



Produced by Larry Harrison, Cindy Beyer and the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net with images provided by The
Internet Archives-US





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




[Illustration]





[Illustration: KASKATACHYUH.
 A CHIMPSEYAN CHIEF.
 Drawn by D. Wilson LL.D. from sketches by Paul Kane.
 Cooper & Hodson Lith.      188, Strand, London, W.C.]




                     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

                               CHAPTER IV.
                         BONE AND SHELL WORKERS.
  Bone and Ivory Workers—Substitutes for Flint—Proofs of Relative
    Age—Domestic Bone Implements—Rude Palæolithic Art—Whalebone
    Workers—Primitive Working Tools—Fish-spears and
    Harpoons—Artistic Ingenuity—Drawing of the Mammoth—The
    Madelaine Etchings—Righthanded Workers—Deer-horn Quarry
    Picks—Bonebracer or Guard—Birthtime of the Fine Arts—Innuit
    Carvers of Alaska—Troglodytes of Central France—Post-Glacial
    Man—Symmetrical Head-Form—Intellectual Vigour—Evidence of
    Latent Powers—Tawatin Ivory Carving—Lake-Dwellers’
    Implements—Cave Implements—Arts of the Pacific Islanders—Carib
    Shell-Knives—Aborigines of the Antilles—Caribs of St.
    Domingo—Cave Pictures and Carvings—Prized Tropical
    Shells—Ancient Graves of Tennessee—Shell Manufactures—Huron and
    Petun Graves—Sacred Shell-Vessels—Primitive Shell
    Ornaments—American Shell Mounds—A Shell Currency—Ioqua Standard
    of Value,                                                        96

                               CHAPTER V.
                                  FIRE.
  The Fire-using Animal—Esquimaux use of Fire—Fuegian
    Fire-making—Modes of producing Fire—Australian Fire-myth—Men of
    the Mammoth Age—Hearths of the Cave-Men—Pacific Root-Word for
    Fire—Great Cycle of the Aztecs—Rekindling the Sacred
    Fire—Peruvian Sun-Worshippers—Sacrifice of the White Dog—Sacred
    Fires of the Mound-Builders—Indian Fire-making—Sanctity of
    Fire—Tierra del Fuego,                                          135

                               CHAPTER VI.
                               THE CANOE.
  The use of Tools—Tool-using Instinct—Rudimentary stage of
    Art—Primitive River-Craft—The Guanahanè Canoe—Ocean
    Navigation—African Canoe-making—Oregon Cedar Canoes—Native
    Whalers of the Pacific—Prehistoric Boat-Builders—Mawai’s
    Canoes—The Polynesian Archipelago—The Terra Australis
    Incognita—Canoe-Fleets of the Pacific—Primitive
    Navigation—Portable Boats—The Coracle and Kaiak—The Peruvian
    Balsa—Ocean Navigators,                                         151

                              CHAPTER VII.
                                 TOOLS.
  Man the Artificer—The Law of Reason—Indigenous Races—Man’s
    Capacity for Deterioration—What is a Stone Period?—Materials of
    Primitive Art—Succession of Races—Indications of Ancient
    Trade—The Shoshone Indian—Texas Implements—Modes of
    Hafting—Deer’s-horn Sockets—Stone Knives—Thlinkets of
    Alaska—Metals of a Stone Period—Arts of the South
    Pacific—Malayan Influence—Fijian Constructive Skill—Fijian
    Pottery—Slow Maturity of Races—The Flint-edged Sword—The League
    of the Five Nations—Iroquois Predominance—Work in Obsidian and
    Flint—Honduras Flint Implements—Sources of the
    Material—Collision of Races—Fate of Inferior Races,             170

                              CHAPTER VIII.
                               THE METALS.
  Dawn of a Metallurgic Era—Primitive Copper-Working—Copper Region
    of Lake Superior—The Pictured Rocks—Jackson Iron Mountain—The
