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228 CHAPTER X

BRITISH ETHNOLOGY

have already sufficiently discussed the culture, civilization and physical characters of the Palæolithic people of Britain whom we encountered as inhabitants of the western fringe of the great European continent which represented the inhabited land-areas of those days. They were regarded as belonging to the same races as their fellow-hunters on the other side of the English Channel—there being then no water barrier to prevent free intercourse between them and the rest of the people of Europe. Their fossil remains were too scanty and fragmentary to furnish reliable data for founding on them any specific racial distinctions—even the Eoanthropus dawsoni is still sub judice.

The first problem we have to consider is, what became of the descendants of these early inhabitants of Britain? Have they died out like the dodo? Or did they emigrate with the reindeer to more congenial lands? To both these questions the answer is in the negative, for reasons annexed. Evidence will be adduced to prove that they continued to