawn of 

 human intelligence. M. Salomon Reinach tells an amusing 

 story. A statuette in steatite of a woman, resembling in some 

 respects those of Brassempouy, was discovered in one of the 

 caverns of Mentone, as far back as 1884, but when the dis- 

 coverer showed it to a personage in the locality, that authority 

 advised him not to let it be seen, lest it should take away from 

 the belief in the antiquity of the caves, it being then thought 

 too artistic to be consistent with early man. The finder acted 

 on this advice, in ignorance of the real interest of the statuette, 

 until April 1896, when he showed it to M. Reinach and M. 



NO. 1509. VOL. 58] 



Villenoisy, who promptly interviewed the sage adviser in 

 question, and obtained a confirmation of the statement. Some 

 interesting additions to our gallery of prehistoric art have 

 been recently made by M. Emile Riviere and M. Berthou- 

 meyrou, at Cro-Magnon in the Dordogne. These are a drawing 

 of a bison and another of a human female in profile, which M. 

 Riviere has kindly allowed me to reproduce. Among the other 

 objects found in the same place were some flint implements 

 brought to a fine point, suitable for engraving on bone or horn. 



The idea of making in any form a graphic representation of 

 anything seen has never, so far as I know, occurred to any 

 lower animal ; and it could hardly have been among the first 

 ideas formed in the gradually developing human brain. When 

 that idea is found carried out with remarkable artistic skill, by 

 means of implements well adapted for the purpose, we may 

 surely assume that the result was not obtained till after a long 

 interval of time, and was approached by gradual steps marked 

 by progress in other faculties, as well as in the artistic faculty. 

 It may be that some day all uncertainty on this head will be 

 removed by decisive discoveries. 



The interval between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods 

 rests in the like condition of incertitude. That by some means, 



and somewhere on the face of the globe, the one period 

 gradually passed into the other we cannot but believe. That 

 the transition between them may have involved innumerable 

 degrees is also highly probable. Where and when, and how 

 each step was taken we do not know at present, and possibly 

 never shall know. The problem is not satisfactorily solved by 

 the production of palaeolithic implements resembling neolithic 

 forms, or neolithic implements resembling palaeolithic forms ; 

 inasmuch as between the one period and the other an interval 

 of time involving geological and other changes has to be 

 accounted for. 



In this respect, also, our best authorities are the most cautious 

 and conservative. In the excellent address which Prof. Boyd 

 Dawkins delivered to the Royal Archaelogical Institute at the 

 Dorchester meeting last year, on the present phase of prehistoric 

 archaeology, he contrasted the few primitive arts, such as 

 sewing, and the manufacture of personal ornaments and rude 

 implements of the chase, possessed by the palaeolithic hunters — 

 apart from their great proficiency in the delineation of animals — 

 with the variety of arts, such as husbandry, gardening, spinning, 

 weaving, carpentry, boat-building, mining, and pottery-making, 

 possessed by the neolithic herdsmen, and held that between the 



