It is evident that the mammoth was constituted to support extreme cold. Being exclusively herbiliorous, it fed upon the foliage, branches, and young cones of the Conifera and on the rank grass of the steppes. There is not the faintest tradition of its existence within historic times.
Another powerful herbivore, whose remains are constantly associated with those of the mammoth, is the "woolly rhinoceros" (R. lichorIthfus), or the rhinoceros "with nostrils separated by a wall," so called from an osseous septum which divides its nose. This species was larger than any at present existing, and carried two horns upon its nose. its rela tives of the present day, it was a decidedly glacial animal. Its skin lay close to its body, not in heavy folds as is so characteristic of the present species, and it was protected from the inclemencies of the climate by thick and abundant woolly hair. There is no doubt as to these particulars, for the Siberian ice has fortunately preserved very satisfactory specimens of this extinct quadruped. Its remains have also been discovered in France, Great Britain, Germany, and Russia. It is believed to have perished sooner than the mammoth.
A contemporary of these was the "great Irish deer" (iliegaceros Hibernia's, pl. 1, fig.31), remarkable for its stature and the spread of its antlers. Its skeletons show it to have reached nearly eleven feet in height, and to have borne on its small head antlers which sometimes measured fully eleven feet from tip to tip. It has been called the "Irish deer" from some fine specimens obtained from the peat-bogs of Ireland, but its remains abound in France, Belgium, and Germany. It was extinct before the historical period began.
The urns (Bos primigcnins) and the aurochs (Bison Enropa.us) were two large bovines which roamed the forests of Central Europe in the later Quaternary, and have disappeared only within comparatively recent times. The urns is mentioned by acsar as hunted in his day in the Hercynian Forest, and did not entirely die out until the sixteenth century; while a single herd of the aurochs has been preserved in a forest in Lithuania by the care of the Russian government. At one time both these species roamed over England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the adjacent regions.
Of predatory animals there were various species of dogs and numer ous hyenas. One of the latter, known as the cave hyena (Hrerna sclera), was much larger than any species now living, and from its remains must have been very abundant. Another species, the spotted hyena (H. crocit resembled that which at present is found in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope.
Horses of several species became very common toward the close of the Quaternary. They were a small race, rarely standing five feet in height, but strongly built and with large teeth. Apparently, they were used by
the inhabitants as food, as at one locality, near Solutre in France, an immense collection of their bones was discovered, representing, according to one antiquary, the remains of forty thousand individuals. They were probably not a domesticated animal at this period.
The most interesting and characteristic animal of the late quaternary was the reindeer /arandns). Its bones are found in France, Belgium, and Germany, but not in Spain or Italy. Long before the beginning of the historic period it had migrated to the far North. The reindeer is essentially a glacial animal, and demands a decidedly cold climate for its existence. At present it cannot reproduce its kind even in the climate of St. Petersburg or Stockholm. Hence the frequency of its remains in the deposits of France and Belgium may be considered con clusive testimony that at the period when it abounded in those localities they were under arctic conditions of temperature. As these became modified by a gradual change to a higher annual temperature, the rein deer, with his companions, the musk ox and the musk sheep, migrated to the North.
These latter are strictly arctic animals. Of all the large quadrupeds, the musk ox can bear the greatest cold and can glean a subsistence where even the reindeer perishes. At present it has entirely disappeared from Europe and Asia; but in the Arctic regions north of British America, no matter to how high a latitude the daring explorers penetrate, they find the tracks of herds of musk oxen with their steps directed to vet more polar climes. What must have been the climate of the neighborhood of Paris and London when such a creature found there a congenial home? General Divisions of European Archerology.—Some archreologists have sought to fix the various periods of man's technological development by a reference to the most characteristic contemporary fauna. Thus, M. Edouard Lartet in France and the principal Belgian writers on the subject divide the prehistoric chronology of the race in Europe as follows: I. The Age of the Great Cave Bear.
II. The Age of the Mammoth.
III. The Age of the Reindeer.
IV. The Age of Domestic Animals.
Such a classification strikes the imagination, and is easily remembered, and for these reasons is useful; but it is lacking in precision, and, more over, is less desirable than one which would take its data from the evolu tion of man's own industrial powers. The somewhat elaborate scheme quoted from M. de Mortillet on page 19 is objectionable, as confined too much to the horizon of France, and as depending also on criteria outside of human activity.
The plan which will be adopted in these pages will not be open to these objections. Its subdivisions are as follows: Classification of Prehistoric Remains.