THE PALANTHROP1C AGE 43 



Supposing, then, that w search for remains of 

 palaeocosmic men in river alluvia, or in caves of 

 residence or burial, or in similar repositories, the 

 question next arises, by what means can we distinguish 

 their bones from those of later times? The following 

 criteria are available : 



(1) The remains were in their present condition 

 at least as long ago as the date of the earliest history 

 or tradition. This evidence is of course of greatest 

 value in those regions in which history extends 

 farthest back. Thus the remains of early men in the 

 Lebanon caves, which we know date much farther 

 back than the arrival of the first Phoenicians and 

 Canaanites in Syria, are in a different position, in so 

 far as history is concerned, from those occurring in 

 countries whose written history goes back only a few 

 centuries. 



(2) The deposits containing these remains may 

 underlie those holding relics of historic times, or may 

 indicate different physical conditions of the districts 

 in which they occur from those known within historic 

 periods. This is the case with some river beds, as 

 those of Crenelle, near Paris, and with the successive 

 deposits in old caves of residence. 



(3) They may be accompanied by remains of 

 animals now extinct in the regions in question, and 

 whose disappearance and replacement by the modern 

 fauna implies great lapse of time and physical changes; 

 as, for instance, when we find that men have left re- 

 mains of their feasts holding bones of the extinct 



