inhabitants from savagedom to the goal of human civilization. It must also be borne in mind that in this and the following chapter, which deals with Palæolithic remains, no distinction can be drawn between relics found in Britain and the adjacent lands of Europe, as these land-areas were then united into one great continent. Many of the connecting links are probably strewn on the beds of the English Channel and the North Sea, or on former inhabited sites and submerged forests.
Early Discoveries.—Prior to the publication of Sir Charles Lyell's work on The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, isolated discoveries were recorded in different parts of Europe, disclosing anthropological facts which, in the opinion of a few savants, could only be accounted for by assigning to man a higher antiquity than was then the current opinion in scientific circles. These discoveries consisted of the fossil remains of man associated with flint implements and the bones of extinct animals in undisturbed deposits of the Quaternary period. But the reception given to this class of evidence was most discouraging, as may be judged from the following notes on a few of the earlier records.
About 1690 a flint implement of excellent workmanship of the coup-de-poing type (Fig. 2), was found along with the tooth of a mammoth in a gravel bed at Gray's Inn Lane, London, and presented to the British Museum. Though described in the Sloane Catalogue and exposed to public view ever since, it lay there,
