Chapter XI: Part 11

As regards Europe, and a large part of the other continents, the second stratum of the culture of the human race still lies at prehistoric depth. But in other extensive parts of the earth the stratum of Neolithic culture was not covered by other culture-strata until far into the period of written history. Even a large part of Europe was still inhabited by history-less tribes of the later Stone Age at the time when the old civilised lands of Asia and of Africa, and the coasts of the Mediterranean, had everywhere--on the basis of the same Neolithic elements, with the increasing use of metals--already risen to that higher stage of civilisation which, with the historical written records of Egypt and Babylonia, forms the basis of our present chronology.

When these civilised nations came into direct contact with the more remote nations of the Old World, they found them, as we have said, still, to a certain extent, at the Neolithic stage of civilisation, just as, when Europeans settled in America, the great majority of the aborigines had not yet passed the Neolithic stage, at which, indeed, the lowest primitive tribes of Central Brazil still remain. Australia, and a large part of the island world of the South Sea, had not yet risen above the Neolithic stage (Tasmania, probably, not even above the Palæolithic) when they were discovered. There the Stone Age, to a certain extent, comes down to modern times; likewise in the far north of Asia, in Greenland, in the most northern parts of America, and at the south point of the New Continent among the Fuegians.

The men of the later Stone Age are the ancestors of the civilised men of to-day. Classical antiquity among Greeks and Romans had still a consciousness of this, at least partly; it was not entirely forgotten that the oldest weapons of men did not consist of metal, but of stone, and even inferior material. The worked stones which the people then, as now, designated as weapons of the deity, as lightning-stones or thunderbolts, were recognised by keener-sighted men as weapons of primeval inhabitants of the land.

[Sidenote: What the Kitchen Middens Tell Us]

The “kitchen middens” on the Danish coasts mark places of more or less permanent settlement, consisting of more or less numerous individual dwellings. From these middens a rich inventory of finds has been made, affording a glimpse of the life and doings of those ancient times. The heaps consist principally of thousands upon thousands of opened shells of oysters, cockles, and other shellfish still eaten at the present day, mingled with the bones of the roe, stag, aurochs, wild boar, beaver, seal, etc. Bones of fishes and birds were also made out, among the latter being the bones of the wild swan and of the now extinct great auk, and, what is specially important in determining the geological age of these remains, large numbers of the bones of the capercailzie. Domestic animals are absent with the exception of the dog, whose bones, however, are broken, burnt, gnawed in the same way as those of the beasts of the chase. Everything proves that on the sites of these middens there formerly lived a race of fishers and hunters, whose chief food consisted of shellfish, the shells of which accumulated in mounds around their dwellings. Proofs of agriculture and cattle-rearing there are none; the dog alone was frequently bred not only as a companion in the chase, but also for its flesh.

The state of civilisation of the old Danish shellfish-eaters was not quite a low one in spite of its primitive colouring, and in essential points was superior to that of Palæolithic Man. Not only had they tamed a really domestic animal, the dog, but they made and used clay vessels for cooking and storing purposes. The cooking was done on fireplaces. They could work deer-horn and bone well. Of the former hammer-axes with round holes were made, and of animal bones arrow-heads, awls, and needles, with the points carefully smoothed. Small bone combs appeared to have served not so much for toilet purposes as for dividing animal sinews for making threads, or for dressing the threads in weaving.

The map illustrates the extent of the Ice Age in Europe. It will
be noticed that in England the ice-cap did not extend south of the
position of London though it occurred much further south in the
mountain regions of the Pyrenees, the Alps, Tyrol, the Carpathians
and the Caucasus. The dark portions of the map represent the extent
of the ice.
]

[Sidenote: Drift Man and His Adversaries]

In the way of ornaments there were perforated animal teeth. The fish remains found in the middens belong to the plaice, cod, herring, and eel. To catch these deep-sea fish the fishermen must have gone out to sea, which implies the possession of boats of some kind. Nor was only small game hunted, but also large game. Ninety per cent. of the animal bones occurring in the shell-mounds consist of those of large animals, especially the deer, roe, and wild boar. Even such dangerous adversaries as the aurochs, bear, wolf, and lynx were killed, likewise the beaver, wildcat, seal, otter, marten, and fox. The very numerous fragments of clay vessels belong partly to large pot-like vessels without handles and with pointed or flat bottoms, and partly to small oval bowls with round bottoms. All vessels were made with the free hand of coarse clay, into which small fragments of granitic stone were kneaded; as ornament they have in a few cases incisions or impressions, mostly made with the finger itself on the upper edge.

The great importance of the Danish middens in the general history of mankind is due to the fact that their age is geologically established, so that they can serve as a starting-point for chronology. It is to Japetus Steenstrup that the early history of our race owes this chronological fixing of an initial date.

[Sidenote: The First Elements of Civilisation]

The earliest inhabitants of the North of Europe during the Stone Age, as recorded by these kitchen-middens of the Danish period, were scarcely superior to Palæolithic Man in civilisation, judging from outward appearances. But a closer investigation taught us that, in spite of the poverty of their remains, a higher development of civilisation is unmistakable. And this superiority of the Neolithic over the Palæolithic Epoch becomes far more evident if we take as our standard of comparison, not the poor fisher population, who probably first reached the Danish shores as pioneers, but the Neolithic civilisation that had been fully developed in sunnier lands and followed closely upon these trappers or squatters. Next to hunting and fishing, cattle-breeding and agriculture are noticeable as the first elements of Neolithic civilisation, and in connection with them the preparation of flour and cooking; and as technical arts, chiefly carving and the fine working of stone, of which weapons and the most various kinds of tools were made; with the latter wood, bone, deer-horn, etc., could be worked. The blades are no longer sharpened merely by chipping, but by grinding, and are made in various technically perfect forms. Special importance was attached to providing them with suitable handles, for fixing which the stone implement or weapon was either provided with a hole, or, as in America especially, with notches or grooves.

[Sidenote: The Mental Life of Ancient Days]

In addition to these, there are the primitive arts of man--the ceramic art, spinning, and weaving. In the former, especially, an appreciation of artistic form and decoration by ornament is developed. The ornament becomes a kind of symbolical written language, the eventual deciphering of which appears possible in view of the latest discoveries concerning the ornamental symbolism of the primitive races of the present day. Discoveries of dwellings prove an advanced knowledge of primitive architecture; entrenchments and tumuli acquaint us with the principles of their earthworks; and the giant chambers, built of colossal blocks of stone piled upon one another, prove that the builders of those times were not far behind the much-admired Egyptian builders in transporting and piling masses of stone. The burials, whose ceremonies are revealed by opened graves, afford a glimpse of the mental life of that period. From the skulls and skeletons that have been taken from the Neolithic graves, science has been able to reconstruct the physical frame of Neolithic Man, which has in no way to fear comparison with that of modern man. Of the ornaments of the Stone Age the most important and characteristic are perforated teeth of dogs, wolves, horses, oxen, bears, boars, and smaller beasts of prey. How much in favour such ornaments were is proved by the fact that even imitations or counterfeits of them were worn. Numerous articles of ornament, carved from bone and deer-horn, were universal: ornamental plates and spherical, basket-shaped, square, shuttle-like, or chisel-shaped beads were made of these materials and formed into chains.

In the Swiss lake-dwellings of the Stone Age have been found skilfully carved ear-drops, needles with eyes, neat little combs of boxwood, and hairpins, some with heads and others with pierced side protuberances. Remains of textile fabrics, even finely twilled tissue, and also leather, were yielded by the excavations of the lake-dwellings of that period, so that we have to imagine the inhabitants adorned with clothes of various kinds.

[Sidenote: Man’s First and Oldest Animal Friend]

What raises man of the later Stone Age so far above Palæolithic Man is the possession of domestic animals and the knowledge of agriculture. As domestic animals of the later Stone Age we have proof of the dog, cow, horse, sheep, goat, and pig. Among the animals that have attached themselves to man as domestic, the first and oldest is undoubtedly the dog. It is found distributed over the whole earth, being absent from only a few small islands. Among many races the dog was, and is still, the only domestic animal in the proper sense of the word. This applies to all Esquimau tribes, to the majority of the Indians of North and South America, and to the continent of Australia.

We have no certain proofs that Palæolithic Man possessed the dog as a domestic animal. In the Somme valley, at Taubach, and at the source of the Schussen, bones of the domestic dog are absent. And yet, among Drift fauna in caves remains of dogs have been repeatedly met with, which have been claimed to be the direct ancestors of the domestic dog. The dog’s attachment to man may have taken place at different times in different parts. Man and dog immigrate to South America with the foreign Northern fauna simultaneously--in a geological sense--during the Drift. In Australia, man and dog (dingo), as the most intimate animal beings, are opposed to an animal world that is otherwise anomalous and, to the Old World, quite antiquated; probably man and dog also came to Australia together. We know of fossil remains of the dingo from the Drift, but no reliable finds have yet proved the presence of man during that period.

[Sidenote: The Dog in the Stone Age]

In the later Stone Age the dog already occurs as the companion of man wherever it occurs in historic times. In Europe its remains have been found in the Danish kitchen-middens, in the northern Neolithic finds, in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland, in innumerable caves of the Neolithic Period, in the terramare of Upper Italy, etc. It was partly a comparatively small breed, according to Rütimeyer similar to the “wachtelhund” (setter) in size and build. Rütimeyer calls this breed the lake-dwelling dog, after the lake-dwellings, one of the chief places where it has been found. Like all breeds of animals of primitive domestication, the dog at this period, according to Nehring, is small--stunted, as it were. With the progress of civilisation the dog also grows larger.

[Sidenote: Great Value of the Dog to Man]

In the later prehistoric epochs, beginning with the so-called “Bronze” Period, we find throughout almost the whole of Europe a rather larger and more powerful breed with a more pointed snout--the Bronze dog--whose nearest relative seems to be the sheep-dog. At the present day the domestic dog is mostly employed for guarding settlements and herds and for hunting. In the Arctic regions the Esquimaux also use their dogs, which are like the sheep-dog, for personal protection and hunting; they do particularly good service against the musk-ox, while the wild reindeer is too fast for them. But the Esquimau dog is chiefly used for drawing the sledge, and, where the sledge cannot be used, as a beast of burden, since it is able to carry fairly heavy loads. In China and elsewhere, as formerly in the old civilised countries of South America, the dog is still fattened and killed for meat. So that the domestic dog serves every possible purpose to which domestic animals can be put, except, it seems, for milking, although this would not be out of the question either. The dog was also eaten by man in the later Stone Age, as is proved by the finds in his kitchen refuse. The reindeer is now restricted to the Polar regions of the Northern Hemisphere--Scandinavia, North Asia, and North America, whereas in the Palæolithic Period it was very numerous throughout Russia, Siberia, and temperate Europe down to the Alps and Pyrenees. It does not seem ever to have been definitely proved that the reindeer existed in the Neolithic Period of Central and Northern Europe, although according to Von Zittel it lived in Scotland down to the eleventh century and in the Hercynian forest until the time of Cæsar. The earliest definite information we appear to have of the tamed reindeer, which at the present day is a herd animal with the Lapps in Europe, and with the Samoyedes and Reindeer Tunguses in Asia, is found in Ælian, who speaks of the Scythians having tame deer.

Oxen at present exist nowhere in the wild state, while the tame ox is distributed as a domestic animal over the whole earth, and has formed the most various breeds. In the European Drift a wild ox, the urus, distinguished by its size and the size of its horns, was widely distributed, and it still lived during the later Stone Age with the domestic ox. In the later prehistoric ages, and even in historic times, the urus still occurs as a beast of the forest.

[Sidenote: The Taming of the Wild Horse]

In the later Stone Age the horse, too, is no longer merely a beast of the chase, but occurs also in the tame state. During the Drift the horse lived in herds all over Europe, North Asia, and North Africa. From this Drift horse comes the domestic horse now found all over the earth. Even the wild horses of the Drift exhibit such considerable differences from one another that, according to Nehring’s studies, these are to be regarded as the beginning of the formation of local breeds. The taming and domestication of the wild horse of the Drift, which began in the Stone Age, led to the domestic horse being split up later into numerous breeds. The old wild horse was comparatively small, with a large head; a similar form is still found here and there on the extensive barren moors of South Germany in the moss-horse, or, as the common people call it, the moss-cat. At the present day the genus of the domestic horse falls, like the ox, into two chief breeds--a smaller and more graceful Oriental breed, and a more powerful and somewhat larger Western breed with the facial bones more strongly developed. The horse of the later Stone Age of Europe exhibits only comparatively slight differences from the wild horse; it is generally a small, half-pony-like form with a large head, evidently also a stunted product of primitive breeding under comparatively unfavourable conditions. Two species extant in the Stone Age still live wild on the steppes of Central Asia at the present day; one of them also occurs as a fossil in the European Drift, although only rarely. That the ass occurred in the European Drift is probable, but not proved. It has not yet been found in the Neolithic Period of Europe.

[Sidenote: Did the Horse come from Asia?]

A survey of the palæontology of the domestic animals shows that they come from wild Drift species which--at any rate, as regards the ox, horse, and dog--are now extinct, so that these most important domestic animals now exist only in the tame state. Some of the domestic animals came from Asia, and, according to Von Zittel, were imported into Europe from there; this applies to the peat-ox and the domestic goat and pig. The Asiatic origin of the domestic horse and sheep is probable, but not proved; the sheep is found wild in South Europe as well as in Asia. The tarpan, a breed of horse very similar to the wild horse, lives in herds independent of man on the steppes of Central Asia. This has been indicated as being probably the parent breed of the domestic horse, and the origin of the latter has accordingly also been traced to Asia.

One thing is certain: a considerable number of animal forms that co-exist with man in Europe at the present day--for instance, almost all the forms of our poultry and the fine kinds of pigs and sheep--have originally come from Asia. Our investigations show a similar state of things even in the Neolithic Period.

In the North of Europe, which has furnished us with our standard information regarding the Neolithic culture-stratum, the certain proofs that have hitherto been found of agriculture and the cultivation of useful plants having been practised at that time (to which civilisation owes no less than to the breeding of useful tame animals) consist not so much of plant remains themselves as of stone hand-mills and spinning and weaving implements, which indicate the cultivation of corn and flax.

[Sidenote: History in the Lake Dwellings]

Our chief knowledge of Neolithic agriculture and plant culture has been furnished by the lake-dwellings, especially those of Switzerland, which have preserved the picture of the Neolithic civilisation of Central Europe, sketched for us, as it were, in the North, in its finest lines. So far we can prove the cultivation of the following useful plants in the later Stone Age; their remains were chiefly found, as we have said, well preserved in the Stone Age lake-dwellings of Switzerland, which have been described in classical manner by Oswald Heer. Of cereal grasses Heer determined, in the rich Stone Age lake-dwellings of Wangen, on Lake Constance, and Robenhausen, in Lake Pfäffikon, three sorts of wheat and two varieties of barley--the six-rowed and two-rowed. Flax was also grown by Neolithic Man. This was, it seems, a rather different variety from our present flax, being narrow-leaved, and still occurs wild, or probably merely uncultivated, in Macedonia and Thracia. Flax has also been found growing wild in Northern India, on the Altai Mountains, and at the foot of the Caucasus.

The horse which was common in the Stone Age was a wild ancestor of our own domestic horse, but not quite so large or so strong as the average well-bred creature familiar in our modern life. Its remotest ancestor was the Hyracotherium, or Orohippus, while an intermediary stage was that of the Hypparion, or Protohippus, in which, as shown in the diagram, the change from the foot to the hoof had advanced to a very great extent.]

The common wheat occurring in the lake-dwellings of the Stone Age is a small-grained but mealy variety; but the so-called Egyptian wheat with large grains also occurs.

[Sidenote: Gardening in the Stone Age]

Traces of regular gardening and vegetable culture are altogether wanting. Some finds, however, seem to indicate primitive arboriculture, apples and pears having been found dried in slices in the lake-dwellings of the Stone Age; there even appears to be an improved kind of apple besides the wild-growing crab. But although they are chiefly wild unimproved fruit-trees of whose fruit remains have been found, we can imagine that these fruit-trees were planted near the settlements, and the great nutritious and health-giving properties of the fruit, as a supplement to a meat fare, must have been all the more appreciated owing to the lack of green vegetables. The various wild cherries, plums, and sloes were eaten, as also raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Beechnut and hazelnut appear as wild food-plants.

The original home of the most important cereals--wheat, spelt, and barley--is not known with absolute certainty; probably they came from Central Asia, where they are said to be found wild in the region of the Euphrates. The real millet came from India; peas and the other primeval leguminous plants of Europe, such as lentils and beans, came likewise from the East, partly from India. So that, apart from flax, which probably has a more northern home, the regular cultivated plants of the Stone Age of Central Europe--cereal grasses, millet, and lentils--indicate Asia as their original home. We have therefore a state of things similar to that observed in the case of the domestic animals.

[Sidenote: Beginning of the Potter’s Art]

The potter’s art was probably entirely unknown to Palæolithic Man, for in none of the pure Drift finds have fragments of clay vessels been found. So where clay vessels or fragments of them occur, they appear as the proof of a post-Drift period. On the other hand, pottery was quite general in the Neolithic Age of Europe. Still, the need of clay vessels is not general among all races of the earth even at the present day; up to modern times there were, and still are, races and tribes without pots. From their practices it is evident that the European Stone men of the Drift could also manage to prepare their food, chiefly meat, by fire without cooking vessels. The Fuegians lay the piece of meat to be roasted on the glowing embers of a dying wood fire, and turn it with a pointed forked branch so as to keep it from burning. Meat thus prepared is very tasty, as it retains all the juice and only gets a rind on the top, and the ashes that adhere to it serve as seasoning in lieu of salt. On a coal fire not only can fish be grilled, stuck on wooden rods, but whole sheep can be roasted on wooden spits, precisely as people have the dainty of roast mutton in the East. To these may be added a large number of other methods of roasting, and even boiling, without earthen or metal vessels, which are partly vouched for by ethnography and partly by archæology, and some of which, like the so-called “stone-boiling,” are still practised at the present day.

[Sidenote: No Perfect Pottery in the Stone Age]

Although, according to this, pottery is not an absolute necessary of life for man, yet it is certain that even those poorly equipped pioneers who first settled in Denmark in the Pine Period, in spite of their having an almost or quite exclusive meat fare, had clay pottery in general use for preparing their food, and probably also for storing their provisions. As we have already shown, the remains that have been preserved in the kitchen-middens are the oldest that have been found in Denmark. Simple and rude as the numerous potsherds that occur may appear, they are of the highest importance on account of the proof of their great age. Unfortunately, as we have already seen, not a single perfect vessel has come to light. The fragments are very thick, of rough clay with bits of granite worked in, and are all made by hand without the use of the potter’s wheel. The pieces partly indicate large vessels, some with flat bottoms, and others with the special characteristic of pointed bottoms, so that the vessel could not be stood up as it was. Smaller bowls, frequently of an oval form, also occurred with rounded bottoms, so that they also could not stand by themselves. It is very important to note that on these fragments of pottery we find only extraordinarily scanty and exceedingly simple ornamental decorations, consisting merely of incisions, or impressions made with the fingers, on the upper edge.

From the painting, “The Slaughter of a Mammoth,” by V. M.
Vasnetsov, now in the Russian Historical Museum at Moscow.
]

We shall see how far this oldest pottery of the Stone Age is distinguished by its want of decoration from that of the fully-developed Stone Age. But it is very important to notice that this rudest mode of making clay vessels, which we here see forming the beginning of a whole series that rises to the highest pitch of artistic perfection, remained in vogue not only during the whole Stone Age, but even in much later times.

[Sidenote: Stone Age Potter’s Handwork]

It is true that in the fully developed neolithic Stone Age of Europe the clay pottery is also all made by hand, without the potter’s wheel, the oldest and rudest forms still occurring everywhere, as we have said; but besides these a great variety is exhibited in the size, form, and mode of production of the pottery. The clay is often finer, and even quite finely worked and smoothed, and the vessels have thin sides and are burnt right through. The thick fragments are generally only burnt outside, frequently only on one side, and so much that the clay has acquired a bright red colour, whereas the inside, although hard, has remained only a greyish black. We have numerous perfectly preserved vessels of the later Neolithic Age. They are frequently distinguished by an artistic finish and beauty of form, and on their surfaces we find ornaments incised or imprinted, but rarely moulded on them, which, although the style is only geometrical, cannot be denied a keen sense of beauty and symmetry. The clay vessels also show the beginning of coloured decoration. The incised strokes, dots, etc., are often filled out with white substance (chalk or plaster), which brings the patterns out into bold ornamental relief from the black or red ground of the surface.

After that it is no wonder that pottery advanced to the real coloured painting of the vessels during the Neolithic Period, at least in some places.

[Sidenote: Growth of Artistic Taste]

On these vessels the handle now appears, in its simplest form as a wart-like or flatter projection from the side of the vessel, pierced either vertically or horizontally with a narrow opening just large enough to admit of a cord being passed through. Other handles, just like those in use at the present day, are bowed out broad, wide, and high for holding with the hand. These generally begin quite at the top, at the rim of the vessel, and are continued from there down to its belly, whereas the first-mentioned are placed lower, frequently around the greatest circumference of the vessel.

There is no doubt whatever that in the main these clay vessels were made on the spot where we find their remains at the present day. This easily explains the local peculiarity that we recognise in various finds, by which certain groups may be defined as more or less connected with one another. Different styles may be clearly distinguished by place and group. But, this notwithstanding, wherever we meet with neolithic ceramics, they cannot conceal their homogeneous character. In spite of all peculiarities this general uniform style of the ceramics of the Stone Age, which we can easily distinguish and determine even under its various disguises, goes over the whole of Europe.

[Sidenote: The Proofs of Man’s Mental Development]

In finds that lie nearer to the old Asiatic centres of civilisation and to the coasts of the Mediterranean--as, for instance, at Butmir--the vessels are in part better worked, and the ornaments are richer and more elegant, and the spirals more frequent and more regular, and are sometimes moulded on, and sometimes, as we have mentioned, even painted in colour. But the general character remains unmistakably Neolithic, and may be found not only on the European coasts of the Mediterranean and the islands of the Ægean Sea, but in certain respects also in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The oldest Trojan pottery also exhibits unmistakable points of agreement with it.

Not only the stone weapons and implements, but, as far as we can see, even the remains of the oldest ceramics, show that uniform development of the culture of the Neolithic Period which proves a like course of mental development in mankind.

Professor JOHANNES RANKE]

THE HOME LIFE OF PRIMITIVE FOLK

[Sidenote: What the Lake Dwellings Tell]

A picture, of unequalled clearness of delineation, of the general conditions of the life and culture of Central European Man during the Neolithic Period, was given, according to the results of the celebrated researches of Ferdinand Keller and his school of Swiss archæologists, by the lake-dwellings in the Alpine lowlands. Whereas in cave districts the caves and grottos often served the men of the later Stone Age as temporary and even as permanent winter dwellings, in the watery valleys of Switzerland the Neolithic population built its huts on foundations of piles in lakes and bogs. In that period we have to imagine the Alpine lowlands still extensively covered with woods and full of wild beasts; at that time the huts standing on piles in the water must have afforded their inhabitants a security such as scarcely any other place could have given. The first founders and inhabitants of settlements of pile-dwellings in Switzerland belong to the pure Stone Period. In spite of their lake-dwellings the old Neolithic men of Switzerland appear to have possessed almost all the important domestic animals, but they also knew and practised agriculture. They lived by cattle-rearing, agriculture, hunting, and fishing, and on wild fruit and all that the plant world freely offered in the way of eatables. Their clothing consisted partly of skins, but partly also of stuffs, the majority of which seem to have been prepared from flax.

[Sidenote: Beginnings of a Social Order]

The endeavour of the settlers to live together in lasting homes protected from surprises, and in large numbers, is an unmistakable proof that they were aware of the advantages of a settled mode of life, and that we have not to imagine the inhabitants of the pile-dwellings as nomadic herdsmen, and still less as a regular race of hunters and fishermen. The permanent concentration of a large number of individuals at the same point, and of hundreds of families in neighbouring inlets of the lakes, could not have taken place if there had not been through all the seasons a regular supply of provisions derived principally from cattle-rearing and agriculture, and if there had not existed the elements of social order. Even the establishment of the lake-settlement itself is not possible for the individual man; a large community must have here worked with a common plan and purpose. Herodotus describes a pile-village in Lake Prosias, in Thracia, which was inhabited by Pæones, who defended it successfully against the Persian general Megabazos. The scaffold on which the huts were built stood on high piles in the middle of the lake; it was connected with the bank only by a single, easily removable bridge. Herodotus says:

The piles on which the scaffolds rest were erected in olden times
by the citizens in a body; the enlargement of the lake-settlement
took place later, according as it was necessitated by the formation
of new families.

[Sidenote: The Lake Dweller At Home]

According to the large number of lake-dwellings of the Stone Age in the Alpine lowlands, and according to the large quantity of products of primitive industry that have been found there, centuries must have elapsed between the moment when the first settlers rammed in the piles on which to build their dwellings and the end of the Stone Period.

The huts of the settlements of the Stone Age were partly round and partly quadrangular, and, like the pile-hut discovered by Frank near Schussenried, were divided into two compartments--one for the cattle, and the other, with a hearth built of stones, for the dwelling of man. The floor of the hut was made of round timber with a mud foundation, and perhaps also with a mud flooring; in Frank’s hut the walls were formed of split tree-trunks, standing vertically with the split sides turned inward, firmly put together between corner posts. The round huts had walls of roughly intertwined branches, covered with clay inside and out; of this clay-plaster numerous pieces have been preserved, hardened by fire, with the marks of the branches. The pile huts of the lakes were connected with the water by block or rung ladders. Victor Cross found such a ladder in one of the oldest stations; it consisted of a long oak pole provided at fairly regular intervals with holes in which the rungs were inserted.

[Sidenote: First Traces of Textiles]

[Sidenote: In a Stone Age Kitchen]

Of special importance in estimating the degree of civilisation attained by the lake-dwellers of the Stone Age are the remains of spinning and weaving implements and of webs and textile fabrics, plaited work, etc. Flax has been found wound on the implements made of ribs, that we mentioned above as flax combs; we have also mentioned the fixing of blades with flax, or threads made of it, and the numerous wide and narrow nets made of threads. For spinning the thread, spindles were used just like those of the present day, a spindle-stick of wood being fastened into a spinning-whorl made of stone, deer-horn, or clay. The distaff was probably not yet known; a loom has not yet been found, either; but numerous weaver’s weights, which served for spinning the threads, have been. Excellent webs, some of them twilled, were produced, of which we have many fragments. Remains of mats and baskets prove that those were manufactured from the materials still employed at the present day. Corn was baked into a kind of bread consisting of coarsely ground grains. The millstones that were used for grinding the corn are found in large numbers. They are rather worn, hollowed slabs of stone, and smaller flat stones rounded on the top, with which the grains of corn were crushed on the larger slabs. Some of the kitchen utensils we find already much improved. Large and small pots for storing purposes, earthen cooking pots, and dishes, and large wooden spoons and twirling-sticks--the latter probably for churning--have been preserved. Vessels like strainers served for making cheese; they are pots in whose sides and bottoms a number of small holes were made for pouring off the whey from the cheese.

Here, in the fully developed Neolithic Period we find the early inhabitants of Switzerland to be a settled agricultural and farming population. Although hunting and fishing still furnished an important part of their food, so that in some places even more deer bones have been found among the cooking remains than bones of the ox, yet the milk, cheese, and butter of the cows, sheep, and goats, the flesh of these and of the hog, and bread and fruit, already formed the basis of their subsistence.

The lake dwellings still in use in New Guinea, illustrated in
this reproduction from an old work, D’Urville’s “Voyage of the
Astrolabe,” are exactly like the lake dwellings of prehistoric
Europe.
]

[Sidenote: Man Learning the Art of Living]

The results of cave research are almost as rich and varied as the results yielded by the study of the lake-dwellings in their bearing on the Neolithic stratum. Where there is a Drift stratum in the cave-earth the confusion of Palæolithic and Neolithic objects can, as we have said, scarcely be avoided. But there are numerous grottos and small caves in which the Neolithic stratum is the oldest, so that mistakes are out of the question. In a large number of such places in the cave district of the Franconian-Bavarian Jura the conditions under which finds have been made in the Neolithic stratum have proved almost as pure and unmixed as in the lake-dwellings.

The cave-dwellers of the later Stone Age in the Franconian Jura were, like the Swiss lake-dwellers of the Stone Age, mainly a pastoral race. They possessed all the important domestic animals that the latter possessed--dog, cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig--and likewise practised agriculture, or, at any rate, flax-growing; at the same time hunting and fishing formed a considerable part of their means of subsistence. So that, not only on artificial pile-works on the shores of lakes, but also on the banks of South German rivers, there formerly lived a race which, although still mainly restricted to hunting and fishing, and using no metal, but exclusively stone and bone tools, already practised cattle-breeding and primitive agriculture, and was able to increase the means of existence afforded it by Nature by the first technical arts--by the chipping and grinding of stone instruments, bone carving, and, above all, pottery-making, tanning, and the arts of sowing, weaving and plaiting.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Weaving and Knitting]

Of most importance, as showing the state of civilisation of the Neolithic rock-dwellers, are the numerous articles carved from bone that must be looked upon as instruments for weaving and net-knitting. For the latter purpose there were large, finely-smoothed bone crochet-needles, some of them carved from the rib of a large ruminant. The handle-end is smoothed by use, and the end with the hook is rounded from the same cause. The end is frequently perforated, so that it might be hung up. Still more numerous were shuttles of various forms.

According to the numerous finds of perforated clay weaver’s weights, the loom, like that of the lake-dwellers, must have been like the ancient implement that, according to Montelius, was in use on the Faröe Islands a comparatively short time ago. Spinning-whorls are very numerous, being partly flat, round discs of bone pierced in the centre, and partly thick bone rings or large beads of bone and deer-horn and flat burr-pieces of deer-antlers.

It was formerly thought that the Neolithic Europeans did not possess the arts of engraving and carving animals and human figures which the Palæolithic Men had understood in such conspicuous manner. The progress of research has now produced more and more proof that in the later Stone Age the arts of carving and engraving had not died out. We have the celebrated amber carvings of the later Stone Age from the Kurisches Haff, near Schwarzort, some of which probably served a religious purpose; those of ivory, bone, stalactite, etc., from the caves of France and the Polish Jura; the figures from Butmir, and other evidences.

[Sidenote: Fortified Settlements in Stone Age]

In Italy, in Lombardy, and Emilia, another group of settlements of the Stone Age has been found, which again exhibit the civilization and all other signs of the later Stone Age, and in many respects more closely resemble the lake-dwellings than do the cave-dwellings. These are the “terramare,” whose inhabitants, however, had already to some extent advanced to the use of bronze. A sharp division of strata into habitation of the pure Stone Age and habitation of the Metal Age has not yet been made. The huts stood on pile-work on dry land, the piles being six to ten feet high; the whole settlement was fortified with trench and rampart, generally with palisades, and was of an oblong or oval plan. Besides many natural and artificial caves in Italy the dwelling-pits, which may formerly have borne the superstructure of a hut, also belong to the pure Stone Age.

From a painting by Hippolyte Coutau, in the Geneva Museum.
]

[Sidenote: Strange Homes of Early Man]

Such dwelling-pits of the Stone Age seem to have been distributed all over Europe. Burnt wall-plaster with impressions of interwoven twigs, has frequently been found near or in the pits, doubtless indicating hut-building. In Mecklenburg, where the dwelling-pits were first carefully examined by Liesch, they have a circular outline of ten to fifteen yards, and are five to six and a half feet deep. At the bottom of the pit lie burnt and blackened stones, hearthstones, charcoal, potsherds, broken bones of animals, and a few stone implements, the latter being mostly found in larger numbers in the vicinity of the dwellings. The same circular dwelling-pits of the Stone Age are found in France. Smaller hearth-pits were recently found in very large numbers in the Spessart, in Bavaria, with hundreds of stone hatchets and perforated axe-hammers, some of the former being very finely made of jadeite.

[Sidenote: America before History]

During the Neolithic Period dwellings were frequently made on heights, and it seems that even at that time they were to a certain extent walled round and fortified. Such settlements are numerous all over Southern and Central Germany, in Austria-Hungary, especially in the coast-country, and in Italy and France. Many of these stations belong purely to the Stone Age; indeed, the majority were inhabited already during the Stone Age, and furnish the typical Neolithic relics familiar from the foregoing. On the other hand, they continue to be inhabited even in the later metal periods, and in some cases right down to modern times. The rock near Clausen, in the Eisack valley, in the Tyrol, on which the large Säben monastery now stands, was a mediæval castle, and during the times of the Romans a fortified settlement called Sobona stood there; and when excavations were made in 1895, for adding new buildings to the monastery, a well-ground stone hatchet of the later Stone Age came to light. On many hills in Central Germany are found traces of the ancient presence of men who lived on them or assembled on them for sacrificial feasts; the earth is coloured black by charred remains and organic influences, and this “black earth on heights and hills” contains frequently, as we have said, the traces of Neolithic men. In Italy, many finds on such heights--for instance, those made on the small castle-hill near Imola--seem to exhibit that stage of the Stone Age that is missing in the terramare, and that precedes the beginning of the Metal Age of the terramare, but corresponds to it in every essential except in the possession of metal.

But the view that is opened up is still wider. The prehistoric times of the New World also exhibit a Neolithic stage, corresponding to that of Europe, as the basis of the further development of the ancient civilised lands of America. And where a higher civilisation did not develop autochthonously in America, European discoverers found the Neolithic civilisation still in active existence, as they did in the whole Australian world. Accordingly in these vast regions, which have never risen above the Stone Age of themselves, the same stage of civilisation which in the old civilised lands belongs to a grey, immemorial, prehistoric period, here stands in the broad light of historic times. The study of modern tribes in an age of stone throws many a ray of light on the conditions of the prehistoric Stone Age; and this study, on the other hand, shows us that the primitive conditions of civilisation of those tribes stand for a general stage of transition in the development of all mankind.

[Sidenote: The Foundations of Society]

The lake-dwelling stations, and the land settlements resembling them, prove of themselves how far the culture of the early inhabitants of Europe was advanced even in that ancient period which was formerly imagined to be scarcely raised above half-animal conditions. Such structures could not be erected unless men combined into large social communities, which is indeed indicated by the very fact of the number of dwellings that were crowded into a comparatively small space. For the first ramming-in of the pile-works a large number of men working together on a common plan was absolutely necessary. The same applies to the construction of the artificial islands, protected by pile-works and partly resting on piles, termed “crannoges” by Irish archæologists, and to the Italian villages called “terramare,” which likewise once rested on piles and were protected by ditches. From the extent of the pile-works we are able to estimate the number of the former inhabitants of the settlements supported by them. Quite as clear an idea of the number of the former inhabitants is also given by the early circumvallations on the tops of hills and shoulders of rock, which were likewise made and inhabited during the Stone Age.

The co-operation of a large number of men for a common purpose is also shown in the often huge stone structures to which, on account of the size of the stones employed in their construction, the name “megalithic” structures, or gigantic stone structures, has been given. In Northern Europe they, too, belong to the Stone Age proper. The majority of these gigantic structures were originally tombs; the principle on which they are built is often repeated even in far less imposing tombs.

That the men of the later Stone Age had developed a considerable
degree of culture is proved by such remains as these. The erection
of these giant chambers must have called for a vast amount of
co-operation, skill, and ingenuity. The means whereby the massive
stones were placed into position, and so fixed to withstand the
shocks of thousands of years, have not yet been satisfactorily
explained by archæology.
]

The stone blocks of which these gigantic structures are piled now often lie bare. Large stones placed crosswise, which represent, as it were, the side-walls of a room, support a roof of one or several “covering-stones” of occasionally colossal size. For the erection of these in their present position without the technical resources at the disposal of modern builders, human strength appears inadequate; in popular opinion only giants could have made such structures. Some of the stones are really so large, and the covering-stones especially so enormous, that these buildings have defied destruction, for thousands of years, by their very weight.

In the time of their construction these giants’ graves were mostly buried under mounds. They were the inner structures of large tumuli, in which the reverence of the men of the Stone Age once buried its heroes. One of the finest “giant’s chambers” is probably that near Öm, in the neighbourhood of Roskilde, in Denmark. The building material consists merely of erratic stone blocks of enormous size. The rough blocks were mostly set up by the side of one another, without any further working, so as to support one another as far as possible; at the same time all of them, as Sophus Müller observes, are slightly inclined inward, so that they are kept more firmly in position by their own weight. The stones thus erected, forming the parallel side-walls of the whole structure, stand so far apart that a huge erratic block, reaching from one wall to the other, could be placed on them as a roof. The distance between the side-walls of the giant’s chambers attains a maximum of eight to nine feet; the covering-stones placed on them are some ten to eleven feet long. The pressure of the covering-stones from above helps considerably to hold the whole structure together. In order to distribute the pressure of the covering-stones regularly, smaller stones were carefully inserted under the wall-stones where they had to stand on the ground. How exactly these proportions of weight were judged is proved by the fact that these structures of heavy and irregular stones, resting on their natural, differently shaped sides and edges, have held together until the present day. The inner walls of the chambers were made as carefully as possible. Where, as on the outside, the rough and irregular form of the stone block projects, either the naturally smooth side was turned inward or the roughness was chipped off.

On the plain near the little town of Carnac, in Brittany, stand
eleven thousand immense monoliths in eleven rows, erected probably
for religious purposes in the Stone Age.
]

These are the beginnings of a real architecture, seen also in the regular wedging with small stones of the spaces left between the wall-stones and covering-stones and between the wall-stones themselves. These small stones were frequently built in, in regular wall-like layers. Sandstone was often used for the purpose, being more easily split into regular pieces, which gave this masonry a still more pleasing appearance. The number of stone blocks used for the wall-sides varies according to the size of the giant’s chambers, as does also the number of covering-stones. For smaller chambers, with six to nine wall-stones, two or three covering-stones were required. But far larger stone chambers occur, as many as seventeen wall-stones having been counted. Such large chambers require a whole row of covering-stones beside one another. The door-opening often shows a special regard for architectonics. The two door-post stones are rather lower than the other wall-stones; on them a stone was laid horizontally, which kept them apart and distributed the pressure of the covering-stone equally on both posts.

Very often there was also a stone as a threshold. Leading to the door is a low passage, made in similar manner to the chamber, but of far smaller stones. The passage is only high enough to allow one to creep through, whereas the chamber itself is about as high as a man, so that one could stand upright in most of them. Larger stone chambers are rarely without this passage, and from it such grave-structures have been named “passage-graves.” Besides the building-in of small stones, the holes still remaining between the stones were also coated over on the outside with mud to keep the rain-water from soaking in; mud was also frequently used for making a rough plaster floor for the chamber if the natural floor could not be made level enough. On the floor is frequently found a compact layer of small flints, or a regular pavement of flat stones, often rough-hewn, or roundish stones fitting one another as nearly as possible, which were then probably also covered with a thick layer of mud.

Archæologists are not entirely agreed as to the purpose of these
dolmens. They were more likely graves, or chambers associated with
religious rites, than residences. This example is at Locmariaquer,
near Carnac, in Brittany.
]

So that in these giant’s chambers we have real buildings, which imply high technical accomplishments and have preserved for us the usual form of the dwellings of those early times. In what manner the huge covering-stones were placed on the side-walls of the giant’s chambers is a problem still unsolved. Doubtless many hands were occupied on such structures; and the history of building teaches us that with the proper use of human strength--as, for instance, in ancient Egypt--great weights can be raised and placed in position with very simple tools--round pieces of wood as rollers, ropes, and handspikes.

Some of these giant’s chambers, which were originally enclosed in mounds or barrows, are still preserved at the present day, and splendidly too. Very often the chamber was quite covered with earth outside; it then formed the centre of what was generally a circular barrow, often regular small hills ten to fifteen feet high and frequently over ninety feet in circumference.

This is perhaps the most noteworthy of all the remains of the cliff
dwellers, and indicates how considerable was the culture of those
early people in America.
]

The corpses were buried, not cremated. They were frequently in a crouching attitude, or that of a sleeper lying sideways with the legs drawn up to the body. The smaller graves often represent single interments; the larger or largest ones are mostly family tombs, in which numerous corpses were interred one after the other at different times. But this repeated use of the graves is found also with smaller ones, and even with stone cists. Only the last corpse then lies in a normal position, while, through the repeated opening of the grave and the later interments, the skeletons belonging to previously interred corpses appear more or less disturbed or intentionally put aside. The skulls of the corpses interred in the Neolithic graves are well formed, their size indicating a very considerable brain development. The corpses were no bigger than the present inhabitants of the same districts, and the form of the head corresponds partly with that of the present population of those countries. Nor do the skeletons otherwise differ from those of modern men.

In America, also, gigantic structures were erected by the aborigines who lived in the Stone Age, to commemorate and to protect their dead. They consist partly of large mounds of stones and earth, which are likewise often regular small hills, and partly of stone structures reminding one of the giants’ chambers. The majority of the mounds were doubtless mainly sepulchral; others may have been temple-hills or sacrificial mounds, defensive works or observatories.

The objects buried with the occupants belong mostly to the Neolithic Period, and consist chiefly of stone weapons and tools, some rude, but others finely worked and polished. Some are of pure natural copper, which was beaten into shape cold with stone hammers. Besides these, and ornaments and pottery, an American specialty is found in the form of tobacco-pipes carved from stone, some of which give interesting representations of men and animals; this seems to prove that tobacco also played a part in the American funeral rites of those times.