EARLY MAN 



part of a horse drawn upon it with a sharp pointed tool. The bones of 

 the animals found in the Church Hole Cave (in which 213 remains 

 of man were found) were those of the lion, hysna, bear, Irish elk, 

 woolly rhinoceros and mammoth. In Northamptonshire no remains 

 of Cave men are known. Professor Boyd Dawkins' conclusion as to 

 the Cave man is that he is represented at the present day by the 

 Eskimos ; and speaking of the River Drift man he says : ' We cannot 

 refer them to any of the human race now living. But they are as 

 completely extinct among the peoples of India as among those of 

 Europe.' ' 



The Neolithic Age 



In due course of time the land sank, allowing the low-lying ground 

 which lay on the east, south and west to become covered with seas, 

 and what is now known as Great Britain became an island. All traces 

 of Paleolithic man were swept away, five of the largest animals living in 

 the previous age totally disappeared, while many others which lived 

 during the Paleolithic age departed to other climes, some to the northern 

 regions and some to the southern area. A different race of men now 

 makes its appearance, who must have crossed the seas. The implements 

 and weapons of these men, though still made of stone, show a great 

 improvement in their construction ; they are not merely chipped into 

 the form required, as they were in the Palasolithic age, but are ground 

 down to a cutting edge and are polished. The implements are not 

 found in such deposits as the gravels of the old rivers ; they are obtained 

 from the various surface deposits or from burials of this age. The barrows 

 which antiquaries agree in attributing to the Neolithic age are the 

 long barrows, where the dead were buried in a crouching or contracted 

 position, often accompanied by their weapons of stone. Most of the 

 long barrows stand east and west with one end (the eastern) higher 

 and wider than the other. Some of the long barrows had within them 

 chambered tombs, while others were of simpler construction. Long 

 barrows are more numerous in Wiltshire than in any other county, 

 as many as sixty being reckoned by Dr. Thurnam ; of these, eleven, 

 all in the north of Wiltshire, are chambered. Gloucestershire is another 

 county rich in long barrows, especially of the chambered kind. 



The researches of anthropologists have shown that the Neolithic 

 man was of small stature, averaging about 5 feet 5 inches in height ; 

 his skull was of the ' dolichocephalic ' or long-headed type, with dark 

 hair ; in shape his face was oval. Skulls having these characteristics 

 have been found in many places in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, 

 ' under circumstances,' Professor Boyd Dawkins writes, ' which render 

 it impossible to doubt that the whole of the British Isles was inhabited 

 to the close of the Neolithic age by man in the same state of culture.' 

 Neolithic man possessed a knowledge of agriculture (the Neolithic 

 inhabitants of some of the earlier Swiss lake dwellings grew no less 



* Early Man in Britain, by W. Boyd Dawkins. 

 137 



