CHAPTER II.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN History, in the narrower sense of the word, depends on written records.
As we follow back history to the point at which our written records grow hazy, and the immediate ancestors or predecessors of the peoples who appear in history are disclosed in legend that needs much eking out by the help of the spade, we pass into proto-history.

At the back of that, again, beyond the point at which written records are of any avail at all, comes pre-history.
How, then, you may well inquire, does the pre-historian get to work?
What is his method of linking facts together?
And what are the sources of his information?
First, as to his method.

Suppose a number of boys are in a field playing football, whose superfluous garments are lying about everywhere in heaps; and suppose you want, for some reason, to find out in what order the boys arrived on the ground.

How would you set about the business?
Surely you would go to one of the heaps of discarded clothes, and take note of the fact that this boy's jacket lay under that boy's waistcoat.
Moving on to other heaps you might discover that in some cases a boy had thrown down his hat on one heap, his tie on another, and so on.
This would help you all the more to make out the general series of arrivals.

Yes, but what if some of the heaps showed signs of having been upset?
Well, you must make allowances for these disturbances in your calculations.