Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/230

202 of the manufacture of bone implements and the decay of that of stone.

These divisions, to a large extent based on the improvements observable in the various sets of implements, are not sharply defined from each other, the first one excepted, and cannot, in Mr. Evans' opinion, at present be regarded as absolutely established. The men who used elaborately chipped lance-heads of the "Epoque Solutrien" used implements identical with those of Moustier, as well as articles of bone and antler like those of La Madelaine, and were also acquainted with the art of engraving the figures of animals. With regard to the two last divisions which are represented in the valley of the Vezère, the view of Professor Edward Lartet that they belong to the same phase of the human period, is probably true, since there is but little difference between the animals found in them, and since the difference in the human implements may be accounted for by the unequal distribution of articles in use at the same time, as well as by there having been different centres of manufacture. On examining the principal collections in France, it seems to me that this explanation may be extended so as to cover the "Epoque Moustérien" as well as those of Solutré and La Madelaine, and I am able to recognise merely local differences, due probably to tribal isolation, or to abundance of stone or antler, between the contents