﻿164 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



The Retreat of the Lion from Europe. 



§ 1. Introduction. 



§ 2. Evidence derived from History. 



§ 3. Evidence derived from Myths. 

 § 4. Cause of Disappearance . 



§ 5. Conclusion. 



§ 1. Introduction. In the last two chapters the specific identity of the Cave Lion 

 with that living at the present day has been summed up, and its distribution over Post- 

 glacial Europe and America unfolded so far as the materials at our commands would allow. 

 In conclusion, we propose to discuss its retreat from Europe. It vanished away, as we have 

 seen, from Britain, Erance, Germany, and Italy before the dawn of the Prehistoric epoch, 

 or the epoch characterised by the introduction of the Dog, Goat, Bos longifrons, and 

 Sheep into Europe, as well as by the appearance of the Neolithic and bronze-using 

 races of men. 1 It is, however, extremely probable that while those animals and peoples 

 were spreading through Europe northwards and westwards, the Lion was retreating to 

 the south and to the east ; at all events, there is ample proof that it was living in Thrace 

 at the commencement of the Historical period in Greece, and it is not unreasonable to 

 suppose that its retreat from North-eastern and Central Europe was gradually brought 

 about. 



The documentary evidence on which the former existence of the Lion in Europe is 

 based is of two distinct kinds ; first, that which is indisputably true, since it presents the 

 same grounds for being accepted as any other fact recorded in history ; and secondly, that 

 which is afforded by myths which we may expect a priori to have been based upon some 

 foundation of truth that we are able to arrive at by using history on the one hand 

 and palaeontology on the other, as our analytical tests. 



1 The Prehistoric Period is defined in the Introduction to the British Pleistocene Mammalia (§§ 1,2, 3, 

 4, 5), and in an essay on The Prehistoric Mammals of Great Britain (' International Congress of Prehistoric 

 Archaeology,' Norwich, 1868). 



