424 
DAVIS: ANCIENT FLINT-USEES OF YORKSHIRE. 
scattered over the Penine chain of hills. On the east coast, near 
what is now Spurn point, and occupying an area at one time extending 
far into the Xorth Sea, but now swept away and enveloped in its 
waters, were tribes of men who dug large hollow pits in which they 
deposited their refuse. Others further north in Holderness erected 
dwellings over the lake-like meres which covered a large portion of 
its surface, whilst probably at the same period the mound and 
entrenchment builders covered the higher ground of the chalk wolds. 
Whether they preceded or succeeded the kitchen-midden people is 
uncertain, but we do know that long ages before either existed, a 
people lived on the banks of the rivers in the South of England, who 
were contemp'>rary with animals long ago extinct in this country, 
when England formed a part of the Continent of Earope. What 
physical conditions prevented their migration northwards to York- 
shire, or if they did so, what has become of the evidence of their 
occupation, are questions which must remain for the present unsolved. 
The age of the early tribes of mankind is a subject which always 
excites interest, and interesting speculations on the subject have been 
formulated in every country where the study of pre-historic man has 
been made. That man as a species ranges far back into geological 
time, there can be little doubt. The recent researches of anthro- 
pologists, both in Europe and America, appear to indicate a common 
origin in some warm and hospitable climate, probably in x\?ia, for the 
several branches of the human race. In Europe successive migrations 
have tended westwards, whilst American investigators find that the 
primitive population travelled eastwards, probably crossing from Asia 
in the first instance by way of Behring Straits. In considering such 
early migTations, it is always necessary to bear in mind that the 
present level of the sea and land is not fixed, and that in the dim 
past when the earliest men were gradually extending over the surface 
of the globe, the relative positions of land and sea may have been 
very difi'erent. 
The state of culture and the progress towards civilization amongst 
the different races of men has been very unequal in different localities, 
and whilst some nations have progressed, others bound down by 
adverse circumstances and inhospitable climate, have persisted in 
