The Prehistoric World or Vanished races Part 13

It is almost self-evident that the perforated axes are later in date than the solid ones, and probably many of them are no earlier in time than the Age of Metals. There is, however, nothing to show that all belong to so late a time. Besides, experiments have amply shown that even the hardest kind of flint can be drilled without the aid of metals.<18>

Warlike implements are, of course, quite common. Many of the axes found are probably war axes. Then besides we have arrowheads, spears, and daggers. These are considered to be "marvels of skill in flint chipping."<19> Stone was used for a great many other purposes, such as sc.r.a.pers, sling-stones, hammers, saws, and so on. Flint was generally the kind of stone used. Our civilization owes a great deal to this variety of stone. It is not only hard, but its cleavage is such that it was of the greatest use to primitive man. In a general way the Neolithic stone implements are seen to be better adapted to the object in view than the Paleolithic specimens. They are also generally polished.

Wood was largely used in their common household implements. But it is only in exceptional cases that it has been preserved to us. They have been recovered, however, in peat-bogs and in the remains of lake settlements. These wooden utensils consist of bowls, ladles, knives, tubs, etc. They used fire to hollow them out, and the blows of the flint hatchet used to remove the charred portions, are still to be observed in some specimens.

Ill.u.s.tration of Neolithic Weapons.--------------

The Neolithic people had learned how to manufacture pottery, though not of a very superior quality. It is all hand-made: so the potter's wheel had not yet been introduced. The material is clay mixed with gravel or pounded sh.e.l.ls. Very often they ornamented their clay vessels with lines and dots. The bowls or jars were evidently suspended by cords, for the bottom was made too rounding for them to stand erect. Besides, we find the holes for the cords, and in some places handles.

Ill.u.s.trations of Ax in Sheath, and Hafted Hatchet in Sheath.--

No notice of Neolithic tools would be complete without mentioning the use made of horn and bone. One peculiar use for which they employed horn was as a socket for holding other implements. Thus this figure shows us an ax in a socket of horn. The middle of the socket is generally perforated with a round or oval hole, intended to receive a handle of oak, birch, or some other kind of wood adapted for such a use. The cut below represents a hatchet of this kind. A number of these sockets have been found, which were provided at the end opposite to the stone hatchet with a strong and pointed tooth. These are boars' tusks, firmly buried in the stag's horn. These instruments, therefore, fulfilled double purposes: they cut or crushed with one end and pierced with the other.

Sockets are also found which are not only provided with the boars'

tusks, but are hollowed out at each end, so as to hold two flint hatchets at once, as is seen in our next figure. Chisels and gouges were also sometimes placed in bone handles. Portions of horn probably at times did duty as hoes. We give a representation of such an implement.<20> We must now seek some information as to how the men of the Neolithic Age supported life.

Ill.u.s.tration of Sheath, with two Hatchets.---------Ill.u.s.trations of Chisels in Sheath, and Horn Hoe.---------

From the remains of fish at all the lake settlements it is evident they formed no inconsiderable portion of their food. Fis.h.i.+ng nets and hooks have been discovered. They were successful hunters as well. But the men of this age were no longer dependent on the chase for a livelihood. We have mentioned several times that they were acquainted with agriculture.

This implies a great advance over the primitive hunters of the early Stone Age.

On the sh.o.r.es of the lakes which furnished them with a place of habitation they raised many of our present species of grain. Owing to a cause of which we have already spoken--that is, destruction of the lake settlements by fire--the carbonized remains of these cereals have been preserved to us. There were four varieties of wheat raised, none exactly like our common wheat. In addition to this they raised barley and millet, several varieties of each. Nor were the fruits neglected. Apples and pears were dried and laid away for use in the Winter. Seeds of the common berries were found in abundance, showing that these primitive people were fully alive to their value.

From this it follows that the Neolithic people were not only tillers of the soil, but horticulturists as well. According to Dr. Keller, the vegetable kingdom furnished their princ.i.p.al supply of food. Hazelnuts, beechnuts, and chestnuts were found in such quant.i.ties as to show they had been gathered for use. Neither hemp, oats, nor rye were known. Not only do we find the remains of the grains, fruits, seeds, etc., from which the above conclusions are drawn, but, farther than this, pieces of bread have been found in a carbonized state, and thus as effectually preserved as the bread of a far later date found in the ovens of Pompeii. According to Figuier, the peasant cla.s.ses of Tuscany now bake bread, after merely bruising the grain, by pouring the batter on glowing stones and then covering it with ashes. As this ancient prehistoric bread is of similar shape, it was probably baked in an equally primitive fas.h.i.+on.<21>

Aside from the natural interest we feel in these evidences as to ancient industry, a study of the remains of plants cultivated by the Neolithic people reveals to us two curious and suggestive facts. It has been found that the wild plants then growing in Switzerland are in all respects like the wild plants now growing there. But the cultivated plants--wheat, millet, etc.--differ from all existing varieties, and invariably have smaller seeds or fruits.<22> This shows us that man has evidently been able to effect considerable change by cultivation, in the common grains, during the course of the many centuries which separate the Neolithic times from our own age. But if this rate of change be adopted as a measure of time, what shall we say is to the antiquity demanded to explain the origin of cultivated grain from the wild gra.s.ses of their first form?

We learn, in the second place, that the cultivated plants are all immigrants from the south-east--their native home being in South-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. We shall afterward see that this is true of the domestic animals also. There can be but one explanation for this. The ancient inhabitants of Europe must have come from that direction, and brought with them the plants they had cultivated in their eastern homes, and the animals they had reduced to their service. The traces of agriculture thus found in Switzerland are by no means confined to that country. In other countries of Europe, such as England and France, we also find proofs that men cultivated the earth. In localities where we do not find the grain itself, we find their rude mills, or mealing stones, which as plainly indicate a knowledge of the agricultural art as the presence of the cereals themselves.<23>

As we have stated, Neolithic man in Europe possessed domestic animals.

He was not only a cultivator of the soil, but he was a herdsman as well; and he kept herds of oxen, sheep, and goats. Droves of hogs fattened on the nuts of the forest, and the dog a.s.sociated with man in keeping and protecting these domestic animals. We know that the Swiss Lake inhabitants built little stalls by the sides of their houses, in which they kept their cattle at night. But these domestic animals were not descendants of the wild animals that roamed the forests of Europe.

Like the plants, they are immigrants from the south-east. Our best authorities consider they were brought into Europe by the invading Neolithic tribes.

The knowledge of husbandry, though rude, and the possession of domestic animals, though of a few species only, strikingly indicate the advance over the Paleolithic tribes. They also had fixed places of living.

This culture spread all over Europe. That it was substantially the same everywhere there is no doubt. Certain refuse heaps in Denmark, Scotland, and indeed in all the sea-coast countries, have been thought to support a different conclusion. Those of Denmark have been very carefully studied, and so we will refer to them. All along the Baltic coast, but especially in Denmark, have been discovered great numbers of mounds, which were found to consist "almost entirely of sh.e.l.ls, especially of the oyster, broken bones of animals, remains of birds and fishes, and, lastly, some wrought flints." The first supposition in regard to those sh.e.l.l-heaps was that they were of marine formation, acc.u.mulated beneath the sea, and elevated to the surface along with the gradual rise of the land. But they are now known to be nothing more or less than the sites of ancient settlements. The location of the rude cabins can still be traced. The ancient hearths are still in place. "Tribes once existed here who subsisted on the products of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, and threw out around their cabins the remains of their meals, consisting especially of the _debris_ of sh.e.l.l-fish." These heaps gradually acc.u.mulated around their rude dwellings, and now const.i.tute the refuse heaps in question.<24>

The careful investigation of their contents has failed to disclose any evidence of a knowledge of agriculture, and the only domestic animal found is the dog. The implements are altogether of stone and horn. No trace of metal has yet been obtained. As a rule, they are rudely made and finished. Though of the Neolithic type, they are not polished except in a few instances. The princ.i.p.al interest turns on the question of age of these refuse heaps. Some think they were acc.u.mulated at the very beginning of the Neolithic Age--that these tribes preceded by many years the men of the Swiss Lakes. Others think they were tribes of the same great people, living at the same time. On such a point as this, only those who have carefully studied the deposits are ent.i.tled to speak.

Some few facts stand out quite prominently. The size of the mounds<25> indicate long-continued residence--showing that these people had permanent places of abode. As they are not confined to Denmark, but are found generally throughout Europe, it would seem to imply that the Neolithic people preferred to live as fishers and hunters wherever the surroundings were such that they could by these means obtain an abundant supply of food. Some sh.e.l.l-heaps in Scotland were still forming at the commencement of the Bronze Age; and Mr. Geikie, on geological grounds, a.s.signs the sh.e.l.l-heaps of Denmark to a late epoch of the Stone Age.

It seems to us quite natural that isolated tribes, living where game was abundant, and where fis.h.i.+ng met with a rich reward, should turn in disgust from the agricultural life of their brother tribes, and, resuming the life of mere hunters and fishers, speedily lose somewhat of their hardly won culture--for civilization is the product of labor.

Whenever a people from necessity or choice abandon one form of labor for another demanding less skill to triumph over nature, a retrogression in culture is inevitable.<26>

From what we have stated as to the use of flint we can readily see that it was a valuable material. Sections where it was found in abundance would as certainly become thickly populated as the iron and gold regions of our own day. In Paleolithic times the supply of flint was mostly obtained from the surface and in the gravel of rivers. In Neolithic times men had learned to mine for flint. Flint occurs in nodules in the chalk. Near Brandon, England, was discovered a series of these workings.

They consist of shafts connected together by galleries. These pits vary in size from twenty to sixty feet in diameter, and in some cases were as much as thirty feet deep. From the bottom of these shafts they would excavate as far as they dared to the sides. They made no use of timbers to support the roof, and so these side excavations were not of great extent. In these old workings the miners sometimes left behind them their tools. The princ.i.p.al one was a pick made of deer's horn, as is here represented. Besides these, they had chisels of bone and antler.

The marks of stone hatchets on the sides of the gallery are visible.

Ill.u.s.tration of Miner's Pick.---------------

In one instance the roof had caved in, evidently during the night, and on clearing out the gallery near the end where the roof stood firm, there were found the implements of the workmen, just as they were left at the close of the day's work; and in one place on the pick, covered with chalk dust, was still to be seen the marks of the workman's hand.

How many years, crowded with strange scenes, have swept over England since that chalky impression was made! The surface of the earth is a palimpsest, on which each stage of culture has been written over the faint, almost obliterated, records of the past. Not only the living man, who has left there the impression of his hand has pa.s.sed away, but also his people and his culture. And now it is only here and there that we catch a faint tracing underlying our later civilization, by which we reconstruct the history of these far-away times.

Nothing would be more natural than that where flint was found in abundance a regular manufactory of implements would be established. Such was the case at Cissbury, which we have already mentioned as one of the early British towns. Mines had been dug within the walls inclosing the town. The surface of the ground near the old mines at this place is literally covered by splinters of flint in every stage of manufacture, "from the nodule of flint fresh out of the chalk, spoilt by an unlucky blow, to the article nearly finished and accidentally broken."<27> Here the flint was mined and chipped into rudimentary shape, but carried away to be perfected and polished.

A very important place in Neolithic manufactures was noticed near Tours, France. Here was an abundant supply of flint, and very easily obtained, and the evidence is conclusive that here existed real manufactories. Of one stretch of ground, having an area of twelve or fourteen acres, we are told: "It is impossible to walk a single step without treading on some of these objects." Here we find "hatchets in all stages of manufacture, from the roughest attempt up to a perfectly polished weapon. We find, also, long flakes or flint-knives cleft off with a single blow with astonis.h.i.+ng skill."

But in all these objects there is a defect; so it is concluded that these specimens were refuse thrown aside in the process of manufacture.

As at Cissbury, very few polished flints are found, so we may conclude the majority of weapons were carried elsewhere for completion. But some weapons were completed here. In the neighborhood have been found the stones used as polishers. This cut shows us one used in polis.h.i.+ng the axes. The workmen would take one of the rough-hewn instruments, and, rubbing it back and forth on such a stone as this, gradually produced a smooth surface and a sharpened edge.<28>

Ill.u.s.tration of Polis.h.i.+ng Stone.------------

We have suggested that our civilization owes a great deal to flint. If we will consider the surroundings of their manufacturing sites, we will see the force of this remark. It must have taxed to the utmost the powers of these primitive men to sink the shafts and run the galleries to secure a supply of this valuable stone. In short, they had to invent the art of quarrying and working mines. This would lead to the division of labor, for while one body of men would become experts as miners, others would become skillful in chipping out the implements, and still others would do the finis.h.i.+ng and polis.h.i.+ng. A system of barter or trade would also arise, for the workmen at the mines and factories would have to depend on others for food and clothing, and in payment for the same would furnish them implements. As localities where flint could be obtained in suitable quant.i.ties are but few, we can see how trade between widely scattered tribes would arise. This kind of traffic is shown to have extended over wide distances in Neolithic times. For instance, there was been found scattered over Europe axes made of varieties of stone known as nephrite and jade. They were highly valued by primitive tribes, being very hard and of a beautiful green color. They are thought to have been employed in the observance of superst.i.tious rites. But quarries of these varieties of stone do not occur in Europe. An immense amount of labor has been expended in finding their native home. This is now known to be in Asia.<29> Manufactured in Asia, axes of these materials may have drifted into Europe and finally arrived in England.

Ill.u.s.tration of Neolithic Boat-making.--------

Trade between different tribes must have been greatly facilitated by means of canoes, which Neolithic man knew well how to make. The art of navigation was probably well advanced. The canoes were formed of the trunks of large trees. In most cases they were hollowed out by means of the ax and fire combined. Sometimes the ends were partially rounded or pointed, but often cut nearly square across--rather a difficult shape to propel fast or to guide properly. These ancient boats have been found in nearly all the princ.i.p.al rivers of Europe, and in many cases, no doubt, come down to much later date than the Neolithic Age. From the remains of fish found in their refuse heaps we are confident that in some such a shaped boat as this they trusted themselves far out at sea. They served to transport them from the sh.o.r.es of Europe to England, and at a later date to Ireland.

Ill.u.s.tration of Neolithic Cloth.----------

The clothing of the men of the Neolithic Age doubtless consisted largely of the prepared skins of the animals, and some fragments of leather have been found in the lake settlements. But a very important step in advance was the invention of spinning and weaving, both of which processes were known at this time. The cloth which is here represented is formed of twists of interwoven flax, of rough workmans.h.i.+p, it is true, but none the less remarkable, considering the epoch in which it was manufactured.

b.a.l.l.s of thread and twine have also been found.<30> This cut is a spindle-whorl. These have been discovered very often. They were made sometimes of stone and at other times of pottery and bone. The threads were made of flax, and the combs which were used for pus.h.i.+ng the threads of the warp into the weft show that it was woven into linen on some kind of a loom. Several figures of the loom have been given, but we have no certainty of their correctness.<31>

Ill.u.s.trations of Spindle-whorl and Weaver's Comb.-------

Let us now see if we can gather anything as to the religious belief of Neolithic man. On this point we can at best only indulge in vague conjectures. Yet some light seems thrown on this difficult subject by examination of the burial mounds. This introduces us to a subject of much interest which, in our hurried review, we can but glance at.

Scattered over Europe are found numbers of mysterious monuments of the past. Some of them we have mentioned already as the embankments surrounding ancient villages. But aside from these are other monuments, such as burial mounds, rude dolmens, and great standing stones, sometimes arranged in circles, sometimes in rows, and sometimes standing singly. Many of these remains may be of a far later date than the Neolithic Age, still it is extremely difficult to draw a dividing line between the monuments of different ages.

Ill.u.s.tration of Chambered Burial Mound, Denmark.----

Ill.u.s.tration of Dolmen, England.--------------------