The Meeting-Place of Geology and HistoryDawson, John William, Sir
Religion
The Meeting-Place of Geology and History
Dawson, John William, Sir
Deluge; Prehistoric peoples
Finally, what relation does the record in Genesis x. bear to the
prehistoric peoples of the neanthropic age? These must have been in the
main the advanced colonists and straggling adventurers of the leading
lines of migration. We find such people recorded in the Pentateuch, and
also in the caverns and shelters of Phœnicia, as preceding the
Canaanites in Syria; and such nomads and hunters must have streamed out
into Europe and Africa in advance of the more settled and slowly
advancing agricultural peoples. At first they must have been few, rude,
and users of stone implements only, living chiefly by hunting and
fishing; but some of them may have taken with them domestic animals and
seeds of grains, and so have established here and there civilised
communities. In later times, new colonists and commerce introduced among
them bronze and iron and more advanced arts. Thus these early
neanthropic peoples belonged to one or other of the great lines of
migration indicated in our old record; though by virtue of physical
changes and dialectic differences induced by isolation and new
conditions of life, and which in such circumstances would arise with a
rapidity unexampled in later times, as well as the want of historical
annals, it has in many cases become difficult or impossible precisely to
trace their affinities. Even in Palestine, at the time of the Exodus,
peoples of this kind (Horites, Avvites, &c.)[82] were known, whose
affinities had been lost; and it is not necessary to suppose that these
were remnants of antediluvians, since what we know in modern times of
the wanderers on the outskirts of great migrations sufficiently accounts
for their existence.
This is, I think, a fair summary of the testimony of the writer of
Genesis x., as compared with the general evidence of history and
archæology. But we have something further to learn from what may be
called the fossil remains of prehistoric peoples as embodied in the
Egyptian monuments, which are conversant with all the nations around the
eastern end of the Mediterranean.
The Egyptians divided the nations known to them into four groups, of
which they have given us several representations in tombs and public
buildings. One of these consisted of their own race. The other three
were as follows: (1) Southern peoples mostly of dark complexions,
ranging from light brown to black. These included the Cushites, Punites,
and negroes. (2) Western peoples mostly of fair complexions inhabiting
the islands and northern coasts of the Mediterranean, the 'Hanebu' or
chiefs of the north or of the isles, with some populations of North
Africa, the so-called white Lybians and Maxyans. (3) Northern or
north-eastern peoples, or those of Syria and the neighbouring parts of
Western Asia, Amorites, Hittites, Edomites, Arabs, &c., usually
represented as of yellowish complexion.
[82] Deuteronomy ii.
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