﻿J. R. Dakyns — The Antiquity of Man. 439 



RECORDS OF PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE ROMAN COUNTRY. 



Geological 

 Periods. 



Nature of the 

 Deposit. 



Periods in the 

 History of Man. 



Neolithic. 



Evidences of Man's 

 presence. 



IV. Modern 

 or 

 Quaternary. 



Recent alluvial 

 deposits and surface- 

 soil of the country. 



Flint perfectly cut 

 and worked; hatchets 



of Jadeite ; pottery 

 with the first pictures. 



III. Newer 

 Pleistocene. 



Travertine 

 volcanic products 



of the 

 Latial Volcanos. 



Miolithic. 



Silex well polished, 



but not perfectly cut ; 



rough pottery mixed 



with a finer quality ; 



metals (bronze). 



II. Ancient 

 Pleistocene. 



Gravel, sand, and 



marl, with the 



bones of 



great Mammalia. 



Palaeolithic or 

 Archseolithic. 



Flint implements 

 of a more perfect 



workmanship ; 

 Metals ? (Lead). 



I. Upper 

 Pliocene. 



Gravel and yellowsand 

 with marine fossils 

 ( = Crag MoUusca.) 



First appearance. 



Flint implements 

 roughly worked. 



II. — The Antiquity of Man. 



By J. R. Dakyns, M.A., of H.M. Geological Survey. 



F all geological questions, perhaps that of the Antiquity of Man 

 is the most popular. Nor is it one on which geologists have 

 been rash or hasty in advancing new ideas ; quite the reverse : they 

 have lagged behind the evidence. In the " Principles of Geology," 

 one of the most instructive chapters is that in which the author treats 

 of the progress of Geology. Therein Sir Charles Lyell has shown 

 how the science had been retarded for three hundred years by men's 

 reluctance to admit such a simple and obvious matter as the marine 

 origin of stratified rocks, owing to a fixed idea that the world had 

 come into being a short time since in much the same state as it appears 

 to-day. Yet the illustrious author of the " Principles of Geology " let 

 pass for thirty years the evidence that Man was contemporaneous 

 with the extinct Pleistocene mammalia. In 1833 the evidence on 

 this point was nearly as complete as it is now; but it was practically 

 neglected because it did not square with preconceived ideas. In fact, 

 it was not accepted till Lyell himself, reviewing the facts in his 

 usual masterly manner, summed up judicially in favour of the new 

 views in his first edition of the "Antiquity of Man." Now, to com- 

 pare great things with small, a like reluctance to admit new evidence 

 on the subject is widespread. Then the prejudice was that man was 

 modern, that he never saw old-world mammals any more than 

 Silurian forms of life ; naio, admitting perforce his co-existence with 



