Introduction
About This Exhibition
In the first half of the 19th century, it became apparent that many animals that once lived on the earth were now extinct. There had been an age of primitive mammals, dominated by cave bears and mastodons, and before that an age of reptiles, with dinosaurs and large marine reptiles abounding, and before that an age of fishes, with no mammals, birds, or reptiles present. But, until 1859, humans were considered outside the realm of prehistory. It was generally thought that humans were a recent addition to the earth, perhaps 6000 years old, and were not contemporaries of mammoths and cave bears. Several discoveries in the 1830s and 1840s suggested to some that humans were ancient, but such claims were almost universally rejected.
Then, in 1859, the scientific world did a rapid about-face. The discovery of human tools, found alongside extinct animal remains, in a cave at Brixham, England, caused archaeologists to take another look at previous evidence for human antiquity, and to decide that the evidence was convincing after all. By 1870, the discoveries at Neanderthal (1856) and Engis (1833) had been re-evaluated and accepted as genuine, and new finds had been made at Cro-Magnon cave (1868) in southern France. New Neanderthal remains were found in France in the 1880s; in 1891, the most primitive human yet found, the so-called “Java man”, was unearthed in the East Indies. By the end of the century, even popular literature was displaying restoration scenes showing cave men fighting saber-toothed tigers, and human antiquity was a commonly accepted concept.
Our exhibition documents the discovery and the acceptance of human antiquity by displaying the books and journals in which the major discoveries were announced. There are 51 items in the exhibition. You may go through the exhibition item by item, or you may access the Index page, if you are looking for specific items. Either way, we hope you enjoy what you encounter.
This exhibition documents the discovery and the acceptance of human antiquity, by displaying the books and journals in which the major discoveries were announced. Highlights include:
- The first published images of the discoveries of Neanderthal man (1856), Cro-Magnon man (1868), Java man (1891), Heidelberg man (1908), Piltdown man (1912), and Rhodesian man (1921).
- The first stone tools that provided evidence of human antiquity, found at Hoxne in England (1797), Abbeville (1847) and Amiens (1859) in France, and Brixham Cave in England (1858).
- The earliest discovered examples of prehistoric art, in the form of engravings of animals on bone, found at Chaffaud (1852) and La Madeleine (1864).
- The discovery of the first cave paintings at Altamira in Spain (1879).
- A visual history of attempts to recreate the life of prehistoric humans, depicting the discovery of fire, battles with cave bears and mammoths, and the burial of the dead, with many examples from 1866 through 1919.
All of the books, journals, and objects on display are from the collections of the Linda Hall Library, unless otherwise stated.