PRE-HISTORIC MEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2319, 11 August 1898, Page 55

PRE-HISTORIC MEN.

■The term "pre-historic" was first, used by my late friend Sir Daniel Wilson in his "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland," and was intended to " express the whole period,

disclosed by archaeological evidences asr distinguished from what is known to us by written records." In a later work, "Prehistoric Man," he explains that " man may be assumed to be pre-historic whcievcr his chroniclings of himself are undesigned and his history is wholly recoverable by induction.' 1 The term has thus "no .ibsohite chronological significance," but may refer to very different times in different localities. There are modern as well as ancient pre-historic taces. Thoge of whom wehave no other remains than their bones or their works of art, or their kitchen refuse, are pre-historic, while those which have left wrillen records of themselves are historic. Vie, red in this way the ptopis of Britain aie pie-historic until the time of Julius Caesar, who firht gave them a distinct historical existence. The people of America with pprhnps Ihe exception of the Mayas of Yuluean, are pie-historic until the time of Christopher Columbus, and those of the Polynesian and Australian islands till the voyages of Cook and his contemporaries. There are peoples in interior Africa, who me even yet passing from the pro-historic to the historic stage. On the other hand, we find the nations of Western Asia and around the head of the Mediterranean 'possessing historic records which .extend to 3000 - years before- the Christian era, or perhaps farther ; and the Hebrew and Chaldean histories take .us back to an antediluvian age, covering 2000 years at least farther back, and reaching to the origin of man. It is no doubt the habit with many modern historians! tacitly to ignore these oldest histories as legendary or mythic ; but this ...seems scarcely justifiable in the present state of knowledge. We can trace several lines of testimony, apparently independent, back to this hoar antiquity, and can reasonably assign to them no other origin than a foundation in fact. We confine ourselves to the actual remains of men who had neither the means nor the intention to tell us their own story or that of their fellows, but have merely left us the relics of themselves and their possessions to inform us of their existence and actions. Remains of such 'unstoried men exist in many parts of Western Europe, more especially in France, Belgium, Germany, and Northern Italy, as well as in Britain ;' and have there been studied under the most favourable circumstances, while the osseous relics and works of art which have been disinterred are collected in great museums, like that of the old palace of St. Germain, near Paris, and the Royal Museum at Brussels. . . . Most archaeologists divide the pre-his-toric stone age, that is the early Anthropio Period, as distinguished from the geological periods before the appearance of man, into two leading portions, the Palaeolithic, or that of chipped stone imylements and weapons, and the Neolithic, or that of polished stone. The distinction is, in point of fact, good, but the terms denoting it are objectionable, as referring to accidents of locality and convenience rather than to chronological periods. The question of chipped or polished stone is often that of available material, and we know that for certain purposes the roughest chipped stones have been used in very recent times by peoples well acquainted with the manufacture of polished or otherwise highly perfected implements and \>eo.-

pons « The limestone cliffs on the banks of the Vezere are often hollowed into caves or undercut by the weather and the waters so as to form rock-shelters, which a iittle addition of wattle or brush in front would make into 'tolerable habitations. These caves and shelters seem to have been a favourite abode of the primitive people fPalaeocosmic men), and to .have been somewhat populous, and this for a long time, reaching through several subordinate stages. These people seem all to have been hunters and fishermen, and, so far as indicated by the skeletons found, of large stature, and with long heads and welldeveloped brain. They probably went naked in summer, but must have worn clothing of skins in winter, using apparently a kind of jshirfc with sleeves, and leggings of dressed skin, ornamented in part v" 'i rough embroidery or colouring, and with perforated shells and pendants of bone sewn on in conspicuous places. They- were alsi artists of some skill, and more especially were in the habit of ornamenting their '.' pogamogons " or skullcrackers with figures of animals, and of carving such figures on handles of piercers and other instruments, and on smoothed plates of bone or ivory. It is, these carvings and tracings on bone and ivory^ that constitute their best claim to intentional records, and we may notice a few of them in this connection as giving their only historical testimony concerning themselves. The simplest, though perhaps ndt the least significant, of their works of art are mere cuts, notches, or dots, incised on bone, in rows, sometimes divided into groups or distinct series. Tb^e have been supposed to be tallies intended to preserve a reckoning of objects of value, as for example of animals taken in the chase, or of skins for trade or barter, or perhaps to keep account i' time. Similar records have existed in less ancient times elsewhere, ns for instance the knotted cords of the Peruvians or the wampum strings and notched sticks of tfco North American Indians. They have also been compared to the marked bones and sticks used by the Haida ludJans of Western America in playing en tain games. . - . From an artistic rmint of view, the most interesting productions of the primitive artists of Southern France were their representations of animals, which show much accurate observation and manual dexterity as well os imagination and adaptation in the attitudes of the animals.