Read Online A Short History of the World by H. G. Wells - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: H. G. Wells
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age,â says de Mortillet, 2 âare much superior to those of later, even historical times, down to the Renaissance. The Romans, for example, never had needles comparable to those of this epoch.â
Almost fifteen or twelve thousand years ago a fresh people drifted into the south of Spain, and left very remarkable drawings of themselves upon exposed rock faces there. These were the Azilians (named from the Mas d'Azil cave). They had the bow; they seem to have worn feather headdresses; they drew vividly; but also they had reduced their drawings to a sort of symbolism â a man, for instance, would be represented by a vertical dab with two or three horizontal dabs â that suggests the dawn of the writing idea. Against hunting sketches there are often marks like tallies. One drawing shows two men smoking out a bees' nest.
These are the latest of the men that we call Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) because they had only chipped implements. By ten or twelve thousand years ago a new sort of life has dawned in Europe, men have learnt not only to chip but to polish and grind stone implements, and they have begun cultivation. The Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) was beginning.
It is interesting to note that less than a century ago there still survived in a remote part of the world, in Tasmania, a race of human beings at a lower level of physical and intellectual development than any of these earliest races of mankind who have left traces in Europe. These Tasmanian people had long ago been cut off by geographical changes from the rest of the species, and from stimulation and improvement. They seem to have degenerated rather than developed. At the time of their discovery by European explorers, they lived a base life subsisting upon shellfish and small game. They had no habitations but only squatting places. They were real men of our species, but they had neither the manual dexterity nor the artistic powers of the first True Men. 3
14
Primitive Neolithic Civilizations
About 10,000 BC the geography of the world was very similar in its general outline to that of the world today. It is probable that by that time the great barrier across the Straits of Gibraltar that had hitherto banked back the ocean waters from the Mediterranean valley had been eaten through, and that the Mediterranean was a sea following much the same coastlines as it does now. The Caspian Sea was probably still far more extensive than it is at present, and it may have been continuous with the Black Sea to the north of the Caucasus mountains. About this great central Asian sea lands that are now steppes and deserts were fertile and habitable. Generally it was a moister and more fertile world. European Russia was much more a land of swamp and lake than it is now, and there may still have been a land connexion between Asia and America at Behring Straits.
It would have been already possible at that time to have distinguished the main racial divisions of mankind as we know them today. Across the warm temperate regions of this rather warmer and better-wooded world, and along the coasts, stretched the brownish peoples of the Heliolithic culture, the ancestors of the bulk of the living inhabitants of the Mediterranean world, of the Berbers, the Egyptians and of much of the population of south and eastern Asia. This great race had of course a number of varieties. The Iberian or Mediterranean or ‘dark-white’ race of the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast, the ‘Hamitic’ peoples which include the Berbers and Egyptians, the Dravidians, the darker people of India, a multitude of east Indian people, many Polynesian races and the Maoris are all divisions of various value of this great main mass of humanity. 1 Its western varieties are whiter than its eastern. In the forests of central and northern Europe a more blond variety of men with blue eyes was becoming distinguishable, branching off from the main mass of brownish people, a variety which many people now speak
Almost fifteen or twelve thousand years ago a fresh people drifted into the south of Spain, and left very remarkable drawings of themselves upon exposed rock faces there. These were the Azilians (named from the Mas d'Azil cave). They had the bow; they seem to have worn feather headdresses; they drew vividly; but also they had reduced their drawings to a sort of symbolism â a man, for instance, would be represented by a vertical dab with two or three horizontal dabs â that suggests the dawn of the writing idea. Against hunting sketches there are often marks like tallies. One drawing shows two men smoking out a bees' nest.
These are the latest of the men that we call Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) because they had only chipped implements. By ten or twelve thousand years ago a new sort of life has dawned in Europe, men have learnt not only to chip but to polish and grind stone implements, and they have begun cultivation. The Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) was beginning.
It is interesting to note that less than a century ago there still survived in a remote part of the world, in Tasmania, a race of human beings at a lower level of physical and intellectual development than any of these earliest races of mankind who have left traces in Europe. These Tasmanian people had long ago been cut off by geographical changes from the rest of the species, and from stimulation and improvement. They seem to have degenerated rather than developed. At the time of their discovery by European explorers, they lived a base life subsisting upon shellfish and small game. They had no habitations but only squatting places. They were real men of our species, but they had neither the manual dexterity nor the artistic powers of the first True Men. 3
14
Primitive Neolithic Civilizations
About 10,000 BC the geography of the world was very similar in its general outline to that of the world today. It is probable that by that time the great barrier across the Straits of Gibraltar that had hitherto banked back the ocean waters from the Mediterranean valley had been eaten through, and that the Mediterranean was a sea following much the same coastlines as it does now. The Caspian Sea was probably still far more extensive than it is at present, and it may have been continuous with the Black Sea to the north of the Caucasus mountains. About this great central Asian sea lands that are now steppes and deserts were fertile and habitable. Generally it was a moister and more fertile world. European Russia was much more a land of swamp and lake than it is now, and there may still have been a land connexion between Asia and America at Behring Straits.
It would have been already possible at that time to have distinguished the main racial divisions of mankind as we know them today. Across the warm temperate regions of this rather warmer and better-wooded world, and along the coasts, stretched the brownish peoples of the Heliolithic culture, the ancestors of the bulk of the living inhabitants of the Mediterranean world, of the Berbers, the Egyptians and of much of the population of south and eastern Asia. This great race had of course a number of varieties. The Iberian or Mediterranean or ‘dark-white’ race of the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast, the ‘Hamitic’ peoples which include the Berbers and Egyptians, the Dravidians, the darker people of India, a multitude of east Indian people, many Polynesian races and the Maoris are all divisions of various value of this great main mass of humanity. 1 Its western varieties are whiter than its eastern. In the forests of central and northern Europe a more blond variety of men with blue eyes was becoming distinguishable, branching off from the main mass of brownish people, a variety which many people now speak
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