Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/231

] of the caves of the three last stages. The differences are of the same order as those observed by Arctic explorers among various tribes of Eskimos, some of which are rich and admirably equipped for the battle of life, others poor, and without the higher forms of implements and weapons: but nevertheless all their implements are to be referred to the same race, and to be grouped together as belonging to the same stage of culture.

Nor are there any periods in the history of the Palæolithic caverns of Belgium, Germany, or Switzerland, well defined by different implements or by different mammalian species. In them the characteristic implements of the three later ages of M. de Mortillet occur in the same strata, in association with the remains of the same animals, and therefore must be referred to the same people in the same stage of culture as that observed in the caves of France and Britain.

Nor does an appeal to the variations presented by the fauna aid us in making a chronological sequence, as I have shown in my work on Cave-hunting, for the hunters in each district would live on whatever animals they could catch, and the abundance of reindeer in one cave, as compared with that of horses or cave-bears in