55© PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



lithic people, as I have already shown. I do not think, there- 

 fore, that the identification of the Eskimo with the reindeer- 

 hunters of Perigord can be sustained by such considerations 

 as those advanced by Professor Dawkins. The resemblances 

 pointed out by him appear to be only coincidences, which, 

 either singly or combined, have no such special significance 

 as he supposes. I do not of course deny that the Eskimo may 

 be related by descent to Palaeolithic man. But we cannot 

 be expected to accept the evidence relied upon by Professor 

 Dawkins unless it be supported by the testimony of the human 

 skull itself. When anthropologists produce from some of the 

 caves occupied by the reindeer-hunters a cranium resembling 

 that of the living Eskimo, it will be time enough to admit that 

 the latter has descended from the former. But, unfortunately 

 for the view here referred to, none of the skulls hitherto found 

 affords it any support. It is true that Professor Dawkins would 

 explain away their testimony, but against his opinion we must 

 set that of those high authorities — MM. Hamy and Quatrefages 

 — and leave the anthropologists to settle the question amongst 

 themselves. I have here to do not with anthropological but 

 geological evidence, and certainly this latter seems to furnish 

 strong grounds for setting aside the conclusion that Palaeolithic 

 man retreated northward to the Arctic regions. Let us picture 

 to ourselves the climatic and physical conditions that obtained 

 towards the close of the last glacial epoch. We see the snow- 

 fields gradually diminishing in extent — the glaciers slowly 

 retiring— and floods and inundations decreasing in magnitude. 

 The northern and alpine flora is again advancing northwards, 

 followed by those mammals which are now restricted to lofty 

 elevations and high latitudes. There was, in short, no sudden 

 change from the extreme conditions of the Glacial Period to 

 the temperate climate which supervened in Postglacial times. 

 Animals and plants, no doubt, emigrated northwards just as 

 slowly and continuously as they had previously migrated south- 

 wards during the approach of the latest cold epoch of the Ice 

 Age. We know that the reindeer and its associates returned to 



