Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1880-02-28
Possible Age of Man.

we nave Deen so long accustomed to look
upon man as creature of yesterday that it
almost takes our breath away even to be told
that he probably preceded the Glacial Epoch
some 100000 years ago. But then to be asked to
were comparatively late and half-civillzed speci-
mems OF humanity Is perhaps too much for our
weak faith. Yet the Able Bourgeois has found
cite which may possibly help to bridge over
the gap and to lead us into embracing even this
last AID most difficult clause in the modern
scientific creed. In the cdlcdi,'e de Beduce, a
ventured to discover flint objects which he
believes to be human or semi-human imple-
ments. They consist of flakes, not Clipped off
by blow like the pal9olthic knives, but ap-
parently split by means Of fire. Specimens of
Il csc presumed flint weapons were exhibited
at the Anthropological Congress at Paris last
suspciously like the handicrart of man. Even
ealter than the Able Bourgeois discovery.
bones had been observed at Sc. PreSt which APP
peared as though they had been cut with a
sharp Instruments primeval stone hatchet.
But II these observations are really correct,
tLen we must push back the first appearance of
man, or at least OF a weapon-makfng animal,
far into the past of the tertiary formations. The
time which elapsed between the Miocene or Pill
ocene periods and the days of the f1intchippers
must be reckoned, IN all probability, not by
cannot pretend that these data are very Ger
tain, but, at any rate, when we consider the
many marks OF comparatively high cultivation
regarded as preposterous or eXtravagant. just
as we know little about the previous history Of
man during the time which precedes, our
glimpse OF his existence in the palBolithc
stage, so we know little about him In the long
Interval which separates that stage from the ali
but historical neollthic period. The Glacial Ep-
och seems to have swept away almost the whole
fauna, and large part of the flora, of Northern
Europe, and with it the black fellows who
worked the fiints Of Axmouth and Of st. Ach-
England and the opposite continent seem 70
have been uninhabited by the human race.
When next we find traces of mans occupation,
IN the neollth1c burial grounds, man had pro-
and the face OF the European fauna had entirely
altered, The great river-horses. mammoths,
elks and reindeer were gone, and in their place
forests The Monaghan or Euskarian inhabit-
ants were men who used exquisitely polished
hatchets OF greensboro, whose material was
tant Kuen-Lun mountains OF Central Asia.
They knew how to make pottery; they dwelt
IN regular and well-built villages; they buried
hs aesS In splfn By m ehe ahsy had f1
whom these tumuli were raised They
had reached at least one great religious idea,
that OF human immortality; for beside the
pons and ornaments which they would need in
the other world. They lived mainly or entirely
upon their domesticated animals, the cow,
assist them in their hunting expeditions. They
cultivated wheat and barley, which they crush
ed with corn breakers into rough meal. They
even titled fax, and Wove from 1t coarse linen
cloth: Such regular government, settled COM
munitles, liked kngship, religious belief domes-
ucatlon OF animals, and advanced tillage, show,
of course, that Immense strides In civilization
had been made between the two periods. The
men who came back to Northern Europe in the
neol1thic epoch must have been developing and
improving for ages elsewhere before they could
have reached so high type of culture We do
not yet know where the intermediate stages
were passed, and it may perhaps happen that
no record Of the passage from the Clipped flint
stage to the polished stone stage anywhere ex-
lists. But when the rest of the world has been
we may reasonably hope for some further light
upon the intermediate steps.-1ne Co1nhtU
MGn1ziDP.