EARLY MAN 



WHEN the Romans under Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 

 the years 55 and 54 B.C., they found the country inhabited 

 by an extensive population living in tribes, those nearest to 

 Gaul being the most civilized. Cssar, who never penetrated 

 far into the interior of the country, could only have gained his know^- 

 ledge of the inland tribes from hearsay, and not from personal observation. 

 He says' that it is handed down by tradition that the people of the 

 interior are the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants. Now during 

 the last half-century archeology has grown into a science under which 

 the numerous remains of Prehistoric man found in the British Isles have 

 been arranged and classified into certain ages or periods. Archsologists 

 tell us that after Britain became an island, it was inhabited by a race of 

 people belonging to what is called the Neolithic or New Stone age. 

 These men were a small, dark, long-headed race, whose remains have 

 been found in many parts of England and Wales, and in Scotland as far 

 north as the Orkneys. Dr. Munro writes of them: 'Their faces were 

 oval and rather short ; their features good, with flat cheek bones, fine 

 jaws and prominent chins. They were evidently dark of skin, hair and 

 eyes ; on the whole their expression must have been mild and humane.' 

 These Neolithic peoples were succeeded and conquered and probably 

 for the most part absorbed by a taller race of men of rounder skulls and 

 lighter hair, who brought new burial customs with them and who used 

 weapons of bronze. The descendants of this taller race, together with 

 the immigrants of certain Gaulish and Belgic tribes, formed the bulk of 

 the population of Britain at the time of Cesar's invasion. Cesar states 

 that 'the inhabitants of Kent did not differ much from the Gallic tribes'; 

 and speaking of the island generally, he says that ' the Maritime 

 portion was inhabited by those who had passed over from the country 

 of the Beige for the purpose of plunder and making war.' But to 

 go back to a time previous to the appearance of Neolithic man, 

 geologists inform us that in the Pleistocene age that part of the earth 

 afterwards called Britain, and now called England, formed part of the 

 continent, and that it was inhabited by a fauna very different from that 

 of the succeeding Neolithic age. That man inhabited the southern 

 part of the country is proved by the discovery of many stone implem.ents 



' De bello Galftco, book v. chap. xii. 

 135 



