HUMAN LIFE 



them or flaking other flints found still in 

 the form of heavy rounded pebbles of 

 various sizes. 



The great importance of these eoliths 

 to the student of early man is that if 

 they are really man-made they help sub- 

 stantiate the evidence of Pithecanthropus 

 and the Heidelberg jaw as to man's 

 probable origin in Pliocene time, or 

 even earlier. If man did arise in Pliocene 

 time then his antiquity is carried back 

 by many hundred thousand years behind 

 that later Pleistocene period in which 

 we can be certain of his existence on the 

 basis of undoubted human fossils. 



This Pleistocene or Glacial Age of 

 which our present time may be reckoned 

 the latest part, was a period of several 

 hundred thousand years characterized 

 by a succession of great continental 

 glaciers sweeping down from the north, 

 probably three on this continent and four 

 in Europe, with separating interglacial 

 times of considerably higher average tem- 

 perature and hence climatic amelioration. 

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