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Rh ancient population. The hieroglyphic inscriptions, the most ancient written records of the world, preserve direct memorials of a time which can hardly be less, and may be much more, than 3000 years before the Christian era. With all the doubt which besets the attempt to extract a definite chronology from the Egyptian names of kings and lists of dynasties (see ), their salient points fit with the historical records of other nations. Thus, the great Ramesside dynasty, known among Egyptologists as the 19th dynasty, corresponds with the mention of the building of the city of Raarnses in Exod. i. 11; Amenophis III., called by the Greeks Memnon, belongs to the previous 18th dynasty; while the three pyramid kings, whom Herodotus mentions as Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos, and whose actual Egyptian names are read in the hieroglyphic lists as Chufu, Chafra, and Menkaura, are set down in the 4th dynasty. Lepsius may not be over estimating when he dates this dynasty back as far as 3124 B.C., and carries the more dubious previous dynasties back to 3892 B.C. before reaching what are known as the mythical dynasties, which probably have their bases rather in astronomical calculations than in history (Lepsius, Königsbuch der alten Ægypter,, 1858; compare the computations of Bmgsch, Bunsen, Hincks, Wilkinson, &c.) The Greeks of the classic period could discuss the Egyptian chronologies with priests and scribes who perpetuated the languages and records of their earliest dynasties ; and as the Septuagint translation of the Bible was made at Alexandria, it is not impossible that its giving to man a considerably greater antiquity than that of the Hebrew text may have been due to the influence of the Egyptian chronology. Even if the lowest admissible calculations be taken, this will not invalidate the main fact, that above 4000 years ago the Egyptian nation already stood at a high level of industrial and social culture. The records of several other nations show that as early or not much later than this they had attained to a national civilisation. The Bible, whose earliest books are among the earliest existing chronicles, shows an Israelite nation existing in a state of patriarchal civilisation previous to the already mentioned time of contact with Egypt. In ancient Chaldaea, the inscribed bricks of Urukh s temples probably belong to a date beyond 2000 years B.C. (G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World,, 1862, &c., vol. i. ch. 8). The Chinese dynasties, like those of Egypt, begin with an obviously mythical portion, and continue into actual history ; the difficulty is to draw the line where genuine record begins. Those who reckon authentic history only from the dynasty of Chow, beginning about 1100 B.C., during which Confucius lived, will at any rate hardly deny the existence of the earlier dynasty of Shang, previous to which the yet earlier dynasty of Hea is recorded ; so that, though much that is related of these periods may be fabulous, it seems certain that there was a Chinese nation and a Chinese civilisation reaching back beyond 2000 B.C. (see Sir John Davis, The Chinese; Pauthier, Livres Sacres de l'Orient; Shu-King, &c.)

Till of late it was a commonly received opinion that the early state pf society was one of comparatively high culture, and those who held this opinion felt no difficulty in assigning the origin of man to a time but little beyond the range of historical records and monuments. At present, however, the view has become paramount that the civilisation of the world has been gradually developed from an original stone-age culture, such as characterises modern savage life. To hold this opinion necessitates the adding to the 4000 or 5000 years to which the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Babylon, and China date back, a probably much greater length of time, during which the knowledge, arts, and institutions of these countries attained to their remarkably high level. The evidence of comparative philology corroborates this judgment. Thus, Hebrew and Arabic are closely related languages, neither of them the original of the other, but both sprung from some parent language more ancient than either. When, therefore, the Hebrew records have carried back to the most ancient admissible date the existence of the Hebrew language, this date must have been long preceded by that of the extinct parent language of the whole Semitic family ; while this again was no doubt the descendant of languages slowly shaping themselves through ages into this peculiar type. Yet more striking is the evidence of the Aryan or Indo-European family of languages. The Hindus, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Kelts, and Slaves make their appearance at more or less remote dates as nations separate in language as in history. Nevertheless, it is now acknowledged that at some far remoter time, before these nations were divided from the parent stock, and distributed over Asia and Europe by the Aryan dispersion, a single barbaric people stood as physical and political representative of the nascent Aryan race, speaking a now extinct Aryan language, from which, by a series of modifications not to be estimated as possible within many thousands of years, there arose languages which have been mutually unintelligible since the dawn of history, and between which it was only possible for an age of advanced philology to trace the fundamental relationship. From the combination of these considerations, it will be seen that the farthest date to which documentary record extends, is now generally regarded by anthropologists as but the earliest distinctly visible point of the historic period, beyond which stretches back a vast indefinite series of prehistoric ages.

V. Language.—In examining how the science of language bears on the general problems of anthropology, it is not necessary to discuss at length the critical questions which arise, the principal of which are considered elsewhere. (See .) Philology is especially appealed to by anthropologists as contributing to the following lines of argument. A primary mental similarity of all branches of the human race is evidenced by their common faculty of speech, while at the same time secondary diversities of race-character and history are marked by difference of grammatical structure and of vocabularies. The exist ence of groups or families of allied languages, each group being evidently descended from a single language, affords one of the principal aids in classifying nations and races. The adoption by one language of words originally belong ing to another, proving as it does the fact of intercourse between two races, and even to some extent indicating the results of such intercourse, affords a valuable clue through obscure regions of the history of civilisation.

Communication by gesture-signs, between persons unable to converse in vocal language, is an effective system of expression common to all mankind. Thus, the signs used to ask a deaf and dumb child about his meals and lessons, or to communicate with a savage met in the desert about game or enemies, belong to codes of gesture-signals identical in principle, and to a great extent independent both of nation ality and education; there is even a natural syntax, or order of succession, in such gesture -signs. To these gestures let there be added the use of the interjectional cries, such as ''oh! ugh! hey! and imitative sounds to represent the cat's mew, the click of a trigger, the clap or thud'' of a blow, &c. The total result of this combination of gesture and significant sound will be a general system of expression, imperfect but serviceable, and naturally intelligible to all mankind without distinction of race. Nor is such a system of communication only theoretically 