Fig. 73.—Flint pick from the Lower Pleistocene of the Thames Valley. Two-thirds the size of the object.
[Transcriber’s Note: The original image is approximately 5¼ inches (13.5cm) high and 2¾ inches (7cm) wide.]
It will have been gathered from what I have said that, in seeking for knowledge of the sequence of events in the period of Palæolithic Man, everything depends upon extreme care in removing the deposits from a cave inch by inch, and keeping all objects found distinct from one another and assigned to their proper layer. The same system is now applied with great success to the exploration of ancient cities in Egypt and Central Asia.
Fig. 74.—A rough type of flint implement from the Lower Pleistocene of the Somme Valley (St. Acheuil). One-half the size of the object.
[Transcriber’s Note: The original image is approximately 3¾ inches (9.5cm) high and 2 inches (5cm) wide.]
As to the actual bones and skulls of men discovered in these Pleistocene deposits, they show us that the Reindeer Men were a fine, full-brained people, as we should expect, with as large a brain cavity on the average as that of modern Europeans. The skulls of this race, which do not differ in character from those of highly developed modern races, were first found at Cromagnon, and hence we may call them “the Cromagnards” ([Fig. 75]). The Neander Men are the men of the middle period—the last glacial period—who were displaced by the splendid and accomplished Cromagnards. The Neander Men, of which the new French specimen ([Fig. 65]) from the cave of the Chapelle-aux-Saints is one, were a very inferior race, and so different from any living race of men as to justify the recognition of them as a distinct species of man, the Homo Neanderthalensis. Only a few other imperfect skulls and skeletons of them are known (Figs. [76] and [77]), and show them to have been short people, with very low, flat heads and retreating foreheads. It is in accordance with what one would expect, that they should make no works of art, and should be displaced, as climatic conditions changed for the better, by the arrival of the fine, full-brained Cromagnards or Reindeer Men. But where did they, these delightful artists and happy hunters of the Reindeer Epoch, come from? We cannot say. And what became of them? We do not know. They did not give rise to the Neolithic race, but were replaced, turned out by that race. To them, indeed, are appropriate the words of the Roman poet—Prolem sine matre creatam, mater sine prole defuncta.