Chapter I: Front Matter

P R E H I S T O R I C M A N

P R E H I S T O R I C M A N

Researches into the Origin of Civilisation
in the Old and the New World.

BY

DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & ENGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO;
AUTHOR OF THE ‘PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND,’ ETC.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED,
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:
M A C M I L L A N A N D C O .
1876.

[_The right of translation is reserved._]

Edinburgh University Press:

THOMAS AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.

IN FOND MEMORIAL

OF A BROTHER’S LIFE-LONG SYMPATHY

IN MANY FAVOURITE RESEARCHES

THESE VOLUMES

DEPRIVED BY DEATH OF THEIR PURPOSED DEDICATION

ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE LOVED NAME OF

GEORGE WILSON, M.D. F.R.S.E.

LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
AND DIRECTOR OF THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND.

P R E F A C E .

THE subject primarily treated of in the following pages is the man of that new hemisphere which was revealed to Europe in 1492. There through all historic centuries he had lived apart, absolutely uninfluenced by any reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient World; and yet, as it appears, pursuing a course in many respects strikingly analogous to that by means of which the civilisation of Europe originated. The recognition of this is not only of value as an aid to the realisation of the necessary conditions through which man passed in reaching the stage at which he is found at the dawn of history; but it seems to point to the significant conclusion that civilisation is the development of capacities inherent in man.

The term used in the title was first employed, in 1851, in my _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, where evidence was adduced in proof of man’s presence in Britain “long anterior to the earliest indications of the Aryan nations passing into Europe.” It was purposely coined to express the whole period disclosed to us by means of archæological evidence, as distinguished from what is known through written records; and in this sense the term was speedily adopted by the Archæologists of Europe. But the subject thus defined is a comprehensive one; and in its rapid growth, distinctive subdivisions have been introduced which tend to narrow the application of the term. Nevertheless it is still a legitimate definition of man, wherever his history is recoverable solely by means of primitive arts.

The first edition of _Prehistoric Man_, published in 1862, was followed in 1865 by another, carefully revised in accordance with later disclosures. Since then I have availed myself of further opportunities for study and research in reference both to existing races, and to the arts and monumental remains of extinct nations of the New World. Within the same period important additions have been contributed to our knowledge not only of the arts, but of the physical characteristics of primeval man in Europe. In the present edition, accordingly, much of the original work has been rewritten. Several chapters have been replaced by new matter. Others have been condensed, or recast, with considerable modifications and a new arrangement of the whole.

The illustrations have been correspondingly augmented; and some of them engraved anew from more accurate drawings. In the first edition they numbered seventy-one. They now amount to one hundred and thirty-four, including several for which I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., to the publishers of _Nature_, and to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

D. W.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO,
_18th November 1875_.

C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
The Influence of the Discovery of America—The Old World and the
New—American Phases of Life—The Term Prehistoric—Influence of
Migrations—What is Civilisation?—Domestication—Indian
Philosophy—Aborigines—The Tartar; The Arab—Languages of
America—Wanderings of the Nations—Fossil Man—Occupation of the
New World, 1

CHAPTER II.
THE PRIMEVAL TRANSITION.
The Latest Migrations—Founding a Capital—Beginnings of
History—Prehistoric Phases—Non-Metallurgic Eras—Oscillations of
the Land—The Glacial Period—Conditions of Climate—Fossil
Mammalia—The Flint-Folk of the Drift—Advent of European Man—The
Drift Implements—Scottish Alluvium—Preceltic Races—Their
Imitative Arts—Man Primeval—His Intellectual
Condition—Instinct—Accumulated Knowledge—Primeval Britain—Its
Fossil Fauna—Ossiferous Caves—Brixham Cave—Food—Scottish
Reindeer—American Drift—Relics of Ancient Life—Extinct
Fauna—Man and the Mastodon—Indian Traditions—Giants—Drift
Disclosures—Large Ovoid Discs—Cave Disclosures—American Cranial
Type—Antiquity of the American Man, 17

CHAPTER III.
THE QUARRY.
The Quarry—Brixham Cave—Brixham Flint Implement—Flint Ridge,
Ohio—Flint Pits—Drift Quarry Deposits—Traces of Palæolithic
Art—Lanceolate Flints—Almond-shaped Flints—The Shawnees—The
Colorado Indians—Caches of Worked Flints—Sepulchral
Deposits—Cave Drift Disclosures—Illustrative
Analogies—Cincinnati Collections—Hornstone Spear-heads—American
Neolithic Art—Flint Drills—Modes of
Perforation—Flint-Knives—Razors and Scrapers—Arrow-head
Forms—Discoidal Stones—Sinkers and Lasso Stones—Cupped
Stones—Archæological Theories—Georgia Boulders—Hand
Cup-stones—Neolithic Grindstones—Archæological Enigmas—Ancient
Analogies, 64