EARLY MAN IN DORSET. 31 



it also possesses much artistic merit. In other respects he 

 is not interesting. He had no pottery and no domestic 

 animals. He neither buried nor burned his dead, but 

 presumably left their bodies to be eaten by wild beasts. In 

 these two respects, his artistic capacity and his treatment 

 of the dead, he resembled the modern Esquimaux ; I do 

 not know if any other link of connection has been found. 

 It is a fact, and a striking one, that man, even if he existed 

 in the previous warm and temperate periods, did not come 

 to the front till the glacial epochs. In a warmer climate he 

 had less chance in the struggle for existence with the lower 

 animals. Perpetual snow and ice gave him his opportunity. 

 He could better adapt himself to the changes in outward 

 conditions. He clothed himself with the skins of the animals 

 he had slain. He learned to light a fire, probably by chipping 

 flints. So he proved himself the fittest to survive. 



One of the chief points to realise in connection with the 

 pleistocene period is its enormous length, as measured by 

 years. Certainly it lasted for hundreds of thousands of 

 years, perhaps for a million. In the next place both altitude 

 and climate varied greatly. At one time Britain was 

 continental. At another time North Welsh mountains 

 2,000 feet high were sunk to sea level. There were true 

 glacial epochs, characterised by intense cold, and inter- 

 glacial epochs when the partial melting of snow and frozen 

 ground must have caused rapid denudation. I believe our 

 chalk downs owe their steep contours to the conditions 

 which prevailed when glaciers were retreating northward. 

 It must have been an uncomfortable land to inhabit, but 

 somehow man did manage to live in it and to make more 

 progress than he had made under less arduous conditions. 



I have not found it easy to ascertain indisputable facts 

 about the earliest human bones found in Britain, but many 

 interesting discoveries have recently been made and have 

 given rise to no small amount of controversy. 



The " earliest known Englishman " may be represented 

 by the skull found at Piltdown, Sussex. But there is an 



