The remote antiquity of man not proven : primeval man not a savage

Preface

This work is an argument based on scientific facts, and supported by scientific opinions ; in which the writer, in condensed form and plain style, has endeavoured to prove that the appearance of man on the earth was not at a remote age in the past, and that primeval man was not a savage.

It may be thought presumptuous for one, who is outside the fellowship of scientific societies, to dispute conclusions arrived at by a large array of scientific celebrities ; but that man is of remote antiquity is not a scientific fact, but a theory deduced from certain premises ; and reasoning out a conclusion from given facts is not a monopoly of scientific discoverers, nor do they make any such claim.

‘ I have contented myself with giving you the facts,’ said Mr. Pengelly to his audience, in his lecture at Manchester on ‘ Kent’s Cavern ;’ ‘ you are as capable of drawing the inferences as I am.’ Drawing inferences, working out conclusions, is just what the writer has been doing ; and the logical outcome of his reasoning is that the premises from which the remote antiquity of man is deduced will not give the conclusion.

Moreover, the facts on which this theory is based are often carious or incomplete, and their evidence rendered worthless by more recent discoveries. In a notice of Dr.

lv Preface.

James Geikie’s late work, the Professor in Owen’s College says : ‘ The condition of Europe outside the reach of history, and the changes by which it has come to be what it is, the appearance of man and his culture, combine to form a subject which cannot in our opinion he treated satisfactorily in the present state of knowledge. New facts are being daily brought to light. The speculations of yesterday are being tested by the discoveries of to-day, and the accumulation of materials necessary to form a sound judgment even in any one department, such for instance as that of archaeology, is so great that it may well daunt the courage of the boldest writer who knows the nature of the task before him.’*

The theory of man’s antiquity has been peculiarly ill-fated in this respect. There has been quite a furor in the past for building up theories about man’s occupation of the earth long ages back ; but the speculations of one day were dissipated by the discoveries of the morrow. Two or three generations back our fathers were startled by the announcement that the Chinese chronology reached back through a period of more than two million years ; and the astronomical calculations of the Hindoos, they were informed, showed the existence of man in India at a like remote time. Later inquiries, however, showed that these long dates were fabulous inventions. Then came an Egyptian scare. Some French savants claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphics traced on two modern temples, and relegated them to a period many years before Egypt was in existence.

Later on the antiquity of man was said to be proved by the discovery of the fossil men of Guadaloupe and Denise ; by the supposed fossil bones found in the coral formation of Florida ; and the perforated shark’s teeth found in the

* Nature, Fob., 1881.

V

Preface.

crag formation in England. But these, like the earlier speculations, have all come to grief.

The geological discoveries of the present time have revived the theorizing spirit, and from caves and river-gravels, from clays and peat-bogs, and tumuli, have been collected the relics which have been regarded as giving proof that man for long ages had been a denizen of the earth. But as these relics and their surroundings are being more carefully examined, and new discoveries are being made, the evidence for this antiquity is giving way.

‘ I have no doubt whatever,’ says Mr. Mello, ‘ that as it has ever been in the past, the more we know of the works of the great Creator the more reason shall we have to see one and the same Divine hand in the word inscribed on the face of nature, and that in the sacred documents of our religion.’ To this the writer heartily subscribes. True scientific facts, ‘ unassailable as rocks of granite,’ will never be out of harmony with the writings of the Divine hand in the sacred documents of our religion. But suppose the writing is not traced by the Divine hand, is not inscribed on the face of nature, but is the mere conception of a human mind, in other words a theory, deduced it may be from some deposits embedded in the earth ; must that conception be in agreement with the Divine word in the sacred documents 1 Take, for instance, the remote antiquity of man, and early man a savage. They are not inscribed on the face of nature, nor found buried under the crust of the earth, nor written on the page of history, but are conclusions, drawn not unfrequently from unsound or deficient premises, discredited by new discoveries, and rejected by some of the most cultured and logical minds in Europe and America. Yet we often hear of waiting for a reconciliation between these inferential theories and the sacred documents which relate the creation of man, and vi Preface.

even of waiting for the reconciliation of the documents to the theories.

That some interpretations of the writings which record the creation of man need correction, and that the mode by which his creation has been made known to us has been misconceived, is probably true ; but that these sacred documents and science sifted down to unassailable truths should be at variance, is inconceivable.

The writer does not by these remarks deprecate scientific discoveries ; rather, he rejoices in the advance which has been made in the attainment of scientific knowledge. The public are under deep obligation to those earnest workers who have prosecuted scientific inquiries. By their discoveries society has been greatly benefited, and the devout have found more to admire and praise in the wonderful working of the great Artificer.

Birmingham, 1882.

Contents

CHAPTEIt PAGE

II. CAVES — CONTINUED - - - - - 23

III. REMAINS OF EXTINCT MAMMALIA ASSOCIATED WITH

Chapter I. Ca Ves

‘ The value of a layer of stalagmite in measuring the antiquity of deposits below it, is comparatively little. The layers, for instance, of Kent’s Hole, which are generally considered to have required a considerable lapse of time, may possibly have been formed at the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum — at which rate twenty feet may have been formed in a thousand years.’ — W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A.

The caves with which we are concerned in this inquiry are mostly excavations in limestone rock, due in part to the action of water, by which fissures in the rock are supposed to have been enlarged and formed into chambers and galleries. In these caves have been found layers or beds of gravel, earth, sand, clay, and stalagmite, mingled with fragments and blocks of limestone. They contain also hint, stone, and metals wrought into implements, weapons, ornaments, and articles for domestic use ; together with remains of extinct and other mammalia.

Some of these deposits arc adduced as evidence to show that man was living on the earth at a remote period in the past.

Prominent amongst these depositories of the relics of past ages is

Kent’s Cavern,

or Kent’s Hole, situated near Torquay, Devonshire. The earliest discoveries in this cave were made by the Rev.

Remote Antiquity of Man.

John MacEnery, a Roman Catholic priest, who visited it more from curiosity than from any expectation of finding relics ; but, being dissatisfied with the way in which one of his cave-hunting companions went to work, he retired to a small recess to dig alone, and was startled by the discovery of bones and teeth. ‘ They were,’ he says, ‘ the .first fossil teeth I had ever seen, and as I laid my hand upon these relics of extinct races and witnesses of an order of things which passed away with them, I shrank back involuntarily. Though not insensible to the excitement attending new discoveries, I am not ashamed to own that in the presence of these remains I felt more of awe than of joy.’1

These discoveries, and more that followed, led in 1864 to the formation of a committee for the exploration of the cavern, composed of a number of prominent scientists.

It has been explored under the superintendence principally of W. Pengelly, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., who, all for love, has spent many years of the prime of his life in a systematic and almost daily investigation and collection of its deposits. In addition to these untiring labours, he has given a yearly report at the meetings of the British Association, has lectured in various large towns and cities in the kingdom ; and probably it would not be too much to say, that Kent’s Cavern with its discoveries, and diligent exponent, has done more to build up the theory of man’s remote antiquity than any other locality in Europe.

Contents of the Cave.

First, in descending order, is a layer or bed of black mould, from three to twelve inches in depth, consisting largely of decayed vegetable matter, and containing teeth and bones, flint flakes, bone tools, and combs ; bronze articles, copper, and potsherds, including fragments of Samian ware.

Next to this is an upper bed of stalagmite, called the granular stalagmite, varying in thickness from less than an inch to five feet.

Below this, in part only, is the cave earth, described as a light red loam, mixed with which were about fifty per cent, of angular pieces of limestone \ and for about the space of one

1 Manuscript of MacEnery, op. cit., p. 210.

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hundred square feet, lying on this, was a black patch, called the black band, about four inches thick, consisting mainly of charcoal, which seems to have been the fireplace of those who visited the cave. The contents of these three layers are taken together. They contain remans of cave hyaena, horse ( eguus caballus), Rhinoceros tichorhinus (woolly rhinoceros), gigantic Irish deer ( cervus mcgaceros ), Bos primigenius (ursus), Bison prisons (red deer), mammoth ( elephas primigenius ), cave bear, wolf, fox, grisly bear (ursus ferox), reindeer {cervus tarcmdus ), cave lion (felis spelcea), glutton {gulo biscus), Machairodus latidens (sabre-toothed lion), and man — the last being a part of a jaw, with teeth in the granular stalagmite ; implements made of flint and chert, flint flakes, chips and ‘ cones,’ whetstones, a hammer-stone, ‘ dead ’ shells of pecton, bits of charcoal, and bone tools, including a needle or bodkin having a well-formed eye ; a pin, an awl, three harpoons, and a perforated tooth of badger. After these beds, and in some parts of the cave, under them, is a second layer of stalagmite, named the crystalline stalagmite. It was commonly thicker than the granular floor, and in one instance but little short of twelve feet thick. In this deposit was found nothing but the bones of bear. Below the whole occurred the breccia, composed of sub-angular and rounded pieces of dark-red grit, embedded in a sandy paste of the same colour, and containing rude flint nodules, remains of bear and fox ; and in the material excavated by Mr. MacEnery, and left in the bear’s den, remains of mammoth, hysena, horse, fox, and deer, and a few bits of coarse pottery.2

The argument drawn- from these deposits may be thus stated. In, and under, these several beds of cave earths and stalagmite, are found implements, weapons, and other objects which bear the marks of contrivance, and man’s handiwork; these stalagmitic and other beds or layers in which these relics are found have required an immense time for their formation ; the men, therefore, whose works are found in these formations, especially in the lower beds, must have been of remote antiquity.

Moreover, these works of man are found in association

2Mr. Pengelly’s Presidential Address at Brit. Asso., 1877. Rep. Brit. Asso., 1877. Mr, Pengelly’s Lect. at Glasgow, 1876.

1—2

Remote Antiquity of Man.

with remains of mammalia now extinct which belonged to a remote age ; he was, therefore, contemporary with them, and must have been living on the earth many long ages ago.

The argument from the association of man’s work with remains of extinct animals will he considered in another chapter. Our present inquiry is then reduced to the simple question of the time required for the deposition of the beds in which the works of man were found. Were the layers of cave-earths and the stalagmitic floors formed so slowly as to require an enormous time for their deposition 1 and have the implements and other articles fashioned by the hand of man been found so situated in relation to these beds, as to prove that a vast time has elapsed since man made them ? A few years back, the date of man’s presence on earth was reckoned by geologists and archaeologists at from a hundred thousand years to a million and upwards ; they now generally prefer to speak of the date of his appearance as belonging to a very long, but indefinite time in the past. There are still those, however, who calculate that his time has not been less than from two hundred thousand to half a million of years.

In testing the calculations of time said to be required for the formation of the several layers deposited in Kent’s Cavern, it is requisite that we should ascertain the

Order and Position of the Beds.

They do not lie one on the other in vertical succession, but mostly side by side, so that two or more would have been forming at the same time.

‘ The black mould, which is the first bed in descending order, is found only in those parts of the cavern into which the entrances (which are all in the east) immediately open, and such as are prolongations of them ;’3 but was not found in the remote parts of the cavern.4

‘ The black band occupied an area of about one hundred square feet, not more than thirty-two feet from one of the entrances of the cavern.’

The cave earth was of unknown depth near the entrances , but in the remoter parts of the cavern thinned out entirely.5

Below the cave earth, adds Mr. Pengelly, as we get away

3 Glasgow Lect., 1877, p. 8.

4 President. Address, Nature, 1877, p. 320. Ibid.

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south-westerly, is another stalagmite, viz. the ^ crystalline, and ‘ where the upper one ’ (the granular) was five feet, the lower was twelve feet.6

In the report of the cave for 1869, we read : ‘ In proceeding westward, the cave earth thinned out entirely, and disappeared, so that the stalagmites, where was its proper place ( i.e . between them) rested one immediately on the other.’7 The upper stalagmite varies in thickness from a mere film to nearly five feet ; its average thickness being from sixteen to twenty inches.’8 ‘ The lower stalagmite is commonly thicker than the upper, and in one instance nearly twelve feet.’9 (The italics are mine.)

The position of the beds, it will be seen, is as follows : The black mould and cave earth with the black band, which is a mere patch of charcoal with a surface of one hundred square feet, lie on the eastern side of the cave near the entrances; while the bulk of the stalagmites lies westwardly in the parts of the cavern remote from the entrances. As a rule, too, the cave earth thins out as it extends in a westward or south-westward direction, and the stalagmites thin out or are wanting towards the eastern part of the cave ; so that they lie, for the most part, in opposite divisions of the cavern ; and where they meet they have thinned down to an inconsiderable thickness. Where, too, the cave earth is wanting, the upper stalagmite rests on the lower ; and where the stalagmite is wanting, the cave earth and the breccia (the lowest bed) are in immediate contact.10

It is evident that the black mould, the cave earth with the black band, and the beds of stalagmite, do not lie in vertical succession, which will greatly alter the estimate of time required for their accumulation. For if some of the beds were forming in the eastern division of the cave, while others were forming in the remote or westward portion, and if, where they met or lapped, both had thinned, the time needed for their formation would bo greatly lessened.

Having ascertained what has to be measured, wo shall endeavour to show that neither the cave earths on one side

6 President. Address. Nature, 1877, Glasgow Lect., 1876, p. 16.

8 Mr. Pengelly’s Manchester Lect., 1872.

19 Ibid.

Remote Antiquity of Man.

of the cave, the stalagmites on the other, nor the two together where they lap, have required any great length of time for their deposition.

Stalagmite

is produced by the action of water charged with carbonic acid, which percolating through the roof of the cave dissolves the carbonate of lime in the limestone through which it passes, and dripping from the ceiling of the roof forms bosses, or spreads out as a pavement on the floor of the cave.

This stalagmite is the principal time-gauge used to show that the deposits of Kent’s Cavern have required a prodigious time for their formation.

An extract from one of Mr. Pengelly’s lectures will give the calculation by which this conclusion is reached He is lecturing in the Hulme Town Hall, Manchester, at the end of 1873. He has popularized his subject, and has evidently an attentive audience. ‘ Well, I have told you,’ he says, 1 that we have found Romano-British and Pre-Boman objects in the black mould. We feel perfectly satisfied that this deposit is worth as a minimum 2,000 years. Now comes the question, how much time does the granular stalagmite represent ? A stalagmitic floor cannot be formed faster than the limestone overhead is dissolved, and the rate at which that is dissolved depends on the amount of carbonic acid in the water. We feel perfectly satisfied it must be very slow work. On a boss there is the following’ inscription : “ Robert Hedges, Feb. 20th, 1688.” That is 185 years ago. There is another inscription which had not been noticed till last June, which is earlier still, dated 1604, that is 269 years old. Let us say 250 — we can afford to be liberal. Now how much carbonate of lime has accreted on those ancient inscriptions made 250 years ago ? Not more than the twentieth of an inch in thickness in a part of the cavern where the stalagmite has been formed with unusual rapidity. Judging from these bosses, you perceive clearly enough that it would take twenty times that amount of time at that rate to represent an inch, that is 5,000 years, and we have fully five feet to account for in the granular stalagmite only. Now, ladies and gentlemen, are you

Caves.

prepared for that amount of time 1 Five thousand years for an inch, and sixty inches— sixty times 5,000 years ! What then 1 After you have got below the cave earth you have another stalagmite little short of twelve feet in thickness, and you have that to account for in addition.’11 We must not omit to say that, cautioned by the rapid accumulation of stalagmite in a cave in Yorkshire, the lecturer added : ‘ I am not prepared to insist on your receiving this rate of increase as a chronometer. I am willing to admit that it may have been faster for anything I know to the contrary; but supposing it were fifty times as fast — and that I take to be a very high estimate indeed — were our fathers prepared for the reception of the time thus obtained V Yet Mr. Pengelly repeats his calculation in his lectures at Glasgow in 1876 and 1877 ;12 and at the close of his presidential address at the meeting of the British Association in 1877, says that the state of the evidence from Kent’s Cavern compelled him to believe that the earliest men of Kent’s Hole were interglacial, if not preglacial.13

We do not question the statement that the accumulation of stalagmite on the boss was one-twentieth of an inch in the 250 years ; it is, however, very difficult to conceive that through that long time the drip was continuous ; but if so, that rate of increase was not the measure of accumulation where the stalagmite was five and twelve feet thick. The increase, Mr. Pengelly informs us, is not the same in different parts of the cave.- Of the granular stalagmite, which ‘varies in thickness from five feet to a mere film,’ he says, ‘that wherever the drip in wet weather is very copious, there the stalagmite is of great thickness ; and wherever there is very little drip, the stalagmite is thin.’14

He tells us, too, of such an abundant supply of stalagmite, as not only surmounted and completely encased the crystalline portion of a boss forty-three feet in basal circumference and thirteen feet in 'height, but ‘ flowing in vast sheets formed the thick granular floor, spreading far without a break in every direction.’16 This occurred in that part of the cave where the two beds of stalagmite were in contact,

Remote Antiquity of Man.

and where the stalagmite was the thickest, for there was no intervening cave eai’th.’ And this stream of calcareous matter formed the ‘ thick ’ floor of the granular or upper stalagmite, and where the upper one was five feet the lower one was little short of twelve feet.16 Was this stalagmite which surmounted and completely encased this huge boss, and formed the thick granular floor by its outspreading stream, supplied by drops at the rate of an inch in 5,000 years ?

There would be no difficulty in conceiving that during some of those wet seasons when the calcareous matter flowed so freely, that an inch might have been formed in five months instead of 5,000 years. In the early history of the cave too, when the rainfall was more abundant than in later years, and the forest growths furnished large supplies of decayed vegetable matter which would yield the needed carbonic acid, the formation of stalagmite would be far more rapid than in modern times.

We find then, from the evidence of the cave itself, that the accumulation of stalagmite is not slow. But we have other evidence which shows that instead of increasing slowly, stalagmite accumulates rapidly. Professor Boyd Dawkins, one of the committee appointed for the exploration of this cavern, in his late work on ‘Early Man in Britain,’ states that ‘ in the Ingleborough Cave, in Yorkshire, the growth of stalagmite has been so swift that between 1845 and 1873 a stalagmite boss known as the Jockey Cap has grown at the rate of '2941 inch per annum.’17 And at the meeting of the British Association at Swansea in 1880, he added that the series of observations by which that result was obtained, were made through those years by Professor Phillips, Mr. Farrer and himself ; that the rate of accumulation of stalagmite is variable ; sometimes it is slow, and sometimes very swift, as in the Ingleborough Cave. 1 It is obvious, therefore,’ he says, ‘ that all. speculation as to the deposits in caves Which is based on the view that the accumulation is very slow, is without value.ns This increase on the Jockey Cap is at the rate of about

18 English Mechanic and World of Science, Sept. 1880.

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eight inches in twenty-eight years ; while eight inches, according to Mr. Pengelly’s calculation from the inscription boss, would require for their accumulation 40,000 years. And, instead of being ‘ fifty times as fast,’ it is more than 1,400 times as fast.

Mr. John Curry reports that at Bottsburn, in Durham, three-quarters of an inch of stalagmite formed on some narrowish deals that were set edgewise in fifteen years.19 This, though a diminished rate of increase as compared with that of the Ingleborough Cavern, is strangely divergent in its result from that of the Kent’s Cavern calculation. It is twenty years for an inch against 5,000. And the drip fell on deals which were set edgewise, which would afford but a narrow surface for its retention.

Mr. Bruce Clark20 writes to say that he visited a cave at Poole’s Hall, near Buxton, where some gas-pipes had been laid down six months before, and that one-eighth of an inch of stalagmite had formed there in that time. This is at the rate of one inch in four years, in place of 5,000.

Of the same cave it is stated in the Archeological Journal, that a large piece of stalagmite was found which has been supposed to be several thousand years old. The man in charge of the cave has excavated the floor at the entrance, and at the depth of six feet found fragments of Samian ware, a perfect fibula, and a denarius of Domitian.21

Professor Alexander Winch ell, of the Michigan University, in a letter received from him by Dr. Southall, stated that in one of the lead caves near Dubuque, Iowa, stalactites three feet long have formed in three years.22

Captain Brome, in his excavations in Martin’s Cave, Gibraltar, found two iron swords, with articles of flint and silver ; and close under the south side of the cave he discovered a copper plate, lying under eighteen inches of hard stalagmite. ‘ The plate,’ states the writer, ‘is said to be of Limoges’ work, and of the same period as the swords.’ The date is probably at the end of the twelfth or thirteenth century. If the whole time since its deposition were reckoned, the formation of this bed would be at the rate

51 Ibid,., March, 1875, p. 127. 23 ‘ Epoch of the Mammoth,’ p. 93.

of about forty years for an inch ; but there has to be deducted the time for the accumulation in a cave of six feet of earth on the stalagmite.23

A closing quotation on the rate of increase of stalagmite we make from Professor Dawkins’s work on Cave-hunting.24 ‘ If,’ says Mr. Dawkins, ‘the Jockey Cap be taken as a measure of the rate of growth of these deposits, all the stalagmites and stalactites in the cave may not date farther back than the time of Edward III. ;’ and ‘ it is evident from this instance of rapid accumulation, that the value of a layer of stalagmite in measuring the antiquity of deposits below it is comparatively little. The layers, for instance, in Kent’s Hole, which are generally believed to have required a considerable lapse of time, may possibly have been formed at the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum. It may fairly be concluded that the thickness of layers of stalagmite cannot be used as an argument in support of the remote age of the strata below. At the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum, twenty feet of stalagmite might be formed in a thousand years.’

In Kent’s Cavern, as we have seen, where the two layers of stalagmite were five feet and twelve feet respectively, they were in contact; the granular bed lay immediately on the crystalline.25 The cave earth, where was its place, thinned out before it reached the place of contact. The black mould occupied the entire eastern division with the exception of a small chamber in its south-western end only, but was not found in the other remote parts of the cavern. The measurement, then, of stalagmite in a vertical line at its greatest depth is seventeen feet, which, at the rate of increase on the Jockey Cap at Ingleborough, would require a trifle over 800 years for its accumulation.

Considering the rapid deposition of this calcareous matter which has occurred at some seasons, this rate of increase has not improbably occurred at Kent’s Cavern ; but as it does not accumulate at one uniform rate, it will be safer to give a wider range for its increase, from 2,000 to 3,000 years would be a very liberal guess.

24 Cave Hunting, pp. 39-41.

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The layers of

Cave Earths,

we might assume, were deposited in about the same time as the stalagmitic beds which formed at their sides ; but it may be more satisfactory to take a measurement through them, and no spot seems more suitable for the purpose than one described by Mr. Pengelly in one of his Glasgow lectures. ‘ In the fourth foot-level of the cave earth,’ he says, 1 the greatest depth to which it had been excavated, there were found a well-formed bone pin and the unworn crown of a molar tooth of a rhinoceros. Vertically over them there lay, in ascending order, four feet of cave earth with the black band. Over this lay the granular stalagmite, twenty inches thick, surmounted by the black mould ; and the whole was crowned with large blocks of limestone, cemented into a firm mass with carbonate of lime, which reached to the roof.’ At this spot, it will be seen, the cave was filled from the fourth foot-level of the cave earth up through the black band and the black mould to the place where the limestone blocks touch the roof. How much time was required for the deposition of this succession of layers 1 The black mould contains Romano-British and Pre-Roman articles, such as bronze rings, spoons, etc., smelted copper, combs, pottery distinctly Roman in character, including fragments of Samian ware. From the presence of these Roman relics, Mr. Pengelly claims for the formation of the black mould at least 2,000 years. But this assumes that Roman pottery found its way directly from the place where it was wrought by the potters to the place where it was deposited, and that Samian ware reached our island straight from the manufacturers, was at once broken into ‘ fragments,’ and thrown into the Devonshire Cave. It is difficult, too, to understand how, under ordinary circumstances, Roman pottery, including Samian ware — * the combs of the misses and the combs of the maid,’ as Mr. Pengelly facetiously calls them — with a number of ladies’ trinkets, should find their way to the cave. Surely people who possessed articles of value, and who kept servants or slaves, would not elect to dwell in the dens and caves of the earth, and carry thither articles of value and ornament. Mr. Mcllo thinks that the Roman relics found in the Cresswell Cave were carried thither when, on the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Britons were left a prey to the numberless hordes of invaders ; and the same invasion will probably account for the relics named being found in the Devonshire Cave. But whe.ther it was so or not, it is a mere assumption that the Roman and other articles were deposited in the cave 2,000 years ago. Four or five centuries might be discounted from this estimate.