50 THE COMING OF MAN 



decidedly retreating compared with that of later races. The 

 changes from this time on are to be chiefly in the highest 

 centers of the brain. He leads a hunting or collecting life. 

 He has learned to chip a flint nodule into an almond shaped 

 axe. The implements of his ancestors were probably mainly 

 of wood and later of bone supplemented by an angular bit of 

 rock. He now recognizes the superiority of flint, and the 

 eoliths show us his long series of experiments in learning to 

 flake and shape this useful but refractory material into a 

 well-shaped, symmetrical tool. He makes a variety of tools, 

 borers, scrapers, etc. Some day his descendants will make 

 machines'. 



He lived in open camps or villages during the warmer sea- 

 sons or epochs; and took shelter in grottoes, under over- 

 hanging ledges or in mouths of caves when the cold returned; 

 he is social. Here we find the bones of animals killed in the 

 hunt and his implements mixed with the ashes of his fires. 



Already or a little later he buried his dead, depositing with 

 them parts of animals, apparently as food for a journey, axes, 

 strings or masses of shells often brought from a considerable 

 distance. ^^ The shells suggest that he had the savage love 

 of adornment and of making himself conspicuous. 



His care of the dead, his depositing in the grave food and 

 choice possessions which he would gladly have kept, had 

 he dared or wished to retain them, show that he has far 

 outgrown the purely animal plane, mentally as well as physi- 

 cally. He believes that something of the dead outlasts the 

 body, and might return to plague him. The fact of this cult 

 is evident, its explanation is another matter. The growth of 

 a belief and confidence in the existence of a spiritual world is 

 the great thing. 



He was beginning to think hard in a very dull stupid way 

 about a great variety of matters. He returned from the hunt 

 and lay before the fire. Hunger reminded him of the hard 

 experiences of the day, its failures, blunders or wounds. He 

 planned a new mode of attack for to-morrow. He dozed, and 



loU. 8i. 



