PHYSICAL CONDITIONS— POSTGLACIAL. 535 



the numerous relic-beds of the period, and their total absence, 

 therefore, seems to indicate that the climate had by that time 

 entirely lost its arctic character. I do not forget that Caesar 

 mentions the reindeer as occurring in the great Hercynian 

 Forest of Northern Germany, but from his description, which is 

 incomplete and incorrect, some writers doubt if he ever saw it. 

 But if it be true that it existed in Caithness so late as the 

 twelfth century, it is to say the least not unlikely that in Caesar's 

 time it may have ranged into Northern Germany. During the 

 mild and genial epoch which supervened in postglacial times 

 it may have been quite unknown in Germany, but when the 

 climate again became colder, and local glaciers existed in the 

 mountain- valleys of Scotland and other regions, from which they 

 have since disappeared, the reindeer may have again ranged 

 farther south. And this may explain its absence from the 

 Neolithic deposits of Central Europe and its presence at a later 

 date in the Hercynian forest. I do not think, therefore, that 

 the occurrence in comparatively low latitudes of reindeer remains 

 along with human relics (imbedded in postglacial and recent 

 deposits) is necessarily any proof of great antiquity. 



If we confine our attention for the moment to the geological 

 evidence, we find that Neolithic man was certainly an occupant 

 of the British area during the genial postglacial period, for his 

 relics occur again and again in the lower forest-layers of our 

 peat-bogs, both in the inland and maritime districts, and the 

 same is the case in the equivalent accumulations of the Continent. 

 But Neolithic relics have not yet been met with at a lower 

 horizon — they appear to be wanting in those freshwater layers 

 under the bogs in which the arctic willow and its congeners 

 occur. So far, then, as the evidence at present goes, we cannot 

 say that Neolithic man appeared until the climate had lost its 

 arctic character — forests of pine and oak had overspread Ger- 

 many, Denmark, Scandinavia, and Britain, by the time he 

 immigrated. 1 The polar willow and the arctic-alpine flora had 



1 It is often said that the succession of arborescent vegetation in the forest- 

 bogs of Denmark does not quite tally with that which characterises the peat-bogs 



