Man still advanced with very slow and uncertain steps, his
whole progress in that vast period being measured by the
invention of one or two new forms of stone implements and a
little more skill in chipping them. At its close a great chill
comes over Europe--the last ice-sheet is, it seems, spreading
southward--and we enter the Mousterian period and encounter the
Neanderthal race which we described in the preceding chapter.
It must be borne in mind that the whole culture of primitive
times is crushed into a few feet of earth. The anthropologist is
therefore quite unable to show us the real succession of human
stages, and has to be content with a division of the whole long
and gradual evolution into a few well-marked phases. These
phases, however, shade into each other, and are merely convenient
measurements of a continuous story. The Chellean man has slowly
advanced to a high level. There is no sudden incoming of a higher
culture or higher type of man. The most impressive relics of the
Mousterian period, which represent its later epoch, are merely
finely chipped implements. There is no art as yet, no pottery,
and no agriculture; and there is no clear trace of the use of
fire or clothing, though we should bc disposed to put these
inventions in the chilly and damp Mousterian period.
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