74 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



moth and its companion the woolly rhinoceros, ex- 

 tended to a later date in Belgium than in France, 

 so that the mammoth age of Dupont and the rein- 

 deer age of the French archaeologists overlap one 

 another. He notes in connection with this that there 

 is evidence of the continued existence of the mammoth 

 in the so-called reindeer age of France, in the dis- 

 covery in caves of that period of plates of ivory with 

 the portrait of the mammoth engraved on them. It 

 would therefore appear either that the mammoth 

 earlier became extinct or rare in France, perhaps on 

 account of climatal changes, or perhaps because of 

 destruction by man, or that the habits of the French 

 populations changed in such a way as to cause them 

 to confine themselves to smaller game. In either 

 case, we now find that the whole palanthropic age is 

 one period. On the other hand, Dupont agrees with 

 Mortillet that there is a hiatus, physical, palaeonto. 

 logical and anthropological, between the so-called 

 palaeolithic and neolithic periods, that is, between the 

 palanthropic and neanthropic ages. 



Dupont holds that the plain-dwellers (Pediono- 

 mytes, as he calls them) were the earliest known men, 

 corresponding to the oldest gravel remains of Dawkins 

 and Prestwich, and points out that their implements 

 are in size and form, though not in material and finish, 

 allied to those of the polished stone age, which 

 might thus be regarded as an improved continuation 

 or revival of this first period. This might be read to 

 mean, as above maintained, that the earliest men were 



