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Such is the method of pre-history. It is called the stratigraphical method, because it is based on the description of strata, or layers. Let me give a simple example of how strata tell their own tale. It is no very remarkable instance, but happens to be one that I have examined for myself. They were digging out a place for a gas-holder in a meadow in the town of St.
All these things did the neolithic peoples sooner or later; so that it would not be strange if palaeolithic man withdrew in their favour, because he could not compete. Pre-history is at present almost silent concerning the manner of his passing.
This primordial mental attitude had been of immense value for in addition to the sword he carried a sack of molotails, a simple weapon of assault whose origins were lost in pre-history. Small crocks were filled with the most combustible of the refinery's fractions and wrapped around outside with cloth that he had soaked in the same liquid.
Situation, race and culture to reduce it to a problem of three terms only which of the three, if any, in the long run controls the rest? Remember that the anthropologist is trying to be the historian of long perspective. History which counts by years, proto-history which counts by centuries, pre-history which counts by millenniums he seeks to embrace them all.
At the back of that, again, beyond the point at which written records are of any avail at all, comes pre-history. How, then, you may well inquire, does the pre-historian get to work? What is his method of linking facts together? And what are the sources of his information? First, as to his method.
The appeal to history. Previous great schisms in Europe which have been surmounted give hope for the present. The Reformation. The Napoleonic Wars. The two points of view, Man's nature itself tending to unity through conflict. The stages in the process developed in history. In pre-history conflict and diversity are predominant, though the necessities of life prescribe certain uniformities.
Here, as in many other conjectures concerning early history or pre-history, one is convinced of that safe rule which, in Europe at least, bids us never exaggerate the changes achieved by the last few centuries or the contrast between recorded and unrecorded things. The tendency of most modern history in this country has been to exaggerate such changes and such contrasts.
Our horizon lies there, to prevent our vision going further; but from some higher time-eminence in the future, we shall see it emerge again in the backward vastnesses of pre-history; again and again. If I could imagine it otherwise, I would say so. Almost suddenly, during Aeschylus' lifetime, another Greek Art came into being.
Though having a very different fauna and flora, South America presumably forms part of the same geographical province so far as man is concerned, though there is evidence for thinking that he reached it very early. Until, however, more data are available for the pre-history of the American Indian, the great moulding forces, geographical or other, must be merely guessed at.
At this point, just as we distinguished in his history the practical from the poetic motive, we can see the blending of the two motives for travel. Mr. Belloc's researches into history and pre-history do show these motives inextricably mixed: in The Old Road you cannot separate the purpose of research from the purpose of this pleasure.
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