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PREADAMITE
492
PREADAMITES
bones of Pouance (Maine -et- Loire), as well as the notched and scratched bones of a cetacean | Bahenotus) described from Pliocene deposits in Tuscany by Prof. Capellini [UUomo pliocenico in Toscana | 1*70]). Fi- nally, al Thenay (Loir-et-Cher) occur Hints in certain Lower Miocene limestones which were at firel declared to be the work- of human hands i Congris Tntt [1867], p. 67); bul thai opinion is scarcely entertained at present (6.) Human remains erroneously preglacial. A human skeleton found in volcanic breccia near the town of Le Puy-en-Velay, in Central France, was for a time supposed to have been enclosed by the same eruption thai buried, in the same neighborhood, the remains of the Pliocene Elephas nw ridionaUs. The ele- phant-bearing lava, nevertheless, was of a different character: and exactly the same lava as thai contain- ing human remains was subsequently observed al an- other point. This enclosed the bones of the mammoth and oilier animals of the Champlain period, and tints demonstrated thai the ••man of Denise" was post-gla- cial. Again, the river-drifts of the Somme have been set down as glacial or preglacial; but that opinion is now almost wholly abandoned, for abundant localities are known in which it appears to a demonstration that the river-valley was excavated alter the glacial drift
was laid down; while the flint-bearing drifts have been
subsequently deposited along the chalk-slopes of the valley. Examples are seen in the sections at Menche- courl and other places; and the same is Bhown in Eng- land at Biddenham and Summerbonn Bill, in the valley of the Ouse, .and al [cklingham, in the valley of the Lark. In 1856 a human skull and numerous hones of the same skeleton were exhumed (bul now mostly lost) from the Colic del Vento, in Liguria I [ssel, Congres Tn- tt rnalional | L867 |, p. 7.".. 156), said to be associated with extinct species of oyster of the Pliocene age. The age of the hones is questioned by Primer Ley; and as no naturalist saw the remains in situ, we must candidly await further investigation. Similarly, the celebrated pelvic hone of Watches, in Mississippi, once thought to have been derived from a preglacial deposit, is now gen- erally believed to have fallen down the bluff from an Indian -rave al the surface; and the human remains of California reported to have come from beneath a bed of Tertiary lava are perhaps not sufficiently well authen- ticated to form the subjeel of speculation (Blake, Con- gres International [ 1**17 ]. p. mi ; Whitney, Geological Survey of California, i, 243-252). As, however, pre- historic men in America were non-1 'auca-ian. .and there- fore probably of preadamic origin, we must expeel to find their remains attaining a much higher antiquity than those of Europe.
A- to the absolute measure of the time which sepa- rates Palaeolithic man from the present, it is likely that a mi dium judgment will be reached al last. 1 1 ionsull on tins question Southall, Th< Recent Origin of Man [1875] ; and Andrews. Amer. Journ, of Sciena [2],xlv, 180; Trans.ofth Chicago Acad, of Science, ii, 1 ; Meth. <l>i<ir. Rev. Dec. 1876, and .Ian. 1S77. ) The impression of his high antiquity has been derived from the magni- tude of the geological changes which have transpired since his advent Bul the time required lor these, in the judgment of the writer, has by some been greatly
[•d. The contemporaneous existence of man with animals now extinct has little hearing on the ques- ii has been ascertained that extinctions have been occurring throughout historic periods, even down to the presenl centurj . The disappearance of the gla- ■ • m e ) sly remote w hen we re- member thai their stumps are still visible in the valleys of the Alps, i,, the gulches of the .sierra Nevada, and
even in the ice-wells ol Yen il and Wisconsin. The
elevation requisite to join England to the Continent cannot be thought to require a vast period after Learn- ing the rate of oscillations in actual progress upon vari- ous eh ores, and the enormous changes in the hydro- graphical features of China within 8000 years (Pum-
pelly, Smi/fisonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xv,
art. iv). The calculations based on the rate i | of modern river-valley-, and the growth of sphagnous peat, are very misleading, since it is certain that these processes went forward with indefinitely greater rapid- ity in the pluvial and palustrine conditions of the Champlain period. (For the results of sundry calcula- tions, see Le Hon. /.'//,,„,,„■ Fossile, p. l' 17. i Further- more, the extreme opinions entertained within a few years on all these points have more recently been greatly modified (see King, Catastrophism arid Evolution, in the Amer. Naturalist, Aug. 1877). At the same time. the evidences seem to tend towards the conclusion that the advent of man in Europe occurred from 5000 to 7000 years ago; still more, that the Oriental stork from which he had descended came firsl into existence more than 6000 years ago.* Such a conclusion would not be alarming on Biblical grounds, since it docs not appear that the absolute age of Adam is staled liiher directly or by clear inference; and there is room to suspecl that, in those singular cases in which the ages of the patri- archs as given in the Hebrew text differ as they do from the Septuagint, the integrity of (he Greek text has been better preserved than that of the Hebrew, since the Jews had a direct interest in the abbreviation of the time before Christ, to make it appear that the epoch always assigned hy their rabbins for the advent of the Messiah had not yet arrived. + Moreover, there arc some indications thai Palaeolithic man in Europe was not of the Adamic (Caucasian) type, though it is pretty certain that he was succeeded, probably as early as the Reindeer Epoch, by an Eastern tide of Caucasian im- migration.