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                     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