ENVIRONMENT OF THE APE MAN 169
this f ar-oflf ape man were to accomplish. Whether this early Pleisto- cene man, by far the oldest yet known, stood in the direct line of ascent to the Neanderthal man which we find later on in Europe, or vhetlieT he represented an offshoot of this line, yet one can not contem- plate his few bones that have come down to us or that empty brain case ^w'ithout a tremendous thrill.
The earth had been luxuriant and mild for eons, practically all the modern types of animals and plants had already been evolved and then in the dawning days of the Pleistocene with the coming on of more severe climatic conditions we find the early representatives of our own race, subsequently evolving into nomadic hunters and artistic cave dvellers, that spread all over southern Europe, migrating westward in successive waves from the more arid orient. Baces that saw the great glaciers of the Ehone and the Ehine and hunted the wild horses and mastodons in southern France. It is a most inspiring history beside which Ifineveh and Tyre are as but yesterday.
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