380 



THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



It was formerly supposed that the transition from the Palaeolithic to 

 the Neolithic was abrupt, but some recent authorities (Rutot, MacCurdy) 

 are inclined to favor a more gradual development theory; thus the Tarde- 

 noisian industry, representing the beginning of the Neolithic, maybe consid- 

 ered as a transformation of the Magdalenian; furthermore, the art of 

 polishing stone implements did not appear until the fourth epoch (Roben- 

 hausian) of the Neolithic. From the Neolithic period to the present time there 

 has been no great deviation in climate or in fauna. Thus Neolithic man, who 

 belonged to a different race with polished stone implements, first appeared 

 in post-glacial times, or at the beginning of the Holocene or Recent Period. 



Theory of Boule. — The French palaeontologist and archaeologist Mar- 

 cellin Boule^ believes that Penck errs both in his correlation of the glacial 

 periods with human culture stages and in his view of the alternate migra- 

 tions of the arctic or third fauna of mammals. He maintains that of the 

 three great glacial advances, one falls in the Pliocene and two in the Pleis- 

 tocene. He observes that if one holds with Penck that all the glacial epochs 

 are Pleistocene, the conclusion naturally follows that the Pleistocene opened 

 with a time of great glaciation; but there is more ground for believing that 

 the first glacial epoch at least was of late Pliocene age, and since the Nor- 

 folk Forest Bed deposits are probably transitional between the Pliocene 

 and Pleistocene, even the second glacial epoch would be placed at the close 

 of the Pliocene period. The nomenclature is largely a matter of terms, 

 but the questions of alternate migrations and geologic age of the human 

 culture stages are both very important and far-reaching. The accompany- 

 ing table exhibits the wide difference of opinion between these distinguished 

 authorities as to the geologic age of the culture phases. 



1 Boule, M., Observations sur un Silex Taille du Jura et sur la Chronologie de M. Penck. 

 Anthropol., Vol. XIX, lOOcS. 



^ Cf., hovi^ever, Penck's later views, as expressed in the table (p. 379). 



