Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/142

 CHAPTER V

the successive generations which have peopled the globe since man first appeared on the scene we know very little, owing to the inexorable law of nature which destines the human body soon after death to revert to its original dust. How, then, it may be asked, does fossil man occur in nature? In answer to this pertinent query I may at once explain, that fossil man is the product of exceptional circumstances, partly due to the vicarious action of natural agencies, and partly to operations initiated by man himself. Thus, if the body of an animal, such as that of man or of a mammoth, be accidentally deposited in the mud of a lake, sea, or river, or entombed in debris of fallen roof of a cave, or sunk in a bog of growing peat, or frozen in a field of perpetual ice, the law of decomposition is apt to be retarded indefinitely. Hence in certain but rare circumstances the body of an animal may be preserved for many centuries after its congeners have crumbled into dust. In Arctic regions the carcases of mammoths have been frequently discovered embedded in the frozen soil of the tundras of Northern Siberia, having their flesh so thoroughly preserved that it is known to have been eaten by the dogs of the present day. (For references, see Mammals, Living and Extinct, by Flower and Lydekker, p. 431.) Nor is it a rare occurrence to find the bodies of animals, and even those of