The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-12
ENGLAND'S FIRST MAN.
PROBABLY ARRIVED BEFORE THE
GLACIAL PERIOD.

Fierce Battle for supremacy-Made
Good His FoothoId by Use of Crude
Weapons which Gave Him superb
GRITTY over Monsters of His Day.
Great Britain at That Time n Por-
tion of the COntine nt--The River
drift Man and the Traces He Has
Left of His Presence.
From the New York Evening Post.
When the history of the Victorian
age comes to be written, among the
many important additions made to
human knowledge. the discoveries con-
nected with primitive man in Europe
and his advancing culture will take a
high place. These, together with the
discovery of the principle of evolution,
will go far to make that age in nat
ural science what the Elizabethan age
was in literature. 1t is only within
the last fifty years that it has been
possible to ascertain the progress of
man outside the written record, and to
find out the struggles of mankind In
1.-THE speeches past" which lies be-
yond. Now we rise from the old
crude idea of the origin of man, as
represented in books, to the study of
mankind living in ages so utterly be-
yond the reach of any record that it is
impossible to sum up the events in the
terms of years. We can now mark
the time of day, as indicated by the
geological clock, when man first APP
pears in Europe. We know the geog-
ra nh L. No he oltv 80 I'D thA
general conditions under which he APP
peared. 1t is proposed in this article
to tell the story of his arrival in Brit
ain.
The rudely shipped implements and
weapons found in the deposits of an
Client rivers, and belonging to the late
geological period known as Pleistocene,
along with numerous wild animals liv-
Ing and extinct, mark the arrival of
the primitive hunter in Britain, over
the whole of the northern and eastern
counties and the midlands as far to
the north as Peterborough. They occur
to the south in France, and Spain,
and Italy, in Greece, in Palestine, in
Egypt, and in Algiers. In all these re-
gions they offer the same evidence as
to the condition of the first man who
appeared in Europe. His implements
and weapons were fashioned of stones,
Clipped to sharp point or to a cut
ting edge, and were of a lower type
than those now used by savage races
He was unaided in the chase by the
dog, he was ignorant of all domestic
animals, and of all the arts with the
exception of those employed in MAX
ing his implements. He was not even
acquainted with the use of pottery. He
had learned, however, the use of fire
'the red flower" so much dreaded by
all the wild animals.
Saved by His ArtfuIness.
1t is little less than miracle that
with these poor weapons primitive
man should have made good his foot
hold in Europe among the wild beasts,
and have successfully waged war
against the lion, bear, the woolly ele-
plants and rhinoceroses, the hippopot-
amuses, and wild bulls then inhabit-
ing the continent. Like Mowgli, in
Rudyard Kiplings delightful Jungle
Book" he saved himself by his art
fulness. and made UP for his bodily
weakness by his resource. We do not
know in what part of the world he
first learned the use of implements and
of fire: it was probably in some warm
region in Southern Asia or Central
Africa. The identity of pattern im-
plements in Europe, and the absence
| of any evidence as to, their gradual
evolution of form. lead to the con-
clusion that the "River-drift hunter"
as he is termed, did not learn to equip
himself in Europe, but in some other
quarter of the world.
The geography of the British Isles,
at the time of the arrival of the River
drift hunter, was wholly different from
| that of to-day. There was no North
Sea and no English or Irish Channel
The land stood at least 900 feet above