The New Stone Age in Northern Europe Part 3

Our history of Paleolithic times is drawn very largely from the successive strata of remains found in rock-shelters and near the mouths of caves, where the succession of epochs is clear and indubitable. We naturally look for similar reliable testimony concerning the chronological succession of Neolithic utensils, pottery and other remains. Here, however, we have been disappointed to a large degree.

Paleolithic layers were generally or frequently overlaid by beds of stalagmite or fallen rocks, which have saved them from disturbance. But the Neolithic and Bronze layers are superficial, usually of no great thickness; they have been less solidified and protected, and far more exposed to the disturbing work of burrowing mammals and of men digging for buried treasures. These circ.u.mstances, combined with far less continuity of occupation, have greatly diminished the chronological value of their study.

Neolithic cave remains occur in somewhat limited areas scattered all over Europe.[37] They have been studied in England, France, Spain, Austria, and Germany in at least fairly large numbers. In Austria the cave province extends through Galicia, Moravia, and Bohemia. Here we find primitive pottery; rude stone and numerous bone implements; domesticated cattle, goats, and pigs. Game was evidently very abundant.

The cave-dwellers, apparently, were pioneers in the less habitable regions, living mostly by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, from the increase and products of their herds, and from agriculture to a far less degree. The pottery and implements remind us somewhat of those of the earliest lake-dwellings. But we often find bits of copper and bronze, suggesting a later date or a series of inhabitants whose relics have become much mixed. It would not be at all surprising if primitive manufactures had remained here longer in use than in less isolated regions. A deposit of quite similar general character has been found at Duino, near Monfalcone, at the head of the Gulf of Trieste.

A second province lies in Bavaria, between Bamberg and Baireuth. h.o.e.rnes considers its remains as also of the same age as the oldest lake-dwellings, but with peculiarities due to the different geographical conditions. The cave provinces of other countries are equally interesting. Every one has its own features and problems. We would naturally expect that these cave-dwellers would represent the least progressive and prosperous members of the population of any country. In our general survey we can afford to give them only a hasty glance. We can easily understand that where chalk or other soft rock occurred artificial grottos were often excavated.[38]

Remains of dwellings are common all over Europe, and are likely to be uncovered wherever excavations are made in grading or for the foundations of buildings. They are of two forms: the rectangular house and the round hut. The rectangular form is the rule in the lake-dwellings, though with exceptions; on the land the reverse is true.

The pit-dwelling at Campigny was elliptical in form with a longest diameter of 4.30 metres. We remember that the settlement at Campigny is probably little, if at all, younger than the sh.e.l.l-heaps. But by far the commoner form of pit-dwelling is circular, with a diameter rarely exceeding two metres. Such small circular pits are exceedingly common.

At the bottom we find ashes, bones of animals, implements, and fragments of clay once forming a part of the superstructure, baked hard when the hut was burned, and still having marks of the twigs and branches over which the clay had been plastered. We picture to ourselves the hut as mostly underground, with a diameter usually not exceeding one and one-half to two metres, excavated to a depth of one or two metres, the pit often surrounded by a rude wall of field stones. In the centre was the hearth. The superstructure was merely a cone composed of a framework of poles interlaced with branches and twigs plastered with clay. In the primitive hut there was no perpendicular side wall above ground, though in some the roof may have been raised somewhat on the earth thrown out from the pit. Such differences of detail are of slight importance. The huts are of all ages. They were probably erected far back in Paleolithic time. They seem to be figured in Magdalenian cave-frescoes.[39] Even the Ch.e.l.lean hunters could hardly have erected more primitive shelters. But equally rude huts are still inhabited in the Balkan Peninsula,[40] and are described by cla.s.sical writers as inhabited by the Germans.

Says Tacitus (_Germania_, XLVI) of the Finns of his day: "They lead a vagrant life: their food the common herbage; the skins of beasts their only clothing; and the bare earth their resting-place.... To protect their infants from the fury of wild beasts and the inclemency of the weather, they make a kind of cradle amidst the branches of trees interwoven together, and they know no other expedient. The youth of the country have the same habitation, and amidst the trees old age is rocked to rest. Savage as this way of life may seem, they prefer it to the drudgery of the field, the labor of building, and the painful vicissitudes of hope and fear, which always attend the defense and the acquisition of property. Secure against the pa.s.sions of men, and fearing nothing from the anger of the G.o.ds, they have attained that uncommon state of felicity, in which there is no craving left to form a single wish. The rest of what I have been able to collect is too much involved in fable...."

Let us hope that the reports which Tacitus had been able to collect concerning the dwellings, as well as the ferocity, filth, and poverty of the Finns, were somewhat exaggerated. Evidently conical, largely subterranean huts have been common in Europe down to far later than Neolithic times. The age of any pit-dwelling can be determined only by its contents.

In addition to these circular pits, long or short trenches occur. Forrer found at Stutzheim one cellar more than ten metres long, and varying from one to three metres in width, with several lateral enlargements as pantries and storehouses.[41] Forrer considers this as the home of the chief man, the "manor-house" of the settlement. Around it he found remains of huts such as we have already described. Frequently s.p.a.ce for storage as well as dwelling was gained by cl.u.s.tering small huts. This plan would have had the advantage of protection against loss of everything by fires, which must have been frequent. Such cramped dwellings, with the garbage scattered over the bottom of the hut, or in the huts of the most highly cultured deposited in a special hole in one corner, could hardly have been attractive, clean, or sanitary. But they were cool in summer and warm in winter, and afforded protection against wind and weather. People asked and expected no more. Housekeeping was simple, if not easy. But we can imagine that the return of spring, allowing them to emerge from their burrows, must have been hailed with delight.

We have still much to learn concerning these Neolithic dwellings. They have been discovered by chance, and usually studied only hastily and superficially. A pit discovered and examined may have been only one of a large cl.u.s.ter or village, of which the rest remained undiscovered.

Wooden houses of logs, or with a strong frame of poles seem to have existed in Bronze, or even late Neolithic times. Sophus Muller[42]

describes settlements in Denmark where the abundance of ashes and utensils prove long-continued habitation, and yet no pits seem to have been found--this may be due to insufficient investigation--strongly suggesting, at least, houses entirely above ground built of perishable materials. It is very hard to believe that even a Neolithic family could have lived through the winter in one, mainly subterranean, dwelling only two metres in diameter, with a fireplace in the middle. They would have been compelled to sleep sitting or standing! Probably Stutzheim and other similar settlements which have been discovered, represent the real general average of pit-dwellings, while besides these there were many of far superior style and comfort. The development of the Greek house is still a problem, much more that of a North German dwelling.

As an example of late Neolithic settlement of the better or best cla.s.s, we may take Grosgartach, near Heilbronn, in the Neckar valley.[43] Here, where now are low meadows, was once a lake connected with the Neckar.

The Neolithic village was carefully and skilfully explored by Hofrath Schliz, whose report is a model of careful observation and clear description.

The situation was very favorable, with loess-clad hills sloping to rich meadows, and the lake furnis.h.i.+ng fish and a line of communication. The areas occupied by the houses and stalls were clearly marked by the dark "culture-earth" contrasting sharply with the yellow loess. The princ.i.p.al house was rectangular. The outer wall was composed of posts with a wattling of twigs. This was plastered with clay, mixed with chaff and straw. The inner face of the wall was smoothly finished, and then "kalsomined" reddish yellow, and still further decorated with fresco in geometrical designs. The house--5.80 metres by 5.35 metres--was divided into two rooms. The larger part of the house was occupied by the kitchen, with its floor about one metre below the surface of the ground, and entered by an inclined plane or ramp. The other chamber, the sleeping-room, was nearly a metre above the kitchen and separated from it by a part.i.tion. Benches cut out of the loess were found in both kitchen and sleeping-room. Stalls for cattle and barns or granaries were also found. Virchow, in his review of Schliz's monograph, emphasizes the fact that apparently Grosgartach was deserted by its inhabitants and fell into decay without leaving any signs of destruction by fire or violence.

The villages of Butmir, Lengyel, Jablanica, and others in southeastern Europe show us a condition of advanced culture here also.[44]

Dechelette, speaking of the culture of this region, notices "the striking a.n.a.logies between these old walled villages of the Balkans and the Danube valley, and those of the aegean villages of the Troad and Phrygia." Primitive idols, painted pottery, frequent use of the spiral in decorative art, all these reappear here and there in the Neolithic stations of southeastern Europe, and in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean in pre-Mycenaean and Mycenaean days. Evidently houses, settlements, modes of life, and stages of culture differ greatly during the same epoch of the Neolithic period in different parts of Europe.

Italy was always far in advance of Europe north of the Alps. But even in northern Europe there was great diversity. Sh.e.l.l-heap dwellers still remained long after a much higher culture prevailed throughout most of Denmark. The life and thought of the pioneer hunters of northern Germany, and still more of northern Russia, were very different from those of the agriculturists along the valley of the Danube and in the Balkan Peninsula. In Greece little city-states began to arise early.

Even in northern Europe density of population and size of settlements varied greatly. One ill.u.s.tration of these differences can be seen in the occurrence of fortified villages and refuges.[45] The age of these fortifications is as great a problem as that of the remains found in a pit-dwelling. The village may be, probably usually is, much older than the surrounding wall, and an earthen wall may contain Neolithic or even perhaps Paleolithic implements. The custom of fortifying villages evidently spread rapidly during the Bronze and Iron periods. Sophus Muller tells us that all walled settlements north of the Alps are far younger than the Neolithic period.[46] This statement, often disputed or neglected, is probably an exaggeration, but may well be true of the region surrounding the Baltic. The spa.r.s.e and scattered hunting and pioneer population of Scandinavia and Germany had no need of building permanent walls around their single houses or small villages. They had very little wealth to protect.

But an agricultural population inhabiting a fertile region open to attack might well surround their villages with a wall, or provide a burg, or fortified place or "refuge," whither they might drive their cattle or transport their grain. Examples of this are Stutzheim and Urmitz, in the Rhine valley, always a great thoroughfare, and in Switzerland and along the maritime Alps villages of this sort seem to have been fairly frequent. Apparently they were still more numerous in the valley of the Danube and in the Balkan Peninsula. It is not at all surprising to find them in Thessaly, so near to the advanced civilization of Greece.

Another cla.s.s of settlements usually well protected were the workshops (ateliers) and manufacturing villages, especially those where flint was mined, or where flint implements were made in large quant.i.ties and distributed by trade over wide areas.[47] During the Neolithic period these settlements would have held much the same place and importance as our centres of coal, iron, manufacturing, and business have with us to-day. Grand Pressigny and Camp de Cha.s.sey, in France, and Cissbury, in England, are single examples of a great number of such fortified mining and manufacturing villages. For a further study of these very interesting remains the reader is referred to the manuals of Dechelette and h.o.e.rnes.

Even before the close of the Paleolithic period tundra and steppe were giving place to forests, which were advancing even into Scandinavia. The forest looms large and terrible in the works of cla.s.sical writers and German antiquarians. Says Tacitus: "Who would leave the softer climes of Asia, Africa, or Italy to fix his abode in Germany, where Nature offers nothing but scenes of ugliness, where the inclemency of the seasons never relents?... The face of the country, though in some parts varied, presents a cheerless scene, covered with the gloom of forests, or deformed with wide-extended marshes." He says that the soil produces grain and is well stocked with cattle, though of small size. But grain does not grow in primeval forests, and herds of cattle need at least open glades for pasturage. It is an extreme picture tinged by the homesickness of a citizen of sunny Italy. Northern Europe was generally heavily forested until long after Tacitus's time. The Romans began in earnest the work of deforesting France, and the work was carried on all over Europe in mediaeval times. The Neolithic immigrants probably made small clearings with the aid of fire, especially where the trees were low and not too thick, as on many light-soiled areas. They could make but little impression on the heavy forest growth, though they could limit its spread. They probably did not need to make wide clearings of dense forest. There were many open stretches of country of greater or less extent awaiting occupants and culture. This was true especially of districts occupied by the loess, whose origin from dust drifted by Paleolithic wind-storms we have already noticed.

Geikie describes loess as typically a "fine-grained, yellowish, calcareous, sandy loam, consisting very largely of minute grains of quartz with some admixture of argillaceous and calcareous matter."[48]

It is for the most part a wind-blown deposit. It is widely developed over low-lying regions, but sweeps up to heights of 200 to 300 feet and more above the bottoms of the great river valleys. Again, in many places we find it heaped up under the lee of hills, the exposed windward slopes of which bear no trace of it. Wherever there is loess we are likely to find the remains of steppe plants and animals. The ancient steppe area which generally covers, and probably extends considerably beyond, the loess district, is the region occupied by most of the primitive settlements. Even to-day it is less wooded than the rest of northern Europe. Such steppe regions in the North German plain are the great diluvial river terraces, especially the terraces of the Saale and Elbe and the eastern edge of the Harz Mountains; in South Germany the lower Alpine "Vorland" from Switzerland to lower Austria, the uplands of Suabia and Franconia, the valleys of the Main and Neckar, and much of northern Bohemia. These steppe regions of Germany, northern Austria, and Switzerland extended southeastward in a zone following the Danube, widening out in the great Hungarian plain into the vast steppe region extending eastward from the Black Sea or Pontus. From this Pontic steppe a band of more or less open country extended northward along the Carpathians until it almost or quite joined the open regions of the Elbe and along the Harz. A farther extension of this same band seems to have opened the way from the Harz region through northwest Germany into Belgium and northern France, and very probably into Brittany. We see at once the importance of these long lines of open or thinly forested country to the immigrations and settlement of Neolithic peoples.

Periodical floods or other conditions kept open many river valleys, whose importance we shall estimate in a later chapter. All this land, except the uplands of Suabia and Franconia, and some similar areas, was comparatively fertile, the loess areas particularly so, and suited to a primitive agriculture.

In England the valleys of the Thames and other rivers were heavily wooded and not populated until much later. But the long lines of chalk-downs and oolitic uplands were far less favorable to forest growth. In Norfolk and Suffolk there were apparently open s.p.a.ces.

Yorks.h.i.+re and Derbys.h.i.+re had very similar landscapes. The forest was held back wherever the porous chalk formation made a large outcrop. In these places man could settle and find pasturage for his flocks and attempt a poor sort of agriculture, even in Neolithic days. Hence we find these regions dotted with Neolithic settlements. The immigrants who came in during the Bronze period settled in the same regions. Here again clearing of the forest on any large scale was apparently not attempted until Roman times, but along its boundaries, where the forest growth was not too heavy, these primitive agriculturists may well have cut off the lighter growth for fuel and buildings, and thus have gradually appreciably extended the arable area.

CHAPTER IV

LAKE-DWELLINGS

The winter of 1853-1854 was exceedingly cold and dry. The surface of the Swiss lakes sank lower than at any time during many preceding centuries.

The lowering of the water tempted the inhabitants along the sh.o.r.e to erect dikes and thus fill in the newly gained flats. During this process the workmen along the edge of the retreating water came upon the tops of piles, and between those great quant.i.ties of horn and stone implements and fragments of pottery. Aeppli, a teacher in Obermeilen, called the attention of the Antiquarian Society in Zurich to these discoveries. The society recognized at once their importance, and under the leaders.h.i.+p of its president, Ferdinand Keller, began a series of most careful investigations which have contributed more to our knowledge of life during the Neolithic period than any discoveries before or since.

The number of these lake-dwellings is very large. Lake Neuchatel has furnished over 50; Lake Leman (Geneva) 40; Lake Constance over 40; Lake Zurich 10. The sh.o.r.es of the smaller lakes have also contributed their full quota.[49] In some of the lakes where the sh.o.r.e was favorable, remains of a lake-dwelling have been found before almost every modern village. Sometimes we find the remains of two villages, one somewhat farther out than the other. In these cases the one nearer the sh.o.r.e is the older, usually Neolithic, while the one farther out belongs to the Bronze period.

These settlements are by no means limited to Switzerland. They stretch in a long zone along the Alps from Savoy and southern Germany through Switzerland into Austria.[50] Herodotus mentions them in the Balkan Peninsula. The amount of bronze seems to increase as we pa.s.s from east to west. They are found frequently in the Italian lakes, mostly containing relics of the Bronze Age, though here the western settlements contain little or no metal. A second series has been discovered in Britain and northern Germany, and extending into Russia. These are considerably younger. The scheme of the lake-dwelling was used in historic times in Ravenna and Venice. Large numbers are still inhabited in the far east.

A sunny, sheltered sh.o.r.e, protected by hills from storms and action of waves, was always an attractive site.[51] The character of the land, if open and suitable for pasturage and cultivation, was doubtless important. Much depended on the character of the bottom. Where the sh.o.r.e shelved off gradually and was composed of marl or sand, the piles could be easily driven, and could hold their place firmly. Even if the sh.o.r.e was somewhat too hard and the piles could be driven only a little distance, they were strengthened by piles of stones, often brought from a considerable distance. When a suitable location had been discovered and selected the trees were felled partly by the use of stone axes, and partly by fire, and one end of the log was pointed by the same means, according to Avebury. Their diameter was from three to nine inches, and their length from fifteen to thirty feet. During the Bronze period larger trees were felled and split, and larger piles had to be used in the deeper water farther from the sh.o.r.e.[52]

These rudely sharpened piles were driven into the bottom by the use of heavy stone mallets. This must have involved an immense amount of hard labor, for at the settlement of w.a.n.gen 50,000 piles were used, though not all probably at the same time. Messikommer calculated that at Robenhausen over 100,000 were used. We find sometimes a different foundation. It consists of a solid ma.s.s of mud and stones, with erect and also horizontal logs binding the whole structure firmly together.

This is evidently a ruder, simpler, and perhaps more primitive, mode of building. It was less suited to an open situation, exposed to heavy waves, and seems to occur more often in smaller lakes now often filled with peat.[53] Wauwyl and Nieberwyl are good ill.u.s.trations of such a "_Packwerkbau_." Some have considered them as originally floating rafts.

When the piles had been firmly driven, cross-pieces were laid over the top, and on this a "flooring" of smaller poles, or of halved logs or even split boards, whose interstices were probably filled with moss and clay, forming a solid and fairly even surface, on which the dwellings could be erected. The framework of the houses was of small piles, some of which have been found projecting considerably above the platforms.[54] "The size of the house is further marked out by boards forced in between the piles and resting edgeways on the platform, thus forming what at the present day we should call the skirting boards (mop-boards) of the hut or rooms. The walls or sides were made of a wattle or hurdle work of small branches, woven in between the upright piles, and covered with a considerable thickness of loam or clay." This is proved by numbers of pieces of clay half-burnt, or hardened in the fire, with the impressions of the wattle-work still remaining. These singularly ill.u.s.trative specimens are found in nearly every settlement which has been destroyed by fire. The houses were rectangular except in a few cases. They were apparently thatched with straw or reeds. The hearths consisted of three or four stone slabs.

These houses were calculated by Messikommer at Robenhausen to have been about 27 by 22 feet, a very respectable size. One was excavated at Schussenried, whose side-walls and floor were fairly well preserved.

This was a rectangle about 33 by 23 feet (10 by 7 metres), and was divided into two chambers. The front room, 6-1/2 by 4 metres, opened by a door facing south, and with remains of a hearth in one corner. The rear room, 6-1/2 by 5 metres, was without outer door, and was apparently a bedroom.[55] Beside these houses, or forming a part of them, were stalls for the cattle, granaries, and probably workshops. (The distribution of different remains is well shown in Keller's _Lake Dwellings_, I, p. 45.) The stone and bone implements, and the pottery of the lake-dwellers can be more conveniently considered in connection with those of other regions.

We pa.s.s now to the remains of animals and plants found here, especially in their relations to the food supply of the people.[56] Altogether about 70 species of animals have been discovered. Of these 10 are fish, 4 reptiles, 26 birds, and 30 mammals, of which 6 were probably domesticated. The largest of these were the great _Cervus alces_ or moose--sometimes called elk--the wild cattle, and the stag (_Cervus elaphus_). Bones of the stag and ox are very numerous and equal those of all others together. Of the horse very few remains are found until the Bronze period. Wild horses seem to have lived on in certain parts of Europe until a late date, but apparently they had emigrated almost altogether from this region. The horse of the Bronze Age was domesticated. The lion had left this region, but lingered on in the Balkans down to historic times. The brown bear and the wolf still roamed in the forest. In the oldest lake-dwellings the bones of wild animals make up a far larger proportion of the remains than in the latest ones.

We find a somewhat small dog (_Canis familiaris pal.u.s.tris_) closely resembling that of the Danish sh.e.l.l-heaps. It was apparently of the jackal type, and much like the modern Spitz. This would have been an excellent watch-dog to give warning of the approach of enemies. But at the close of the Neolithic, with the increase of flocks of sheep, a larger dog more closely related to the wolf seems to have spread widely through the country (_Canis familiaris matris optimae Juit_). This form was much like, and probably the ancestor of, our present sheep-dogs. A third form (_Canis intermedius_) also occurs. The origin and relations.h.i.+ps of the various forms of this oldest domesticated animal are still anything but clear. That they all go back to the jackal and the wolf rather than to a form like the Australian dingo, still seems to be most generally accepted. (But see Schenk.[57])

Man gained the dog by domesticating the jackal and different species of wolves in different parts of the world and then by crossing, or, by a more or less unconscious selection, bred different varieties, until we have at present a chaos of intermingled forms. Something similar but on a smaller scale was true of the domestic cattle. One kind of domestic cattle appears fully domesticated in the oldest lake-dwellings. It is unlike any wild European form. This is the _Bos brachyceros_. It was almost certainly imported. Mingled with its forms we find those of the _Bos primigenius_, a native of Europe and North Asia, but apparently not domesticated. This is the urus, which was common in Europe in Caesar's day, and lasted in central Europe until 1000 A. D. and still lingers in Poland.[58] This was a very large and powerful form with long spreading horns, whose domestication appears to have commenced toward the close of the Neolithic period. It is not improbable that it was domesticated, or at least tamed, independently in different countries at quite different times. Raising of cattle was at its height during the Bronze Age; afterward the results seem to decline and the cattle to degenerate.

One of the Vaphio vases of about 1500 B. C. represents the capture of large, long-horned cattle in a net, while the second shows similar animals tamed. Apparently the smaller and lighter brachyceros was first tamed, and this success led to a series of experiments with the larger and more difficult form.[59]

If we draw a line from northwestern Russia diagonally across Europe southwestward to the mouth of the Rhone, it will divide fairly well the distribution of the descendants of those two forms. To the eastward in Russia and Austria, also generally through Germany, and extending also along the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic, we find the large, heavy, usually long-horned descendants of the primigenius stock. The cattle of Spain, and southward into Africa, of France and England, are more of the short-horned, light-built, smaller brachyceros type. Holstein and Jersey are good representatives of the two types, though the Holsteins are, perhaps, a somewhat marked variety. Some regard the cattle of the Scotch highlands as the best representatives of the _primigenius_ type, though reduced in size. This same type, on account of its size and endurance of harsh climate, has furnished the range cattle of our Western plains.

Two fairly distinct forms of swine occur in the lake-dwellings. The first is the so-called turbary pig (_Sus scrofa pal.u.s.tris_). This is a small form with comparatively long legs. It differs markedly from the wild boar, and was probably imported already domesticated. Being more or less left to feed and s.h.i.+ft for itself, it may well have declined in size from its primitive oriental ancestors. Remains of the larger European wild boar (_Sus scrofa ferus L._) also occur from the beginning as products of the hunt. But during the Bronze period domesticated descendants of this variety grow numerous, and are crossed with the smaller turbary pig.

"The domestic sheep," says Brehm, "is a quiet, gentle, patient, simple, will-less, cowardly, wearisome animal. It has no character. It understands and learns nothing; is incapable of helping itself."[60] It is certainly absolutely dependent upon man for guidance and protection.

This lies partly in its inherited nature and original surroundings, but suggests long domestication. Like the goat, it is originally a mountain form, but adapts itself readily to the dry herbage of the steppe. It is not a native of central Europe but introduced. It is much rarer than the goat in the oldest lake-dwellings, but gradually becomes more abundant, especially in the Bronze period.

The turbary sheep (_Ovis aries pal.u.s.tris_) is very small, with slender legs, long narrow skull, and bones somewhat like those of the goat. It was certainly not developed in Switzerland, and before it arrived there it had apparently been much modified by conditions of life or by crossing. Its anatomical characteristics are made up of at least three wild forms. The first of these is the goat-like maned sheep (_Ovis tragelaphus_) ranging over the mountains of northern Africa, extending across into Abyssinia. This form seems to have been domesticated in Egypt before the middle of the fourth millennium. At a much later date, in Homeric times, herds of sheep of a similar form were kept in Greece.

It was much larger than the turbary form.

The arkal (_Ovis arkal_) is the steppe sheep of central and western Asia. It is the ancestor of the oriental and African fat-tailed sheep.

The western Asiatic forms seem to have developed the fine wool at the expense of the coa.r.s.e hair, like that of the goat and of many other forms.

A third form is the Moufflon, of the mountains around the Mediterranean and of its larger islands--here probably introduced. Similar forms appear in Europe during the Bronze period.

Other species are found in different parts of Asia. The balance of probabilities seems to incline toward the view that the turbary sheep came into Europe from western and central Asia with other "turbary"

forms, that it had been long domesticated, and either here or on its westward migration may have more or less crossed with the descendants of other varieties. The oldest domesticated goats seem to be descended from the Bezoar goat (_Capra aegagrus_), from the mountains of southwestern Asia.

The presence of oxen, sheep, and goats is enough to prove that the people must have practised agriculture to some extent to have kept these animals alive through the winter. That they were kept on the platform is shown by the presence of manure in the remains underneath. Whether this was used for fertilizer we do not know, nor their method of cultivating the ground. No agricultural implements have come down to us.