ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 469 



eros, and of other animals, several of which are either entirely or locally 

 extinct. It is true that there are still some differences of opinion as to 

 the exact relation in time of the beds of river gravel containing- the relics 

 of man and the Quaternary fauna to the period of great cold which is 

 known as the Glacial period. Some authors have regarded the gravels 

 as pre-Glacial, some as Glacial, and some as post-Glacial; but after all, 

 this is more a question of terms than of principle. All are agreed for 

 instance, that in the eastern counties of England implements are found 

 in beds posterior to the invasion of cold conditions in that particular 

 region, though there may be doubts as to how much later these condi- 

 tions may have prevailed in other parts of this country. All too are 

 agreed that since the deposit of the gravels considerable changes have 

 taken place in the configuration of the surface of the country, and that 

 the time necessary for such changes must have been very great, though 

 those in whose bones the chill of poverty still clings are inclined to call 

 in influences by which the time required for the erosion of the river 

 valleys in which the gravels occur may be theoretically diminished. 



On the other hand, there have been not a few who, feeling that the 

 evidence of the existence of the human race has now been satisfactorily 

 established for Quaternary times, and that there is no proof that what 

 has been found in the ordinary gravels belongs to anything like the first 

 phases of the family of man, have sought to establish his existence in 

 far earlier Tertiary times. In the view that earlier relics of man than 

 those found in the river gravels may eventually be discovered, most of 

 those who have devoted special attention to the subject will, I think, 

 concur. But such an extension of time can only be granted on conclu- 

 sive evidence of its necessity, and before accepting the existence of 

 Tertiary man the grounds on which his family tree is based require to 

 be most carefully examined. 



Let me say a few words as to the principal instances on which the 

 believer in Tertiary man relies. These may be classified under three 

 heads:* (1) the presumed discovery of parts of the human skeleton ; 

 (2) that of animal bones said to have been cut and worked by 

 the hand of man ; and (3) that of flints thought to be artificially fash- 

 ioned. 



On most of these I have already commented elsewhere. t Under the 

 first head I may mention the skull discovered by Prof. Cocchi atOlmo, 

 near Arezzo,with which, however, distinctly Neolithic implements were 

 associated ; the skeletons found at Castelnedolo, of which 1 need only 

 say that M. Sergi, who described the discovery, regarded them as the 

 remains of a family party who had suffered shipwreck in Pliocene 

 times; and the fossil man of Denise, in the Auvergne, mentioned by 



"See A. Arceliu, " L'Homme Tertiaire," Paris, 20 rne de la Chaise, 1889. 

 t Traus. Hertn. Nat. Hist. .Soc, vol. I, p. 14,^) ; "Address to the Autbrop. Inst.," 188.'i, 

 Anthroj) Jonni., vol. xii, p. .%."). 



