We cannot but ask what manner of men they were who lived in these distant times: did they resemble the present inhabitants of Arctic Europe, who were regarded by a quaint old writer of the last century as being even lower than Apes,[1] or did the celebrated Neanderthal skull (Nat. Hist. Review, Vol. I. p. 155) belong to this race of men? We may hope that the discovery of a skeleton will ere long enable us to answer this question; may the veteran antiquary of Abbeville himself be the fortunate finder of the first human bones in the drift!
But were these the first settlers in Europe? M. Lartet answers in the negative, and ingeniously attempts to construct a Palæontological Chronology. (Ann. Sci. Nat. iv.; Ser. V. xv. 6217.) The great cave-bear (Ursus spelæus) has been frequently found associated with man in caves, but its remains have, according to M. Lartet, not yet been found in the river drifts. The species is indeed quoted by Messrs. Buteux and Ravin, on whose authority it is also given by Messrs. Prestwich and Evans; but M. Lartet, after careful examination, not having been able to find the specimen originally attributed to this species, concludes that the Ursus spelæus perished at an earlier period, and that the Hyæna spelæa and the Felis spelæa belong only to the earliest beds of the drift. The caves, therefore, in which these animals have been found associated with the remains of men, indicate, he thinks, a still greater antiquity for the human race.
Negative evidence in Palæontology must indeed always be regarded with suspicion, but I may at least be permitted to repeat the opinion that it is not in a northern country and in a cold climate that we shall find the first traces of man. No nation would choose such an abode; civilised man, indeed, may prefer a temperate region, favourable to the exercise both of mind and body; but the savage will go where he can most readily satisfy savage wants; he will not therefore betake himself to temperate, still less to Arctic regions, until driven there by increasing density of population.
But are we justified in concluding that even the cave men were the earliest human settlers in Western Europe? Surely not. The whole history of Palæontoloy is a standing protest against such an assumption. We have not indeed as yet the materials to decide the question, but if we were to express any opinion on the subject, it would seem more philosophical to imagine that the genus Homo dates back to a period as ancient as the other widely-spread genera of Mammalia; and that wherever the bones of Deer, Elephants, Horses, Oxen and Dogs are to be found, there we may fairly expect ere long to discover also the remains of Man.
- ↑ "Such is the description of this little animal, called a Laplander; and it may be said, that, after the Monkey, he approaches nearest to Man."—Regnard's Journey to Lapland, p. 164.
