Joe ‘THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION By Protenor JAMES HENRY BREASTED‘THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION By Profenor JAMES HENRY BREASTED LECTURE ONE, FFroM THE Oxo Stowe Ack 1o THe Dawy oF CivitizattOn INNABUS was the first natural ceentst to find a place for [ib sai tie natural system. There i an enormously Tone sage in the earcer of man when the study of him is obviously the tosk of the natural selentist. Much of the work of the fnthropologist ‘and psychologist ie properly classed es natural Science. ALa certain stage in the development of man, how ver, we ben to ell the study of him and his works archeol- gy, history, philology, art and literature—lines of study which tre sharply diferentiate from natural eeience. T have often wondered what there Is unnatural about man, Tf it could be Slemonstrated that the pterodactyl was gregarious, built towns, made pttery, carried on industry and commerce, and left bee hind written record, I fancy that we shoud still eall the study St him paleontology and not divorce It from natural science. thas been a souree of great gratifiation tothe writer that in the William Ellery Hale lectures on Evolution, the career of man has been regarded aa a part of the course of nature. The protopisem is need a long way from the Idea of Uberty and the ‘himpanace may antedate by millions of years the coneeption of facial justice, but the transition from the stage of biological to ‘hat of social proostes is 4gvadoal one, even though We readily recouaze that man has finaly risen to many qualities and ie ‘which transcend matter and ean not be placed under the mlero cope or weighed inthe chemists balances. 2 Dats Before the National Academy’ of Sle in Wasingan, 119, the vent sree of "yue Sclexriric movracy PYELSTOCRNE * CLACIAL AOE,S ‘The archeologist depends on stratification just asthe geolo- ist doer. He datee his strata not only Dy superposition, but ‘so by the artifacts contained in them, precisely ae the geolo- ist dates bis strata by the focale they contain. As we al Jinow, the prehistoric archeologist and the geologist work side Dy aide, andl each gladly accepts the other’ results. "This asso- ciation brings as orlentalets into intimate relations with na tural seine, for we carry on the work of research in the Near Orlent, having, on the one hand, early prehistorie man preced- ing ancient Oriental civilization, and,on the other hand historie Europe folowing the ancient Orient. ‘The early Oriental evil ations thas occupy s place between the femote savagery of prehlatorie Europe and the civilized earcer of historie Europe beginning in Greece and Italy. ‘My distinguished predceestors have cartied the progressive development af matter through the origins of life and its evolu- tion to ever hither forms, and have this finally reached Uhe ‘early stages of the first implement-fashioning ereature, which wwe call man.” Hee has been followed by means of the trail of “tone implements which he began to leave behind him, through ‘he successive advances anc retreats of the ice in the glacal epoch, sellating ike the pendulum of a vast gealgieal clack, land thus measuring for usin large and stil unprecse periods the several hundred thousand years of the discernible human Tn the lon strug with the hostile forces of nature about him, the savage European hunter of the Palelithie Age had slowly “advanced through successive. improvements of his ‘weapons and tools of stone, bone, horn, ivory and wood, until the final retreat of the ice some seven or eight thousand Years before the Christian era (Fig. 1). In spite ofthe remapkable progress which he had! made and his surprising achievements Ivar, a illustrated in the wonderful eave paintings of southern France and northern Spain, it ls evident that hie reneral prog ross had been retarded as contrasted with the development of TH ORIGINS OF cHVTLIEATION 2a the hunters of the Paleoithie Age on the south side of the Meatterranean. It is « natural coneldslon chat the retarding foree wae the recurring ea and fee by which Europe was 50 Tong bese, while the south side of the Mediterranean was et- [foing {ar more xenial conditions, It will therefore be neces dany for us to investigate what Was going on in northern Aiea, fon betore the last scition of Europe had retzeated. ‘The prewnce of the great African maxamals in glacial Europe, Wke {he southern elephant (Elephax meridional) whose bones are found on the high terraces of the Seine and the Eure ninety fet above the present river level, demonstrates the connection Gf Europe with Africa in that dinant age. Both at Gibraltar Sind through Siely the great European peninsulas of the west- in Mediterranean were anited with Atria by and (Fig 2). "funtas the wild creatures crossed these land bridges from Atvies to Europe and back again, so mast the men who unte thom have done. ‘The disperaon of the art of chipping Aint Implements throughout the contiguous areas of the {0 conte hnents wus matter ofcourse. Let it be clearly stated however, ‘hat this unquestionable fact does not eaery with ft she eonela-son that the stages of prehistoric elture on bath sides of the Mediterranean necessarily Kept even pace with each other and were therefore alwaye contemporaneous, ‘This we know w not trae as between North and South Amerias nelther w it true of prehistori Africa and Europe. When the European Stone Age hunters received metal in the ean area about {3000 nc, it was a thousand years before i ha crossed Europe to Scandinavia and the British Isles. "To speak ot Mousterian Ants found in Siberia aa necessarily contemporary with those of France, is as absurd as to make Verestchagin, the Russian palnter, contemporary with Titisn. ‘The existence of North African man in European glacial times has been clearly demonstrated, ‘The flint implements Which he serought have been foun, still lying in strate of (quaternary age In Algiers’ In the caves of Gafsa in Tunls Schwveinfurth has also found Mints of Paleolithic type, but not in stratifiations or with a fauna which demonstrates their tne ‘questionable Paleolithic age Inthe same region, furthermore, Schweinfurth has found artifacts of even pre-Chellean types lying in deposits of course conglomerate. (nagelh ot " pow ddinguc”” Fr), which the discoverer concludes were of early (quaternary date. He found 411 piece, some of which he clasai- ‘es as Boliths and everything else as Chellean or pre-Chellean ‘These carly Stone Age hunters of North Attica have left ‘more than thelr stone implements to tll of their existence along the southorn shoves of the Mealterranean, In Algiers they carved inthe natural rock faces rule dravrings of the animals they were daily pursuing. One of these prehistoric drawings (Pls. 8) shows us the Bubalus autignes, or ancient bala, creature presumably of quaternary age in this regon. This ‘gain demonstrates the presence of Paealthi hunters in North Arica Tis evident that the Sshara desert dating the age repre sented hy such romains, must have been a fertile region, with productive soit and. plentiful precipitation. This continued Until the latter part of the glaclal epoch: but in the last lela tion of Europe the climate along the Nile atleast, was nearer that of todas. Graft and Neaithe remains in the western a Ba sant 8 8, p38, aie Pre, ‘Sckweinturth Zehr fla, 0, 17, 808-038, ‘Sehwaltary tid 4 Yo, yp 1-18 gu Banton 0 ae Oberle, “Mech er Yorn Sahara would indicate ite habitebilty, however, in time res tively recent, asthe Neolthie of this region seems to have con tinved almost down to modern times." Gautier coneludes that the changes here have not been due to alteration ofthe climate ‘luring the last two thousand sears, but to desieation cated by dane, cutting off the Sudan from the Sahara, and resulting in its absorption by the Berbera from the north ‘The probabilities certainly are that fertile conditions in the Sahara during the major portion of the Pleistocene permitted ‘the distribution of the Paleolithic hunters from Algiers to the Nile, ut the Nile of that period osfors a geologiea) history Which we must have in mind, beeause it went hand in hand with the career of man in northeastern Aries, During or Just before the formation of the lower levels of the Upper Pliocene, while the Mediterranean coast line was at the site of later Caro, wo extensive fractures occurred, vary- Ing from 7 to 24 km. apart. They extended southward from the eosst some four hundred miles to the vicinity of Kench, forming what 1s called "block fault” in the earth’s crust, AS the block between the fractures sank it formed a grest tft