544 WAS PEIMITIVE MAN A MODERN SAVAGE 1 



Everywhere, then, the savage and barbarian, who is held up as the 

 mirror and reflex of our past, is under pressure. Where the climate is 

 unfriendly this pressure is due to nature; where the climate is friendly, 

 to man. Primitive man may also have been under this alternative 

 pressure. It is possible that, before the first halting steps were taken 

 which carried man from savage to barbarous life and set his feet in the 

 path that led to civilization, the earth, or, to be more accurate, the 

 Euro-Asian continent along the belt where physical conditions were 

 favorable, was already full of men. But is it not more probable that 

 it was empty? The relics of paleolithic man point to wandering 

 and to scattered centers of activity and population rather than to 

 a universally diffused population. Much must be collected, collated, 

 and studied before this question can be unhesitatingly answered 

 one way or the other. A slender population existing through long 

 eras will leave as thick a deposit of stone implements, for instance, as 

 would a large population in a short time. The former seems a more 

 probable proposition and a more reasonable deduction than t^p Jfeatter. 

 The balance of proof and probability are for an empty earth in the 

 regions where civilization began at some date which, for our present 

 purpose, it is unnecessary to fix precisely, but which few would be 

 inclined to place earlier than 10,000 B. C, and most at about 6,000 B. 

 O., or within a millenium of this period. The early savage, as he began 

 in some favorable site the germinant origins of civilization, would, 

 therefore, be without pressure, and to pressure much in the modern 

 savage must be attributed. Around each of these early centers for civili- 

 zation would stretch an elastic zone of unoccupied and for many genera- 

 tions un desired territory. Into this elastic zone each tribe which began 

 to ascend into civilization in some river valley, island, coast, or range 

 would grow without pressure and without antagonism. The trader 

 would cross this zone before the war party penetrated its friendly pro- 

 tection. For three early and favorable nests of primitive culture — 

 whether the first or which was the first I do not assume or assert — in 

 the Euphrates Valley, in the Nile Valley, and in southern Arabia, special 

 physical conditions emphasize the protection which this elastic zone 

 offered. Peace, not war, would be the normal condition of these ante- 

 cedent communities in which the flower of savage life was setting into 

 barbarism and slowly fruiting into civilization. Each, surrounded by 

 an empty space, would develop, untouched, for many centuries, and its 

 culture would be fostered by peace -and not forced by war. Marriage 

 by capture would be rare or unknown. The family would early develop. 

 Woman would come to occupy a far higher position than in tribes under 

 the pressure of modern savage life, where she is the booty of the strong 

 and the drudge of the successful warrior. In the happy and fortunate 

 but not improbable isolation cbue to a sparsely settled earth about and 

 a well-settled territory within, the separate ownership of land would 

 early develop and bring with it the arts, the leisure, and the culture of 



