2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



From ali this work and study a number of major facts have become 

 established. The first relates to time. It is of peculiar interest that 

 probably all the remains that can safely be attributed to man belong to 

 the Quaternary jx^riod or Ice Age. There are remains, especially those 

 in southeast England, that have been assigned to an even older time — 

 the late Tertiary ; but uncertainties still exist concerning both the 

 nature and the dating of these objects, and even though these un- 

 certainties should be cleared up, there would still be the legitimate 

 question as to whether the beings of that very remote time were fully 

 human. 



The second major fact concerns the geographic dispersion of these 

 ancient human remains. Leaving out of consideration north Africa 

 and southwestern Asia, which as yet present many uncertainties, the 

 remains show an area of greatest intensity in western Europe, extend- 

 ing gradually as time advances over larger portions of the Old World. 



The third major generalization relates to the nature of the remains. 

 Whether these are artifacts or the skeletal parts of man himself, the 

 earliest are seen to be scarce and primitive, the later ones showing 

 a gradual and highly interesting progression in quantity, quality, and 

 breadth of dispersion, until they merge into the protohistoric and then 

 the historic. But the advance in culture, and perhaps even in the 

 physical differentiation of man, appears to have been realized in suc- 

 cessive stages rather than in a uniform progression. The main cultural 

 stages of prehistoric man are now fairly well known in substance, 

 though further studies indicate that matters are probably more complex 

 than they have appeared and that in the not far distant future it may 

 be necessary to revise our present views. There have evidently been 

 irregularities and transitional stages, as well as topographical and 

 chronological complications. 



Nevertheless the present classification of the cultural remains of 

 the early man of Europe is useful in subdividing man's past and 

 thereby facilitating our comprehension of it. On the other hand, 

 however, it tends to establish in the minds of the students .sharp limits 

 where no such limits have existed in reality ; also it leads them to 

 consider the subdivisions as general chronological criteria, whereas 

 no such use is justified. 



As to the paleontological remains associated with those of early 

 man, they have been exceedingly useful in the dating of the human 

 cultural and skeletal material. But here also matters are far from 

 simple. The Quaternary fauna is seen to have been rich, the appear- 

 ance, duration, and extinction of individual s^jecies very uneven, and 

 their geographical distribution irregular. As a result of all this the 



