Home / Albums / Prehistoric 103
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Image 9270
305 visits
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Early ice age, when mammoths roamed the earth and man was arising
263 visits
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Image 9268
203 visits
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Carvings in Ivory (1 and 3–7) and in Stone of Cavern Walls (2), made by the Hunters of the Middle Stone Age
145 visits
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A, Peripatus novæ zealandiæ.—After Sedgwick, from Lang.
B, Peripatus capensis, side view, enlarged about twice the natural size.—After Moseley, from Balfour.
C, Anatomy of Peripatus capensis. The enteric canal behind the pharynx has been removed.
g, brain;
a, antenna;
op, oral or slime papillæ;
sd, slime gland;
sr, slime reservoir, which at the same time acts as a duct to the gland;
so4, so5, so6, so9, nephridia of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th pairs of limbs;
cd, elongated coxal gland of the last pair of feet;
go, genital aperture;
an, anus;
ph, pharynx;
n, longitudinal trunk of the nervous system.—After Balfour, from Lang.
D, Portion of the body of Peripatus capensis opened to show the scattered tufts of tracheæ (tr);
v, v, ventral nerve cords.—After Moseley.
398 visits
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Restoration of under side of a trilobite (Triarthrus becki), the trunk limbs bearing small triangular respiratory lobes or gills.—After Beecher.
214 visits
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Incised upon a piece of mammoth ivory, are outlines of the mammoth itself. The original, rather more than nine inches in length, is at Paris in the museum of the Jardin des plantes.
245 visits
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Group of reindeer drawn upon a piece of slate
254 visits
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In short, the prehistoric carvings are from the hands of men who were neither beginners nor blunderers in their art. The practised skill of a modern wood engraver would scarcely exceed in firmness and decision, nor in evident rapidity of execution, the outline of the animals in the example which is here engraved.
225 visits
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Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene
From a Drawing by Charles R. Knight
Most recent in point of discovery, but oldest in point of time, are the giant birds from Patagonia, which are burdened with the name of Phororhacidæ, a name that originated in an error, although the error may well be excused. The first fragment of one of these great birds to come to light was a portion of the lower jaw, and this was so massive, so un-bird-like, [149]that the finder dubbed it Phororhacos, and so it must remain.
351 visits
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The very rocks themselves may consist largely of fossils; chalk, for example, is mainly made up of the disintegrated shells of simple marine animals called foraminifers, and the beautiful flint-like "skeletons" of other small creatures termed radiolarians, minute as they are, have contributed extensively to the formation of some strata.
301 visits
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Still higher up we come upon the abundant remains of numerous small fish-like animals, more or less completely clad in bony armor, indicating that they lived in troublous times when there was literally a fight for existence and only such as were well armed or well protected could hope to survive. A parallel case exists to-day in some of the rivers of South America, where the little cat-fishes would possibly be eaten out of existence but for the fact that they are covered—some of them very completely—with plate-armor that enables them to defy their enemies, or renders them such poor eating as not to be worth the taking. The arrangement of the plates or scales in the living Loricaria is very suggestive of the series of bony rings covering the body of the ancient Cephalaspis, only the latter, so far as we know, had no side-fins; but the creatures are in no wise related, and the similarity is in appearance only.
353 visits
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erichthys, the wing fish, was another small, quaint, armor-clad creature, whose fossilized remains were taken for those of a crab, and once described as belonging to a beetle. Certainly the buckler of this fish, which is the part most often preserved, with its jointed, bony arms, looks to the untrained eye far more like some strange crustacean than a fish, and even naturalists have pictured the animal as crawling over the bare sands by means of those same arms. These fishes and their allies were once the dominant type of life, and must have abounded in favored localities, for in places are great deposits of their protective shields jumbled together in a confused mass, and, save that they have hardened into stone, lying just as they were washed up on the ancient beach ages ago. How abundant they were may be gathered from the fact that it is believed their bodies helped consolidate portions of the strata of the English Old Red Sandstone.
335 visits
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In the light of our present knowledge we are able to read many things in these tracks that were formerly more or less obscure, and to see in them a complete verification of Dr. Deane's suspicion that they were not made by birds. We see clearly that the long tracks called Anomœpus, with their accompanying short fore feet, mark where some Dinosaur squatted down to rest or progressed slowly on all-fours, as does the kangaroo when feeding quietly;[3] and we interpret the curious heart-shaped depression sometimes seen back of the feet, not as the mark of a stubby tail, but as made by the ends of the slender pubes, bones that help form the hip-joints. Then, too, the mark of the inner, or short first, toe, is often very evident, although it was a long time before the bones of this toe were actually found, and many of the Dinosaurs now known to have four toes were supposed to have but three.
320 visits
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The Track of a Three-toed Dinosaur
283 visits
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The finest Mosasaur skeleton ever discovered, an almost complete skeleton of Tylosaurus dyspelor, 29 feet in length, may be seen at the head of the staircase leading to the Hall of Paleontology, in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Another good specimen may be seen in the Yale University Museum, which probably has the largest collection of Mosasaurs in existence.
279 visits
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One might think that a creature sixty or seventy feet long was amply long enough, but Dr. Albert Koch thought otherwise, and did with Zeuglodon as, later on, he did with the Mastodon, combining the vertebræ of several individuals until he had a monster 114 feet long! This he exhibited in Europe under the name of Hydrarchus, or water king, finally disposing of the composite creature to the Museum of Dresden, where it was promptly reduced to its proper dimensions. The natural make-up of Zeuglodon is sufficiently composite without any aid from man, for the head and paddles are not unlike those of a seal, the ribs are like those of a manatee, and the shoulder blades are precisely like those of a whale, while the vertebræ are different from those of any other animal, even its own cousin and lesser contemporary Dorudon
274 visits
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The best Zeuglodon, the first to show the vestigial hind legs and to make clear other portions of the structure, is in the United States National Museum
251 visits
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Nature's Four Methods of Making a Wing - Bat, Pteryodactyl, Archæopteryx, and Modern Bird
310 visits
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Image 5760
277 visits
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Image 5761
232 visits
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Image 5759
269 visits
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Image 5758
278 visits
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Image 5757
244 visits
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Image 5756
252 visits
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Image 5755
239 visits
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Image 5754
219 visits
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Image 5753
221 visits
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Image 5752
234 visits
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Image 5751
202 visits
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Image 5750
229 visits
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Image 5749
220 visits
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Image 5748
216 visits
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Image 5747
215 visits
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Image 5746
217 visits
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Image 5745
226 visits
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Image 5744
270 visits
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Image 5743
253 visits
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The British were able to produce a certain coarse material from the flax which they had but lately learnt to grow, so by now they were not wholly dependent on the skins of animals for clothing.
522 visits
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The gigantic three-horned Reptile, Triceratops, as large as an Elephant, found in Jurassic strata in North America. A model of the skeleton may be seen in the Natural History Museum in London.
305 visits
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The oldest fossil fish known—discovered in the Upper Silurian strata of Scotland, and named Birkenia by Professor Traquair.
286 visits
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Drawing of the skull and lower jaw of the Meritherium, discovered by Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayum Desert. The shape of the skull and proportions of face and jaw are like those of an ordinary hoofed mammal such as the pig; but the cheek-teeth are similar to those of the Mastodon, and whilst the full complement of teeth is present in the front of the upper jaw, we can distinguish the big tusk-like incisor which alone survives on each side in Palæomastodon, Mastodon, and the elephants, as the great pair of tusks.
306 visits
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The Neolithic or New Stone Age: Circa 10,000 B.C. The people of this period constituted a fifth race of mankind, of moderate stature and slender proportions. Those who resided on the western side of the island now known as Great Britain were dark, and of the Iberian type. Those on the eastern side were fair, and very like the Gauls.
558 visits
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Circa 35,000-15,000 B.C. This date, 35,000 B.C., is given as the end of the Early Paleolithic Age and beginning of the Late Paleolithic Age. A fourth race, the Cro Magnon or " True Man " Type, lived during this period, and was akin to the Eskimo of the present day. These people occupied the cave-dwellings of their predecessors, but led a much freer life in the open.
462 visits
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A second race of Subman, named " Eoanthropos " or " Dawn Man," was in existence (circa) 110,000 B.C. Their only weapons were branches torn from the trees
422 visits
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The first race of Man (circa 550,000 B.c.) is called the
"Pithecanthropos Erectus," or Ape Man. They were powerfully built individuals, with low foreheads, prominent bony ridges above the eyes, and retreating chins. Their forearms were heavy and clumsy, their thigh-bones bent and their shin-bones short, so they must have been bow-legged and awkward in gait. This type of human being became differentiated from animals because development of the faculty of primitive speech enabled them to sustain thought and created memory.
450 visits
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Take, for instance, the art of making bread, which was probably practised by the earlier races in some such manner as that represented in the figure. , wherein is depicted the process employed by certain savage tribes at the present day. Rude as the process is—and it consist only in spreading the paste, made of flour and water, on a series of flat stones which have been heated in a fire—its employment betoken the knowledge of a certain number of the facts of nature. It required the experience of perhaps many ages to impart the knowledge of other fads by which the originally .rude process became improved. This progress of an art, from its rudest to its more advanced state, doe not necessarily imply an advance in science.
363 visits
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An early primitive sledge
482 visits
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To pierce the skin of one of the large animals, such as a mastodon or mammoth, the hunters had to be close to the powerful beast. They hurled or jabbed their spears at the animal, and tried to confuse and immobilize their prey. Perhaps several hunters surrounded an isolated animal waving their arms and distracting it while one or two others speared it. If the animal was wounded, the hunters would have tracked it until it became very weak or went to water to drink. Even a mastodon, wounded and exhausted, or mired in the mud of a shallow lake, would have been relatively easy game for a small group of experienced hunters.
551 visits
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Dogs may have been kept as pets, and may have helped in hunting. Meso-Indians developed many new hunting and fishing techniques. They used fishhooks, traps, and nets for catching fish and other small animals, and they used a new weapon called the atlatl (pronounced at′lat′l) to help kill their most important prey, deer.
An atlatl was made from a flattish, two-foot long piece of wood and was used as a spear-thrower. It had a hook, made of bone or antler, attached on one end and a hand grip carved on the other end. A stone, clay, or shell weight was sometimes attached toward the hooked end to increase the force of the throw, or perhaps only for decoration. A spear was rested on the atlatl with the end of the spear shaft inserted into the atlatl hook. The hunter held the atlatl grip and the middle of the spear in the same hand, then he hurled the spear from the atlatl. The atlatl acted as an extension of his arm, giving extra power and accuracy to the throw.
637 visits
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A musical relic has recently been exhumed in the department of Dordogne in France, which was constructed in an age when the fauna of France included the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth, the hyæna, the bear, and the cave-lion. It is a small bone somewhat less than two inches in length, in which is a hole, evidently bored by means of one of the little flint knives which men used before acquaintance with the employment of metal for tools and weapons. Many of these flints were found in the same place with the bones. Only about half a dozen of the bones, of which a considerable number have been exhumed, possess the artificial hole.
471 visits
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Total length about 9 feet. (Remains found in Cape Colony, South Africa.)
377 visits
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(From remains found in Cretaceous strata of Wyoming, U.S.A.)
This Dinosaur, about the size of a large rhinoceros, had a huge three-horned skull with a remarkable bony collar over the neck. But, as in many other cases, its brain was so small that it could have passed down the spinal canal in which the spinal cord lies. Perhaps this partly accounts for the extinction of giant reptiles.
374 visits
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The bird was five or six feet high, something like a swimming ostrich, with a very powerful leg but only a vestige of a wing. There were sharp teeth in a groove. The modern divers come nearest to this ancient type.
471 visits
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The java ape-man, as restored. By J. H. Mcgregor from the scanty remains
The restoration shows the low, retreating forehead and the prominent eyebrow ridges.
468 visits
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The mammoth age was in the Middle Pleistocene, while Neanderthal Men still flourished, probably far over 30,000 years ago.
370 visits
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This was the work of a Reindeer Man or Cromagnard, in the Upper or Post-Glacial Pleistocene, perhaps 25,000 years ago. Firelight must have been used in making these cave drawings and engravings.
591 visits
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A section through the Pearly Nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, common from Malay to Fiji. The shell is often about 9 inches long. The animal lives in the last chamber only, but a tube (S) runs through the empty chambers, perforating the partitions (SE). The bulk of the animal is marked VM; the eye is shown at E; a hood is marked H; round the mouth there are numerous lobes (L) bearing protrusible tentacles, some of which are shown. When the animal is swimming near the surface the tentacles radiate out in all directions, and it has been described as "a shell with something like a cauliflower sticking out of it." The Pearly Nautilus is a good example of a conservative type, for it began in the Triassic Era. But the family of Nautiloids to which it belongs illustrates very vividly what is meant by a dwindling race. The Nautiloids began in the Cambrian, reached their golden age in the Silurian, and began to decline markedly in the Carboniferous. There are 2,500 extinct or fossil species of Nautiloids, and only 4 living to-day.
548 visits
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It skips about by means of its strong pectoral fins on the mud-flats; it jumps from stone to stone hunting small shore-animals; it climbs up the roots of the mangrove-trees. The close-set eyes protrude greatly and are very mobile. The tail seems to help in respiration.
366 visits
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Showing in order of evolution the general relations of the chief classes into which the world of living things is divided. This scheme represents the present stage of our knowledge, but is admittedly provisional.
401 visits
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(After William Leche of Stockholm.)
A good restoration of the oldest known bird, Archæopteryx (Jurassic Era). It was about the size of a crow; it had teeth on both jaws; it had claws on the thumb and two fingers; and it had a long lizard-like tail. But it had feathers, proving itself a true bird.
408 visits
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Restored model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral elephant Palæomastodon from the upper Eocene strata of the Fayoum Desert, Egypt. It shows the six molar teeth of the upper and lower jaw (left side), the tusk-like upper incisors and the large chisel-like lower incisors in front.
537 visits
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Drawing of the skull of the rat-toothed goat, Myotragus—the new extinct beast discovered in limestone fissures in the island of Majorca by Miss Bate. 1. Side view of the skull and lower jaw. 2. Appearance of the two rat-like teeth as seen when the end of the lower jaw is viewed from above.
520 visits
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The crowns of three "grinders" or molars of elephants compared. a is that of an extinct mastodon with four transverse ridges; b is that of the African elephant with nine ridges in use and ground flat; c is that of the mammoth with sixteen narrow ridges in use—the rest, some eight in number, are at the left hand of the figure and not yet in use.
411 visits
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Head of the early ancestor of elephants—Meritherium—as it appeared in life. Observe the absence of a trunk and the enlarged front tooth in the upper jaw, which is converted in later members of the elephant-stock or line of descent into the great tusk. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.)
344 visits
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Head of the ancestral elephant—Palæomastodon—as it appeared in life. It shows, as compared with the earlier ancestor, an elongation both of the snout and the lower jaws. The tusk in the upper jaw has increased in size, but is still small as compared with that of later elephants. (After a drawing by Prof. Osborne.)
347 visits
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A reconstruction of the extinct American mastodon (Mastodon ohioticus) from a drawing by Prof. Osborne. Other extinct species of mastodon are found in Europe.
385 visits
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These late Palæolithic people not only drew remarkably well for our information, and with an increasing skill as the centuries passed, but they have also left us other information about their lives in their graves. They buried. They buried their dead, often with ornaments, weapons, and food; they used a lot of colour in the burial, and evidently painted the body. From that one may infer that they painted their bodies during life. Paint was a big fact in their lives. They were inveterate painters; they used black, brown, red, yellow, and white pigments, and the pigments they used endure to this day in the caves of France and Spain. Of all modern races, none have shown so pictorial a disposition; the nearest approach to it has been among the American Indians.
686 visits
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A Carved Statue (“Menhir”) of the Neolithic Period—a Contrast to the Freedom and Vigour of Palæolithic Art.
418 visits
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Time-chart 6000 B.C. to A.D.
295 visits
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Possible Appearance of the Sub-man Pithecanthropus. The face, jaws, and teeth are mere guess work. The creature may have been much less human looking than this.
541 visits
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Some Oligocene Mammals
224 visits
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One fruitful source of knowledge about Neolithic life comes from Switzerland, and was first revealed by the very dry winter of 1854, when the water level of one of the lakes, sinking to an unheard-of lowness, revealed the foundations of prehistoric pile dwellings of the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages, built out over the water after the fashion of similar homes that exist to-day in Celebes and elsewhere. Not only were the timbers of those ancient platforms preserved, but a great multitude of wooden, bone, stone, and earthenware utensils and ornaments, remains of food and the like, were found in the peaty accumulations below them. Even pieces of net and garments have been recovered. Similar lake dwellings existed in Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere—there are well-known remains at Glastonbury in Somersetshire; in Ireland lake dwellings were inhabited from prehistoric times up to the days when O’Neil of Tyrone was fighting against the English before the plantation of Scotch colonists to replace the Irish in Ulster in the reign of James I of England. These lake villages had considerable defensive value, and there was a sanitary advantage in living over flowing water.
404 visits
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Reindeer Age Engravings and Carvings
296 visits
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Reindeer Age Articles
331 visits
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The milk, if they did use it (and, no doubt, in that case sour curdled milk also, but not well-made cheese and butter), they must have kept in earthenware pots, for they had pottery, though it was roughly hand-made pottery and not the shapely product of the potter’s wheel.
324 visits
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Finally, perhaps as early as 3000 years ago in Europe, and even{v1-107} earlier in Asia Minor, men began to smelt iron. Once smelting was known to men, there is no great marvel in the finding of iron. They smelted iron by blowing up a charcoal fire, and wrought it by heating and hammering. They produced it at first in comparatively small pieces; its appearance worked a gradual revolution{v1-108} in weapons and implements; but it did not suffice to change the general character of men’s surroundings. Much the same daily life that was being led by the more settled Neolithic men 10,000 years ago was being led by peasants in out-of-the-way places all over Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
People talk of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age in Europe, but it is misleading to put these ages as if they were of equal importance in history. Much truer is it to say that there was:
(1) An Early Palæolithic Age, of vast duration; (2) a Later Palæolithic Age, that lasted not a tithe of the time; and (3) the Age of Cultivation, the age of the white men in Europe, which began 10,000 or at most 12,000 years ago, of which the Neolithic Period was the beginning, and which is still going on.
240 visits
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They probably used a multitude and variety of wooden implements also; they had probably learnt much about the shapes of objects and the use of different shapes from wood, knowledge which they afterwards applied to stone; but none of this wooden material has survived; we can only speculate about its forms and uses. As the weather hardened to its maximum of severity, the Neanderthal men, already it would seem acquainted with the use of fire, began to seek shelter under rock ledges and in caves—and so leave remains behind them. Hitherto they had been accustomed to squat in the open about the fire, and near their water supply. But they were sufficiently intelligent to adapt themselves to the new and harder conditions.
663 visits
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The Miocene (with living species still in a minority) was the great age of mountain building, and the general temperature was falling.
393 visits
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Possible Map of Europe 50,000 Years Ago
300 visits
