Into the question of which system of dating should be adopted it is impossible to enter, though it may be said that if 1,666 years seems a huge allowance for the five Dynasties, 208 years seems almost incredibly small. The result is what concerns us here, and we are faced with the fact that, while the traditional dating places the First Egyptian Dynasty at about 4000 B.C., the German school would bring it down to 3400 B.C., and Professor Petrie thrusts it back to 5510 B.C. Dr. Evans, in provisionally assigning dates to the periods of Minoan history, formerly drew nearer to the traditional than to either the German dating or that of Professor Petrie; but he has gradually modified this position, and now dates his Middle Minoan II., which synchronizes with the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, at 2000 B.C., thus practically accepting the chronology of the German school. This would place Early Minoan I., which must be equated with the First Dynasty, about 3400 B.C. Practically, all that can be said with a moderate amount of certainty is that the earliest civilization of Crete, like that of Egypt, was in existence at a period not much later than 3500 B.C., while it is not impossible that it may be 1,500 years older. Even accepting the lower figure, the antiquity of man's first settlements on the hill of Kephala becomes absolutely staggering to the mind. If the growth of deposit on the hill was at the rate of something like 3 feet in a millennium--a reasonable supposition--it follows that we must place the earliest habitations of Neolithic man at Knossos not later than 10000, perhaps as early as 12000 B.C.