344 On the Habits and Condition [ July, 
The extinct mammalia split up into two groups of unequal 
antiquity. On the one hand, we have the Sabre-toothed Lion (or 
Tiger), the Elephas Antiquus, the Hippopotamus, and the Woolly 
and Leptorhine Rhinoceros, found along with the remains of Flint 
Folk ; and with the exception of the two last, began to live in the 
remote epoch called the Pliocene. On the other, the only two 
extinct species found in the refuse-heaps of the Reindeer Folk are 
the Irish Elk and the Mammoth, both of which sprang into bemg 
in the Pleistocene Period, and the former lingered on after the 
disappearance of the latter, and is repeatedly found in the silt of 
river-beds, and the lacustrine marls underlying the peat, which 
are of a comparatively modern date. The legitimate mference to 
be drawn from this is, that those deposits, containing not only the 
larger proportion of extinct mammals, but also an older group, are 
of higher antiquity than those containing a smaller proportion and a 
newer group; or, in other words, that the Flint Folk preceded the 
Reindeer Folk in time. Thus the evidence afforded by Palaon- 
tology corroborates the inference drawn from a comparison of the 
implements and weapons with reference to the relative age of the 
two Paleolithic Races. 
To this view, indeed, it may be objected that the remains found 
in a den of Hyznas, or in an old fluviatile or lacustrine deposit, 
afford a better idea of the Fauna of any given district than those 
selected from among the wild beasts by man for food, and therefore 
that the absence of any particular animal from the refuse-heaps is 
to be accounted for by the fact of its not bemg met with by man, 
and does not prove the non-existence of the animal at the time. 
Had, however, any of the old Pliocene mammals co-existed with 
the Reindeer Folk, there is no reason why they should not have 
fallen victims as well as the other large mammals, the Mammoth 
or the great Urus. While, therefore, it is just possible that one 
or even the whole of the older animals may at a future time be 
discovered in association with the remains of the Reindeer Folk, 
the probability is that they will not be so found. 
The three animals that specially characterize the Reindeer 
deposits of Dordogne as compared with those of the Flint Folk 
age, are the Antelope Siiga, the Ibex, and the Chamois ; of these the 
former ranges now through the great central plateau of Asia, the 
second lives in the Pyrenees, and the last in the Alps. 
Thus meagre is the outline which the scant materials allow 
to be drawn of the habits and condition of our earliest ancestors 
who lived in the Paleolithic age,—an age that coincides in 
part with the Pleistocene or Quaternary Period of the geologists. 
They passed away like many of the other mammalia, and were 
supplanted in Western Europe by Folk of a different race, whom 
Sir John Lubbock terms Neolithic. Without losing any of the 
useful arts of the preceding age, these invented the use of pottery, 
