68 Primitive Man. 



We must further briefly note that the numerous carvings 

 and designs of species of animals now extinct, which have 

 been discovered on many of their fossil bones, fre- 

 quently exhibiting a very considerable ability in outline 

 delineation, and superior to anything produced by the lowest 

 or even somewhat advanced races of to-day, are an 

 important contribution to the proofs of the antiquity of 

 man, and equivalent in fact to any others which have been 

 adduced. 



We may here properly sum up the several evidences : 



First The discovery in the diluvial or drift strata, Avhose 

 age in geological history is relatively well known, of rude 

 artificial flint implements. 



Second The discovery in bone caves of human remains and 

 flint instruments demonstrated to be contemporaneous 

 with the remains of species of animals undoubtedly extinct, 

 and of species also which have long disappeared from the 

 region where these remains are found. 



Third Carvings of extinct species of animals upon the 

 bones of such animals. 



Fourth The demonstration of the descent of man from 

 some species of primate, necessitating an enormous 

 period of time, anterior even to the Tertiary, for his 

 progress to his earliest known or supposed appearance 

 distinctively as Man. 



It is not improbable that the very earliest races were 

 wholly devoid of any sentiment of what we call religion, 

 or habits of worship. The lowest tribes of which we have 

 any account in historical records appear to have possessed 

 some instinctive recognition of superior powers, and we 

 discover none in which some rite of propitiation and sacri- 

 fice, or funeral cerenionial at least, has not prevailed. If 

 primitive man exliibited any religious, or, at any rate, 

 theistic observances, they must have appeared, of course, 

 in forms of the lowest and most degrading fetishism, 

 inspired only by fear. But the question must remain 

 largely speculative. 



At some period subsequent to the disappearance of the 

 cave men, and extending in some cases into the neolithic 

 age (for the chronology is very much disputed), occur the 

 phenomena of the peat deposits, the shell mounds, or 

 kitchen middens as they are termed, and tlie constructions 



