VI.—Post-Glacial Man in Britain

Abstract

The relative position of post-Glacial Man to post-Glacial geology has been a rather neglected field of research. This borderland between the domains of the Archæologist and the Geologist appears to have been treated as neutral ground, yet entombedinit are the relics of Neolithic Man and the first evidences of the dawn of civilization. It may be alleged that the splendid results of cave exploration have given us a better idea of man's evolution from a savage to a civilized existence than could have been obtained from any other source. Whilst this must be admitted, cave research can furnish very little evidence of the great physical changes which went on outside such abodes. If for instance man can he proved to have been an inhabitant of Western Europe during the Glacial epoch, the gradual change of the climate from frigid to temperate may have had a powerful influence in modifying his habits and thereby assisting his development from the state of a rude savage to that of a civilized man. Deposits in caverns aid very little in this work. They are for the most part choked-up subterranean watercourses, and it follows that any deposits found therein may have been subjected to much disturbance. The most slender evidence derived from cave deposits is even by such distinguished geologists as Prof. Hughes and Prof. Boyd-Dawkins thought quite sufficient to determine the momentous question whether Palaeolithic Man was Glacial or post-Glacial. Prof. Boyd-Dawkins decides the matter in his “Early Man in Britain,” p. 192, in the following very summary manner:—