LIFE 673 



chips, \\ITC scattered about the sites of the raw material, while the 

 completed implements are liable to be found only about the dwelling 

 siu-s, or where, in their use, they were lost or thrown aside. In the 

 light of this definite separation, it is not difficult to see how the idea 

 of two stages of art arose, and how easily the finds might be mis- 

 interpreted. 



The most available sites for finding suitable raw material in a 

 convenient form were river gravels and terrace formations. This 

 was especially true in and about the glaciated regions where glacial 

 gravels abounded. In them, quartz, flint, chert, etc., were usually 

 abundant, in the convenient form of pebbles and cobbles. 



Many of the rude artefacs in question ("paleoliths") have been 

 found chiefly in such gravels, and it was this which cuased them to 

 be interpreted as proving the existence of glacial man. Most of the 

 artefacs in valley gravels are in their superficial portions, in their 

 talus slopes, or in secondary deposits, many of which are of recent 

 origin. Of the less superficial finds, many have been shown to be 

 cases of relatively recent burial by natural means. The processes 

 of streams in cutting down their channels in valley gravels are such 

 that superficial material may be buried to very considerable depths, 

 as illustrated in Figs. 547-549. The material which was in the top 

 originally, may get into the base of the talus, and be buried deeply. 

 Similar secondary burial takes place in all sorts of loose material of 

 eolian, pluvial, and fluvial origin; and it is to be noted that this is a 

 normal process, not an exceptional one. There are other ways, too, 

 notably scour and fill (p. 112), in which human relics may be buried 

 in river gravels. 



Without further details, it may be said that human relics have 

 not been found, in America, in gravels known to have been deposited 

 in the glacial period, or before. All that have been reported from 

 glacial gravels have been found either in such positions as to show 

 that they were buried in post-glacial time, or in such positions as 

 to make this inference probable. The existence of man in America 

 in the glacial period or before is therefore not demonstrated. 



In Europe. The European data indicating great antiquity of 

 man are better than the American. In Europe there are numerous 

 caves in which the relics of man, mingled with those of extinct 

 animals, have been securely protected by layers of stalagmite. 

 While the ages of the stalagmite layers have rarely been fixed 

 with certainty, or well correlated with the glacial stages, they bear 



