The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-02-13
From the Scientific Americana ]
EallY Traces of Men.


rock was forming and was as yet but wet
sand there existed gigantic birds or
bird-like animals which strobe along |
these ancient sea shores much as beach |
birds do along the shores OF to-day. The !
fact that traces of birds had never been
found before in strata SO ancient, much !
less the popular theory that birds were of
later creation, did not invalidate the in
ference; one positive fact, is well
known, outvalues any amount of mega
tive assertion, and the old theory had to
give way.
When workmen digging canal near
Stockholm, came upon buried hearth
with charcoal on it, exactly like those
which uncivilized people now make and
use, the natural inference was that some
one of more than brute intelligence had
lived there before the everything earth
was deposited. Had sthe hearth been
slightly buried, say six feet below the
surface, there would have been no ques
ton ofits artificial origin; it would have
been accounted the work of man as sure
ly as if human skeleton had been found
lying beside it. Should the inference be
considered less legitimate because there
happened to be sixty feet of earth above
the hearth? True that accumulation of
erratic blocks and sand and sea shells
gave unmistakable evidence of great geo.
logical changes since the hearth was last
used-glacial action, submergence of the
land and its subsequent elevation,- ,--all
involving long periods of time; but that
told not so much against the testimony
of the hearth as against the belief that
man was of more recent creation.
Now that such witnesses have been
multiplied to an almost infinite number,
forming a continuous chain from the
earliest historic times far back into the
cd hn
whelmin9; the alleged antiquity of
man, as it is styled by those who have
never investigated the matter, passes from
the domain OF hypothesis into the region
of demonstrated fact: The vista of hui
man antiquity opened up by these surpris-
ing discoveries is indeed vast, so vast
that even those who have most patiently
followed them and assisted in their de-
velOpment are overwhelmed with the
| thought of it No wonder, then, that
| those to whom it comes as a sudden rev
elation should fatty refuse to admit its
| reality. As Mr.. Evans remarks in the
| closing paragraph of his magnificent work
on the ancient stone implements, weap-
| ons and ornaments of Great Britain. ''it
is impossible not to sympathize with those
i who, from sheer inability to carry their
vision so far back into the dim past, and
| from uncOnsclouSneSS of the cogency of
other (than the fossils described in the
work above mentioned) and distinct evil
| dence as to the remoteness of the origin
| of the human race, are unwilling to be-
| lieve in so vast an antiquity for man as
must Of necessity be conceded by those
who &. have fully and fairly weighed
the facts which modern discoveries have
unrolled before their eyes" Yet while
we sympathize with the natural incredu-
lity of those who lack the basis of intelli-
gent judgment, we need not initiate their
unreasoning assurance in contradicting g
the deductions of science while refusing
to examine either the ground of their
own convictions or the evidence of the
different convictions of others.
The geological proofs of the antiquity
of man, to which Mr.. Evans alludes, are
Of threefold character:
/. The association of human bones with
the bones of extinct animals under con-
ditions which prove them to be of equal
age.
2. The signs of human action on the
bones of extinct animals the breaking
of them to extract the marrow, after the
manner of existing savages the shapin g
and polishing of them for use and orna-
ment; and more instructive STILL the
tracing on them of the outlines of mann
moths and other animals now extinct or
driven by change of climate to distant
parts of the earth.
B. The discovery of wrought stone i'm
plements, weapons and ornaments under
undisturbed strata demonstrably belong
ing to periods reaching as far back as the
pliocene period, if not farther.
Detailed descriptions ofthese evidences,
which are as marvellous in number as in
variety and interest, may be found in the
elaborate words of Lyell, Lubbock, viii
son, Evans and other English scholars
as well as in numerous French and Ger.
man writings; or the evidences them
selves may be studied in stu, and in nu-
merous rich collections of archeeogeolOg
ical specimens, by any one disposed to do
so. The purposes of this article admit
but the briefest mention of few Of the
most ancient of these traces of early man.
First, for our country. Perhaps the
oldest skull yet discovered is the one
found in the pliocene strata of Cable
Mountain, California. Having no com
panion in its almost incredible antiquity,
it was natural at the time of its discovery
for men to ridicule the age accorded it,
and to take refuge in the assertion that
it never came from the place alleged, or,
ii it did, it must have come there by ir-
regular means. But when many corrob
Grating evidences of human existence
during the pliocene period are found as
they have been, in the same strata under
conditions which satisfy careful geologists
that the strata had not previously been
disturbed, the astonishing character o1
the testimony is not sufficient ground fol
fatty rejecting it. More recently, similar
fossil evidences of perhaps still earlier
presence of man on our Pacific coast have
been discovered. A a meeting of the
San Francisco Academy of Science, in
May last, DR.. Blake presented the Society
: with number of perforated Implements
of serpentine, which had been taken from
stratifed rock near the summit of the
coast range, 100 feet above the sea-
They were found, embedded in argilla
ceous shales, in digging away the side o
a hill for the foundation of a house, and
says DR.. Blake, were evidently fashion
ed by the hand of man or some anima
capable of using its anterior extremities
so as to fashion objects to meet its wants
and apparently possessed of sufficient in
, telligence to use lines or nets for catch
ing fish as it would seem that these in
struments must have been used as sink
ers." DIR. Blake pronounces the rock II
which these interesting specimens o
| primitive manufacture were discovered
to be of an age not later than the pliocen'
period; while Professor Whitney, the
State Geologist, is Of opinion that it il
still more ancient. Anyhow, man ap
pears to have antedated the upheaval o
? the coast range and the attendant geolog
ical changes a remoteness in time which
makes the fossil skeleton found il
Natchez and New Orleans, and the hu
r man fragments under the Florida canals
D seem comparatively modern. Yet at tha