CHAPTER II 



THE PEOPLE 



Traces of Preliistoric Life in Modern Norway 



When the great glacial era came to an end, and the 

 ice-sheets retired to as it were entrench themselves in 

 mountain fastnesses, as in the Swiss mountains or in 

 the Pyrenees, or else in the colder lands to the north, 

 certain animals which, in those conditions of Arctic 

 climate, had ranged freely over Europe, but could not 

 stand the change to conditions more temperate, retired 

 with the ice-sheet. The chamois was one of these. He 

 took refuge in the highlands of Southern Europe. The 

 reindeer was another. He retired to the north of Scandi- 

 navia. Some anthropologists believe that glacial man, — 

 that is to say, the man who lived in Southern Europe 

 while the great glacier covered all the north, and who, 

 therefore, for generations upon generations had grown 

 habituated to an Arctic climate, was obliged in like 

 manner to migrate northwards after the rein-deer ; and 

 that he fixed his home in Scandinavia, and continued 

 there the earlier European race, while a new race of 

 men from the south or from the east came in to occupy 

 the countries farther south wliich he had abandoned. 

 It was in the cold conditions to which for hundreds 



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