The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man
With Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation

This work of 1863 synthesises the then existing evidence for the earliest humans.

Charles Lyell (Author)

9781108003971, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

544 pages, 18 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.1 cm, 0.68 kg

Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875) is remembered today as much for his profound influence on the young Charles Darwin as for his own work as a geologist: Darwin read the three volumes of his Principles of Geology (1830–3) as they came out, and was greatly interested in Lyell's theory of the huge effects over geological time of an accumulation of tiny, almost unobservable changes. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man was published in 1863, and went into three editions in that year alone. The work synthesises the then existing evidence for the earliest humans in Europe and North America and – as indicated by its subtitle, With Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation – discusses Darwin's theory and 'the bearing of this hypothesis on the different races of mankind and their connection with other parts of the animal kingdom.'

1. Introduction
2. Recent period
3. Fossil human remains and works of art of the recent period
4. Post-pliocene period
5. Post-pliocene period
6. Post-pliocene alluvium and cave deposits with flint implements
7. Peat and post-pliocene alluvium of the valley of the Somme
8. Post-pliocene alluvium with flint implements of the valley of the Somme (concluded)
9. Works of art in Post-pliocene alluvium of France and England
10. Cavern deposits and place of sepulture of the post-pliocene period
11. Age of human fossils of Le Puy in central France and of Natchez on the Mississippi, discussed
12. Antiquity of man relatively to the glacial period and to the existing flora and fauna
13. Chronological relations of the glacial period and the earliest signs of man's appearance in Europe
14. Chronological relations of the glacial period and the earliest signs of man's appearance in Europe (continued)
15. Extinct glaciers of the Alps and their chronological relation to the human period
16. Human remains in the loess, and their probable age
17. Post-glacial dislocations and foldings of the cretaceous and drift strata in the island of Moen, in Denmark
18. The glacial period in North America
19. Recapitulation of geological proofs of man's antiquity
20. Theories of progression and transmutation
21. On the origin of species by variation and natural selection
22. Objections to the hypothesis of transmutation considered
23. Origin and development of languages and species compared
24. Bearing of the doctrine of transmutation on the origin of man, and his place in the creation
Index.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]