70 WILSON 



Sditi^ of the other noted finds which seem to prove man's 

 existence in Tertiary times may be briefly enumerated : The 

 Savona skeleton, found in a Pliocene marl ; animal bones from 

 the gravel pits of Saint Prest, from the Tertiary alluvium of the 

 Arno Valley, and from the Pliocene of San Geovanni near Sienna. 

 These bones, as well as those from other localities which it is not 

 necessary to mention, show scratches, perforations, or fractures 

 which have been claimed to be the work of man. 



These few facts will suffice to show the nature of the evidence, 

 otherwise than logical reasoning, which tends to prove man's 

 existence in the Tertiary Period, and we will pass on to the 

 succeeding age, when his presence, contemporaneous with the 

 vast continental ice sheets and great extinct mammals is un- 

 equivocal and not to be denied. 



At the present time, as has been before remarked, there is no 

 positive evidence of the presence of man before the second 

 glacial period, but the evidences of his existence from that time 

 are numerous and unmistakable, and this great antiquity for the 

 human race, however revolutionary and at variance to the 

 beliefs still held by some, is as well proven and established as 

 any of the common facts of science. 



From this time on, we can keep man almost constantly in 

 sight, through the different periods of his advancing civilization 

 and culture. We can follow him through the long years of the 

 different periods of the old stone age, until he had learnt the 

 art of polishing his stone tools and weapons at the beginning of 

 the present epoch ; through the Neolithic or late stone age, 

 when the art of working stone reached its greatest and highest 

 development, and was characterized by the fact they were often 

 polished, an art unknown in the preceding stage of culture. 

 Later, the use of metals became known, and we find man in 

 the bronze a^^e, with the ever increasingr use of bronze instead 

 of stone for his weapons, implements, and ornaments, and finally, 

 with the coming in of the age of iron, if not in the latter part 

 of the age of bronze, we find man in the realms of history and 

 consequently far outside of our present field of investigation. 



Let us look at the conditions which prevailed during Palseo- 



