From Germany, Italy, Spain, America, India,
and Egypt similar results were reported.
Especially noteworthy were the further explorations of the caves
and drift throughout the British Islands. The discovery by
Colonel Wood, In 1861, of flint tools in the same strata with
bones of the earlier forms of the rhinoceros, was but typical of
many. A thorough examination of the caverns of Brixham and
Torquay, by Pengelly and others, made it still more evident that
man had existed in the early Quaternary period. The existence of
a period before the Glacial epoch or between different glacial
epochs in England, when the Englishman was a savage, using rude
stone tools, was then fully ascertained, and, what was more
significant, there were clearly shown a gradation and evolution
even in the history of that period. It was found that this
ancient Stone epoch showed progress and development. In the
upper layers of the caves, with remains of the reindeer, who,
although he has migrated from these regions, still exists in
more northern climates, were found stone implements revealing
some little advance in civilization; next below these, sealed up
in the stalagmite, came, as a rule, another layer, in which the
remains of reindeer were rare and those of the mammoth more
frequent, the implements found in this stratum being less
skilfully made than those in the upper and more recent layers;
and, finally, in the lowest levels, near the floors of these
ancient caverns, with remains of the cave bear and others of the
most ancient extinct animals, were found stone implements
evidently of a yet ruder and earlier stage of human progress.
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