Secrets of Earth and Sea

In 1920, the great zoologist E. Ray Lankester turned his formidable mind to the deepest questions of human history. This collection of essays begins with a startling claim: the earliest known picture in the world, carved on a red deer's antler in a French cavern, proves our ancestors were not primitive savages but artists possessed of genuine vision. Lankester sweeps through millennia of natural history, from the slow drama of species evolution to the geological forces that shaped our world. He argues fiercely that we have underestimated prehistoric peoples, that their art was no mere scratching but a genuine creative impulse, as sophisticated in its way as anything we produce today. These elegant pieces, written for the curious layperson, bridge the gap between hard science and philosophical reflection. Here is a scientist who believes the study of ancient antlers and cave walls tells us not just about the past, but about what it means to be human.