A short history of science / by W.T. Sedgwick and H.W. Tyler.

  • William Thompson Sedgwick
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short history of science / by W.T. Sedgwick and H.W. Tyler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ably one principal place of origin, or “ cradle,” of the human race from which have spread all known varieties of mankind, alive or extinct, and that this was probably in “ Indo-Malaysia ” in that remarkable valley which lies between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and in its upper part is known as Mesopotamia (be¬ tween the rivers). Mesopotamia, or the broad valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, was the cradle of civilization in the remotest antiquity. There can be little doubt that man evolved somewhere in southern Asia, possibly during the Pleiocene or Miocene times .... [And] as paleolithic man was certainly interglacial in Europe, we may assume that he was preglacial in Asia. . . . The earliest known civilization in the world arose north of the Persian Gulf among the Sumerians .... but the Babylonians of history were a mixed people, for Semitic influences according to Winckler began to flow up the Euphrates Valley from Arabia during the fourth millennium b.c. This influence was more strongly felt, however, in Akkad than in Sumer, and it was in the north that the first Semitic Empire, that of Sargon the Elder (about 2500 b.c. according to E. Meyer) had its seat. . . . The supremacy of Babylon was first established by the Dynasty of Hamurabi (about 1950 b.c., earlier according to Winckler) which was overthrown by the Hittites about 1760 b.c. Then followed the Kassite dominion, which lasted from about 1760 to 1100 b.c. ... It was probably due to them that the horse, first introduced by the Aryans, became common in south¬ west Asia; it was introduced into Babylon about 1900 b.c. but was unknown in Hamurabi’s reign. — Haddon. Archaeology. — The study of antiquity, and especially of prehistoric antiquity, is known as archaeology (the science of antiquities or beginnings), and is based upon finds of ruins, tools, weapons, caves, skeletons, carvings, ornaments, and similar remains or evidences of human life and action in pre¬ historic times. It has been well described as “ unwritten history.” Remains of all kinds have long been roughly but conveniently classified into three groups corresponding to three periods of development, viz.: a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an
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