REVIEWS. 
Prenistory: A Stupy or Harty Cuttures In EUROPE AND THE 
MEDITERRANEAN Basin. By M. C. Burxirt, M.A., F.GS. 
With a short preface by L’Abbé H. Brevi. pp. i-xx, 1-438, 
and 47 plates. Cambridge University Press, 1921. Price 35s. 
OR a long time the view that man appeared after the Glacial 
period, at any rate in Europe, was unhesitatingly accepted, 
but of recent years this view has been challenged, though we have as 
yet no unanimity of opinion as to the definite relationship of the 
various civilizations to the Glacial period. 
As the result of recent research we must readjust our ideas, and 
new books necessarily arise. Prominent among them in this country 
is Sollas’ scholarly work Ancient Hunters and W. B. Wright’s 
stimulating treatise on the Quaternary Ice Age, and now Mr. Burkitt 
has written a book which “‘ must be regarded as an attempt to give 
a general idea of the subject ”’ of prehistory, the greater part of which 
is devoted to the Paleolithic period. 
Though the whole of the book is of interest to geologists, they 
will naturally turn at first to Chapters II and III, dealing with 
“ Geological Conditions” and “ Man in Relation to Geology”. In 
Chapter II the author divides the whole history of the world into an 
introduction succeeded by five volumes, of which the recent period 
represents volume v. It would have been well if he had warned the 
general reader that the volumes are far from being of equal 
importance as regards lapse of time. He next gives an account of the 
classification of the Pliocene and Pleistocene accumulations. The 
origin of the Ice Age is dealt with at some length. This seems hardly 
necessary when we consider our real ignorance of the causes of secular 
changes of climate and the space thus occupied might well be devoted 
in a later edition to a fuller discussion of geological matters bearing 
more directly on the subject. In Chapter III the author boldly sets 
forth to trace the relations between the various archeological 
divisions and those put forward by geologists. He is obviously 
strongly influenced by researches of foreign writers in districts 
which he has himself visited, and, indeed, it is most necessary to take 
account of these. The correlations favoured by Mr. Burkitt may 
well be correct, but as they are in opposition to the views of a number 
of geologists who have made detailed studies of our British 
Pleistocene and Holocene deposits, it would be well to take some 
notice of these views, even though they frequently conflict with one 
another ; furthermore, it might have been mentioned that hitherto 
no instance has been recorded in Britain of any undoubted Lower 
Paleolithic implement extracted from a deposit overlain by indis- 
putable boulder-clay, though some artefacts found by Reid Moir 
below boulder-clay at Ipswich may even be proto-Mousterian. In 
future the author will probably speak with less uncertain note of 
artefacts from the Red Crag. 
