Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/242

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234
PREHISTORIC BRITAIN

for that able scientist, Mr. Martin A. C. Hinton, regards the fauna found with this skull as of the Pleistocene period, and therefore much older than the Tilbury specimen. Another of the same type, also in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was found beneath a layer of peat and fifteen feet of blue clay when a railway cutting was made in Gloucester. The skull found beneath the limestone deposit of Gough's Cave at Cheddar, Somerset, is also of the river-bed type. All of these are usually assigned to the Neolithic period, and represent the prevailing type of Englishman at the commencement of that period, and probably also in the latter part of the Palæolithic period. The skulls mentioned may represent British men and women living thousands of years apart. They clearly belong to the same race which, for lack of a better, we may name the 'river-bed race.' It is the prevailing type in England to-day, and from the scanty evidence at our disposal we may presume that it has been the dominant form many thousands of years. Remains of the same race have also been found at Schweizersbild in Switzerland. These remains of a Neolithic people have been described recently by Dr. Franz Schwertz. All trace of this race has disappeared in Switzerland, whereas in England, in spite of invasion of Saxon, Jute, Dane and Norman, it still thrives abundantly. Further research will probably show that this race was at one time widely distributed throughout Europe,