Archaeology and ethnology : remarks on some of the bearings of archaeology upon certain ethnological problems and researches / by Robert Dunn.

  • Dunn, Robert, 1799-1877.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Archaeology and ethnology : remarks on some of the bearings of archaeology upon certain ethnological problems and researches / by Robert Dunn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    XXTX.—Archaeology and Ethnology: Remarks on some of the bearings of Archceology upon certain Ethnological problems and researches. By Robt. Dtjnn, F.R.C.S., etc. [Read Dec. llfA, 1866.] There is a fascinatioil about the subject of Pre-historic Times and Pre-historic Man, about the revolutions of our globe, as revealed to us by geological investigation, and of the generations of man- kind, by Archaeological researches. The very obscurity, indeed, of the subject whets our curiosity and zeal in its investigation ; for what can be more fascinating than the wonders of Geology, as we ponder over and upon the revolutions which our earth has undergone, as we seek out and search after the evidences of the first appearance of life upon its surface, and as we recognise, in its successive and changing phases, the varied animal forms, rising higher and still higher in the complexity and elaboration of their structure, up to the advent of man himself,—to us the crowning theme of all these wonders! For whom did he first appear? With excited curiosity and increasing interest, we ask with Pro- fessor Huxley, where must we look for primeval Man ? Was the oldest Homo Sapiens pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient ? To this absorbing question what can we answer, save, that, in the fulness of time, when the earth was fitted for his reception, at the fiat of the Almighty, Man made his appearance. To use the emphatic language of Mr. Wallace (for I can use no words of my own, more clearly and forcibly, to give expression to my convic- tions) from those infinitely remote ages when the first rudiments of organic life appeared upon the earth, every plant and every animal has been subject to the one great law of physical change. As the earth has gone through its grand cycles of geological, climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has been subject to its irresistible action, and has been continually, but imper- ceptibly, moulded into such new shapes as would preserve their harmony with the ever changing universe. No living thing could escape the law of its being; none could remain unchanged and live amid the universal changes around it. At length, how- ever, man was brought forth, and there came into existence a being in whom that subtle force, we term mind, became of far greater importance than his mere bodily structure. Though with a naked and unprotected body—this gave him clothing against the varying inclemencies of the seasons. Though unable to compete with the deer in swiftness, or with the wild bull in strength, this