Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel

Part IV. Conclusions

WE come now to another and very interesting question:

In what stage of development was mankind when the Drift fell upon the earth?

It is, of course, difficult to attain to certainties in the consideration of an age so remote as this. We are, as it were, crawling upon our hands and knees into the dark cavern of an abysmal past; we know not whether that which we encounter is a stone or a bone; we can only grope our way. I feel, however, that it is proper to present such facts as I possess touching this curious question.

The conclusion at which I have arrived is, that mankind, prior to the Drift, had, in some limited localities, reached a high stage of civilization, and that many of our most important inventions and discoveries were known in the pre-glacial age. Among these were pottery, metallurgy, architecture, engraving, Carving, the use of money, the domestication of some of our animals, and even the use of an alphabet. I shall present the proofs of this startling conclusion, and leave the reader to judge for himself.

While this civilized, cultivated race occupied a part of the earth's surface, the remainder of the world was peopled by races more rude, barbarous, brutal, and animal-like than anything we know of on our earth today.

In the first place, I shall refer to the legends of mankind, wherein they depict the condition of our race in the pre-glacial time. If these statements stood alone, we might dismiss them from consideration, for there would be a strong probability that later ages, in repeating the legends, would attribute to their remote ancestors the civilized advantages which they themselves enjoyed; but it will be seen that these statements are confirmed by the remains of man which have been dug out of the earth, and upon which we can rely to a much greater extent.

First, as to the legends:

If I have correctly interpreted Job as a religious drama, founded on the fall of the Drift, then we must remember that Job describes the people overtaken by the catastrophe as a highly civilized race. They had passed the stage of worshiping sticks and stones and idols, and had reached to a knowledge of the one true God; they were agriculturists; they raised flocks of sheep and camels; they built houses; they had tamed the horse; they had progressed so far in astronomical knowledge as to have mapped out the heavens into constellations; they wrote books, consequently they possessed an alphabet; they engraved inscriptions upon the rocks.