VI 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
while on the march. Lord Avebury wrote the story of the 
antiquity of man from the archaeologist's point of view. 
The problem of man's antiquity may be approached 
from another point of view — that of the human anatomist. 
The anatomist gives ancient man the centre of the stage ; 
he depends on the geologist and archaeologist to provide 
him with the scenery and stage accessories. It is from 
the anatomist's point of view that the problem of man's 
antiquity is dealt with in this book. This method of 
approach has its difficulties. The anatomist has to trace 
man into the past by means of fossil skulls, teeth, and 
limb bones — -intelligible documents to him, but complex 
and repulsive hieroglyphs in the eyes of most people. 
The publishers have assisted the author to surmount the 
more technical difficulties by allowing a very liberal use 
of explanatory diagrams, which make the arguments used 
in the text more intelligible to the general reader. In 
many respects this book is supplementary to Lord 
Avebury's classical work — Prehistoric Times. 
The main reason for the appearance of this work at the 
present time is that the "mystery" of man's antiquity 
is now culminating in a critical phase — presenting situa- 
tions which may be described as of almost absorbing 
interest. Indeed the manner in which the story of 
man's antiquity is now developing recalls the point 
reached by Dickens in his last and unfinished novel — 
The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Many learned men have 
sifted the evidence and tried to solve the problem of 
Brood's fate — some solving it in this way and some 
in that. At the present time, geologists, archaeologists, 
and anatomists are sifting the evidence relating to the 
combined problem of how and when mankind came 
into existence. On the evidence at present available, the 
author is convinced that the true solution cannot differ 
