Encyclopaedia of the Prehistoric Ruling Races

The Essays in this volume have been written to help those who are trying to trace the paths worn by the ruling races of the world through the tangled jungles of past time, and thus to learn the real history of the childhood of humanity during the ages when national life began its troubled journey towards its ultimate and, as yet, unseen goal. They call especial attention to the chronological data supplied by social laws and customs, mythic history and ritual, and prove that these when studied provide guiding marks from which we can deduce, even in ages which have been hitherto called prehistoric, the order in which the leading epochs of civilisation succeeded one another. The great discoverers who have distinguished the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages, and have brought before our eyes vivid pictures of infant civilized life entombed in the ancient cave dwellings, pile villages, burial-grounds, and ruined cities of these periods, have already proved that the history of the past, before national annals telling of the deeds of individual rulers and leaders of mankind began to be written, is not shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The essays establish clearly that most of ancient foundations laid by the first builders of society still survive in national laws and religion as supports of the more modern superstructures which have grown out of the rude but stable edifices of the Past. The primitive antiquity of these surviving relics of vanished races is proved by the study of their social laws and institutions, religious ritual, and the mythic tales which formed the earliest history, which also is the purpose of this work.