THE STORY OF MANKIND
By HENDRIK VAN LOON
Copyright 1922, by The Chrisly-Walsh Syndicate. By Arrangement with Bonitf Liveright, Inc.
OUR EARLIEST ANCESTORS
We know very little about the
first “true” men. We have never
seen their picture. In the deepest
layer of clay of an ancient soil
we have sometimes found pieces
of their bones. These lay buried
amidst the broken skeletons of
other animals that have long since
disappeared from the face of the
earth. Anthropologists (learned
scientists who devote their lives
to the study of man as a member
of the animal kingdom) have
taken these bones and they have
been able to reconstruct our
earliest ancestors with a fair de
gree of accuracy.
I he great-great-grandfather of
the human race was a very ugly
and unattractive mammal. He
was quite small, much smaller
than the people of today. The
heat of the sun and the biting
wind of the cold winter had
colored his skin a dark brown.
His head and most of his body,
his arms and legs too, were cover
ed with long, coarse hair. He
had very thin but strong fingers
which made his hands look like
those of a monkey. His forehead
was low and his jaw was like the
jaw of a wild animal which uses
its teeth both as fork and knife.
He wore no clothes. He had seen
no fire except the flames of the
rumbling volcanos which filled the
earth with their smoke and their
lava.
He lived in the damp blackness
of vast forests, as the pygmies of
* Africa do to this very day. When
he felt the pangs of hunger he ate
raw leaves and the roots of plants
or he took the eggs away from an
angry bird and fed them to his
own young. Once in a while,
after a long and patient chase, he
would catch a sparrow or a small
wild dog or perhaps a rabbit.
These he would eat raw for he had
never discovered that food tasted
better when it was cooked. ,
During the hours of day, this
primitive human being prowled
about looking for things to eat.
When night descended upon the
earth, he hid his wife and his
children in a hollow tree or be
hind some heavy boulders, for he
was surrounded on all sides by
ferocious animals and when it
was dark these animals began to
prowl about, looking for some
thing to eat for their mates and
their own young, and they liked
the taste of human beings. It
was a world where you must
either eat or be eaten, and life
was very unhappy because it was
full of fear and misery.
summer, man was exposed to
the scorching rays of the sun, and
during the winter his children
would freeze to death in his arms.
When such a creature hurt itself
(and hunting animals are forever
breaking their bones or spraining
their ankles), he had no one to
take care of him and he must die
a horrible death.
Like many of the animals who
fill the Zoo with their strange
noises, early man liked to jabber.
That is to say, he endlessly re
peated the same unintelligible
gibberish because it pleased him
to hera the sound of his voice. In
due time he learned that he could
use this guttural noise to warn
his fellow beings whenever danger
threatened and he gave certain
little shrieks which came to mean
“there is a tiger!” or “here come
five elephants.” Then the others
grunted something back at him
and their growl meant, “I see
them,” or “let us run away and
hide.”. And this was probably
the origin of all language.
But, as I have.said before, of
these begings we know so very
little. Early man had no tools
and he built himself no houses.
He lived and died and left noj
trace of his existence except a
few collar-bones and a few pieces
of his skull. These tell us that
many thousands of years ago the
world was inhabited by certain
mammals who were quite differ
ent from all the other animals—
who had probably developed from
another unknown ape-like animal
which had learned to walk on its
hind-legs and use its fore-paws as
hands—and who were most prob
ably connected with the creatures
who happen to be our own im
mediate ancestors.
It is little enough we know and
the rest is darkness.
Then, one morning, a number
of wild people, different from the
other creatures who lived in that
neighborhood, came wandering
down from the region of the high
peaks. They looked lean and ap
peared to be starving. They ut
tered sounds which no one could
understand. They seemed to say
that they were hungry. There
was not food enough for both the
old inhabitants and the new
comers. When they tried to stay
more than a few days there was
a terrible battle with claw-like
hands and feet and whole families
were killed. The others fled back
mer for he has managed to sur
vive the terrible glacial periods
which upon four different oc
casions threatened to kill every
human being on the face of the
earth.
In the first place it was neces
sary that man clothe himself lest
he freeze to death. He learned
how to dig holes and cover them
with branches and leaves and in
these traps he caught bears and
hyenas, which he then killed with
heavy stones and whose skins he
used as coats for himself and his
family.
Next came the housing problem.
This was simple. Many animals
were in the habit of sleeping in
dark caves. Man now followed
their example, drove the animals
out of their warm homes and
and claimed them for his own.
Even so, the climate was too
severe for most people and the
old and the young died at a ter
rible rate. Then a genius be- i
thought himself of the use of fire.
He remembered that he had been
PREHISTORIC EUROPE
PREHISTORIC MAN BEGINS
TO MAKE THINGS FOR
HIMSELF
Early man did not know what
time meant. He kept no records
of birthdays or wedding anniver
saries or th ehour of death. He
had no idea of days or weeks or
even years. But in a general way
he kept track of the seasons for
he had noticed that the cold
winter was invariably followed by
the mild spring—that spring grew
into the hot summer when fruits
ripened and the wild ears of corn
were ready to be eaten and that
summer ended when sudden gusts
ofwind swept the leaves from the
trees and a number of animals
were getting ready for the long
hibernal sleep.
But now, something, unusual
aiiu rather frightening had hap
pened. Something was the mat
ter with the weather. The warm
days of summer had come very
late. The fruits had not ripened.
The tops of the mountains which
used to be covered with grass now
lay deeply hidden underneath a
heavy burden of snow.
to their mountain slopes and died
in the next blizzard.
But the people in the forest
were greatly frightened. All the
time the days grew shorter and
the nights grew colder than they
ought to have been.
Finally, in a gap between two
high hills, there appeared a tiny
speck of greenish ice. Rapidly it
increased in size. A gigantic
glacier came sliding down hill.
Huge stones were being pushed
into the valley. With the noise of
a dozen thunderstorms torrents of
ice and mud and blocks of granite
suddenly tumbled among the peo
ple of the forest and killed them
while they slept. Century old
trees were crushed into kindling
wood. And then it began to snow.
It snowed for months and
months. All the plants died and
the animals fled in search of the
southern sun. Man hoisted his
young upon his back and followed
them. But he could not travel as
fast as the wilder creatures and
he was forced to choose between
quick thinking or quick dying. He
seems to have preferred the for
almost roasted to death by the
flames. Thus far ' fire had been
an enemy. Now it became a
friend. A dead tree was dragged
nto the cave and lighted by means
of smouldering branches from a
burning wood. This turned the
cave into a cozy little room.
And then one evening a dead
chicken fell into the fire. It was
not rescued until it had been well
roasted. Man discovered that
meat tasted better when cooked
and he then and there discarded
one of the old habits which he had
shared with the other animals
and began to prepare his food.
In this way thousands of years
passed. Only the people with the
cleverest brains survived. They
had to struggle day and night
against cold and hunger. They
were forced to invent tools. They
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learned bow to sharpen stones
into axes and how to make ham
mers. They were obliged to put
up large stores of food for the
endless days of the winter and
they found that clay could be
made into bowls and jars and
hardened in the rays of the sun.
And so the, glacial period, which
had threatened to destroy the
human race, became its greatest
teacher because it forced man to
use his brain.
(To Be Continued)
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