The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1894-02-07
BEGINNING OF MAN.
DR.. BRINTON FURNISHES INTEREST.
ING DATA ON THE SUBJECT.

Genoral Agreement on the Discoveries In
tho Drift" = The Glacial Age Sand
wiohcd In Between Warm Periods.
Whore Man Opened His Eyes.
"The Beginning of Man and the Age of
the Race" is the subject of an article i'm
Tho Forum by DR.. Daniel G.. Brinton,
one of the foremost anthropologists of
the time. The very earliest deposit in
which there may be said to be a general
agreement that mans remains are found
to that called the Drift, series of gravel
beds i'll the valley of the Thames in Eng
land, Somme in France and the Manza-
mares in Spain, and elsewhere in western
Europe. In these beds his stone tools and
weapons arc found lying in undisturbed
relations with bones of animals long since
extinct, and which under the present con-
dltlOns Of the climate could not exist i'll
that locality, these animals belonging to
a tropical or subtropical fauna. From
this one is led to believe that man lived
there at an early date when the climate
was much warmer than now, and that
he had lived there for long time, for
thousands of his implements have been
found in various strata and scattered
over wide area.
After this warm period period of ex-
IRENE cold descended from the north
over central and western Europe. Huge
glaciers covered Scotland, Scandinavia
and Switzerland, and the forests of
France We're the haunts of arctic qua
drupeds and birds, of musk OK, reindeer
and the white fox. Man, however,
weathered this cold period and contin-
ued to roam the woods and fish the
streams, transferring his habitations to
natural caves, where evidence of his
hunts and his battles are still to be
found. This period of cold is what is
called the glacial period" and by some
of our most learned biologists the length
of this icy age" has been placed from
10000 to 10000 years.
Adding this to the former calculation,
and allowing a reasonable time for prime
val man to develop and spread over the
area in which he lived, we have as the
approximate time since man has APP
pearcd i'll Europe-where, up to date, we
have found the earliest trace of his eX-
istence-;lbout $4,000 years. This Mr.
Brnton regards us the minimum allow
ance for him. Some writers of cminence
have required 200, 900 years to explain
all these changes in climate, in organic
life and i'll geological deposition, but Mr..
Brinton points out that the tendency of
late years has been toward reduction
of these figures, especially by field geol-
ogists who seem To be more impressed
with the rapidity Of natural actions than
heretofore.
4,.{ 4 r.
the origin of man, DR.. Brinton declares
that there is no trace anywhere of the
missing link, no evidence that man de-
veloped out of some lower animal by
long series Of slow changes" Nor does
he accept the doctrine of specific crea-
ton as Il scientific explanation. There
Is a third possible theory of the origin of
man which DR.. Brinton holds is as good
as another-namcly, that called "evolu-
ton per saltum," OF with jump.
1T is that process, whatever it may
be. which produces sports in plants and
'cranks and 'gcniuscs in respectable
families No doctrine of 'heredity' or
'atavism or revcrsion can explain these
prodlSics or monsters, as they happen tc
be. y family of we know not which of
the higher mammals, perhaps the great
tree ape which then lived in the warm
regions of central France, may have pro-
duced IL few sports widely different
physically and mentally from their par
cnts, and these sports We're the ances-
tors of mankind. This is IL theory which
asks for its acceptance no blind faith III
the dogmatic assertions either of science
or religious tradition
AS to where man first appeared DR..
Brinton says: Sin fact, we are limited by
a series of exclusions to the southern
slope OF that great mountain chain which
begins i'll western Europe and Africa
with the Atlas mountains, the Cantabri-
an Alps and the Pyrenecs and continues
to the Hilnalayas and their eastern ex-
tensions III farther India Somewhere
along this line i'll southern Asia or in
southern Europe or III northern Africa
we may confidently say man first opened
his eyes upon the world about him Up
to the present time his earliest vcstiYes
have been cXhumed in the extreme west
of this region, but that may be because
there search has been more diligently
made, but the fact remains that, speak
ing from present knowledge, we know of
man nowhere earlier than in England,
France and the Iberian peninsula. RE
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