PEIMITIVE MAN : II. NEOLITHIC MAN. 299 



on the Thames having sufficient development to transport gravel 

 and stones, as it did when the mammoth lived in England. 



I also doubt as to the continued use of the terms " Palgeolithic " 

 and " Neolithic," after it has been shown again and again that 

 thej have no value except in a very limited local sense. See 

 Holmes's recent papers in Science and elsevfhere, with refei'ence 

 to supposed American examples. 



T also think it unwise to assume so many negative statements 

 respecting Palaeolithic men, on points respecting which we are 

 still ignorant, but may know more hereafter. 



1 am glad that Mr. Mello recognises the break between the 

 Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages, but surprised that, like most 

 other anthropologists, he does not refer to the great physical 

 changes which closed the Palanthropic age, and which were so 

 loug ago insisted on by Lyell. The idea also of Palanthropic man 

 migrating northward " with the reindeer " is, I think, very im- 

 probable. He might do this to a limited extent in summer ; but 

 if he had half the intelligence of modern Esquimaux and North 

 American Indians, he would wait till the winter cold drove the 

 deer to the south, which it must have done down to very modern 

 times. 



These remarks relate to the introductory pages. As to the 

 main subject of Paper IT, I have nothing to say, except that the 

 remarks on " Neolithic " races seem to me contradictory to many 

 well-established facts ; but they relate merely to racial classi- 

 fication, which at present, in this part of human history, has been 

 reduced to a mere chaos, by the exclusive use of certain physical 

 characters as grounds of classification, instead of the adoption of 

 broad general views of all the characters of each race, mental, 

 linguistic, and physical. 



Professor E. Hull, LL.D., F.R.S., writes:^ 



I regret to be unable to be present to hear Mr. Mello's paper 

 and to take part in the discussion. I would only venture to refer 

 to the question regarding the change from the Pala3olithic to the 

 Neolithic age. If I mistake not Professor James Geikie offered an 

 explanation which seems to me sufficient. The break in the 

 continuity of the human race in Europe seems to have its 

 counterpart in that of the physical conditions. Assuming Palaso- 

 lithic man to have been contemporaneous with the epoch of the 

 Lower Boulder Clay, or Till, and Neolithic man to have been 

 contemporaneous with the Upper Boulder Clay, we have (as it 



