''Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man'' is a book written by British geologist, Charles Lyell in 1863. The first three editions appeared in February, April, and November 1863, respectively. A much-revised fourth edition appeared in 1873. ''Antiquity of Man'', as it was known to contemporary readers, dealt with three scientific issues that had become prominent in the preceding decade: the age of the human race, the existence of

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

s, and

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

's theory of

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

. Lyell used the book to reverse or modify his own long-held positions on all three issues. The book drew sharp criticism from two of Lyell's younger colleagues – paleontologist

Hugh Falconer Hugh Falconer MD FRS (29 February 1808 – 31 January 1865) was a Scottish geologist, botanist, palaeontologist, and paleoanthropologist. He studied the flora, fauna, and geology of India, Assam,Burma,and most of the Mediterranean islands a ...

and archaeologist John Lubbock – who felt that Lyell had used their work too freely and acknowledged it too sparingly. It sold well, however, and (along with Lubbock's 1865 book ''Prehistoric Times'') helped to establish the new science of

prehistoric archaeology Prehistoric archaeology is a subfield of archaeology, which deals specifically with artefacts, civilisations and other materials from societies that existed before any form of writing system or historical record. Often the field focuses on ages ...

in Great Britain.

Background

Lyell had been consistently skeptical of evidence for high

human antiquity The discovery of human antiquity was a major achievement of science in the middle of the 19th century, and the foundation of scientific paleoanthropology. The antiquity of man, human antiquity, or in simpler language the age of the human race, ar ...

since the early 1830s, and distanced himself from the theory of ice ages after a brief flirtation with it in the early 1840s. He had attacked the evolutionary ideas of

Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck (; ), was a French naturalist, biologist, academic, and soldier. He was an early proponent of the idea that biolo ...

in detail in his book ''

Principles of Geology ''Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation'' is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell that was first published in 3 volumes from 1830–1833. Ly ...

''. New developments in all three areas forced him to reconsider these positions in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and became the subject matter for ''Antiquity of Man''.

Content

The section about man summed up the evidence for human antiquity that had been brought to light by British geologists in 1858-59, and integrated it with archaeological evidence from the Paleolithic,

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

, and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

. The section about glaciation integrated continental ice ages into the larger picture of the

Quaternary Period The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

that Lyell had built up in his earlier works. The section about evolution recapitulated Darwin's arguments and endorsed them, though not enthusiastically. It acknowledged that human bodies might have evolved, but left open the possibility of divine intervention in the origins of human intellect and moral sense.

Controversy

Hugh Falconer, a key player in the establishment of human antiquity, charged that Lyell – a minor player in the process – had misleadingly cast himself in the lead while ignoring the contributions of others. He raised his charges in the pages of the weekly journal ''The Athenaeum'', and pressed them with a vehemence that some of his colleagues found distasteful. John Lubbock, a young but rising scientific star and a member of Darwin's inner circle, charged that Lyell had incorporated large amounts of material that Lubbock had published in articles and was then reworking into a book of his own. His criticism was largely private, but well known in the scientific circles in which both moved. Lyell gradually changed the text of ''Antiquity of Man'' to blunt some of their criticisms, but throughout the process held that he had been wrongly accused.

Impact

''Antiquity of Man'' had its greatest impact in the years immediately after its publication. Lyell's presentation and endorsement of the new evidence for

firmly established the theory as scientific orthodoxy. His integration of both ice ages and a very old human race into the (geologically) recent history of the Earth was novel for its time, as was his presentation of archaeological data that from continental Europe. Until the early 1860s, "archaeology" had been synonymous, in England, with the study of antiquity and the Middle Ages through artifacts. ''Antiquity of Man'' expanded it to include the study of

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...

.A. Bowdoin Van Riper, ''Men Among the Mammoths'' (Chicago, 1993). The book's three-part structure meant, however, that it was quickly supplanted by more detailed works that followed in its wake. Lubbock's ''Prehistoric Times'' (1865), Darwin's ''

The Descent of Man ''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biol ...

'' (1871), James Archibald Geike's ''The Great Ice Age'' (1874) and

William Boyd Dawkins Sir William Boyd Dawkins (26 December 183715 January 1929) was a British geologist and archaeologist. He was a member of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Curator of the Manchester Museum and Professor of Geology at Owens College, Man ...

' ''Early Man in Britain'' (1880) became the standard works on the fields to which Lyell had introduced a generation of mid-Victorian readers.

References

External links

4th edition of Antiquity of man
at Google books *
Special Publication
of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...