History of Human SocietyBlackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
History
History of Human Society
Blackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
Civilization; Progress; Sociology
"Yet, when at length rude huts they first devised,
And fires and garments; and in union sweet
Man wedded woman, the pure joys indulged
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Of chaste connubial love, and children rose,
The rough barbarians softened. The warm hearth
Their frames so melted they no more could bear,
As erst, th' uncovered skies. The nuptial bed
Broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress
Of prattling children from the bosom chased
Their stern, ferocious manners."
--LUCRETIUS, "ON THE NATURE OF THINGS."
AFTER OSBORN.
Thus the Lower Paleolithic merged into the Upper; with the appearance
of the Mousterian, Augrignacian, Solutrian, Magdalenian, and Azilian
cultures followed the most advanced stage of the Neanderthal race
before its final disappearance. The list of tools and implements
indicates a widening scope of civilization. For war and chase and
fishing, for industry and domestic life, for art, sculpture, and
engraving, and for ceremonial use, a great variety of implements of
stone and bone survived the life of the races.
Spears, daggers, knives, arrowheads, fish-hooks, and harpoons;
hand-axes, drills, hammers, scrapers, planes, needles, pins, chisels,
wedges, gravers, etchers, mortars, and pilasters; ceremonial staffs and
wands--all are expressions of a fulness of industrial and social life
not recognized in earlier races. Indications of religious ceremonies
represent the changing mind, and the expression of mind in art suggests
increased mental power.
_Cultures Indicate the Mental Development of the Race_.--As the art and
industry to-day represent the mental processes of man, so did these
primitive cultures show the inventive skill and adaptive power in the
beginnings of progress. Perhaps instinct, emotion, and necessity
figured more conspicuously in the early period than reflective thought,
while in modern times we have more design and more planning, both in
invention and construction. Also the primitive social order was more
an unconscious development, and lacked purpose and directing power in
comparison with present life.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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