HISTORY 315 



one will probably contest that in some matters of art, 

 even we Europeans have fallen far behind our prede- 

 cessors of more than two thousand years ago. The ruins 

 which exist in Central America demonstrate the degra- 

 dation which has there taken place, and the degradation 

 of various tribes of American Indians is certainly known. 

 The Fuegians and Caffirs also give evidence that they 

 once possessed a higher social state than is theirs to-day. 

 The world is, in fact, sown broadcast with the traces of 

 higher social conditions and civilisations which have 

 passed away, and bears many a scar due to the triumph 

 of ignorance and brutality over relative refinement and 

 culture. 



Putting on one side, then, the questions which regards 

 the very earliest condition of mankind, it has been 

 ascertained that many races have passed through several 

 prehistoric stages of existence. There was a time when 

 the only weapons made use of by such races were 

 roughly chipped, unpolished flint implements. These 

 have been distinguished as Palceolithic men. Other and 

 later races formed implements of ground flint, and they 

 have been termed Neolithic men. Then we have races 

 which made use of metal for attack and defence ; first of 

 weapons formed of bronze, on which account they have 

 been called Bronze men, and later of iron, and such 

 last have been named after that metal. 



But as yet there is very insufficient evidence as to the 

 length of time during which palaeolithic men lived in 

 any one region, nor has it been proved that palaeolithic 

 and neolithic men may not have co-existed in different 

 regions, as we know "bronze" men and "iron" men 

 did subsequently. But even palaeolithic men could make 

 drawings in outline of different animals, and we owe to 

 them the only authentic representation of the mammoth, 



