IN this book I present to the public some essays on Pre-historic Archæology, part of which have appeared in the “Natural History Review,” viz., that on

1. The Danish Shell-mounds, in October, 1861.

2. The Swiss Lake-dwellings, in January, 1862.

3. The Flint Implements of the Drift, in July, 1862.

4. North American Archaeology, in January, 1863.

5. Cave-men, in July, 1864.

Messrs. Williams and Norgate suggested to me to republish these articles in a separate form, and I was further encouraged to do so, by the fact that most of them had re-appeared, either in France or America. The conductors of the “Annales des Sciences Naturelles” did me the honor to translate those on the Danish Shell-mounds, and the Swiss Lake-dwellings. The latter also appeared in “Silliman's Journal;” and the article on American Archæology, with the exception of the last paragraph, was reprinted in the “Smithsonian Report, for 1862.”

At first I only contemplated reprinting the papers as they stood, but having, at the request of the managers, delivered at the Royal Institution a short course of lectures on the Antiquity of Man, it was thought desirable to introduce the substance of these, so as to give the work a more complete character.

My object has been to elucidate, as far as possible, the principles of pre-historic archæology; laying special stress upon the indications which it affords of the condition of man in primeval times. The tumuli, or burial mounds, the peat bogs of this and other countries, the Kjökkenmoddings or shell-mounds of Denmark, the Lake-habitations of Switzerland, the bone-caves, and the river-drift gravels, are here our principal sources of information.