Man's Beginnings
Early Man : A Survey of Human Origins. By Alan Houghton Brodrick. (Hutchinson. 18s.)
THE effort to elucidate the story of man's beginning has always proved enthralling to his descendants. The first chapters of Genesis, indeed, are an early example of a heroic attempt to account for the facts as then known, that is to say without the scientific knowledge we possess today. Of recent years there have appeared not a few volumes dealing with various aspects of the problem. Some are more particularly concerned with the succession of prehistoric cultures which followed one another in different parts of the world. Others, like the present one, are more especially interested in the evolution of man himself. It is natural for human beings at all periods to wonder whence they came and whither they are going ; and when the known record is necessarily so imperfect the placing together of the few parts of the jigsaw that have been recovered to make a clear and consistent picture-story has a fascination of its own. Unconsciously, perhaps, the interest is almost theological or philosophical.
The study is a new one and still incomplete. How much will its conclusions help in answering the age-old problem of the relation- ship between Nature, man and God ? No more completely, of course, than will the conclusions supplied by the anthropologist or the psychologist. But it is true that the prehistorian who is soaked in his subject does develop a somewhat special outlook on life—even if the difference is rather one of emphasis than of kind. He views our present problems with a sense of proportion.
Early Man does not pretend to give the whole story of our pre- historic past, even in outline. The author is concerned with " the physical origin of man," the pursuit of which takes him to all the continents in turn. For each he gives brief accounts of the material cultures and skeletons or bones which have been recovered, sum- marising his subject-matter in a synopsis of chapters at the end of the book, where there are also two pages of " conclusions." There is also a final chapter called Art and Life, where mention is made of the " home " and " cave " art and a brief account given of the newly-discovered cave of Lascaux in France, where during the war years some of the first Aurignacian paintings yet known were found, which have considerably changed our ideas on the so-called phase I of the Upper Palaeolithic art. There are a number of good illustrations of skulls and of paintings. The book brings together much material in a small compass. It will be more useful to the student who knows something about the subject than to the absolute beginner. It is as well got up and of its kind well conceived.
MILES Butourr.
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