14 WILLIAM DALE^ ESQ., F.S.A., P.G.S., ON PREHISTORIC MAN : 



of which are continually being discovered, prove that he lived with 

 a fauna which has now^ passed away, and under conditions of 

 climate different from those which now obtain in the locaHty — 

 facts confirmed by the mammalian remains which are sometimes 

 found in true association with human handiwork in the Pleistocene 

 gravels. 



I have incidentally referred to the theory of pre-crag man. 

 The evidence for the existence of such is based solely on roughly- 

 broken flints w^hich carry with them no conviction in the eyes of 

 many. To admit that man existed in Pliocene times is to date 

 him back far across the dial-plate of geological time, and only 

 the student of geology can realise how much that means. In 

 leaving this part of my subject I should mention that several 

 leading archaeologists have now come to the conclusion that the 

 gap which was long supposed to separate the Older Stone Age 

 from the newer did not exist, but that each melted into the other, 

 and that human progress has not been seriously interrupted since 

 man first began to chip flint. Flints found in the surface soil, 

 which a short time back were unhesitatingly called Neolithic and 

 said to date from a period only just anterior to the Age of Bronze 

 in Britain, are now^ considered to be similar to forms found 

 abroad and ascribed to the late Paleolithic Age. The abolition 

 of the hiatus between the Older and Newer Ages of stone seems 

 to do away with the necessity for some of the great physical 

 changes for which long time was demanded, and its tendency is 

 to shorten the periods in question and to bring Paleolithic man 

 nearer to us. So the theory proves a corrective to the views of 

 those who take us back far into the mists of geologic time. 



I have next to speak of some of the theories concerning the 

 descent of man, and to refer to the few skeletal remains of him 

 which are known, and which can be safelyplaced in the Paleolithic 

 Age. The theories, which I will attempt to summarize very 

 briefly, are all based upon the doctrine of the evolution of man 

 from the ape. Professor Sollas, writing in 1910, refers to the 

 fact that Darwin omitted all reference to man because the question 

 was beset with prejudice, but now he says Evolution has become 

 an orthodox dogma, respectable beyond reproach. Our cousin- 

 ship with the apes, more or less remote, is acknowledged without 

 shame on our part, and let us hope without reason for shame on 

 theirs. I need not trouble you with any theory of the earlier 

 stages of the development of the manlike apes from a more 

 primitive ancestry. The mazes of speculation on this head are 



