318 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 



Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and consequently 

 Aryan. But we cannot suppose the people of the 

 pile-dwellings of Switzerland to have been speakers 

 of primitive Greco-Latin (if ever there was such 

 a language). And if the Gauls were the first 

 speakers of Celtic who got into Switzerland, what 

 Aryan language can the people of the pile-dwell- 

 ings have spoken? * 



As I have alreadv mentioned, there is not the 

 least doubt that man existed in north-western 

 Europe during the Pleistocene or Quaternary 

 epoch. It is not only certain that men were con- 

 temporaries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, 

 the reindeer, the cave bear, and other great 

 carnivora, in England and in France, but a great 

 deal has been ascertained about the modes of life 

 of our predecessors. They were savage hunters, 

 who took advantage of such natural shelters as 

 overhanging rocks and caves, and perhaps built 

 themselves rough wigwams; but who had no do- 

 mestic animals and have left no sign that they 

 cultivated plants. In many localities there is evi- 

 dence that a very considerable interval — the so- 

 called hiatus — intervened between the time when 

 the Quaternary or palaeolithic men occupied par- 



* See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings 

 of Europe, for La Tene. Readers of Professor Rhys' re- 

 cent articles (Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the 

 pile-dwelling people spoke the Gaedhelic form of Celtic, 

 and the Gauls the Brythonic form. 



