One of these floods, he thinks, must have drowned out the neat-fingered race of St.Acheul, and left the coast clear for the Mousterians with their coarser type of culture.

Perhaps they were coarser in their physical type as well.[1] [Footnote 1: Theirs was certainly the rather ape-like Neanderthal build.

If, however, the skull found at Galley Hill, near Northfleet in Kent, amongst the gravels laid down by the Thames when it was about ninety feet above its present level, is of early palaeolithic date, as some good authorities believe, there was a kind of man away back in the drift-period who had a fairly high forehead and moderate brow-ridges, and in general was a less brutal specimen of humanity than our Mousterian friend of the large grinders.] To the credit of the Mousterians, however, must be set down the fact that they are associated with the habit of living in caves, and perhaps may even have started it; though some implements of the drift type occur in Le Moustier itself, as well as in other caves, such as the famous Kent's Cavern near Torquay.

Climate, once more, has very possibly to answer for having thus driven man underground.

Anyway, whether because they must, or because they liked it, the Mousterians went on with their cave life during an immense space of time, making little progress; unless it were to learn gradually how to sharpen bones into implements.