CHAPTER VI 



END OF THE PALANTHKOPIC AGE 



THE palarithropic age came to a tragic end, and is 

 somewhat definitely separated from that which suc- 

 ceeded it. This appears from several considerations 

 which are too often overlooked by writers who have a 

 prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly 

 and by slow degrees into that by which it is followed 

 an exaggerated uniformitarianism beyond that of 

 Lyell, but in harmony with the hypothesis of Darwin, 

 to which many anthropologists appear to tie them- 

 selves hopelessly. 



Three facts are here specially important. The 

 Canstadt and Cro-magnon races are physically 

 different from any modern races, and give place at 

 the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them 

 as any now existing, and who, on the other hand, 

 while separated from the palaeocosmic men preceding 

 them, are linked with the races of modern times. It 

 is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal 

 human skulls may to this day be seen on living men 

 which are more or less of the Canstadt or Cro-magnon 



