Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/663

Rh species formerly existing in Europe, but which still live under somewhat modified forms, and restricted to other lands, are the lion, from which the Felis spelæa is scarcely distinguishable; the spotted hyena, with which the Hyæna spelæa has been identified; and the bear of the ancient caverns, which differs (so far as has been shown) only in its larger size from the common bear of Europe, and for this reason (and this only, apparently) has it been identified with the grizzly of America; and on similar grounds only (i.e., superior size) have some remains of a stag, found in the cave of Mentone, been referred to the living wapiti, or elk (Cervus Canadensis) of America. With reference to these, it must be remembered that the progenitors of our living forms, both in America and Europe, were appreciably larger (as has been shown by Baird for the mammals of the Carlisle cave) than their modern descendants, and the American contemporary of the stag hunted by the Mentone man was considerably larger than its living representative, and consequently than the animal living in his own land.

So far, then, as yet appears from our knowledge of the skeleton, and the forms found in association with it, it can only be regarded as very ancient from an historical (and not a geological) point of view. Its possessor lived in the midst of a fauna most of whose representatives still live in forms no more modified than are the existing races of the genus Homo compared with himself.

But, on the other hand, that his antiquity is great, and that he lived under conditions quite different from those which verbal history has preserved for us, appears to be indubitable; if many of his associates still live, it is under considerably modified forms, and other species coexistent with him (such especially as the tichorhine rhinoceros) ceased to exist before man had begun to record the existence of even the stranger forms of animal life; and how that man and his fellows ministered to their needs is, to some extent, made known to us by the objects of their handiwork preserved around the remains of the dead.

These were either of bone, or deer's-horns, or of stone; the former were relatively few, and are referred to by M. Rivière as arrow-heads, pins, needles, chisels, sleeking-tools, and a báton of command (sic!) made from the principal left metacarpal of a horse, perforated, and supposed to have been carried around the neck; the stone implements were much more numerous, and represented by scrapers or graters, pins, arrow or lance heads, disks, knife-blades, and hammers. The workmanship was quite rude. The great predominance of ruminant (deer, goat) bones suggests their favorite food: that they used fire is obvious; and the numerous long bones of animals split lengthwise (and only five out of more than ten thousand were not) plainly indicated that they used the marrow.

We may now pause, review the evidence thus briefly referred to, and inquire what gain has resulted from the discovery of the fossil man of Mentone.