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Rh short, the main elements of Neolithic civilization, including the disposal of the dead in caverns, or artificially constructed megalithic chambers, were established in various parts of Europe, even before the final close of Palæolithic civilization.

We have seen that the so-called Hiatus theory has been disproved on the Continent by the discovery of a number of inhabited sites (caves, rock-shelters, shell-mounds, hut-dwellings, etc.) showing by the character of the relics found in their débris that there had been no break in the continuity of human occupation from late Palæolithic to Neolithic times. The existence of such transition stations within the British Isles is, perhaps, not yet sufficiently pronounced to entitle archæologists to accept this opinion as applicable to Britain. The submergence of the land in the south of England, which has been advanced in these pages to partly account for the rarity of the evidential materials in support of the continuity of human life in Britain, requires more elucidation than the space at my disposal allowed. But if the theory be well founded, more convincing facts will, no doubt, be soon forthcoming. It is probable that the last phase of the Palæolithic civilization came to a close earlier in Britain than in France, in consequence of the warmer climate of the former which came into action as soon as the British area became an island, and was possibly accelerated by the