August 19, 1897] 



NATURE 



373 



African discoveries we have as yet no definite Pala;ontological 

 evidence by which to fix their antiquity, but in the Narbada 

 Valley of Western India Palreolithic implements of quartzite 

 seem to be associated with a local fauna of Pleistocene age, 

 comprising, like that of Europe, the elephant, hippopotamus, 

 ox, and other mammals of species now extinct. A correlation 

 of the two faunas with a view of ascertaining their chronological 

 relations is beset with many difficulties, but there seems reason 

 for accepting this Indian Pleistocene fauna as in some degree 

 more ancient than the European. 



Is this not a case in which the imagination may be fairly in- 

 voked in aid of science ? May we not from these data attempt 

 in some degree to build up and reconstruct the early history of 

 the human family ? There, in Eastern Asia, in a tropical climate, 

 with the means of subsistence readily at hand, may we not 

 picture to ourselves our earliest ancestors, giadually developing 

 from a lowly origin, acquiring a taste for hunting — if not, indeed, 

 being driven to protect themselves from the beasts around them 

 — and evolving the more complicated forms of tools or weapons 

 from the simpler flakes which had previously served them as 

 knives ? May we not imagine that, when once the stage of 

 civilisation denoted by these Paleolithic implements had been 

 reached, the game for the hunter became scarcer, and that his 

 life in consequence assumed a more nomad character? Then, 

 and possibly not till then, may a series of migrations to "fresh 

 woods and pastures new " not unnaturally have ensued : and 

 these, following the usual course of " westward towards the set- 

 ting sun," might eventually lead to a Palaeolithic population 

 finding its way to the extreme borders of Western Europe, where 

 we find such numerous traces of its presence. 



How long a term of years may be involved in such a migra- 

 tion it is impossible to say, but that such a migration took 

 place the phenomena seem to justify us in believing. It can 

 hardly be supposed that the process that I have shadowed forth 

 was reversed, and that Man, having originated in North-western 

 Europe, in a cold climate where clothing was necessary and 

 food scarce, subsequently migrated eastward to India and south- 

 ward to the Cape of Good Hope ! As yet, our records of dis- 

 coveries in India and Eastern Asia are but scanty ; but it is there 

 that the traces of the cradle of the human race are, in my 

 opinion, to be sought, and possibly future discoveries may place 

 upon a more solid foundation the visionary structure that I have 

 ventured to erect. 



It may be thought that my hypothesis does not do justice to 

 what Sir Thomas Browne has so happily termed " that great 

 antiquity, America." I am, however, not here immediately 

 concerned with the important Neolithic remains of all kinds 

 with which this great continent abounds. I am now confining 

 myself to the question of Paleolithic man and his origin, and in 

 considering it I am not unmindful of the Trenton implements, 

 though I must content myself by saying that the " turtle-back " 

 form is essentially different from the majority of those on the 

 wide dissemination of whicli I have been speculating ; and, 

 moreover, as many here present are aware, the circumstances 

 of the finding of these American implements are still under 

 careful discussion. 



Leaving them out of the question for the present, it may be 

 thought worth while to carry our speculations rather further, 

 and to consider the relations in time between the Paleolithic 

 and the Neolithic Periods. We have seen that the stage in 

 human civilisation denoted by the use of the ordinary forms of 

 Paleolithic implements must have extended over a vast period 

 of time if we have to allow for the migration of the primeval 

 hunters from their original home, wherever it may have been 

 in Asia or Africa, to the west of Europe, including Britain. We 

 have seen that, during this migration, the forms of the weapons 

 and tools made from silicious stones had become, as it were, 

 stereotyped, and further, that, during the subsequent extended 

 period implied by the erosion of the valleys, the modifications 

 in ihe form of the implements, and the changes in the fauna 

 associated with the men who used them, were but slight. 



At the close of the period during which the valleys were being 

 eroded, comes that represented by the latest occupation of the 

 caves by Paleolithic man, when both in Britain and in the 

 south of France the reindeer was abundant ; but among the 

 stone weapons and implements of that long troglodytic phase of 

 man's history, not a single example with the edge sharpened by 

 grinding has as yet been found. All that can safely be said is 

 that the larger implements, as well as the larger mammals, had 

 become scarcer ; that greater power in chipping flint had been 



NO. 145 I, VOL. 56] 



attained ; that the arts of the engraver and the sculptor had 

 considerably developed ; and that the use of the bow had 

 probably been discovered. 



Directly we encounter the relics of the Neolithic Period, often, 

 in the case of the caves lately mentioned, separated from the 

 earlier remains by a thick layer of underlying stalagmite, we 

 find flint hatchets polished at the edge and on the surface, cutting 

 at the broad (and not at the narrow) end, and other forms of 

 implements associated with a fauna in all essential respects 

 identical with that of the present day. 



Were the makers of these polished weapons the direct de- 

 scendants of Paleolithic ancestors whose occupation of the 

 country was continuous from the days of the old river gravels ? 

 or had these long since died out, so that after Western Europe 

 had for ages remained uninhabited, it was re-peopled in Neolithic 

 times by the immigration of some new race of men ? Was there, 

 in fact, a "great gulf fixed " between the two occupations? or 

 was there in Europe a gradual transition from the one stage of 

 culture to the other ? 



It has been said that " what song the Syrens sang, or what 

 name 'Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, 

 though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture" ; and 

 though the questions now proposed may come under the same 

 category, and must await the discovery of many more essential 

 facts before they receive definite and satisfactory answers, we 

 may, I think, throw some light upon them if we venture to take 

 a few steps upon the seductive, if insecure, paths of conjecture. 

 So far as I know, we have as yet no trustworthy evidence of any 

 transition from the one age to the other, and the gulf between 

 them remains practically unbridged. We can, indeed, hardly 

 name the part of the world in which to seek for the cradle of 

 Neolithic civilisation, though we know that traces of what 

 appear to have been a stone-using people have been discovered 

 in Egypt, and that what must be among the latest of the relics 

 of their industry have been assigned to a date some 3500 to 

 4000 years before our era. The men of that time had attained to 

 the highest degree of skill in working flint that has ever been 

 reached. Their beautifully-made knives and spear-heads seem 

 indicative of a culminating point reached after long ages of ex- 

 perience ; but whence these artists in flint came, or who they 

 were, is at present absolutely unknown, and their handiworks 

 afford no clue to help us in tracing their origin. 



Taking a wider survey, we may say that, generally speaking, 

 not only the fauna but the surface configuration of the country 

 were, in Western Europe at all events, much the same at the 

 commencement of the Neolithic Period as they are at the present 

 day. We have, too, no geological indications to aid us in 

 forming any chronological scale. 



The occupation of some of the caves in the south of France 

 seems to have been carried on after the erosion of the neigh- 

 bouring river valleys had ceased, and, so far as our knowledge 

 goes, these caves offer evidence of being the latest in time of 

 those occupied by Man during the Paleolithic Period. It 

 seems barely possible that, though in the north of Europe there 

 are no distinct signs of such late occupation, yet that, in the 

 south, Man may have lived on, though in diminished numbers ; 

 and that in some of the caves — such, for instance, as those in 

 the neighbourhood of Mentone — there may be traces of his 

 existence during the transitional period that connects the 

 Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. If this were really the case, 

 we might expect to find some traces of a dissemination of 

 Neolithic culture from a North Italian centre, but I much doubt 

 whether any such traces actually exist. 



If it had been in that part of the world that the transition 

 took place, how are we to account for the abundance of polished 

 stone hatchets found in Central India ? Did Neolithic man 

 return eastward by the same route as that by which in remote 

 ages his Paleolithic predecessor had migrated westward ? 

 Would it not be in defiance of all probability to answer such 

 a question in the affirmative? We have, it must be confessed, 

 nothing of a substantial character to guide us in these specula- 

 tions ; but, pending the advent of evidence to the contrary, 

 we may, I think, provisionally adopt the view that owing to 

 failure of food, climatal changes, or other causes, the occupa- 

 tion of Western Europe by Paleolithic man absolutely ceased, 

 and that it was not until after an interval of long duration that 

 Europe was re-peopled by a race of men immigrating from 

 some other part of the globe where the human race had sur- 

 vived, and in course of ages had developed a higher stage of 

 culture than that of Paleolithic man. 



