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1. French Drift.

II. 348.

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PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD.

2. English Drift. 3. French transition (Le Moustier). 4. French Cave Period. 5. English Cave Period.

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animal remains found in these pits belong to present geological | conditions, thus emphasizing what has been stated above, that the absence of polished implements is no evidence for great age. Many other factories have been found in Britain, in Ireland and on the continent of Europe: at Grovehurst in Kent, at Stourpaine near Blandford, at Whitepark Bay, county Antrim, and in Belgium at Spiennes. Among the North American Indians the method would seem to have been somewhat different. After journeying to the site of a suitable quality of stone, they did not always complete the implements on the spot, but made a number of oval chipped disks of good stone which they carried away and worked up into the required implements at their leisure. These disks bear a strong likeness to some of the ovate implements from the Drift in Europe; in fact, but for the difference of surface condition or patina, they would be identical.

able signs of human workmanship, but he described them merely as of "palaeolithic type," and deplored the absence of mammalian remains in the gravels. At the same time he pointed out that the bulk of the implements claimed as palaeolithic (and, it may be, correctly) are found on the surface, and therefore cannot be dissociated from the surface types; hence form alone cannot be trusted to determine age. Further, we are by no means well informed as to the value of patination in flints found on the surface in Egypt. The depth and intensity of the patination would no doubt have a direct relation to the age of the implement, if only it could be proved that all of them had been equally subjected to the conditions that produced the discoloration. But this is clearly impossible. Some implements may conceivably have been continuously on the surface of the desert from the time they were made, and have been acted upon by the sun and air for many thousands of years, while others, though of equal age, may have been covered by sand or otherwise protected for a large part of the intervening centuries. Patination, therefore, like form, can only claim a conditional value. It is at the best an uncertain indication of age, as great age may be possible without it. Similarly, in Somaliland, the condition of the implements is very curious, and in some respects puzzling, while their forms resemble those from the Drift in Europe. But as to the climatic conditions we know nothing, and it is therefore useless to speculate on the condition of the stones; as to the geology we know next to nothing, and no mammalian remains give us a helping hand, while the form alone is a dangerous foundation for argument.

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While the severe climatic conditions that preceded the neolithic age restricted the presence of man to the more temperate parts of the globe, it may be assumed that in neolithic times there was nothing to prevent him from occupying the greater part of the earth's surface, short of the neighbourhood of the two poles. Thus it may be expected that an age of stone will be found, if looked for, in every part of the globe. So far as our present knowledge goes, all is in favour of the use of stone before metals, in all countries. The one material requires no special treatment before being adapted to man's use, while the other demands considerable knowledge, even if reasoning power have but little place in the process. Thus the probabilities are here borne out by the facts. In the extensive" kitchen-middens" of Japan Investigations in the more remote parts of the world, though are found great numbers of chert implements mixed with pottery they may occasionally produce some startling novelty in the of a primitive type, recalling that of European early Bronze history of mankind, can scarcely be expected to Age barrows, while the succeeding periods of metal are equally furnish the same trustworthy continuous story as is to Europe clear. Even in the Far East, therefore, the same sequence is to be found in the European area. Here history provides America. be observed. In China, the conditions are more obscure. The us with a fairly truthful account of what has happened superstitious regard for ancestors has prevented the exploration for a period varying from two to three thousand years, or in of ancient tombs in that country, and thus systematic search some places even longer, and we are thus able to judge whether has been impossible, while the precise details of the discovery particular discoveries come into the historical stage or not. In of such relics as have come to light are difficult to obtain. In more primitive lands where history (if there be any) partakes spite of the assertion that China had no Stone Age, it is surely more of the character of mythical tradition, the task of defining more probable, in the absence of exact knowledge, that she fol- the period to which particular discoveries belong is rendered much lowed the normal course. Modern territorial divisions, more more difficult. In America, where history may be said to have especially if they are independent of the natural physical con- begun five hundred years ago, such a feat is of course impossible, ditions of the land, such as mountain ranges, great rivers and the until a great deal of work on comparative lines has been accomlike, have but little value in considering the race problems plished. The accounts of the civilization of Mexico and Peru at of remote ages. If, therefore, we find that, in the countries the time of the Spanish conquest show a state of culture which in bordering on what is now the Chinese empire, the ancient some respects must have put the Spaniards to shame, while in inhabitants followed the same broad lines of culture that are others it was primitive in the extreme. As regards internal evident elsewhere, it is easy to believe that China too was normal communications, the working of gold and copper, and the in this respect. The negroes and Bantu races of Africa also were manufacture and decoration of pottery, these American kingdoms thought to have passed direct to the use of iron, perhaps owing were on a level with all but the most advanced nations; but of to the existence on the Nile of a civilization of great antiquity, history in the true sense of the word they have none. In spite which enabled them to pass over the intervening stages. In- of this, it is by no means a hopeless task to disentangle the herently improbable, this is now known not to have been the apparent confusion of their archaeology. It is now fairly well case. Stone implements, whether ground or merely chipped, known what were the races or tribes that inhabited particular have been discovered on the Congo, and more recently on the districts, and it is thus easy to make a corpus of the types adopted Zambezi. It is quite true that in both cases they are found in by the various peoples. This is the first certain step in the superficial deposits, and may be of any age. But here again the application of archaeological method. By degrees, as these probabilities are greatly in favour of their having been in use types become familiar to the trained eye, it will not be difficult before iron was known. While stone tools, such as knives or to arrange them in a progressive series, from the earliest in style arrow-heads, may possess qualities that render them superior to to the latest. That this will be done by the archaeologists of the bronze or copper, it is certain that once the working of iron was American continent, even with the present scanty materials, understood, its superiority to stone would at once be perceived, there can be little doubt. Numbers of young and enthusiastic and the stone tools be discarded. There can be little doubt that workers have now had a good training in exploration in historical investigations in Central Africa will demonstrate that the same lands, and will usefully employ their experience on the antiquities course was followed there as elsewhere. In South Africa, in of their own country. But if once a key be found to the ancient Egypt and in Somaliland large quantities of stone implements Mexican inscriptions, so plentifully scattered through the have been discovered, and of the great age of most of them there ancient monuments, it may be that enlightenment will come can be no doubt. Some from the banks of the Nile have even even more suddenly and more surely. The one problem that is been claimed as eolithic "; but here, as in Europe, we can of the greatest interest still awaits solution, viz. whether there only say that the case is not proven: General Pitt-Rivers did is any relation, in culture or more remotely in race, between the good service in Egypt by discovering among the stratified inhabitants of ancient America and those of Europe or Asia. gravels near Thebes a number of rude flints bearing unmistake-One thing is certain, that if there be any connexion, it is of

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