Primitive Man Part 19

"The interior, at the time the canoe was discovered, contained a wooden vessel, intended to bale out the boat, and two rollers, probably meant to a.s.sist in conveying it down to the sea.

"The second is a canoe made of one piece of oak, rather more than 23 feet long, about 12 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. It terminates in a point at both ends, and contains three cross-stays cut out of the solid wood, and a small terminal triangular seat.

"The third, likewise made of one piece, is rather more than 20 feet long and about 21 inches wide. On each side the wood is cut out so as to receive a seat. This boat appears less ancient than the others, although these may not have belonged to any very remote antiquity. In fact, Ware states that in his time there were still to be seen on some of the Irish rivers canoes hollowed out of a single trunk of oak.

"It is also well known that the lacustrine habitations constructed on the artificial islands called _Crannoges_, existed to a late period in Ireland. All the boats found round these island-dwellings are canoes made all in one piece and hollowed out of the trunks of large trees.

"The trough-shaped canoe, consisting merely of the trunk of a tree cut straight through at the two ends, and in no way squared on the outside, also exists in Ireland. A very singular variety has been found in the county of Monaghan;[22] at the two ends are two projections or handles, which were probably used for carrying the boat from one place to another, or to draw it up upon the beach after a voyage.

"According to Mr. John Buchanan, quoted by Sir C. Lyell,[23] at least seventeen canoes have been found in the low ground along the margin of the Clyde at Glasgow. Mr. Buchanan examined several of them before they were dug out. Five of them were found buried in the silt under the streets of Glasgow. One canoe was discovered in a vertical position, with the prow upwards, as if it had foundered in a tempest; it contained no small quant.i.ty of sea-sh.e.l.ls. Twelve other canoes were found about 100 yards from the river, at the average depth of about 19 feet below the surface of the ground, or about 7 feet below high-water mark. A few only of them were found at a depth of no more than 4 or 5 feet, and consequently more than 20 feet above the present level of the sea. One was stuck into the sand at an angle of 45; another had been turned over and lay keel upwards; the others were in a horizontal position, as if they had sunk in still water.

"Almost every one of these ancient boats had been formed of a single trunk of oak, and hollowed out with some blunt instrument, probably stone hatchets, a.s.sisted also by the action of fire. A few of them presented clean-made cuts, evidently produced by a metallic tool. Two of them were constructed of planks. The most elaborate of the number bore the traces of square metal nails, which, however, had entirely disappeared. In one canoe was found a diorite hatchet, and at the bottom of another, a cork bung, which certainly implies relations with southern France, Spain, or Italy.

"The Swiss lakes, with their lacustrine habitations, have furnished numerous specimens of canoes. Dr. Keller, in his fifth Report on Lake-Dwellings (plate X. fig. 23), represents a canoe from Robenhausen; it is the half trunk of a tree 12 feet long and 29 inches wide, hollowed out to a depth of from 6 to 7 inches only. Taking the centre as the widest part, this trunk has been chipped off so as to taper towards the two points which are rounded. It is, however, very probable that the whole of this work was executed with stone implements; for the primitive settlement of Robenhausen, situated in a peat-bog near the small lake Pfaeffikon in the canton of Zurich, although very rich in many kinds of objects, has not, up to the present time, furnished us with any metal instruments.

"In his first report (plate IV. fig. 21), Dr. Keller had given the sketch of another canoe which came from the Lake of Bienne. Like the first, mentioned by M. Worsaae, it is the half of the trunk of a tree cut almost straight through, its two ends hollowed out inside in the shape of a trough, the exterior being left entirely unwrought.

"Professor Desor mentions several canoes found in the Lake of Bienne.

One of them, near the island Saint-Pierre, was still full of stones.

According to M. Desor the builders of the lacustrine habitations during the polished-stone epoch, in order to consolidate the piles which were intended to support their dwellings, were accustomed to bank them up with stones which they fetched in boats from the sh.o.r.e; the bottom of the lake being completely devoid of them. The canoe found at the isle of Saint-Pierre had therefore sunk to the bottom with its cargo, and thus may be dated back to the polished-stone epoch. M. Troyon[24] gives some still more circ.u.mstantial details as to this canoe. It is partly buried in the mud at the northern angle of the isle, and is made of a single piece of the trunk of an oak of large dimensions; it is not much less than 49 feet long with a breadth of from 3-1/2 feet to 4 feet.

"M. Desor, in his _Palafittes_, informs us that the Museum of Neuchatel has lately been enriched by the addition of a canoe which was discovered in the lake; unfortunately, it was dreadfully warped in drying.

"Also M. Troyon, in his 'Habitations Lacustres,' speaks of several canoes at Estavayer and Morges.

"Estavayer is situated on the Lake of Neuchatel. There are two settlements near it, one of the Stone Age, and one of the bronze age.

One canoe is still lying at the bottom of the lake, near these settlements. Another was brought out of the water by the fishermen some years ago; it was about 10 feet in length, and 2 feet in width. The end which had been preserved was cut to a point and slightly turned upwards.

"Morges is on the Lake of Geneva, in the Canton of Vaud. M. Forel discovered there two interesting settlements of the bronze age. Two canoes were found. According to M. Troyon, one of them which had been carried up on to the bank was not long before it was destroyed. It was formed of the trunk of an oak, hollowed out like a basin. The other still lay near some piles in 13 to 15 feet of water. One portion of it is buried in the sand, the other part, which is not covered, measures about 10 feet in length by 2 feet in width. It terminates in a point and has been cut out so as to provide a kind of seat, taken out of the thickness of the wood at the end, just as in the third canoe represented in the catalogue of the Copenhagen Museum.

"In France, too, several canoes have been found which date back to pre-historic times.

"On the 6th of January, 1860, the labourers who were working at the fortifications which the engineers were making at Abbeville found a canoe in the place called Saint-Jean-des-Pres, on the left bank of the ca.n.a.l; it was discovered in the peat, 36 feet below the road and about 220 yards from the railway station. It was made out of a single stick of oak and was about 22 feet in length; its ends were square and cut in a slope, so that its upper surface was 8 feet longer than its bottom, which was flattened off to a width of about 14 inches. The greatest width of its upper surface, the widest part being placed at about one-third of its length, measured nearly 3 feet; from this point the canoe contracted in width, and was not more than 18 inches in width at the furthest end. Now, as no tree exists which diminishes to this extent in diameter on so short a length, we must conclude that the trunk which formed the canoe must have been shaped outside.

"Two projections about 4 inches in thickness, placed 6-1/2 feet from the narrowest end, and forming one piece with the sides and the bottom, which in this part are very thick, left between them an empty s.p.a.ce which was probably intended to fit against the two sides of a piece of wood cut square at the bottom and meant to serve as a mast. The deepest internal hollow had not more than 10 inches in rise, and the side, which at the upper part was not more than an inch in thickness, followed the natural curve of the trunk, and united with the much thicker portion at the bottom. This canoe, although it was completely uncovered and still remained in a very good state of preservation, has not been got out from the place in which it lay.

"In 1834, another canoe was discovered at Estreboeuf, 33 feet long, about 21 inches wide, and 18 inches deep. The bottom was flat, the sides cut vertically both within and without, which gave it nearly the shape of a squared trough. In its widest part it bore some signs of having carried a mast. It was conveyed to the Museum at Abbeville and became completely rotten; nothing now is left but shapeless remains.

"The Abbe Cochet relates that between 1788 and 1800, during the excavation of the basin of _La Barre_, at Havre, at 11 feet in depth, a canoe was discovered, more than 44 feet in length, and hollowed out of one trunk of a tree. The two ends were pointed and solid, and the interior was strengthened with curved stays formed out of the solid wood. This canoe was found to be made of elm and was hollowed out to a depth of nearly 4 feet. It was in so good a state of preservation that it bore being carried to a spot behind the engineer's house on the south jetty; but when it was deposited there, it gradually wasted away by the successive action of the rain and sun.

"The same archaeologist also mentions another canoe, with a keel of from 16 to 20 feet long, which was discovered in the year 1680, at Monteviliers, in the filled-up ditches known under the name of La Bergue.

"The Archaeological Museum of Dijon also contains a canoe found in the gravel in the bed of the Loue, on the boundaries of the department of Jura, between Dole and Salins. It is made of a single colossal trunk of oak, shaped, in M. Baudot's opinion, by means of fire. Its present length is 17 feet, and its width, 2 feet 4 inches; but it has become much less in the process of drying. Some iron braces which were fixed to keep the wood in position plainly showed that the width had diminished at least 6 inches. In the interior, the traces of two seats or supports, which had been left in the solid wood in order to give strength to the canoe, might be very distinctly seen. The first was about a yard from one end, the other 5-1/2 feet from the other. Both extremities terminate in a point, one end being much sharper and longer than the other.

"At the Museum of Lyons there is a canoe which was found in the gravel of the Rhone, near the bridge of Cordon, in the department of Ain. It is 41 feet in length, and hollowed out of a single trunk of oak tapering off at the two ends. The middle of it is squared, and the interior is strengthened by two braces left in the solid wood.

"Lastly, we must mention the canoe that was dug out of the bed of the Seine in Paris, and presented by M. Forgeais to the Emperor. It is now in the Museum of Saint-Germain. It was made of a single trunk of oak and had been skilfully wrought on the outside, terminating in a point at both ends. This canoe was bedded in the mud and gravel at the extremity of the _Cite_, on the Notre-Dame side. Close by a worked flint was met with, and various bronze weapons; among others, a helmet and several swords were also found. In the beds of rivers objects belonging to different epochs readily get mixed up. This flint appears to have accidentally come thither; the bronze arms, on the contrary, seem to mark the date of the canoe."[25]

We have previously spoken of the _primitive workshop of human industry_, of which, indeed, we gave a design. In contrast to this peaceful picture, we may also give a representation of the evidences which have been preserved even to our own days of the earliest means of attack and defence const.i.tuting regular war among nations. War and battles must have doubtless taken their rise almost simultaneously with the origin of humanity itself. The hatred and rivalry which first sprung up between individuals and families--hatred and rivalry which must have existed from all time--gradually extended to tribes, and then to whole nations, and were outwardly expressed in armed invasions, pillage and slaughter. These acts of violence were, in very early days, reduced to a system in the art of war--that terrible expedient from which even modern nations have not been able to escape.

In order to find the still existing evidence of the wars which took place among men in the Stone Age, we must repair to that portion of Europe which is now called Belgium. Yes, even in the Stone Age, at a date far beyond all written record, the people of this district already were in the habit of making war, either among themselves or against other tribes invading them from other lands. This fact is proved by the fortified enclosures, or _entrenched camps_, which have been discovered by MM. Hannour and Himelette. These camps are those of Furfooz, Pont-de-Bonn, Simon, Jemelle, Hastedon, and Poilvache.

All these different camps possess certain characteristics in common.

They are generally established on points overhanging valleys, on a ma.s.s of rock forming a kind of headland, which is united to the rest of the country by a narrow neck of land. A wide ditch was dug across this narrow tongue of land, and the whole camp was surrounded by a thick wall of stones, simply piled one upon another, without either mortar or cement. At the camp of Hastedon, near Namur, this wall, which was still in a good state of preservation at the time it was described, measured 10 feet in width, and about the same in height. When an attack was made, the defenders, a.s.sembled within the enclosure, rained down on their a.s.sailants stones torn away from their wall, which thus became at the same time both a defensive and offensive work (fig. 127).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 127.--The earliest regular Conflicts between Men of the Stone Age; or, the Entrenched Camp of Furfooz.]

These entrenched positions were so well chosen that most of them continued to be occupied during the age which followed. We may mention, as an instance, the camp of Poilvache. After having been a Roman citadel it was converted in the middle ages into a strongly fortified castle, which was not destroyed until the fifteenth century.

The camps of Hastedon and Furfooz were likewise utilised by the Romans.

Over the whole inclosure of these ancient camps worked flints and remains of pottery have been found--objects which are sufficient to testify to the former presence of primitive man. The enormous ramparts of these camps also tend to show that pre-historic man must have existed in comparatively numerous a.s.sociations at the various spots where these works are found.

If we were to enter into a detailed study of the vestiges of the polished-stone epoch existing in the other countries of Europe, we should be led into a repet.i.tion of much that we have already stated with regard to the districts now forming France and Belgium. Over a great portion of Europe we should find the same mode of life, the same manners and customs, and the same degree of nascent civilisation. From the scope, therefore, of our present work, we shall not make it our task to take each country into special consideration.

We will content ourselves with stating that the caves of Old Castille in Spain, which were explored by M. Ed. Lartet, have furnished various relics of the reindeer and polished-stone epochs. Also in the provinces of Seville and Badajos, polished hatchets have been found, made for the most part of dioritic rocks.

Numerous vestiges of the same epoch have, too, been discovered in various provinces of Italy.

We give in fig. 128 the sketch of a very remarkable arrow-head found in the province of Civita-Nova (the former kingdom of Naples). It is provided with a short stem with lateral grooves, so as to facilitate the point being fitted into a wooden shaft.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 128.--Flint Arrow-head, from Civita-Nova (Italy).]

Elba, too, was surveyed by M. Raffaello Foresi, who found in this Mediterranean isle a large quant.i.ty of arrows, knives, saws, sc.r.a.pers, &c., formed of flint, jasper, obsidian, and even rock crystal. There were also found in the Isle of Elba workshops for shaping flints. Great Britain, Wurtemburg, Hungary, Poland, and Russia all furnish us with specimens of polished stone instruments; but, for the reason which we stated above, it would be superfluous to dwell upon them.

We shall now pa.s.s on to an examination of the type of the human race which existed among the northern nations of Europe during the polished-stone age.

There is a cavern of Ariege which belongs to the polished-stone epoch, and has been explored by MM. Garrigou and Filhol--this is the cavern of _Lombrive_, or _des Ech.e.l.les_; the latter name being given it because it is divided into two portions placed at such very different levels that the help of five long ladders is required in order to pa.s.s from one to the other. This cave has become interesting from the fact that it has furnished a large quant.i.ty of human bones, belonging to individuals of both s.e.xes and every age; also two entire skulls, which M. Garrigou has presented to the Anthropological Society of Paris.

These two skulls, which appear to have belonged, one to a child of eight to ten years of age, the other to a female, present a somewhat peculiar shape. The forehead, which is high in the centre, is low at the sides; and the orbits of the eyes and also the hollows of the cheeks are deep.

We shall not enter into the diverse and contrary hypotheses which have been advanced by MM. Vogt, Broca, Pruner-Bey, Garrigou and Filhol, in order to connect the skulls found in the cave of Ariege with the present races of the human species. This ethnological question is very far from having been decided in any uniform way; and so it will always be, as long as scientific men are compelled to base their opinions on a limited number of skulls, which are, moreover, always incomplete; each _savant_ being free to interpret their features according to his own system.

Neither in the Danish kitchen-middens nor in the lower beds of the peat-bogs have any human bones been discovered; but the tombs in Denmark belonging to the polished-stone epoch have furnished a few human skulls which, up to a certain point, enable us to estimate the intellectual condition and affinities of the race of men who lived in these climates. We may particularly mention the skull found in the _tumulus_ at Borreby in Denmark, which has been studied with extreme care by Mr. Busk.

This skull (fig. 129) presents a somewhat remarkable similarity to that of Neanderthal, of which we have spoken in a previous chapter. The superciliary ridges are very prominent, the forehead is retiring, the occiput is short and sloped forward. It might, therefore, find its origin among the races of which the skulls of Neanderthal and Borreby are the representatives and the relics, and the latter might well be the descendants of the former.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 129.--The Borreby Skull.]

Anthropologists have had much discussion about the question, to what particular human race of the present time may the skulls found in the _tumulus_ at Borreby be considered to be allied? But all these discussions are deficient in those elements on which any serious and definite argument might be founded. It would, therefore, be going beyond our purpose should we reproduce them here. If, in the sketch of the Borreby skull, we place, before the eyes of our readers the type of the human cranium which existed during the period of the Stone Age, our only object is to prove that the primitive Northerner resembles the present race of man, both in the beauty and in the regularity of the shape of his skull; also, in order once more to recall to mind how false and trivial must the judgment be of those short-sighted _savants_ who would establish a genealogical filiation between man and the ape.

As we stated in the Introduction to this volume, a mere glance cast upon this skull is sufficient to bring to naught all that has been written and propounded touching the organic consanguinity which is a.s.serted to exist between man and the ape, to say nothing of the objects produced by primitive man--objects which, in this work, we are studying in all necessary detail. An examination of the labours of primitive man is the best means of proving--every other consideration being set aside--that a great abyss exists between him and the animal; this is the best argument against our pretended _simial_ origin, as it is called by those who seek to veil their absurd ideas under grand scientific phrases.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] 'Note sur un Amas de. Coquilles melees a des Silex tailles, signale sur les Cotes de Provence,' by M. A. Gory ('Revue Archeologique').

Quoted in the 'Materiaux de l'histoire positive de l'Homme,' by M. de Mortillet, vol. i. p. 535.