92 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



transition has been disclosed by a number of investigations 

 which show that the two races had come in contact, and 

 become partly amalgamated. Such investigations can only 

 be referred to here very briefly. 



MM. Cartailhac and Boule ('' La Grotte de Eeilhac, Lyon," 

 1889) inform us that the animals represented in the upper 

 strata in the cave of Eeilhac (Gausses du Lot), viz., dog, 

 horse, ox {Bos taurus), sheep, pig, roe and red deer, are pre- 

 cisely the same species as are to be found in stations of the 

 Neolithic period. So also are those represented in the lower 

 strata, with the exception of the reindeer and hytena. But 

 it is noteworthy that while the remains of the reindeer were 

 relatively few, those of the stag were very abundant, so 

 much so as to be considered the most characteristic animal 

 of this cave. The contemporaneity of the hyasna was 

 inferred from gnawed bones, which were met with only in 

 the lowest portion of the debris. The osseous remains indi- 

 cated two varieties of the horse, one large and the other 

 small, but they showed no evidence of domestication. The 

 complete disappearance of the arctic group of animals, and 

 the increasing abundance of remains of the stag, together 

 with a correspoDding scarcity of those of the reindeer, 

 justified the explorers in dating the habitation of the cave 

 of Eeilhac to the very end of the Quaternary period. 



In the rock-shelter of Mas-d'Azil (Ariege), M. Piette 

 has described certain deposits (4 feet in depth), resting 

 immediately on a stratum with relics characteristic of the 

 Magdalenian or latest Palaeolithic period, but beneath 

 another containing relics equally characteristic of the Neo- 

 lithic period, which he regards as the debris of a transition 

 period between the two civilisations. As I have elsewhere 

 (" Prehistoric Problems," p. 60 e^ seq.) given a short account 

 of the evidence adduced by M. Piette, it is unnecessary to 

 enter here on the details, more than to mention the animals 

 which the author regards as belonging to that period, viz., 

 stag, wapiti, roebuck, chamois, ox, horse, wild boar, badger, 

 beaver, wolf, common bear, rat, some birds, fishes, and snails. 

 Grains of wheat and a variety of seeds and fruit stones were 

 also identified. Some of the relics were of novel types, 



