Anthropic.—Palanthropic, or post-glacial, in which the land emerges and attains a very wide extension, and is inhabited by a varied mammalian fauna. Man appears in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Terminated by a recurrence of cold and great subsidence, deluging all the lower lands. Neanthropic.—Area of continents smaller than in the previous period. Surviving races of men and species of animals repeople the world. Modern races of men and modern animals.
THE PALANTHROPIC AGE [14]
[14] Called by some 'Palæolithic,' from the use of implements like that figured on p. [41].
We have now to inquire more particularly what we can learn as to the earliest men known to us, those who appeared in Western Asia and Europe at the close of the glacial period, when the cold had passed away and a genial climate had succeeded, and when the continents of the northern hemisphere had attained to their largest dimensions, were clothed with a rich vegetation and tenanted by an abundant mammalian fauna, including many large and important creatures now extinct.
We may first notice here a necessary limitation to our knowledge. The dry land of this age was of greater dimensions than at present. A large portion of what then was land is consequently now under the sea or deeply buried in alluvial deposits. Hence if any men of this age lived near the borders of the ocean, their remains must now be inaccessible, and the relics which we find must be those of inland tribes or of those who were driven inland by the encroachments of the waters. Our means of information are thus limited, and we must be prepared to admit that there may have been in this age great and populous communities of which we can have no record, at least of a geological character. Hence if we should find remains of only rude races of men, we should not be justified in assuming that all the peoples of the palanthropic age were of this character, more especially if we can find any indications that the men whose remains are accessible to us, though rude themselves, may have belonged to more advanced races.
FLINT HACHE OF THE ANCIENT OR CHELLEAN TYPE, AURILLAC (after Carthaillac)