212 NATURE STUDIES. 



OUR ANCESTORS. 



BY GRANT ALLEN. 



I. THE STONE AGE MEN. 



THERE ave few questions more immediately interesting 

 to Englishmen than the question who are our .ances- 

 tors ? From what elements and in what proportions 

 are we compounded ? May we consider ourselves as 

 nil pure Teutons ? or are we partly Celts as well ? 

 Furthermore, may we even reckon among our imme- 

 diate ancestry some still earlier and less historical 

 races than either of these ? Such questions are full of 

 practical importance to ourselves, and they are also of 

 a sort upon which modern investigations into language 

 and the science of man have cast a strikingly new and 

 unexpected light. 



Of course, in considering the origin of Englishmen, 

 we must look at the matter in no petty provincial 

 spirit. We must include roughly in that general name 

 Welshmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen as well ; and if 

 our friends in the north prefer to speak of Britain rather 

 than of England, I am sure I, for my part, will have 

 no objection. There are many learned modern histo- 

 rians, with Mr. Freeman at their head, who will tell us 

 that Englishmen are almost pure-blooded Teutons, of 

 the same original stock as the Germans, the Dutch, 

 and the Danes and Norwegians. But when we come 



