historic man: he has even been sometimes called manmonkey, or pithecanthrope. The first of these denominations needs comment; the second rests upon a bold hypothesis, which needs proof. What then is a fossil being? The various definitions which this word has received necessarily bear the stamp of the opinions prevalent at the time when they were given. Thus, when geologists explained all phenomena by tremendous cataclysms, when Alcide d'Orbigny supposed that the Sovereign Architect, filling the ungrateful rôle of Penelope, created and destroyed his still incomplete work twenty-seven times, the word fossil was understood to mean any organic remains naturally buried in the strata of the earth previous to the last catastrophe which overwhelmed it, that is, before the appearance of man upon its surface. Now, this first appearance, placed after the diluvian or post-pleiocene epoch, properly so called, apparently formed a natural boundary between geological ages and the present time. Every animal or vegetable species of which the remains were found buried in the diluvian, tertiary, or yet older strata, were reputed to be fossil, and therefore necessarily extinct. All species buried at a later date than the diluvian deposit were to be considered merely humatile or sub-fossil. The words fossil species were, therefore, synonymous with extinct species, as if any organised being might not be individually fossil, without the extinction of the entire species to which it belonged. Thus the urus was only fossil in Cæsar's time; at the present day the whole species is fossil and extinct. But the aurochs, whose remains are found in the diluvian beds with those of the cave bear and of the mammoth, is at once fossil and living, since it is still to be found, in small numbers it is true, in the forests of Lithuania, where it continues to breed under the special protection of the Czar of Russia. Moreover, a certain number of animals of which the man it signifies merely that he has been contemporary with lost species, for his own still exists. remains are found in strata of a later date than the first appearance of man, have become extinct at a time very near our own. No one will deny that these species are at once fossil and extinct. The dodo of the Isle of France, the dinornis of New Zealand, and the epyornis of Madagascar are cases in point. We therefore apply the word fossil to all species really extinct, even though its extinction was not prior to the present geological period, and took place under conditions similar to those now existing. For us every extinct species, such as mammoth or dodo, is fossil, although every fossil species is not necessarily extinct, such as reindeer and musk ox. As it is essential in the discussion of every important subject to arrive at a distinct understanding as to the meaning of the terms employed, we assert that, in our opinion, the term fossil as applied to man does not represent the idea of extinction (for we hold that primitive man still exists in the person of his descendants), but that of synchronism with those great animals (mammoth, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, &c.) which, after leaving more or less numerous traces in the pleiocene rocks, have ended by becoming extinct at different ages of the quaternary epoch, and of which some few have survived even to our own day, as the reindeer, musk ox, &c. Fossil man, as we understand the words, does not belong to the present geological age, to that which directly follows the quaternary epoch. His actions are not within the domain of history, since they are far earlier. The study of primitive man belongs to the province of palæontology, on the same grounds as that of his contemporaries, the great cave bear and the mammoth. The human species is fossil but not extinct. III. PREHISTORIC AGES. It is with humanity as with the successive individuals of which it is composed; memory only begins at a somewhat advanced stage of the development of the race; it has no consciousness of earlier conditions. The first manifestations of essential activity have left no traces in the PREHISTORIC AGES. 19 memory of mankind.' But, as is invariably the case, at the point where history ceases, fable begins. Classical antiquity tells us of four successive ages-the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Under the reign of Saturn, that is during the golden age, men enjoyed a long life, which they spent in the midst of happiness, peace, and plenty. But the horrors of war were soon let loose among them; iron took the place of gold; a rapid decadence began, and man retains at the present day only faint traces of his primitive perfection and happiness. Another myth of later date, and more in harmony with the facts observed, tells us that the earth was originally inhabited by a race of giants, and by a subsequent creation of a race of dwarfs. The giants dwelt among the rocks, and built there walls of cyclopean masonry; they carried stone clubs, and were ignorant of the use of metals. The dwarfs, far weaker, but at the same time far more industrious than the giants, inaugurated the age of bronze. They sought this metal in the bowels of the earth, and with the help of fire forged precious ornaments and shining arms, which they gave to men. Finally, giants and dwarfs gave place to the men of the iron age, and were forced to abandon the land. It is curious to see poetry thus forestall history, and mention distinctly the series of epochs which are generally admitted by modern science. Lucretius has these lines in his poem, ‘De natura rerum ': Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt, Sed prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus. The researches undertaken, and the discoveries given to the world in these days in Denmark, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and, indeed, in almost every part of the world, show that the facts are very nearly in agreement with the fable. Archæology combines with geology to show that human civilisation has passed through three more or less distinct stages, in Europe at least, for which the names of stone, 1 Lamennais, Esquisse d'une Philosophie, t. iii. p. 42. bronze, and iron ages have been retained, although they may be, perhaps, rather too suggestive of the myth. We ought, probably, to reckon that a copper age intervened between the stone and bronze ages, if not in Europe,' where it has left few traces, at least in certain districts of the New World. For instance, the mound builders, an ancient and long extinct race, whose earthworks excite the astonishment and admiration of the traveller in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, wrought the native copper of Lake Superior with stone hammers and without the aid of fire, long before the day when the Mexicans and Peruvians cast bronze statues, weapons, and ornaments of every kind. It is certain that Europe, whose advanced intellectual culture is justly the object of our admiration, was first inhabited by tribes to whom the use of metals was entirely unknown. Flints more or less skilfully fashioned, and other very hard materials, such as serpentine, quartz, and diorite, bones, horn, and wood were the only tools used in the manufacture of their weapons and of the implements of their rude industry. These tribes belonged, then, to the stone age, the first stage of civilisation. But it has been thought expedient to divide this age into two periods, according to the different degrees of perfection to which the workmanship of the implements had attained in each subdivision; the earlier of these two periods has received the name of archæolithic or palæolithic (the age of rough hewn stone), 1 Several urns and instruments of pure copper have, however, been found in the British Isles, in Hungary, Savoy, Switzerland, and Spain, where, according to M. de Prad, the copper age preceded the bronze age. According to M. Rougemont, the Russian Tschoudes also had their age of pure copper. Lastly, implements both of pure copper and of bronze have been taken from Egyptian tombs which date from the time of Suphis, the builder of the great pyramid. We cannot hitherto decide with certainty whether or no a copper age existed in France or in America. But it is a fact that ornaments of red copper (necklace beads, rings, and bracelets) have lately been found in the burial caves of Saint Jean d'Alcas and of Durfort, and even in the dolmens of Aveyron (Cazalis de Fondouce, Cartailhac). In this there is nothing surprising, since copper is far easier to work than bronze: it is therefore natural that the former should have preceded the latter, especially in districts where copper in a pure state is more or less abundant. the more recent that of neolithic (age of polished stone).1 (See figs. 1, 2, and 3.) The cave bear, the mammoth, the Rhinoceros ticho rhinus, &c. belong to the first of these periods; they had become extinct in the neolithic period. At this last The archæo- or paleolithic age is anterior to, the neolithic age posterior to, the second glacial epoch. |