we shall identify the Cave-men not only with the long-headed and round-headed races of men of Neolithic Europe, but with men now livins: in France and Belgium. The evidence, however, seems to me insufficient to establish the Palæolithic age of any one of the skeletons in the above caves,[1] while the fragmentary condition of all the human remains which are Palæolithic forbids any speculation as to the race to which they belonged.
If we appeal to the arts of the Cave-men, and those of their Neolithic successors in Europe, to be examined in the next chapter, it will be seen that there is absolutely no connection between them. The former had an extraordinary facility in reproducing animal forms on their implements and ornaments; the later had no idea of representing animals. The whole set of implements and weapons also, excepting such elementary forms as the flint flake, the pointed bone, and antler, and the needle, are altogether different. The hard-and-fast line of demarcation between the two in every country where their remains have been discovered would be impossible had the Palæolithic race or races been absorbed by Neolithic invaders. How, then, can we account for their disappearance? Simply by assuming that at the close of the Pleistocene age, when they came into contact with Neolithic invaders, there were the same feelings between them as existed in Hearne's times between the Eskimos and the Red Indian, terror and defenceless hatred being, on the one side, met by ruthless extermination on the other. In this way the Cave-men would be gradually driven from Europe, without leaving any mark on the succeeding peoples either in blood or in manners and customs.
- ↑ My reasons for this view are given in Cave-hunting, c. vii.
