The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the discovery of fire, also. It seems to us impossible to imagine a time when men could have lived upon the earth without this all-useful element, when they must have de- voured their food uncooked, and only sheltered themselves from the cold by the thickness of their clothing, or at night by huddling together in close underground houses. We have certainly no proof that man’s existence was ever of such a sort as this; but yet it is clear that the art of making fires is one not discoverable at first sight. How long man took to find out that method of ignition by friction of two sticks—the method employed in different forms by all the less cultivated nations spread over the globe, and one which we may therefore fairly take to be the most primitive and natural—we shall never know. We have only the negative evidence that he had discovered it at that primaeval time when he began to leave his remains within the’caves. Thus have we completed the catalogue of facts upon which we may build up for ourselves some representation of the life of man in the earliest ages of his existence upon earth. It must be confessed that they are meagre enough. We should like some further facts which would help us to picture the man himself, his size, his appearance, what race he most resembled of any of those which now inhabit our globe. Unfortunately we have little that can assist us here. Human remains have been found—on one or two occasions a skeleton in tolerably complete preservation'—but not yet in sufficient numbers to allow us to draw any certain conclusions from them, or even to hazard any very probable conjecture. Among these discoveries of human skeletons, none excited more interest at the time it was made than the Neanderthal skeleton, so-called from the place Human , • , . . remains, in which it was found. The discovery was made in 1857 by Dr. Fuhlrott of Elberfeld; and when the
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