Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/22

16 Smaller Mammals, such as rhinoceros, horse, bison, megaceros-deer, primigenial ox, lion, bear, hyæna, wolf—remains of all which I have received from formations on the banks of the Thames, corresponding with, or analogous to, those at Tilbury—were objects of exciting chase or trap-capture, doubtless attended with frequent combat.

The palæontological coincides with the geological evidences in the conclusion that mankind existed on what is now Great Britain at a period antecedent to its severance by a "German Ocean" and an "English Channel" from the great Europæo-Asiatic continent.

The rudely cooked flesh of such would be gnawed down cleanly to the bone by the hungry hunters. Vegetable food would be obtained from wild uncultivated plants. Some fruits, such as the crab-apple, the sloe, the hips and haws, would be the dainties during short and special seasons: those could not be long stored, uncooked. The hazel-nuts, beech-mast, and acorns might be collected in quantities and kept for a longer period, combining a vegetable with the animal diet of our primitive predecessors. And here I cannot refrain from speculating on the stiffness of advancing years affecting the energies, the keen vision, the rapid strong stroke, which brought more abundantly animal food to the youthful wielder of his palæolithic weapon. The preparation for swallowing raw and hard fruits polished off the crowns of the few remaining teeth of the ancient, probably primitive, dweller of the Thames valley.