PLEISTOCENE PERIOD 209 



rise in time to many scattered tribes and races of negroids. 

 But it cannot be said that any of these ever adorned humanity. 

 The conditions, owing to the vastness of the land area, and 

 the nature of the cHmate, were not, it may be supposed, 

 sufficiently stimulating. 



In the more enclosed and salutary regions to the north of migrations 

 the Sahara more important movements were in progress, to north 

 From the quantities of palaeohthic implements found in the Africa 

 ancient Hmestone and gravel formations of Egypt, it is 

 clear that that country was occupied in Pleistocene times, 

 and probably very much earlier. The Pleistocene Egyptians, 

 no doubt, had become very different from their fellow- 

 creatures south of the Sahara. Indeed, they may well have 

 become so far differentiated as to be describable as primitive 

 members of the Caucasian or White group — destined to great 

 fame in times to come. How long these " dark whites " 

 remained in Egypt cannot be determined ; but doubtless 

 they were driven in course of time along the coastal regions of 

 North Africa by other and more civiUsed " dark whites," 

 sweeping into Egypt from the East. In occupying Egypt 

 they themselves, no doubt, had driven on less civiUsed tribes 

 along the coasts in the direction of Tunis, Tripoli, Algeria, 

 and Morocco. And it was probably under this more or less 

 constant pressure of emigration from the east that the 

 inter-glacial hunters and the Cave men had been forced along 

 the coast, until in time they crossed from Africa to Europe 

 by one of the old and long since submerged land connections. 



Another migration from the cradle-land led to the occupa- migrations 

 tion of China and Siberia ; and the differentiation of the to central 

 Yellow group of races. It was, doubtless, an offshoot of this and north- 

 migration which brought the " new " world its first human ern Asia, 

 beings. and to 



Unfortunately but Httle is known as to how humanity America 

 was faring in the cradle-land during Pleistocene times. 

 In the alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, fertile the cradle 

 soil and abundance of food must have led many people to hve land 

 not as scattered and wandering families, but in tribal settle- 

 ments. And a civihsation must have been forming, which 

 had, as yet, been but faintly reflected in Europe, 

 p 



