20 THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT CRETE 



close attention to geological considerations of this 

 kind. They are of the very essence of the new and 

 more scientific history of our day, and it is a proper 

 regard for elements of this nature which makes the 

 first part of Mr. Wells's Outline so valuable. In the 

 present instance the tracing of this lost land enables 

 us to understand the evolution of civilization far 

 better than it was ever understood before. 



The ice sheet or field of ice and snow which 

 covered the greater part of Europe stretched from 

 the Pyrenees to the Danube, with an extension south 

 into Italy on account of the immense ice-sheet round 

 the Alps. Probably the way south through Italy was 

 entirely blocked by the massive glaciers which flowed 

 from the Alps. From the Danube valley, however, 

 the ice-sheet curved northward, instead of running 

 across the south of Russia and Asia. It is, therefore, 

 quite clear that there would be two main lines of 

 retreat for the men of the Old Stone Age as the 

 climate of Europe grew colder. One line was across 

 the south of Russia to the region of the Caspian Sea 

 and to Asia. This seems to have been the route 

 chosen by the ancestors of the "Aryan" peoples 

 (who remained on the border of Asia, to the north 

 of the Caspian) and of the Chinese, as we shall see 

 later. 



But the easiest and most attractive line of retreat 

 would be through Austria and the Balkan lands to 

 the warmer region which is now below the waves of 

 the Eastern Mediterranean. No one who studies the 

 conditions will doubt that during the most intense 

 period of the Ice Age the men who had been for ages 

 scattered over Europe gathered thickly at the eastern 

 end of the Mediterranean. A continent was emptied 



