398 THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD. 



have been a dry steppe interval sufficiently severe as to kill off 

 plant life and that therefore the roaming animals departed for 

 the south. In other words the cause of this state of things is 

 to be found not in glacial conditions but in the opposite. Hot 

 and dry desert conditions with sand storms* made the Channel 

 and islands unable to support vegetable and animal life, and 

 when ultimately the conditions changed the sea had encroached 

 enough to prevent the return of life to the islands. 



Thus is it reasonable to suppose that the later paleolithic 

 men failed to reach our islands. Alderney and Jersey have 

 provided us with an abundance of Magdalenian implements. 

 These are thickly patinated owing to their exposure to the 

 sun's rays while resting on the sand surface. We know there- 

 fore that conditions favourable to life returned before or 

 during the Magdalenian period, but too late for that culture 

 to be represented here. 



It is reasonable to suppose that while this elevated period 

 was passing the island was losing height by the degradation 

 of the high lands owing to the action of wind and rains (before 

 and after the arid interval), and the upper portion of the 

 " Head," in places, shows indistinctly some such additions, 

 but the upper portions of the " Head " itself w r as lowered, 

 hence the evidence to be derived from it is by no means 

 satisfactory. 



At the close of the period under review the climate 

 became warm and genial, the forest growth became abundant 

 on all the margins of the land not yet covered by water, and 

 the Neolithic Culture began to take its place on our shores 

 and to write its history on our higher land. 



Stage 6. 

 THE GEOLOGY OF THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD. 



I am deliberately passing by all reference to the Neolithic 

 culture as such, and will only speak of the implements and 

 monuments as they affect my geological conclusions. 



The positions of the dolmens and their conditions help in 

 determining the geological changes. 



First we know that these men occupied the now sunken 

 forests, for their implements have been found in fair abun- 

 dance in the peat ; therefore we may safely conclude that 

 although we have no positive evidence to that effect there had 

 been a recovery from the sea which enabled the men and 



* A remnant of these sands is to be seen overlying the upper clay on the flat 

 land to the west of the Ramee Road, as well as in other positions at about the 

 same elevation on the west side of the island. 



