THE MOST ANCIENT MEN 383 



in each, by the climate which is indicated, and by the 

 progressive development of the art and workmanship of 

 the Palaeolithic men discovered in successive layers of 

 deposit. Let me here refer the reader to the tabular 

 statement on page 384 bis. 



These ages of the Pleistocene are : No. I. The Upper 

 or Post-Glacial Pleistocene, or Epoch of the Reindeer. 

 The climate was cold and dry, like that of the Russian 

 steppes. The contents of the celebrated cave of La 

 Madeleine, in the Dordogne, and the upper layers of 

 deposit in a whole series of caves (including Kent's 

 Cavern and the Creswell Cave in England) belong to this 

 age. This was the period in which the caves were in- 

 habited by the artistic race " who came no one knows 

 whence, and went no one knows whither," accompanied 

 by the reindeer. Before them there was no carving in 

 the caves, or only very rough work, and we are justified in 

 concluding that the men who inhabited the caves before 

 this period belonged to a totally distinct and inferior race. 

 The " Reindeer Men " must have developed their art by 

 gradual steps before they arrived in the caves of Western 

 Europe where we do not know. At the end of this 

 period the climate became much milder, and the red deer 

 of our own day took the place of the reindeer, during a 

 long transition in which the " Reindeer Men " and their 

 art disappeared, and the pastoral, land-tilling, stone- 

 building, pottery-making communities of the Neolithic 

 Age came into existence, showing no trace of the art of 

 their predecessors. The mammoth and rhinoceros, bison, 

 and aurochs, and, in fact, all the commoner animals of 

 an earlier period were present nearly all through the Rein- 

 deer period (they disappear in the late " transition period " 

 of the red deer, called " Azilian "), and were known to 

 the " Reindeer Men," but great herds of reindeer and of 

 horses occupied the grassy lands in this age, which were 



