MAN A MILLION YEARS AGO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 62

MAN A MILLION YEARS AGO.

(A paper read before the Temuka Debating Society by Mr John Sim.)

11. We have now to deal with unwritten history. Our records are not now written inscriptions, but they, are no. less reliable on that account. They are still contemporary records — tools and implements fashioned by the human hand, and a limited number of human skeletons embedded in. places wheie their antiquity can be demonstrated. The periods of time we have now to deal with are historically very' remote, although geologically speaking comparatively recent. The divisions recognised by scientists with their leading features from our standpoint are just oeyond the historic period, the "Post Glacial" or "recent period." Then, further back, the " Quarternary, or Glacial Period," with evidence that man was already diffused nearly all over the earth. We need go no further back than the next division, the Tertiary, subdivided into the Pliocene, the Miocene, and the Eocene. In the Pliocene the indications of man are scanty. In the Miocene the earliest indications of man axe met with, and it may be noted that Quadrumana were plentiful during this age, while in the Eocene, Placental Mammalia m*st become plentiful. Of the recent period we will but say that here only we meet with evidences of Neolithic (polished stone) tools or implements. Although these have been found in vast numbers, as many as 25,000 articles (knives, arrowheads, broken pottery, etc.), having been found at one station, alone, all the evidence goes to show that the durr*ion of the Neolithic period was only a drop in the bucket as compared with th& preceding. Palaeolithic (rough or unpolished stone) Period. The Bronze Age soon succeeded the polishedstone age, a.nd everything points that the more rude and primitive man was, so were the steps foi his upward march the more slow and difficult. While in the Post Glacial Age many evidences of man's' progress from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic are to* bs met with in the Quarternary Period -\ve meet with only Palaeolithic man. This period (also called the "Glacial Period" on account of the climate changing to cold and producing vast icefields as far south as England) made many changes on the surface of the globe- It was of immense duration : while it lasted Britain wss submerged until only the mountain-! ops were as islands; and then the earth was raised until the German Ocean was dry land and Britain .1 portion of the Continent of Europe. And wherever deposits of this period are found there man's relics are to be found along with those of extinct animals common to that age.

The proofs of man's existence during that period are so numerous that the implements found are to be reckoned by tens of thousands. And we must bear in mind that at this far-away period man not only existed but he existed in great numbers, and was already spread nearly all over the earth. His relics are found in all the deposits of the Quarternaiy Age from the earliest to the latest in all localities where explored, ex- . cept in northern regions that were then < buried by ice-caps. Man's relics are found : in conjunction with the extinct mammoth woolly rhinoceros and the cave bear, as well ■ as with those of animals still" existing, such as the reindeer, horse, and the ox. In Africa ; (north and south), in Asia, in North and South America, Palaeolithic implements ; have been found in extraordinary numbers, although the exploration has been very partial. In a few European. countries the examination has been more' thorough, arid the results more detailed. Through the whole of this vast time there was a, constant gradual progression of human intelligence upwards. In the earliest the rudest implements are found — simply native stones chipped roughly into a few primitive shapes. In the latter half the types of implements are improving and needles, drawing, and sculptures, begin to appear. Were we to go no further back than the Quarternary or Glacial Period, we would have to extend a vast antiquity to man when measured by years. The sum total would have to be expressed by hundreds of thousands of years. But we will now turn to the Tertiary Period, where the earliest indications of mar. are to be found. At this time the climate was much more equable than during the succeeding period, and men would not require to take to the caves to live ; therefore there is a diminished chance of finding human remains in Tertiary depicts. Also, the face of the earth is greatly changed since then, and the majority of traces necessarily obliterated, and at that time mankind had necessarily been fewer in number ; therefore we must not be surprised if a few scattered savages should leave comparatively few traces of their existence. However, tht examples that we propose to refer to seem to istablish Tertiary man, but w« must premise that with the Quarternary we leave certainty behind us. The few instances, some dozens, although seemingly conclusive, are in striking contrast to the tens of thousands of instances of the Glacial Period. The crucial point as to whether the examples which follow are Tertiary or Quarternary is a difficult one to decide, as, of course, there is m hard and fast line between one period and another, as the one merges into the other by insensible gradations. Bub as they are* ample illustration of the vast age of our race, Aye will briefly notice them. We will commence with stone implements and bones of animals which have been fouftd a£ St. Prest* in France

These are important as conclusively proving '""that man's existence- extends at any. rate over the whole of the Quarternary period, comprising the vast glacial and interglacia] ages which have effected such vast changes in the earth's surface"' (Laing). Bones of a whale discovered in Pliocene strata. show-, ing cuts apparently made with a flint knife ; flint' scraper from" Thenay, found in situ "in Miocene strata by Abbe Bourgeois ; hatchets in Miocene strata at Olta; Portugal. At Castelnedlo, in Italy, man himself has been found. M. Ragazzoni had found some human bones in a. bed, identified as Pliocene by its fossils, so, accompanied by two more j scientists, they made further excavations. • The deposit was removed, layer by layer, ! and no trace found of the beds being distuibed. In this Pliocene strata they found j fossilised bones of foiir persons — a man a woman, and two children, the woman's skeleton being almost entire. M. Quatre- ■ foge;, a careful, cautious, competent authority, says : " There exists no serious reason 1 for doubting the discovery of M. Ragazzoni, and that if made in a Quarternary deposit, no one would have thought of questioning , its accuracy." At Ohno', also, in Italy," on . the Apennines, a skull was found 50ft from the surface, under a layer of clay, containing a tooth ■of an elephas, n species which scarcely survived the Pliocene ' period, but ! this specimen may be - Quarternary. This ■ does not exhaust the list of European examples. Still more numerous and ample evidences of Tertiary' man are afforded by the " new " world, the most striking and important being those first discovered by golddiggers in California, and recent discoveries by the U.S. Geological Survey seem to ' settle the question of Tertiary man in the i affirmative foi all time. Professor G. P. Becker and other experts formed conclusions so remarkable that two of the most eminent I scientists of America went specially to exa- ; mine and report — Professor W. H. Holmes, ethnologist-in-chief of the National Museum at Washington, and Professor W.-"A. 1 M'Gee. These investigations in and about Table Mountain, in the Sierra Nevada, show plainly that since man's advent here valleys have been filled with the drift of mountains to a depth of 1500 ft in parts, and these covered with tuffs, ashes and lava from volcanoes now long extinct, and finally worn by present rivers through lava, gravels, into the bedrock to a depth of 2000 ft. At different times human relics have been found by miners and others, portions of skulls, jawbones, and othei bones, mortars and ppsties of stone, flint knives, etc., and all- found in association with the old river systems, and with bone.s of animals now extinct, and entirely different from' those which now inhabit any part of North America. As long ago as_lß66 a miner named Mattenson drove a tunnel under the Sierra lava flow at a place called Bald Hill. At a depth of 150ft 'from, the surface, 100 ft through solid lava, 'soft through interstratified beds of Java, gravel, and volcanic tuffs, he found what is know ' as the (Jalveras skull.' This was carefully investigated, and found to be a human skull embedded in a matrix, and the circumstantial evidence alone placed its genuineness beyond all reasonable question. It would be tedious to enumerate all the relics that • have been found in this vicinity from time to lime in positions where they must have been prior to the lava streams' forming hills over them. Some of the more recent axe a stone mortar, some arrow or spearheads that Professor Becker exhibited to the U.S. Geological Survey, with the sworn statement from Mr Neale, mining superintendent, bhat he took them with his own hands from undisturbed gravel in a mine of which he had charge under the lava of Table Mountain. Mr King, at one time General Director of the U.S.G.S., exhibited a pestle which he found in gravel which must have lain in place ever since the lava came down and covered it. As relics (bones, teeth, etc.") of tho mastodon are found in conjunction with these, this surely establishes Tertiary man. It does so to the satisfaction of these experts. There is no reasonable room to doubt but that man existed before the lava began to flow that formed the cap of Table Mountain, human relics liaving come from a tunnel that runs beneath this, dug out 300 ft below the surface of the lava and 1400 ft from the mouth of the tunnel in a horizqntal line. Geologists can make a fair estimate of the length of time that has elapsed since the "lava flow, and at what period the people lived whose remains are found in this bed of ancient river. .gravel in .Table Mountain. That river was' V running stream about the middle of the Tertiary. The people who lived along its banks, eating, drinking and rearing their children, and doubtless considering themselves modern and up-to-date, must have died at least a million years ago. No competent authority is di&posed to place the Miocene or Middle Tertiary at less than 1,000,000 years ago. As we have said, there is now certainty that man existed during the whole of the Quarternary (glacial 1 and inter-glacial) Period as absolute certainty for this fact as we have for the earth turning on its axis, or that Venus makes a revolution round the sun. Space will not permit us to give the reasons that compel scientists to the conclusion that this alone means an antiquity of hundreds of thousands of years for mankind. Suffice it to say that competent geological and palaeontological authorities give valid reasons for adopting this conclusion. But in the face of the evidence from both old and new worlds, only a fraction being dealt with above (those in terested would do well to procure Mr S. Laing's " Human Origins " or his " Problems of the Future," published at 3s 6d each) there can be no reasonable doubt but that Tertiary man is fully established ; therefore our race is at least 1,000,000 years old.

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