DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0016
Xll
PKEFAGE.
dolmens have been dug up and photographed, so that their age is
no longer aoubtful, and others, as archaic in form as any, are found
belonging to reigning families of chiefs, and still used by them. Last,
not least, Dr. Schliemann’s explorations at Hissarlik have deprived
the prehistoric advocates of one of their most plausible arguments.
At a depth of 8^ metres from the surface he found the remains of a
walled city, with paved streets, and rich in gold, silver, and copper,
with their alloys electron and bronze, and every sign of a high
civilization. Above this, through four or five metres of successive
deposits, indicating probably a duration of twice as many centuries,
no trace of metal was found, but, as he expresses, an “ ungeheure
menge,” and, in another place, a “kolossale menge,” an unlimited
number of rude stone implements of every sort. Above this again, the
remains of the Greek city of Ilium JSTovum.
If this were the case in Asia Minor in historic times, it is in vain
to argue that, when the imported civilization of the Romans passed
away, the Britons may not have returned to their old faith and old
practices, ancl adhered to them till a new conquest and a new faith
led to their being finally abandoned. It may, or it may not, have been
so, but till some better argument than has yet been brought forward
is adduced to prove that it was not so, the a priori argument of im-
probability will not now avail much. Whenever the facts, as stated
in the ‘ Rude Stone Monuments,’ are admitted, or any better set of
conclusions substituted for them, their history may be added as a fifth
volume to this work. Till then, people must be content with the
hazy nihilism of the prehistoric myth.
PKEFAGE.
dolmens have been dug up and photographed, so that their age is
no longer aoubtful, and others, as archaic in form as any, are found
belonging to reigning families of chiefs, and still used by them. Last,
not least, Dr. Schliemann’s explorations at Hissarlik have deprived
the prehistoric advocates of one of their most plausible arguments.
At a depth of 8^ metres from the surface he found the remains of a
walled city, with paved streets, and rich in gold, silver, and copper,
with their alloys electron and bronze, and every sign of a high
civilization. Above this, through four or five metres of successive
deposits, indicating probably a duration of twice as many centuries,
no trace of metal was found, but, as he expresses, an “ ungeheure
menge,” and, in another place, a “kolossale menge,” an unlimited
number of rude stone implements of every sort. Above this again, the
remains of the Greek city of Ilium JSTovum.
If this were the case in Asia Minor in historic times, it is in vain
to argue that, when the imported civilization of the Romans passed
away, the Britons may not have returned to their old faith and old
practices, ancl adhered to them till a new conquest and a new faith
led to their being finally abandoned. It may, or it may not, have been
so, but till some better argument than has yet been brought forward
is adduced to prove that it was not so, the a priori argument of im-
probability will not now avail much. Whenever the facts, as stated
in the ‘ Rude Stone Monuments,’ are admitted, or any better set of
conclusions substituted for them, their history may be added as a fifth
volume to this work. Till then, people must be content with the
hazy nihilism of the prehistoric myth.