The Church and Science (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XX EARLY MAN--HIS IMPLEMENTS AND SOME CONSIDERATIONS THEREON OF course, where we have them, the actual skeletal remains of man are of priceless value: yet, as will be seen shortly, it is often a matter of incredible difficulty to assign them definitely to their proper archaeological horizon; thus the conclusions which can be founded upon them become a matter of uncertainty. With this preliminary remark we may for a moment leave the question of the earliest skeletal remains which are open to observation at present. For it will be necessary first of all to review the various causes of uncertainty which have to be disposed of before any definite conclusion can be arrived at concerning a given group of objects--still more before any water-tight theory can be founded upon them. In any given case a series of questions have to be put and answered, and these we may now consider in the order in which they usually arise. I. Are the objects in question human or of human manufacture? It might be thought that as regards skeletal remains at any rate this was not a difficult question to answer, nor is it in the vast majority of cases. In the example of the Chapelle-aux-Saints, for instance, where we have an entire skeleton which was definitely and purposely interred where it was found, in spite of its great antiquity no shadow of a doubt can be entertained as to its being the skeleton of a human being. But there are cases, and those just the cases in which one would like to feel quite certain about all the facts, in which matters are much more complicated than in this case. DISCOVERIES OF BONES 209 Where, for example, a few perhaps considerably mutilated bones are found in a bed of gravel at some distance from one another, apart from the other questions which ar...