CONCLUSION. 539 



CHAPTER XXII. 



CONCLUSION. 



Resume of results — Identity of Pleistocene or Quaternary Period with Preglacial 

 and Glacial times — Alternations of cold and genial climates in Pleistocene 

 Period — Testimony of fauna and flora — Palaeolithic man lived through the 

 Pleistocene Period — Testimony of the Pleistocene river- deposits as to climatic 

 conditions — Evidence supplied by cave-accumulations — Glacial and Inter- 

 glacial accumulations contemporaneous with river-gravels, etc., and cave- 

 deposits — Distribution of ossiferous and Palaeolithic river- deposits — Last 

 cold epoch of Glacial Period closes the record of Pleistocene times — Palaeolithic 

 implements in Interglacial deposits at Brandon ; in Pliocene or early 

 Pleistocene beds of St. Prest — Pliocene and Miocene man — What became of 

 Palaeolithic man — Professor Dawkins's views — Objections to his hypothesis 

 that the Eskimo are of the same race as Palaeolithic man — Views of M. 

 Quatrefages and other French savants — Climatic and Geographical conditions 

 of Postglacial Period — Age of the archaeological periods — Dr. Croll's theory 

 of the cause of glacial and interglacial climatic changes— Conclusion. 



In concluding this imperfect sketch of the geology of Prehis- 

 toric Europe, it may not be out of place to present here a brief 

 summary of the more important results arrived at. I shall also 

 venture before I have done to make some remarks on the dis- 

 appearance of Palaeolithic man, and the wide interval which in 

 Central and North-western Europe separates the close of the 

 Old Stone Age from the beginning of the New. 



We have seen that all the evidence, as well paheontological 

 as physical, combines to prove that the Pleistocene or Quaternary 

 Period was co-extensive with Preglacial and Glacial times. It 

 began when the genial climatic conditions of the Pliocene were 

 passing away, and it came to a close with the last cold epoch of 

 the Ice Age. The fauna and flora of the Interglacial beds agree 



