annot be doubted for a moment. As to the
physical peculiarities of the ancient races that lived with the
Mammoth and the Woolly Rhinoceros, little is known compared with
what we may some day hope to know. Such information as we have,
however, based principally on the skulls of the Engis, Neanderthal,
Cro-Magnon, and Bruniquel caverns, would lead to the conclusion that
Post-Pliocene Man was in no respect inferior in his organisation
to, or less highly developed than, many existing races. All the
known skulls of this period, with the single exception of the
Neanderthal cranium, are in all respects average and normal in
their characters; and even the Neanderthal skull possessed a
cubic capacity at least equal to that of some existing races.
The implements of Post-Pliocene Man are exclusively of stone or
bone; and the former are invariably of rude shape and _undressed_.
These "palaeolithic" tools (Gr. _palaios_; ancient; _lithos_,
stone) point to a very early condition of the arts; since the
men of the earlier portion of the Recent period, though likewise
unacquainted with the metals, were in the habit of polishing
or dressing the stone implements which they fabricated.

It is impossible here to enter further into this subject; and
it would be useless to do so without entering as well into a
consideration of the human remains of the Recent period--a period
which lies outside the province of the present work. So far as
Post-Pliocene Man is concerned, the chief points which the
palaeontological student has to remember have been elsewhere
summarised by the author as follows:--

1. Man unquestionably existed during the later portion of what
Sir Charles Lyell has termed the "Post-Pliocene" period. In other
words, Man's existence dates back to a time when several remarkable
Mammals, previously mentioned, had not yet become extinct; but he
does not date back to a time anterior to the present _Molluscan_
fauna.

2. The antiquity of the so-called Post-Pliocene period is a matter
which must be mainly settled by the evidence of Geology proper,
and need not be discussed here.

3. The extinct Mammals with which man coexisted in Western Europe are
mostly of large size, the most important being the Mammoth (_Elephas
primogenius_), the Woolly Rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros tichorhinus_),
the Cave-lion (_Felis speloea_), the Cave-hyaena(_Hyoena speloea),
and the Cave-bear (_Ursus speloeus_). We do not know the causes
which led to the extinc