The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-10 00:00:00

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

On Saturday afternoon Mr. Lubbock, the presi-
dent of the Ethnological Society, concluded a short
course of three lectures at the Royal Institution on
" The Antiquity of Man." In these lectures he
entered thoroughly into the subject, commencing
with pre-historic arcbmology, and its division into
three periods of stone, bronze, and iron. The stone
implements used immediately before the introduc-
tion of bronze were particularly described, and
the peculiarities of those found in the " shell
mounds" of Denmark and on the sites of the lake
habitations of Switzerland were also pointed
out. In the last lecture Mr. Lubbock con-
trasted those stone implements used by man within
the period of history with similar implements
found in the " drift," and supposed to have been
made and used by men who lived at the same time
as the extinct animals, with the fossil bones of
which the flint implements are associated. The flint
implements in the " drift" bear unmistakable marks
of having originally constituted a part of the stra-
tum in which they are embedded, as they are
covered with the same kind of encrustations as the
gravel among which they are found. Mr. Lubbock,
therefore, considered that it is a fact, of which there
can be no doubt, that those flint implements are of
the same age as the stratum itself. He then compared
them with the stone implements of a later age, nume-
rous specimens of both kinds being exhibited for
illustration. The flint implements found in the
" drift" are of a ruder construction and never
polished, whereas the later stone implements are
generally polished and better made. From these
characteristics it was assumed that the pro-Adamites
were in a more savage state and of inferior capacity.
Mr. Lubbock, indeed, avowed himself to be a be
liever in Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of
species, in accordance with which it is probable that
the men of the " drift" period were of an inferior
race. The absence of the fossil human bones among
those of the extinct animals with which the flint
implements are found prevents the confirmation of
that theory by the comparison of skulls ; and, un-
fortunately for that hypothesis, the only two human
skulls that have been discovered in the "drift,"
contradict each other. One, indeed, is so degraded
in its intellectual developments, that some persons
have doubted whether it belonged to a human
being, while the other skull will bear comparison
with that of many Europeans. Mr. Lubbock as-
signed causes for the absence of fossil human
remains in the " drift," but they were not very
satisfactory. The bones of men have, however,been
found associated with those of extinct animals in
caves, in different parts of the world ; and Mr.
Lubbock adduced several facts in confirmation of
the opinion that man was living contemporaneously
with those extinct animals. It was not stated
whether the human crania of the cave-men indicated
a lower degree of mental capacity. Mr. Lubbock
next considered the probable age of the strata in
which the flint implements occur so abundantly in
the valley of the Somme; and he showed, by sec-
tions of the strata, that the "drift" which formerly
formed the bed of the river is now elevated so high
above the stream that it must have required many
thousands of years for the water to have worn away
the channel to its present level. He could not,
however, express an opinion how many years have
passed away since the men of the " drift" period
existed. The audience, who were very numerous,
applauded cordially at the conclusion of the lecture