The next palæontological evidence of Man is found in the Neolithic cavern deposits, alluvial accumulations, peat mosses, lake bottoms, pile dwellings, and shell-mounds in various parts of Europe. Between the time that Palæolithic Man left the caves he occupied, and the date when the earlier Neolithic people began to deposit fragments of the records of their history in the kitchen-midden, which they piled in front of their shelters, a long period appears to have elapsed in many districts. The objects found in these refuse-heaps are not associated with the remains of the Mammoth, the Woolly Rhinoceros, or the Elephant, but with those of animals still living, or such as have lived down to within historical times. The remains of his skeleton indicate that Neolithic Man varied very much in stature. Some were tall, some short; some had long and others broad skulls. The long-skulled people had the same tall stature and cranial peculiarities as the blue-eyed, light haired, and long-headed _Xanthochroi_ living at the present day in Eastern Prussia, North Belgium, Northern France, and Britain, though their bony fabric "bears marks of somewhat greater ruggedness and savagery." The broad-skulled Men were short, and agreed in physical characters with the majority of the people now inhabiting the Mediterranean sea-board--the _Melanochroi_--with black hair and black eyes. Many Neolithic graves have {224}given up also the remains of a tall, broad-skulled, and a short, long-skulled race. Such are the only recovered links in the pedigree of our race, and extremely unsatisfactory they are; indeed, beyond these few spots in Western Europe, in California, and the Mississippi valley in North America, Palæontology is silent as to the history of Man, and sheds no light upon his origin, or his last pithecoid parents; for, in Professor Huxley's impressive words, "so far as that light is bright it shows him substantially as he is now, and when it grows dim it permits us to see no sign that he was other than he is now." {225}III.--THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIMATES. By means of the accompanying tables and maps I have attempted to present in a concise and clear manner the distribution of the _Lemuroidea_ and the _Anthropoidea_ in time and in space. For the distribution of existing forms I have followed the divisions of the Globe proposed by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in his essay on the Zoo-Geographical Areas of the World, published in "Natural Science" (Vol. III., pp. 100-108). I. Table showing the genera of PRIMATES peculiar to, and common to, the Old and New Worlds. _A._ LEMUROIDEA. OLD WORLD. NEW WORLD. (Palæogæa.) (Neogæa.) Living. Extinct. Living. Extinct. Fam. CHIROMYIDÆ. Chiromys [+] -- -- -- Fam. TARSIIDÆ. Tarsius [+] -- -- --