The Meeting-Place of Geology and History. Sir John William Dawson
early Egyptian conquerors passed this way, at least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hittites. It is also known that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude tribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the Phœnicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used flint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the earlier cave men of the region. [17] What, then, were these earlier cave men? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as antediluvians. [18]
[17] See the illustration on p. 97.
[18] For more detailed description see Modern Science in Bible Lands; also Egypt and Syria, in the Bypaths of Bible Knowledge, by the author.
From the Lebanon we may pass to the west of Europe, where in France and Belgium a vast number of interesting relics of palæocosmic man have been discovered, and have been scientifically examined.
We may take as an illustration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding the ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about forty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in post-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it shows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by layers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully examined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.
On the lowest of these, or the first in order of age, were found numerous skeletons and detached bones of the cave lion and the cave bear; the former a possible ancestor of the lion of Western Asia, the latter closely allied to the grizzly bear of North America, but both entirely extinct in Europe. One of the skeletons of the lion was of unusually large size, and so complete that when set up it forms the principal ornament of the cave collection in the Brussels Museum.
CAVE OF GOYET, BELGIUM (section after Dupont)
1 to 5, layers of clay deposited in the mammoth ages
The next surface, the second in order of time, had a greater variety of animal remains. The lion had disappeared, and instead hyenas haunted the cave, and had dragged in animal bones to be gnawed. These included remains of the cave bear, wolf, rhinoceros, mammoth, wild horse, wapiti, Irish stag, chamois, reindeer, wild ox, besides several smaller animals. The above animals are now all unknown in the fauna of modern Europe, except the reindeer, the chamois, and the wolf. But the most remarkable discovery on this surface was that of a few human bones, gnawed like the others by the hyenas. Man was thus already in the country, and contemporary with all these animals. How the hyena obtained his bones, whether from some neglected corpse or from some badly-constructed grave, will never be known; but the discovery introduces us to a tribe or family of men coming as immigrants into a region already stocked with many great quadrupeds. They probably did not yet dwell in caves, which, at a later and perhaps more inclement period, formed their homes. Dupont concludes from the condition of the bones that on both the older surfaces the cave bear was the later tenant, and had replaced the lion on the first and the hyena on the second.
The remaining surfaces introduce us to man as a cave-dweller. On the oldest of them are found not only abundance of débris of food, but worked flints and bones, objects of ornament, and evidences of the use of fire. The two higher layers show works of art in more varied and improved forms, as if a certain progress in the arts of life had taken place during the occupancy of the cave. Among the objects in the upper layers were red oxide of iron, showing the use of colouring matter for the skin or garments, bone needles, proving the manufacture of clothing by sewing, bone points for darts, skilfully-barbed bone harpoons, ornaments made of perforated teeth of animals, and fragments of bone, and a remarkable necklace of a hundred and twenty-four silicified shells of the genus Turritella, looking like spirals of agate, with a pendant made of another and larger shell. These shells are not known to occur nearer to the cave than Rheims, in Champagne. It is scarcely too much to say that this necklace might be worn by any lady of the present day. A certain amount of imitative art is also shown in the carving of animal and plant forms and fancy devices on pieces of reindeer antler, which may have served for handles of weapons or implements. But objects of much more elaborate design have been found in caverns of this age in France. (See illustrations on pp. 59 and 68.)
LANCE-HEAD FORMED OF A FLINT FLAKE (CAVE OF MOUSTIER)
Similar to weapons found in the Goyet cave. The flat face shows a bulb of percussion (after Falsan)
The food of these people, in so far as it was of an animal nature, may be learned from the broken bones, which show that here as elsewhere they carried into their caves only the legs and skulls of the larger animals they killed, leaving the carcases; though it is quite possible that, like North American hunting Indians, they may have stripped off portions of flesh from the back, and preserved the heart, liver, &c., which would of course leave no remains.
Dupont gives lists of the animals in each layer. Those in the lower of the anthropic layers consist of twenty-three species of quadrupeds and some bones of birds. Among the former were the mammoth, the rhinoceros, two species of bear, the horse, the reindeer, two other species of deer and two bovine animals. Even the lion, the hyena and the wolf were eaten by these people. It is interesting to note that the numerical preponderance was in favour of the reindeer and the wild horse, though remains were found indicating seven individuals of the mammoth, and four of the rhinoceros, as having fallen a prey to the old hunters. In the highest bed the number of species and the proportions of each one are nearly the same, so that no material change in the fauna had occurred during the occupancy of this cave. It may also be noted that while Dupont calls this a cave of the mammoth age, the French archæologists are in the habit of naming similar deposits those of the reindeer age. The age of both animals was in reality the same, except that in France the reindeer seems to have survived the mammoth, and indeed we know this to be the fact from its continuing in the forests of Germany till the Roman times.
This cave may serve as an example of the manner in which the men of the palanthropic age make their appearance. Let it be observed also that this is only one instance selected from many giving similar testimony, and that Dupont adduces evidence to show that there may have been a contemporary plain-dwelling people, of whom less is known than of the troglodytes. Let it also be noted that there are other caves in Belgium, to which we shall return later, which show how the neocosmic men contemporary with the present fauna succeeded the men of the mammoth age.
We may now inquire as to the physical characters of the men of this period. It may be stated in answer to this question that two races of men are known in the palanthropic age, both somewhat different from any existing peoples, and known respectively as the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races. As the latter is the most important and best known, we may take it first, though the former may locally at least have been the older.
The valley of the little river Vezère, a tributary of the Dordogne, in the south of France, abounding in overhanging rock-shelters, seems to have been a favourite abode of the men of the mammoth and reindeer age. The rock-shelter of Cro-magnon explored by Lartet is one of these, and that of Laugerie Basse is on the opposite side of the same stream.
The former is a shelter or hollow under an overhanging ledge of limestone, and excavated originally by the action of the weather on a softer bed. It fronts the south-west, and, having originally been about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a comfortable shelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook from its front. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to accommodate several families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs in front,