1903 - 4 .] Dr Munro on Man in the Palaeolithic Period. 97 
turies or millenniums may be left in the hands of astronomers and 
geologists, who, in more recent times, have appropriated among 
them the solution of this part of the problem. It is with the 
second part of the range, viz., the time which has elapsed since 
the Palaeolithic artists and hunters lived, that we are now chiefly 
concerned. It embraces the entire duration of the Historic, Iron, 
Bronze and Neolithic Ages, together with an interval of unknown 
length between the Neolithic and Palaeolithic civilisations. It has 
long been supposed that during this obscure interval there had 
been a hiatus in the continuity of human existence in Western 
Europe — an idea which, however, is now justly discredited in face 
of more recent discoveries, throughout the same geographical area, 
of transition deposits containing human relics. Of these later 
discoveries the rock-shelter of Schweizersbild, near S chaff hausen, 
is one of the best examples known to me, as its debris indicates 
that the site was a constant rendezvous for bands of roving hunters 
from the Palaeolithic period down to the Bronze Age. Dr Niiesch, 
its explorer, has expressed the opinion, founded on the relative 
thickness of the deposits and the character of the fauna represented 
in them, that the antiquity of its earliest human relics cannot be less 
than 20,000 years. Now, since the art-remains found in this station 
and in the adjacent cave of Kesslerloch are precisely similar to 
those of the analogous stations in France, we can accept the above 
estimate as equally applicable to the latter. The nature of the evi- 
dence on which Dr Niiesch founded his opinion is briefly as follows : — 
According to Professor Nehring, who has made a special study 
of the animals now inhabiting the arctic and sub-arctic regions, 
those characteristic of the former are — Band-lemming, Obi- 
lemming, arctic fox, mountain hare, reindeer and musk - ox. 
With these are frequently associated a number of animals of 
migratory habits, such as northern vole, water - rat, glutton, 
ermine, little weasel, wolf, fox and bear. Now, the extraordinary 
fact was brought out that of these fourteen species only the Obi- 
lemming and the musk-ox were unrepresented in the lowest 
relic-bed of the Schweizersbild. The latter was, however, found 
in the debris of the Kesslerloch cave in the vicinity. It appears 
that the Band-lemming ( Myodes torquatus ) and the arctic fox 
are the most persistent animals of the arctic fauna, so that the 
PROC. ROY. SOC. EDIN. — YOL. XXY. 7 
