E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Mary Akers,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(http://archive.org)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://archive.org/details/ancientmaninbrit00mackuoft |
ANCIENT MAN IN BRITAIN
Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons
HEAD OF A CRÔ-MAGNON MAN
After the restoration modelled by J. H. McGregor. Reproduced by permission
from Men of the Old Stone Age by Henry Fairfield Osborn.
ANCIENT MAN
IN BRITAIN
BY
DONALD A. MACKENZIE
Author of "Egyptian Myth and Legend"
"Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe" "Colour Symbolism" &c.
WITH FOREWORD BY
G. ELLIOT SMITH, F.R.S.
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
50 OLD BAILEY, LONDON; GLASGOW, BOMBAY
Printed in Great Britain
1922
FOREWORD
In his Presidential Address to the Royal AnthropologicalInstitute this year the late Dr.Rivers put his finger upon the most urgent needfor reform in the study of Man, when he appealedfor "the Unity of Anthropology". No true conceptionof the nature and the early history of thehuman family can be acquired by investigations,however carefully they may be done, of one classof evidence only. The physical characters of aseries of skulls can give no reliable informationunless their exact provenance and relative age areknown. But the interpretation of the meaning ofthese characters cannot be made unless we knowsomething of the movements of the people and thedistinctive peculiarities of the inhabitants of theforeign lands from which they may have come.No less important than the study of their physicalstructure is the cultural history of peoples. Thereal spirit of a population is revealed by itssocial and industrial achievements, and by itsvicustoms and beliefs, rather than by the shape ofthe heads and members of its units. The revivalof the belief in the widespread diffusion of culturein early times has, as one of its many importanteffects, directed attention to the physical peculiaritiesof the mixed populations of important foci ofcivilization throughout the world. Such inquirieshave not only enabled the student of humanstructure to detect racial affinities where he mightotherwise have neglected