546 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



have been detected in the sand-deposits at St. Prest, which are 

 variously assigned to late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, but 

 are probably of the latter or preglacial age. It is reasonable, 

 therefore, to conclude that Palaeolithic man may have entered 

 Europe before the genial climate of the Pliocene Period had 

 quite passed away. But whether that be so or not, he was cer- 

 tainly an occupant of our continent in early Interglacial times, 

 and he survived all the subsequent climatic and geographical 

 changes of the Ice Age, to disappear during the final phase of 

 that period. That man must date back to a yet earlier epoch 

 than the close of Pliocene times, few will venture to doubt, 

 whether or not they call in question the evidence which Pro- 

 fessor Capellini has adduced. Nor can we allow much weight 

 to the A priori argument against the existence of our race in 

 the still more distant Miocene Period. If the implements of 

 Thenay be of artificial origin, it is more reasonable to conclude 

 that they were fashioned by the hand of man than by a hypo- 

 thetical man-ape, as M. MortiUet has suggested. But as M. de 

 Quatrefages has said, geologists can well afford to wait for further 

 evidence ; and those savants who maintain the human origin of 

 the Thenay implements will, I feel sure, bear with others who 

 still hesitate to follow them with that confidence which more 

 plentiful and less equivocal data would supply. 



I come now to discuss a question which has already engaged 

 the anxious attention of many eminent archaeologists and anthro- 

 pologists. We have seen that during the last glacial epoch 

 Palaeolithic man retreated south with the reindeer and its con- 

 geners, and occupied the valleys of Southern France. What is 

 his subsequent history? Did he return northwards with the 

 arctic and alpine animals to re-occupy the Belgian and English 

 caves in Postglacial times ? As a matter of fact, he did not. 

 Or, to speak more exactly, we know that the tribes who occupied 

 North-western and Central Europe after the disappearance of 

 arctic conditions did not use the Palaeolithic types of implements, 

 and were no draughtsmen like the reindeer-hunters of Perigord. 

 It is open, of course, to argue that the Neolithic race or races 



