ANCESTRAL MAN. 1 9 



the Mid-Pleistocene glaciation to which even man himself, long 

 successful in resistance, finally succumbed. 



A diagram of the Crayford beds, on the following page, shows 

 the stratum in which worked flints are found. Though the beds 

 are composed of sand and gravel, they contain no foreign stones. 

 The men of this horizon were pre-glacial, and their doom was 

 sealed. Recurrent seasons grew progressively colder ; tropical 

 animals perished, one species after another ; a temperate fauna 

 flourished intermittently ; and at last arctic beasts like the polar 

 bear, the pouched marmot, and the musk-sheep inherited the land. 



For a time Palaeolithic man struggled on, and lived to be 

 environed by some of these new-coming creatures. But it would 

 seem that he never altered the fashion of his weapons ; he 

 continued to make them of the same type as those of his con- 

 temporaries in India and southern Europe ; he was unable to 

 adapt himself to glacial conditions ; and at length he was driven 

 away, never to return. 



One of the subsequent glacial periods is indicated on the 

 diagram in stratum No. 5, by what is called a trail, or ice-wash. 

 This is a mixture of clay, brick-earth, and gravel, irregularly twisted 

 and folded. It contains foreign pebbles, some of which are 

 embedded with their long axes vertical. In one place is an 

 " angular lump of clay torn from the Eocene beds, more than 150 

 " yards distant. It had evidently been deposited while it was 

 " frozen, since it had suffered no abrasion in the course of its 

 " transport." Mr. Spurrell has observed many similar examples. 



What became of Palaeolithic man is quite unknown ; no bodily 

 remains have revealed to us his structure, and he cannot be 

 referred to any branch of the human race now living. Possibly 

 in the south of Europe, perhaps on the fringes of wide-reaching 

 ice-fields, he was undergoing a rapid evolution. For we meet 

 now with the interglacial Cave Dwellers, the Mesolithic race of 

 the late Pleistocene period, and a distinct advance in culture 

 becomes apparent. 



The cold was yet severe. Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the 

 east of Europe were probably still glaciated, as no Palaeolithic or 

 Mesolithic weapon has been found in those countries. Glaciers 

 were disappearing from Britain, but reindeer were abundant ; and 

 as this country was not yet separated from Africa, it was still 

 visited during genial interglacial periods, by the hippopotamus, 

 rhinoceros, elephant and machairodus. 



The flint implements of Mesolithic man were more varied than 

 those of his predecessors, and included awls, saws and lance- 

 heads. He did not polish them, though polishing was practised 

 on tools made of bone. He constructed harpoons of reindeer- 

 horn, but made no arrows till quite late, and used no pottery. 



