124
EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN.
[CHAP. VI.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RIVER-DRIFT HUNTER OF THE PLEISTOCENE AGE AND HIS SURROUNDINGS.
Great Britain in the Early Pleistocene Age.—Early Pleistocene Forests in Britain.—Mammalia inhabiting Early Pleistocene Forests.—Physical Relations of Forest Bed.—Early Pleistocene Forests in France.—Presence of Man in Early Pleistocene Strata doubtful.—The Mid-Pleistocene Mammalia.—Evidence of the Presence of Man.—The Arctic Mammalia present.—Physical Relations of Mid-Pleistocene Strata.—Level not an absolute Test of Age.—Mid-Pleistocene Caverns.—The Lignite Beds of Dürnten present no Traces of Man.—The Late Pleistocene Mammalia.—Mammals found in Late Pleistocene River-Strata and Caverns in Britain.—The Late Pleistocene Geography.—The Range of the Late Pleistocene Mammals over Britain and Ireland.—The Late Pleistocene River Deposits.—The Reindeer-Ford at Windsor.—Palæolithic Implements in the Valley of the Thames.—River-drift Man in the Neighbourhood of Salisbury.—Social Condition of the River-drift Man.—His Range on the Continent.—Present in Palestine and India.—Relation to the Glacial Period.—General Conclusions as to the River-drift Man.
Great Britain in the Early Pleistocene Age.
In the Pleiocene age the North Sea extended, as we have shown in Fig 10, over a large part of Norfolk and Suffolk. At its close this area was lifted up above the waves, and probably the greater part of it became dry land, over which the early Pleistocene mammalia roamed with complete freedom, leaving their remains in the
