144 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF [lect. 



also has in his possession a bone from the crag, which 

 certainly looks as if it had been cut with some sharp 

 instrument. Other archaeologists have more recently 

 adduced similar cases. None of them, however, are 

 perfectly conclusive, and as yet the implements found 

 in the river-drift gravels are the oldest undoubted traces 

 of man's existence — older far than any of those in Egypt 

 or Assyria, though belonging to a period which, from a 

 geological point of view, is very recent. 



The Palaeolithic Age. 



As regards the Palaeolithic Age, we may, I think, 

 regard the following conclusions as fully borne out by 

 the evidence : — 



1. The antiquities referable to this period are usually 

 found in beds of gravel and loam, or, as it is technically 

 called, " loess," extending along our valleys, and reaching 

 sometimes to a height of 200 feet above the present 

 water-level. 



2. These beds were deposited by the existing rivers, 

 which then ran in the same directions as at present, and 

 drained nearly the same areas. 



3. With the exception of the coast-line, the geography 

 of Western Europe cannot have been very different at 

 the time those gravels were deposited from what it 

 is now. 



4. The fauna of Europe at that time comprised the 

 mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the hippopo- 

 tamus, the urus, the musk-ox, &c, as well as most of the 

 existing animals. 



5. The climate was much more extreme, and at times 

 certainly much colder than at present. 



