- Machairodus, the Sabre-toothed Tiger
- Magdaleneian Carved Ivory Harpoon-thrower
- Magdaleneian Carved Ivory Harpoon-thrower
- Magdalenian Carved Ivory Dagger
- Magdalenian Carved Ivory Dagger
- Magdalenian Cave Painting
- Magdalenian Cave Painting
- Magdalenian Painting
- Magdalenian Painting
- Making Fire
- Making Fire
- Making Fire 2
- Making Fire 2
- Making Grass Rope
- Making Grass Rope
- Making of bone needles
- Making of bone needles
- Mammoth
- Mammoth Hunt
To pierce the skin of one of the large animals, such as a mastodon or mammoth, the hunters had to be close to the powerful beast. They hurled or jabbed their spears at the animal, and tried to confuse and immobilize their prey. Perhaps several hunters surrounded an isolated animal waving their arms and distracting it while one or two others speared it. If the animal was wounded, the hunters would have tracked it until it became very weak or went to water to drink. Even a mastodon, wounded and exhausted, or mired in the mud of a shallow lake, would have been relatively easy game for a small group of experienced hunters. - Map of Europe 50,000 Years Ago
Possible Map of Europe 50,000 Years Ago - Miocene Mammals
The Miocene (with living species still in a minority) was the great age of mountain building, and the general temperature was falling. - molars of elephants
The crowns of three "grinders" or molars of elephants compared. a is that of an extinct mastodon with four transverse ridges; b is that of the African elephant with nine ridges in use and ground flat; c is that of the mammoth with sixteen narrow ridges in use—the rest, some eight in number, are at the left hand of the figure and not yet in use. - Morphology and principal parts of trilobites
- Mousterian Spear-head
- Mousterian Spear-head
- Mousterians on the march
- Mousterians on the march
- Myotragus
Drawing of the skull of the rat-toothed goat, Myotragus—the new extinct beast discovered in limestone fissures in the island of Majorca by Miss Bate. 1. Side view of the skull and lower jaw. 2. Appearance of the two rat-like teeth as seen when the end of the lower jaw is viewed from above. - Nature's Four Methods of Making a Wing - Bat, Pteryodactyl, Archæopteryx, and Modern Bird
Nature's Four Methods of Making a Wing - Bat, Pteryodactyl, Archæopteryx, and Modern Bird - Nautilus
A section through the Pearly Nautilus, Nautilus pompilius, common from Malay to Fiji. The shell is often about 9 inches long. The animal lives in the last chamber only, but a tube (S) runs through the empty chambers, perforating the partitions (SE). The bulk of the animal is marked VM; the eye is shown at E; a hood is marked H; round the mouth there are numerous lobes (L) bearing protrusible tentacles, some of which are shown. When the animal is swimming near the surface the tentacles radiate out in all directions, and it has been described as "a shell with something like a cauliflower sticking out of it." The Pearly Nautilus is a good example of a conservative type, for it began in the Triassic Era. But the family of Nautiloids to which it belongs illustrates very vividly what is meant by a dwindling race. The Nautiloids began in the Cambrian, reached their golden age in the Silurian, and began to decline markedly in the Carboniferous. There are 2,500 extinct or fossil species of Nautiloids, and only 4 living to-day. - Neanderthal Man
They probably used a multitude and variety of wooden implements also; they had probably learnt much about the shapes of objects and the use of different shapes from wood, knowledge which they afterwards applied to stone; but none of this wooden material has survived; we can only speculate about its forms and uses. As the weather hardened to its maximum of severity, the Neanderthal men, already it would seem acquainted with the use of fire, began to seek shelter under rock ledges and in caves—and so leave remains behind them. Hitherto they had been accustomed to squat in the open about the fire, and near their water supply. But they were sufficiently intelligent to adapt themselves to the new and harder conditions. - Neanderthaler or Mousterian
- Neanderthaler or Mousterian
- Neolithic Implements
Finally, perhaps as early as 3000 years ago in Europe, and even{v1-107} earlier in Asia Minor, men began to smelt iron. Once smelting was known to men, there is no great marvel in the finding of iron. They smelted iron by blowing up a charcoal fire, and wrought it by heating and hammering. They produced it at first in comparatively small pieces; its appearance worked a gradual revolution{v1-108} in weapons and implements; but it did not suffice to change the general character of men’s surroundings. Much the same daily life that was being led by the more settled Neolithic men 10,000 years ago was being led by peasants in out-of-the-way places all over Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. People talk of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age in Europe, but it is misleading to put these ages as if they were of equal importance in history. Much truer is it to say that there was: (1) An Early Palæolithic Age, of vast duration; (2) a Later Palæolithic Age, that lasted not a tithe of the time; and (3) the Age of Cultivation, the age of the white men in Europe, which began 10,000 or at most 12,000 years ago, of which the Neolithic Period was the beginning, and which is still going on. - Neolithic or New Stone Age Man
The Neolithic or New Stone Age: Circa 10,000 B.C. The people of this period constituted a fifth race of mankind, of moderate stature and slender proportions. Those who resided on the western side of the island now known as Great Britain were dark, and of the Iberian type. Those on the eastern side were fair, and very like the Gauls. - Ornithischian dinosaurs - Paleoscincus
- Ornithischian dinosaurs - Stegosaurus
- Ornithischian dinosaurs - Trachodon
- Ornithischian dinosaurs - Triceratops
- Outline Restorations of Dinosaurs
Outline Restorations of Dinosaurs - Outline sketch restoration of Triceratops
Outline sketch restoration of Triceratops, from the mounted skeleton in the National Museum. - Oval Implement
- Palæolithic Men Attacking Cave Bear
- Palæomastodon
Restored model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral elephant Palæomastodon from the upper Eocene strata of the Fayoum Desert, Egypt. It shows the six molar teeth of the upper and lower jaw (left side), the tusk-like upper incisors and the large chisel-like lower incisors in front. - Pariasaurus - An Extinct Vegetarian Triassic Reptile
Total length about 9 feet. (Remains found in Cape Colony, South Africa.) - Pelycosaur
- Perforated Wolfès Fang, from Ivinghoe Beacon
- Peripatus novæ zealandiæ
A, Peripatus novæ zealandiæ.—After Sedgwick, from Lang. B, Peripatus capensis, side view, enlarged about twice the natural size.—After Moseley, from Balfour. C, Anatomy of Peripatus capensis. The enteric canal behind the pharynx has been removed. g, brain; a, antenna; op, oral or slime papillæ; sd, slime gland; sr, slime reservoir, which at the same time acts as a duct to the gland; so4, so5, so6, so9, nephridia of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th pairs of limbs; cd, elongated coxal gland of the last pair of feet; go, genital aperture; an, anus; ph, pharynx; n, longitudinal trunk of the nervous system.—After Balfour, from Lang. D, Portion of the body of Peripatus capensis opened to show the scattered tufts of tracheæ (tr); v, v, ventral nerve cords.—After Moseley. - Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene
Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene From a Drawing by Charles R. Knight Most recent in point of discovery, but oldest in point of time, are the giant birds from Patagonia, which are burdened with the name of Phororhacidæ, a name that originated in an error, although the error may well be excused. The first fragment of one of these great birds to come to light was a portion of the lower jaw, and this was so massive, so un-bird-like, [149]that the finder dubbed it Phororhacos, and so it must remain. - Phytosaur - Crocodile like reptile
- Piltdown Man making Flint Implement
- Pithecanthropos Erectus
The first race of Man (circa 550,000 B.c.) is called the "Pithecanthropos Erectus," or Ape Man. They were powerfully built individuals, with low foreheads, prominent bony ridges above the eyes, and retreating chins. Their forearms were heavy and clumsy, their thigh-bones bent and their shin-bones short, so they must have been bow-legged and awkward in gait. This type of human being became differentiated from animals because development of the faculty of primitive speech enabled them to sustain thought and created memory. - Pithecanthropus, the Sub-man of Java
- Poise of the Mousterian Man
- Pottery from Lake Dwellings
The milk, if they did use it (and, no doubt, in that case sour curdled milk also, but not well-made cheese and butter), they must have kept in earthenware pots, for they had pottery, though it was roughly hand-made pottery and not the shapely product of the potter’s wheel. - Prehistoric carving
In short, the prehistoric carvings are from the hands of men who were neither beginners nor blunderers in their art. The practised skill of a modern wood engraver would scarcely exceed in firmness and decision, nor in evident rapidity of execution, the outline of the animals in the example which is here engraved. - Prehistoric carving of the Mammoth
Incised upon a piece of mammoth ivory, are outlines of the mammoth itself. The original, rather more than nine inches in length, is at Paris in the museum of the Jardin des plantes. - Prehistoric Men Attacking the Great Cave Bears
- Prehistoric Whistle
A musical relic has recently been exhumed in the department of Dordogne in France, which was constructed in an age when the fauna of France included the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth, the hyæna, the bear, and the cave-lion. It is a small bone somewhat less than two inches in length, in which is a hole, evidently bored by means of one of the little flint knives which men used before acquaintance with the employment of metal for tools and weapons. Many of these flints were found in the same place with the bones. Only about half a dozen of the bones, of which a considerable number have been exhumed, possess the artificial hole. - Primitive Amphibian