THE EARLIEST MEN 179 



thereof, it will be convenient to deal with a few 

 general points in connection with this section of 

 our subject. In the first place, then, it may be said 

 that the remains of early man so far discovered are 

 but few, and that it is not to be expected that they 

 will ever be very numerous. Only under the most 

 favourable and unusual conditions could they have 

 been preserved to the present day, and even when 

 they have been preserved to the present day, it is 

 often (one may say invariably with regard to the very 

 earliest cases) in a much mutilated condition. Nor is 

 this difficult to understand, as we shall see if we con- 

 sider the condition and surroundings of early man 

 and in connection therewith some of the difficul- 

 ties which arise when we come to attempt to place 

 his skeletal remains in their appropriate geological 

 or cultural horizon. When early man came to die 

 his tribe might either feed on his remains or leave 

 them to lie where they were at the time of his 

 death, or they might inter them with or without 

 cremating the body. Cremation we may dispose 

 of at once, for, though it was a favourite practice 

 in a later period of the prehistoric age, we have no 

 evidence of it during those earlier stages with 

 which alone we are here concerned. 



Let us suppose that his remains were left to lie 

 where they were when life fled from the body. 

 The flesh would gradually disappear, either de- 

 voured by wild beasts of which there were great 

 numbers and varieties or disposed of by ordinary 

 process of decomposition. The bones might for 

 some considerable time resist disintegration, but 

 eventually they, too, in the course of long ages, 



