10 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



French archaeologists to the first would be assigned in England to 

 the second Stone Age. 



With this advancement in culture, that of the physical man 

 must have gone on hand in hand. Hence it seems a reasonable 

 assumption to suppose that even before the close of palaeolithic 

 times all the great divisions of mankind had already 

 Division" mary b een specialised in their several geographical areas, 

 specialised in In any case we may safely conclude that the existing 



pre-Neolithic . ..... ...... 



Times. primary varieties had been everywhere fully consti- 



tuted in that intermediate period between the Old 

 and New Stone Ages, which archaeologists have found it so 

 difficult accurately to determine, and in which some have even 

 imagined a complete break or " hiatus ", separating the two periods 

 by an undefined interval of time. 



No such interval is conceivable everywhere, else we should 

 have to suppose, not only that the natural history of the human 

 species began again with the dawn of neolithic times, but also that 

 this fresh start from nothing was made not by one generalised but 

 by many highly specialised forms, not (on the creative assumption) 

 by one pair planted in one region, but by several pairs or groups 

 dotted in convenient localities over the face of the globe. Even 

 for Europe no break of continuity is now admitted by the best 

 observers, and Sir W. Turner, amongst others, assumes that 

 " when Neolithic man reached Western Europe he in all likelihood 

 found his Palaeolithic predecessor settled there, and a greater or 

 less degree of fusion took place between them." 



Assuming therefore that the evolution of the human species 

 was practically completed in all its fulness some 



Duration of 



the New stone time before the beginning of the New Stone Age, 



A.~c 



we may perhaps form some approximately accurate 

 notion of the date to which, not the pliocene and pleistocene 

 forerunners, but their specialised late palaeolithic descendants 

 may be referred. I have already ventured to suggest a period of 

 about 100,000 years for the duration of the Post-Pleistocene 

 epoch, which largely coincides with the New Stone Age 2 . 

 Those who may have felt inclined to look on this as a somewhat 



1 Nature, Jan. 13, 1898, p.- 259. Etli. p. 55. 



