| | | Iberian | |_________________|_______________________|____________________| | | | | | | | Magdalenian | L C | Post-glacial or | So-called palæolithic | Soloutrian | a e | palanthropic | or Age of | Mousterian | t n | | Chipped Stone | Chellean | e o | | | | r z | | | | o | | | | i | | | | c | | | | |_________________|_______________________|____________________| | | | | Pleistocene or | | | glacial | | |_________________| No certain trace of Man | | | | | Pliocene | | |_________________|____________________________________________| CHAPTER VI END OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE The palanthropic age came to a tragic end, and is somewhat definitely separated from that which succeeded it. This appears from several considerations which are too often overlooked by writers who have a prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by slow degrees into that by which it is followed--an exaggerated uniformitarianism beyond that of Lyell, but in harmony with the hypothesis of Darwin, to which many anthropologists appear to tie themselves hopelessly. Three facts are here specially important. The Canstadt and Cro-magnon races are physically different from any modern races, and give place at the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them as any now existing, and who, on the other hand, while separated from the palæocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern times. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may to this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt or Cro-magnon type. These are good evidences of the unity of man through all the ages, but no race exists having all the peculiarities of these ancient peoples, which thus belong not to a distinct species but to a distinct racial variety of man.