Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man
| Author | Charles Lyell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
|
Publication date
|
1863 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & E-book |
| Pages | c.300 pp (May change depending on the publisher and the size of the text) |
| Text | at |
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 ages, and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. 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 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 in Great Britain.
Lyell had been consistently skeptical of evidence for high human antiquity 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 in detail in his book Principles of Geology. 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.
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, and Bronze Age.
The section about glaciation integrated continental ice ages into the larger picture of the Quaternary Period that Lyell had built up in his earlier works.
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