Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE PREHISTORIC FARMER, AND THE HERDSMEN—THE NEOLITHIC CIVILISATION.
We have now arrived at the point in the inquiry into the condition of early man which is marked by the dawn of agriculture, by the arrival of domestic animals, and the invention of many useful arts; at that fountain-head whence the civilisation of Europe, such as we know it now, was derived. From this time forward to the borders of history we have to record the advance of man in culture and his passage from the condition of the farmer and herdsman to that of the merchant and manufacturer. Instead of the wanderer dependent on the chase, we have to deal with the dweller in fixed habitations, and with those social conditions which follow from men being massed together in various centres for the common good. We have to chronicle in the Prehistoric period the changes wrought in Europe by the invasion of new peoples, and the appearance of new civilisations—changes similar to those which are now rapidly causing the hunters of the bison in the far west to disappear before the advance of the English colonist.
Definition of the Prehistoric Period.
The Prehistoric period covers all the events which took place between the Pleistocene age on the one hand and the beginning of history on the other. To it belong most of the alluvia and the peat-bogs, as well as the contents of certain caverns characterised by the presence of the wild mammalia now living in Europe, and of the wild or half-wild animals which had escaped from their servitude to man. One species only of all the mammals then alive, the Irish elk, has since become extinct. Man appears in the Neolithic stage of culture, or that of polished stone, along with the stocks of the more important of the domestic animals, and many of the cultivated seeds and. fruits. Subsequently in the long course of ages bronze became known, and then iron, each causing a great change in the arts and the social condition of the people.[1] Polished stone, bronze, and iron, it must be remarked, are merely the outer signs or symbols of three phases of culture, each of which was higher and better than that which went before. The history of Britain begins late in the Iron age.
The Prehistoric period is separated from the Pleistocene by a long interval, during which, not merely great changes in the zoology of Britain took place, but also corresponding changes in the geography.
Geography of Britain in the Prehistoric Age.
At the close of the Pleistocene age (Fig. 32), the valleys which united Britain to North France, Germany, and Scandinavia, as well as to Ireland, were gradually depressed beneath the sea-level; and the North Sea, the British Channel, the Irish Sea, and the Western Atlantic coast-line generally became very much as we find them now (see Fig. 95). An examination, however, of the submerged forests and peat-bogs proves that the downward movement had not ceased until a late period in the Neolithic age.
Submerged Forests.
We can approach this interesting question most conveniently by examining the evidence as to the submarine forest exposed between tide-marks on the coast of west Somerset, admirably described by Sir Henry de la Beche and by Mr. Godwin-Austen.[2]
It was shown by the latter to be rooted on "an angular detritus," and to be covered by deposits in the following order:—
2. A surface of plant growth (Iris).
3. A marine silt with Scrobicularia piperata.
4. Shingle that forms a ridge, which is at the present time encroaching on the level water meadows behind.The physical changes in the district implied by this section are considered by Mr. Godwin-Austen to be as follows:—The angular detritus in which the trees are rooted was an old surface soil, formed at a time when the climate was more severe than it is at present, and probably while the boulder clays north of the lower valley of the Severn were falling from melting icebergs. This was followed by the epoch of the growth of the forest and of the accumulation of vegetable matter. The overlying blue clay (No. 1) marks the time during which the trees were killed; the surface of marsh- growth (No. 2) covered with iris marks the epoch when the trees fell; the silt (No. 3) indicates a depression below the sea-level; and, lastly, the silt was elevated, and the shingle (No. 4) thrown up on its surface, to form the barrier at high-water mark.
Mr. Godwin-Austen's valuable essay recalled to mind a worked flint which I had found in the angular detritus in 1861, and the Rev. H. H. Winwood and myself resolved to re-examine the forest-bed and the associated deposits.
On digging through the layer of undisturbed vegetable matter, we met with ample traces of man's handiwork in flint and chert chippings, as well as a well-formed flake which apparently had never been used. They were imbedded in the upper ferruginous portion of the angular detritus, and evidently had been dropped upon the surface-soil of the period, and not transported by water. On searching the shingle we found only one water-worn flint-pebble, which possibly may have been washed out of the angular detritus. It is therefore probable that the presence of flint and chert in that neighbourhood is due to their transport by man.
Encouraged by these results, we resolved to explore the submarine forest in the nearest bay to the east, close to Minehead. It there consists of oak, ash, alder, and hazel, which grow on a blue clay, full of rootlets that thicken considerably seawards. The blue clay in its lower part is full of angular fragments of Devonian rocks, which, as at Porlock, constitute a land-wash, and not a shingle. At the point between tides, where the angular fragments began to appear, splinters were found which had been struck off by the hand of man in the manufacture of implements. They were imbedded in a ferruginous band as at Porlock, and occurred as deep as one foot from the surface of the bed. We dug in several other spots without finding any other traces of man.
In both these localities it is clear that man had been living on the old land-surface before it was submerged, and that the remains of his handiwork had been dropped in the angular detritus which Mr. Godwin-Austen believes to be subaërial and glacial.
From these facts we mav infer that man was living in this region during the time that a dense forest overshadowed a large portion of what is now the Bristol Channel, and before the deposit of the blue freshwater clay and the marine silt, at a time not later than that marked by the layer of peat or vegetable soil in which the prostrate trees are imbedded.
These submerged forests are mere scraps, spared by the waves, of an ancient growth of oak, ash, and yew, extending in Somersetshire underneath the peat and alluvium, and joining the great morasses of Glastonbury, Sedgemoor, and Athelney; in which Neolithic implements have been met with by Mr. Stradling. The discovery of flint-flakes and an old refuse-heap with mammalian remains by Mr. Ellis,[3] in the submerged forest of Barnstaple, affords the same kind of evidence that man was living in Devonshire while the land stood considerably higher than it does at the present time. The bones of Celtic short-horn (Bos longifrons), stag, sheep, and goat, had evidently been accumulated around the piles before they were in their present position between high and low water mark, since such an accumulation would have been impossible in a spot between tides. In all probability the piles were driven into a peaty morass on the land surface.
Conclusive proof of submergence within comparatively modern times is brought forward by Mr. Pengelly in his paper "On the Submerged Forest of Torbay." The forest consists of a layer of peat, sometimes ten feet thick, which sweeps upwards from low-water mark to the higher grounds, the subaërial portion being covered with three feet of loam. From it have been obtained the stag, hog, horse, and Celtic short-horn, and antlers of stag cut by man. Here, therefore, as well as in North Devon and Somersetshire, man was in possession of the country when the land stretched farther out to sea than at the present time. In this particular case Mr. Pengelly estimates the submergence to have been not less than forty feet since the forest was alive.
Similar proofs of submergence are to be met with on our coasts wherever the land dips gently under the water line. On the shores of St. Bride's Bay, in the twelfth century, the stumps of trees, and the peat around them at low water, excited the wonder of Gerald de Barri,[4] and yielded to Dr. Hicks, in 1868, the remains of the brown bear and the stag. From this point the forest has been observed in very many places farther north, at Liverpool, and on the coast of Lancashire. In the latter district it has been shown by Mr. De Rance to be older than the Roman occupation, since Roman coins were discovered in the tidal alluvium, which covers it near the mouth of the river Alt, at High Town. The depth to which the forest has been submerged in this district cannot be less than thirty feet. It is worthy of remark that the enormous trunks of the trees prove that the Scotch firs, oaks, yews, willows, and birches, of which the forest was in these places mainly composed, must have grown at some distance from the ancient coast-line, since the westerly winds sweeping over Lancashire from the Atlantic at the present time prevent the free growth of vegetation on every unprotected spot on the coast. The prevalent gales, however, are proved to have been very much the same as now, by the position of the trees, which lie prostrate with their heads pointing towards the east.
Evidence similar to this is to be found in the forest growths on the coasts, extending underneath the alluvium at the mouths of our rivers, as for example that of the Thames, which shows that the submergence has not been local, and that the depression of land throughout Great Britain and Ireland, since the trees flourished, could not be less than from thirty to forty feet. The ten-fathom line, therefore, considered by Sir Henry de la Beche to be roughly the boundary of the land at that time, may be taken to represent the sea margin with tolerable accuracy. In that case a considerable area would be added to the land surface of Britain, and especially of Cardigan Bay, of which the Welsh peasant still tells the story of the land swallowed by the sea; and off the coast of Lancashire and Cheshire, where the size of the submerged trees proves that they grew some distance from the sea-board; as well as off the coasts of Essex and Lincolnshire. It would include the islands of Anglesea and of Wight (Fig. 95), and the estuary of the Thames to the west of a line drawn due north from Felixstow. The other modification in the contour of Great Britain and Ireland consists of a narrow strip parallel to the present coasts. The forest of yew, oak, ash, birch, Scotch fir, and alder, extended from the Prehistoric sea-level up the mouths of the rivers, and joined that covering the general surface of the country. In the marshes of the lower Thames it is met with at a few feet above low-water mark.
Fig. 95.—Neolithic Britain.
This forest growth is proved to belong to the Neolithic division of the Prehistoric period by the presence of animals originally domestic, and introduced by the Neolithic tribes, the Celtic short-horn and the sheep or goat, as well as by the absence of the Pleistocene mammalia. It must not be confounded with the older land surface, nearly at the same horizon, and containing the remains of the mammoth, at St. Audries, near Watchet, in Holyhead Harbour, and off the coast of Yarmouth. Still less must it be confounded with the yet older land surface under the boulder clay of Norfolk and Suffolk, in which are discovered the southern elephant and the other animals described in the sixth chapter of this work. The southern elephant lived in Europe before the mammoth, and the mammoth became extinct before the introduction of the domestic animals. The faunas to which these animals respectively belong indicate the relative antiquity of the three ancient land surfaces containing their remains, which cannot be ascertained in any other way.
Climate.
The forests and morasses would probably cause the Prehistoric climate to be more damp than that experienced in Britain since the dawn of history; while the larger area of land would produce a greater contrast between the temperature of summer and winter. The presence of the reindeer and the elk as far south as the valley of the Thames points to the same conclusion. The Prehistoric geography, indeed, as well as the climate, represents a middle stage in the series of changes which Britain has undergone in its passage from a continental condition and climate to its present state.
This view is considerably strengthened by the evidence brought forward by Dr. James Geikie as to the geography and climate of North Britain at the time when the forests now submerged were living. "No island," he writes, "of the Orkney or Shetland groups can boast the presence of any natural trees deserving of the name. Cultivated saplings are protected by walls, but they cannot raise their tops above the level of the copestones. And yet the mosses and sunk forests of those regions abound with fallen trees, many of which equal in thickness the body of a man. When these buried trees decked the now bleak island with their greenery, the land stood at a higher level, and the neighbouring ocean at a greater distance. A study of similar appearances in the Inner and Outer Hebrides will induce us to form a like opinion of the changes which they indicate. The broad barren flats of Caithness were also in ancient times overspread with a thick growth of large-sized natural wood, the peat mosses containing which pass below the sea. To have permitted this strong forest growth we are again compelled to admit a former elevation of the land and a corresponding retreat of the ocean. And so on of all the maritime regions of Scotland.
"The same inferences may be drawn from the facts disclosed by the mosses of Ireland and England. On the coasts of France and Holland, as I have said, peat dips underneath the sea; and along those bleak maritime regions of Norway, where now-a-days the pine-tree will hardly grow, we find peat mosses which contain the remains of full-grown trees, such as are only met with in districts much farther removed from the influence of the sea."[5]
From the great thickness of the bark of the Scotch firs in the buried forests. Dr. Geikie infers that the climate was more severe when the trees were alive than now, and more like that of the wooded regions of Canada than that which characterises Germany at the present time. Mr. Godwin Austen draws the same conclusion, from the thick bark of the trees, in his memoir on the "Superficial Accumulations of the Coasts of the English Channel."[6]
Prehistoric Mammalia in Britain and Ireland.
The mammalia inhabiting Great Britain and Ireland in the Prehistoric period may be divided into three groups—the wild species which have survived from the Pleistocene age; those which have been introduced under the care of man; and lastly, the domestic animals which have reverted to a wild state. In the forests and woodlands then covering the British Isles, and extending to a little distance beyond the present coast-line (Fig. 95), were wild boars, horses, roes and stags, Irish elks, true elks, and reindeer, and the great wild ox, the urus, as well as the Alpine hare, the common hare, and the rabbit. Wolves, foxes and badgers, martens and wild cats, were abundant; the brown bear, and the closely allied variety the grisly bear, were the two most formidable competitors of man in the chase. Otters pursued the salmon and the trout in the rivers, beavers constructed their wonderful dams, and water rats haunted the banks of the streams. These constitute the first group of survivals from the Pleistocene age.
The Irish elk[7] demands especial notice among the Prehistoric wild animals from its vast numbers in Ireland, as well as from the fact that it is the sole survivor from the Pleistocene into the Prehistoric age, which has since become extinct. Very generally the bones are found in juxtaposition, so as to prove that their possessors had been bogged. In one case Archdeacon Maunsel described in 1825 two heads, with the antlers interlocked in a fight between two bucks, in which both perished.
Sometimes the Irish elks have been drowned, and their bones distributed by water. In Ballybetagh bog, near Dublin, the heads are frequently found lying together and apart from the rest of the bones of the skeleton, a circumstance which, as Mr. E. J. Moss[8] pointed out to me, cannot be accounted for except by the above hypothesis. The rarity of the animal in Britain forms a marked contrast with its abundance in Ireland. It has been discovered in the peaty mud near Newbury, in Berkshire, and in the marl below the peat in the parish of Maybole, Ayrshire.
The Irish elk is proved from recent discoveries by Mr. R. J. Ussher, in a cave near Cappagh, Cappoquin, Waterford, to have been hunted, as well as the reindeer, by man; but the age of the strata in which it is found appears to me to be doubtful. The perforated rib in the museum at Dublin, which is sometimes taken to be the result of a wound from a dart,[9] arrow, or spear, may possibly have been caused by one of the sharp tynes in a fight between two bucks. The peculiar incised bones[10] also from Legan, County Longford, which at first sight look as if they had been cut by man, have been proved by Dr. Carte to have resulted from the friction of one bone resting on another, caused by a movement in the strata in which they were found.
The urus was comparatively abundant in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland, and its remains are met with more especially in the sub-turbary marls and in the alluvia. It is proved to have been hunted by Neolithic man by the bones and teeth in the Neolithic pit in Cissbury Camp, explored by Mr. Ernest Willett in 1874. It lived in this country at least as late as the Bronze age, since its remains occur in the refuse-heap in and around the pile dwelling in Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmunds. From these two isolated cases of its occurrence in Britain it may be inferred that it was very rare in the Neolithic and Bronze ages; it probably was exterminated before the Historic period in this country. The "tauri sylvestres" of William Fitzstephen,[11] in the forests then extending round London, probably did not refer to the urus, but to half-wild descendants of cattle turned out, as was then the custom, into the woodlands to feed, and not confined within the limits of fences.[12] Mr. Darwin, however, considers that the Chillingham cattle are the half-tame descendants from a long ancestry of wild British uri; and this view we shall examine in the fourteenth chapter, in dealing with the British mammalia in the Historic period. The urus, however, lived in the forests covering Central Germany as late as the sixteenth century.
The moose, or true elk, has been met with in several localities in the peat bogs of Northumberland, and in Yorkshire. In 1871 my attention was drawn to a magnificent head, with the antlers, found in 1828 near Williestruther Loch, Hawick, by Sir Walter Elliot, Bart., its present possessor. A second skull, obtained from Berwickshire, was exhibited at the British Association in Edinburgh by Dr. G. A. Smith, to whom we are indebted for an essay[13] on these and many other specimens, which prove that the animal was by no means uncommon in North Britain. In the south it has been found only at Walthamstow, along with the goat, Celtic short-horn, and reindeer.[14]
The reindeer occupied the same parts of Prehistoric Britain as the moose. In the south it has been found in the Thames valley, at the southern outfall near Erith, along with the beaver, Celtic short-horn, goat, horse, and a human skull, at the bottom of a layer of peat, fifteen to twenty feet in thickness; and it has been discovered under similar conditions in the excavations carried on for the Victoria Docks.[15] Rare in England, it is proved by Dr. J. A. Smith to have been comparatively abundant in Scotland ; and the discovery of its bones in the refuse-heaps at Caithness leave no room for doubting that the animal was used for food by the inhabitants of the neighbouring burghs, or massive circular dwellings. It is comparatively abundant in the peat bogs and marls of Ireland.
The wild urus is not known in Ireland, the larger skulls of oxen, not referable to the Celtic short-horn, belonging to the large domestic breed, which was probably introduced by the Scandinavian invaders between A.D. 500 and 1000. Nor have any remains of beaver or common hare been discovered in any Irish deposit of Prehistoric age.
The second group of Prehistoric animals consists of the dog, horned sheep, goat, Celtic short-horned ox, and hog, introduced by Neolithic man, and which will be treated in discussing his position as a herdsman. The third group consists of the short-horned ox, the turf-hog, and the goat, which escaped from the servitude of man and reverted to a wild state in the virgin forest, as yet untouched by the axe of the woodman, in the same manner as they have become wild in North America and in Australia. Possibly the horse also may have reverted equally to a wild state, but it may have descended from the wild horses so abundant in Britain in the Pleistocene age.
List of Principal Prehistoric Mammalia of Britain and Ireland.
Wild Animals.
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x | x | |
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x |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | ||
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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? | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | ||
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x | x | |
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x | ||
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | ||
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x | x | |
| Domestic Animals. | |||
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
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x | x | |
The Prehistoric and Historic Periods belong to the Tertiary.
If this list[16] of animals be compared with that of the late Pleistocene mammalia, p. 147, it will be seen that seventeen Pleistocene species are no longer represented in Britain. The spotted hyæna, lion, lynx, Caffer cat, and hippopotamus, have taken refuge in the southern climates; the lemming, glutton, pouched marmot, musk sheep, and tailless hare, have retreated either to the north, or to the shelter offered by the forests of Central Europe, or the tops of lofty mountains; while the cave-bear, woolly rhinoceros, leptorhine rhinoceros, mammoth, and straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), have become extinct. On the other hand, it may be concluded from the fact that all the wild Prehistoric mammals were living in the preceding age, that the Prehistoric period is not cut off from that which went before by a line of demarcation such as that dividing the Secondary from the Tertiary periods. The wild fauna and flora of Prehistoric and Historic Europe may be traced back to the Pleistocene age, and therefore the Tertiary period must be looked upon as not ending with the Pleistocene, but as extending down to the present day (see Fig. 1).
Magnitude of Interval between the Pleistocene and Prehistoric Periods.
Such changes in the mammalia and in the geography of Britain as those described in the preceding pages, in the interval separating the Pleistocene from the Pre- historic period, could not have taken place in a short time, and when we reflect that comparatively little change has taken place in this country during the last two thousand years, it is obvious that the one period is separated from the other by the lapse of many centuries. Of how many we cannot tell. The sharp line of demarcation between the two is to be noticed in almost every river-valley, where both are close together; the Pleistocene fluviatile strata occurring in various levels, either above or below the present level of the stream, while the Prehistoric deposits consist of alluvia close to the present level of the stream, or of subaërial accumulations of loam and the like, the result of the rain-wash, covering the lower grounds like a mantle. In the former the severity of the winters is marked by the confused manner in which the pebbles have been accumulated, owing to the floating ice in the streams; while in the latter the sediments are sorted by the ordinary action of running water, without the intervention of ice. The line of demarcation is equally clear in the caverns,[17] in which the late Pleistocene accumulations are generally mapped off from those of the Prehistoric age by a layer of stalagmite, sometimes of considerable thickness. This, however, offers no measure of the interval between the two periods, because the rate of accumulation depends upon the currents of air in the caves, and the amount of water passing through the limestone, both of which are variables. In the Ingleborough cave, in Yorkshire, it has been so swift that between 1845 and 1873 a stalagmitic boss known as the Jockey Cap has grown at the rate of ⋅2941 inch per annum. In Kent's Hole it has been so slow that an inscription bearing the date of 1688 on a similar boss is only covered by a film not more than one-twentieth of an inch in thickness. It therefore follows that very great thicknesses may be formed in a short time; while on the other hand it may take a long series of centuries to form a thin layer of a few inches.[18]
Comparative Duration of Pleistocene and Prehistoric Periods.
We may obtain a rough, approximation to the relative length of the Pleistocene and Prehistoric periods from the fact that the valleys were cut down by the streams flowing through them; in the former, sometimes as much as a hundred feet, while the work done by the rivers during the latter is measured by the insignificant fluviatile deposits close to the adjacent stream.[19] It may therefore be concluded that the former period was beyond all calculation longer than the latter. The latter, however, may have been of very considerable length, since it includes a series of changes in the fauna, and a series of invasions of different races of men into Europe, which, if measured by simliar changes recorded in history, must have required the lapse of many centuries. In dealing with these questions it is only possible to grasp the relative duration, for the measurement of time absolute in terms of years outside the reach of history is beyond our power. We do not know the length of the interval separating any two events not recorded in history, nor are we possessed of any natural chronometer by which to fix a date in the historical sense. We are dealing merely with time relative, and not time absolute.
Neolithic Inhabitants of Britain and Ireland.
The great changes in the fauna and geography of Britain, at the close of the Pleistocene age, render it
very improbable that the Cave-men were in any way represented by the Neolithic tribes, who are the first to appear in Prehistoric Europe. The former possessed no domestic animals, just as the latter are not known to have been acquainted with any of the extinct species, with the exception of the Irish elk. The former lived as hunters, unaided by the dog, in Britain, while it was part of the continent; the latter appear as farmers and herdsmen after it became an island. Their states of culture, as we shall see presently, were wholly different. We might expect on à priori grounds that there would be an overlap, and that the former would have been absorbed into the mass of the newcomers. There is, however, no evidence of this. It seems far more probable that they were kept apart by the feelings of antipathy which we have described in the last chapter as existing between the Eskimos and the Red Indians. From the facts at present before us we may conclude that they belonged to two races of men, living in Europe in successive times, and separated from each other by an interval sufficiently great to allow of the above-mentioned changes taking place in the physical conditions of Britain.
Man, as he appears before us in the Prehistoric age, and in the Neolithic stage of culture, is far advanced in the upward path which mankind traversed in gaining the civilisation enjoyed by the higher races of the present time. His position may conveniently be ascertained by dealing first of all with his habitations.
Hut Circles.
In various parts of the country are to be seen clusters of circular depressions, very frequently within the {hwe|parts|ramparts}} of a camp, and on the summits of hills, and on the sides of the valleys where the soil is sufficiently porous to allow of drainage. These pits or "hut circles" are the remains of ancient habitations, dating as far back in this country as the Neolithic age, and in use, as proved by the discoveries at Standlake, and at Brent Knoll, near Burnham, as late as the time of the Roman occupation. Those at Fisherton, near Salisbury, explored by Mr. Adlam, and described by the late Mr. Stevens in 1866, may be taken as typical of the whole series. They occur singly and in groups, and are carried down to a depth of from seven to ten feet through the superficial gravel into the chalk, each pit or cluster of pits having a circular shaft for an entrance. At the bottom they vary from five to seven feet in diameter, and gradually narrow to two and a half or three feet in diameter in the upper parts. The floors were of chalk, sometimes raised in the centre, and the roofs had been made of interlaced sticks coated with clay imperfectly burned. The most interesting group consisted of three circular pits, and one semicircular, communicating with each other, with a shaft-like entrance on the north side.
Fig. 96.—Bone Weaving-comb, Fisherton.
The contents of these pits afford a clear insight into the condition of their ancient inhabitants. A spindle-whorl of burnt clay implies a knowledge of spinning, while two dressed lumps of chalk with holes drilled in them are considered by Mr. Stevens to be the weights which may have been used to give tension to the warp threads in weaving, like those found in the Swiss pile-dwellings. Two curious combs, six inches long, with short thick teeth and long handles (Fig. 96), were used in weaving. A bone needle with drilled eye implies sewing. Fragments of pottery, not turned in the lathe, plain, or ornamented with incised curves, right lines, or lines of dots, prove a knowledge of the potter's art. They were also cultivators of the ground; for Dr. Blackmore discovered a cast of a grain of wheat in the clay which had formed a portion of the cover of one of the pits; and two concave stone grain- rubbers or "mealing-stones" for grinding corn show an acquaintance with agriculture.
The remains of the animals in the pits belong to wild and domestic species: for on the one hand we have the stag; and, on the other, the dog, goat, short-horn (Bos longifrons), horse, and pig, besides smaller animals and fishes. We may, therefore, infer that the inhabitants were also hunters, fishermen, and keepers of flocks and herds.
The Neolithic age of these accumulations is proved by a roughly clipped celt, besides large quantities of broken flint and an arrow-head. No trace of metal was discovered.[20]
This form of subterranean habitation is still used by native tribes in the interior of Africa. The eminent explorer Mr. H. M. Stanley describes "deep pits with small circular mouths, which proved on examination to lead to several passages from the mouth of the pit to more roomy excavations like so many apartments,"[21] which are used for dwellings in Southern Unyoro.
Log Houses in Ireland.
Side Elevation.
Fig. 97.—Log House, Drumkelin Bog, Donegal.
Front Elevation.
Fig. 98.—Log House, Drumkelin Bog, Donegal.
In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy a model is preserved of a log hut, discovered in 1833 in Drumkelin bog, Inver (Donegal),[22] made of rough logs and planks of oak timber (Figs. 97, 98), split with "wedges," twelve feet square and nine feet high. "The framework was composed of upright posts and horizontal sleepers, morticed at the angles, the end of each upright post being inserted into the lower sleeper of the frame and fastened by a large block of wood or forelock."[23] The mortices were roughly made with a blunt instrument, the wood being bruised rather than cut; and, oddly enough, a stone celt found in the house (like Fig. 99), according to Captain Mudge, corresponded exactly with the cuts of the tool used in forming the mortices and grooves. The logs had been cut with a larger instrument, also of stone. The house consisted of two stories, one over the other, each four feet high. It stood upon a stratum of bog fifteen feet deep, which had been covered by a layer of hazel bushes, and that by a layer of fine sand, before the building had been begun. On the ground-floor, besides the stone axe above mentioned, there was a grindstone hollowed in the centre by rubbing. "A paved causeway, resting upon a foundation of hazel bushes and birchwood," led to the remains of a fireplace composed of slabs of freestone, at fourteen yards' distance from the house, on which was a quantity of ashes. It appeared to have been surrounded by a staked enclosure. This house and the surrounding woodland growth of bog-willow, ash, and oak, lay buried under a depth of twenty-three feet of peat, the roof of the house being fourteen feet below the surface of the bog. It is the only example of a wooden cabin of the Neolithic age which is on record; and it may be looked upon as a type of one of the forms of habitation where timber was abundant, and where stone was not at hand for building circular or beehive huts, like the Scotch burghs. The huts were probably more generally made of wattle-work, like those of the Swiss lakes; but of this work the only trace discovered in Britain is the fragment of the covering of the hut described above, at Fisherton.
From Captain Mudge's subsequent discoveries it is very probable that this is one of a group of wooden houses, connected with each other by paths, and surrounded by a breastwork about five feet high, made of rough spars piled up and compacted together by stakes driven into the bog. He found the sill of a door, and, about a hundred and fifty feet off, two doors or gates cut out of solid logs of oak lying side by side, of which one was perfect, being four inches thick, two feet seven inches broad, by four feet six inches long, with a piece of solid wood protruding at each end to act as pivot to the hinges. From their size it may be inferred that they belong to one of the cabins. A flint arrow-head, two inches long, and "a wooden sword" have also been met with in the peat close by.
The Neolithic inhabitants of Britain also used caves for habitation, such as those of North Wales (described in my work on Cave-hunting), the Victoria Cave in Yorkshire, and Kent's Hole in Devonshire. The refuse-heaps in each of these contain the remains of the same wild and domestic animals, and, in addition, those of the bear and the wild boar.
The Neolithic Homestead.
If we could in imagination take our stand on the summit of a hill commanding an extensive view, in almost any part of Great Britain or Ireland in the Neolithic period, we should look upon a landscape somewhat of this kind. Thin lines of smoke rising from among the trees of the dense virgin forest at our feet would mark the position of the Neolithic homesteads, and of the neighbouring stockaded camp which afforded refuge in time of need; while here and there a gleam of gold would show the small patch of ripening wheat. We enter a track in the forest, and thread our way to one of the clusters of homesteads, passing herds of goats and flocks of horned sheep, or disturbing a troop of horses or small short-horned oxen, or stumbling upon a swineherd tending the hogs in their search after roots. We should probably have to defend ourselves against the attack of some of the large dogs, used as guardians of the flock against bears, wolves, and foxes, and for hunting the wild animals. At last, on emerging into the clearing, we should see a little plot of flax or small-eared wheat, and near the homestead the inhabitants, clad some in linen and others in skins, and ornamented with necklaces and pendants of stone, bone, or pottery, carrying on their daily occupations. Some are cutting wood with stone axes (Fig. 99) with a wonderfully sharp edge, fixed in wooden handles, as in Fig. 100, with stone adzes and gouges, or with little saws composed of carefully notched pieces of flint about three or four inches long, splitting it with stone wedges, scraping it with flint flakes. Some are at work preparing handles for the spears, shafts for the arrows, and wood for the bows, or for the broad paddles used for propelling the canoes. Others are busy grinding and sharpening the various stone tools, scraping skins with implements ground to a circular edge, or carving various implements out of bone and antler with sharp splinters of flint, while the women are preparing the meal with pestles and mortars and grain rubbers, and cooking it on the fire, generally outside the house, or spinning thread with spindle and distaff, or weaving it with a rude loom. We might also have seen them at work at the moulding of rude cups and vessels out of clay which had been carefully prepared.
Fig. 99.—Neolithic Axe, Rhos-Digre Cave, 11.
The Neolithic farmers used for food the produce of their flocks and herds, and they appear to have eaten all their domestic animals, including the horse and dog; the latter animal, however, probably only under the pressure of famine. They had also abundance of game out of the forest, but it was rather an occasional supply, and did not furnish them with their main subsistence. The roe and the stag, probably also the elk and the reindeer, and in Ireland the Irish elk, provided them with venison; and the discovery of the urus in a refuse-heap at Cissbury by Mr. Ernest Willett, proves that that large wild ox was still living in the forests, and sometimes fell a victim to the Neolithic hunter. They also ate hares, wild boars, and beavers.
The Axe.
Fig. 100. stone Hatchet Robenhausen.
Of all the Neolithic implements, the axe was by far the most important. It was by the axe that man achieved his greatest victory over nature. Before it, aided by fire, the trees of the forest fell to make room for the tiller of the ground, and by its sharp edge wood became useful for the manufacture of various articles and implements indispensable for the advancement of mankind in culture. It was immeasurably superior to the rude flint hâche of the Palæolithic hunter, which could not make a straight cut in wood, and which was very generally intended for use in the hand, without any handle. It is therefore chosen as the symbol of the Neolithic culture.
Spinning and Weaving.
The arts of spinning and the manufacture of linen were introduced into Europe in the Neolithic age, and they have been preserved with but little variation from that period down to the present day in certain remote parts of Europe, and have only been superseded in modern times by the complicated machines so familiar to us. In the Neolithic household the spindle and the distaff were always to be found, and the circular perforated spindle-whorls, made sometimes of stone, and at other times of pottery or bone, are very commonly met with in the Neolithic habitations and tombs. The thread is proved by the discoveries in the Swiss lakes to have been composed of flax, and the combs (Fig. 96), which have been used for pushing the threads of the warp on to the weft, show that it was woven into linen on some kind of loom. It is very probable also that the art of making woollen cloth was also known, although from its perishable nature no trace of it has been handed down to us. These operations were probably carried on by the women, as was the universal practice among the classical peoples of the Mediterranean, as well as among the rude tribes of Africa, Asia, and America.
Pottery.
The fragments of pottery found in and around the habitations and tombs show that the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were acquainted with the potter's art. Their vessels are coarsely made by hand, and very generally composed of clay, in which small pieces of stone, or fragments of shell, have been worked. They are brown, or black, in colour, and very generally have had rounded bottoms, from which it may be inferred that they were not intended to stand on tables, but were placed in hollows on the ground or floor. Sometimes they are ornamented with patterns in right lines or in dots.
The Neolithic Flint-Mines near Brandon.
The stone implements of the Palæolithic men were fashioned out of pebbles and boulders torn from the rocks by the elements, and ready to hand on the surface. The stones used by the Neolithic men for their implements were carefully sought beneath the ground. The flint out of which many of them have been manufactured was obtained by mining operations, carried out with great skill and ingenuity. Two of these mining centres in this country have been scientifically explored.
The series of workings at Grimes Graves, near Brandon, in Suffolk, explored by the Rev. W. Greenwell,[24] consists of shafts connected together by galleries from three to five feet high, which had been made in pursuit of a layer of flint good for manufacture. When the flint within reach was exhausted a new shaft was sunk close by, and a new set of galleries made; for the miners appear to have been ignorant of the use of timber to keep up the roof, and were therefore unable to work very far from the bottom of the shaft. The partially filled up shafts appear at the surface as circular depressions of the same form as the hut circles described above.[25] In the old workings the miners have left behind their tools—picks made out of stags' antlers (Fig. 101), polished stone celts, which fitted to the marks in the sides of the galleries, chisels of bone and antler, and little cups made of chalk evidently intended to contain grease for the supply of light. In one spot the roof had given way, and the tools were found just as they had been left at the working face by the miner, who was prevented from returning by the blocking up of the gallery.
Fig. 101.—Miner's pick, Grimes Graves, 18.
On clearing this out, and when the end came in view, "it was seen that the flint had been worked out in three places at the end, forming three hollows extending beyond the chalk face of the end of the gallery. In front of two of these hollows were laid two picks, the handle of each towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines pointing towards each other, showing, in all probability, that they had been used respectively by a right and a left handed man. The day's work over, the men had laid down each his tool, ready for the next day's work; meanwhile the roof had fallen in, and the picks had never been recovered. I learnt from the workmen that it would not have been safe to excavate farther in that direction, the chalk at the point being broken up by
cracks so as to prevent the roof from standing firm. It was a most impressive sight, and one never to be for- gotten, to look, after a lapse it may be of 3000 years, upon a piece of work unfinished, with the tools of the workmen still lying where they had been placed so many centuries ago. Between the picks was the skull of a bird, but none of the other bones. These two picks, as was the case with many of those found elsewhere, had upon them an incrustation of chalk, the surface of which bore the impression of the workmen's fingers, the print of the skin being most apparent. This had been caused by the chalk with which the workmen's hands became coated being transferred to the handle of the pick."[26]
In one of the pits was a large accumulation of the bones of animals, which were for the most part broken for the sake of their marrow, of the Celtic short-horn, the sheep or goat, the horse, the pig, and the dog. The bones of the short-horns belonged, with scarcely an exception, to young calves, while those of the dog belonged to aged animals, which were eaten by their masters after having become too old for hunting.
The Flint Implement Manufactory at Cissbury.
Fig. 102.—Cissbury Camp. E, M, L, K, G, N, Mine-shafts.
It was scarcely possible to pick these broken implements up and put them together without a keen feeling of the changes which had happened since they had been broken—the strange chance which led to their discovery. The Neolithic stage of civilisation had been superseded by that of Bronze; that in its turn by the age of Iron; then after an interval, the length of which we know not, came the sequence of events recorded in the history of this country; and yet these little heaps, lying immediately beneath the greensward, had retained their places undisturbed, although the Romans used the camp at Cissbury for military purposes, and have left numerous traces of their occupation. From the time when they were made down to to-day there had been no appreciable change in the surface soil in which they rested. With this evidence before us, we cannot shut our eyes to the enormous lapse of time necessary for the production of the great geographical changes which took place in the interval between the Neolithic and Palæolithic ages.
Only some three or four, out of the thousands of implements found at Cissbury, bear traces of polishing, and these are broken; from which we may infer that they passed through the first stage of their manufacture at Cissbury, and were subsequently ground as they were wanted by the people who used them elsewhere. This was probably done at home on one of those grindstones generally found in Neolithic villages, like that, for example, discovered in the log house in Donegal.
Commerce.
It is obvious, from the existence of centres of mining and of manufacture, that the Neolithic tribes of Britain had commercial intercourse with each other. The implements were distributed over districts very far away from the places where they were made, probably by being passed from hand to hand, and tribe to tribe, in the same manner as copper kettles and other articles, coming from the Russians of Kamtchatka, find their way eastward among the Eskimos of West Georgia, and as various European articles penetrate into the heart of Africa.
This kind of traffic is proved to have extended over enormous distances in the Neolithic age, by the distribution of the axes made of nephrite or jade, a material as yet unknown in its native state in Britain or on the Continent. The only places where it is known to exist in the old world are Turkestan and China, where from time immemorial it has furnished supplies to the Chinese and Tartars. It is very probable that jade was worked in this district in the Neolithic age, and transported through Asia, by the steady westerly drifting of the tribes; passing from hand to hand, and in the course of many ages arriving in Britain. Its value consisted not merely in its rarity, hardness, and beautiful green colour, but in the superstitious virtues attached to it in all ages and among all peoples; equally among the Chinese and the New Zealanders at the present time, and the ancient inhabitants of Europe. In the Neolithic age the axes made of it were put to no common use, but were frequently suspended as charms or ornaments, and this was the case also in the succeeding Bronze age.
Navigation.
The intercourse between the Neolithic tribes was greatly facilitated by the use of canoes, formed of the trunk of large trees, hollowed partly by the action of fire and partly by the use of the axe, and propelled by means of a broad paddle. There is no evidence of sails having been then known. It was probably in canoes of this kind, some of which are forty feet long, that the Neolithic peoples with their cattle and household stuff crossed over into Britain from the nearest shores of the Continent, and from Britain to Ireland.
Warfare and Camps.
The numerous heads of javelins, arrows, and spears show that the Neolithic inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were frequently at war with one another, as is now the case with all lowly civilised tribes except the Eskimos. The club and the axe were used in hand-to-hand combat. For purposes of defence they constructed camps, with well-engineered ramparts either of stone or earth (Fig. 102), and fosses, sometimes as many as three or four ramparts being formed one above another.[28] The ramparts probably bore palisades, and were so placed as to enable their defenders to sweep the ground within range with their sling stones and arrows. It is clear then, as General Lane Fox has pointed out, that their owners were well acquainted with the art of war.
These camps, varying in size, are exceedingly abundant, and form, even in their present ruined condition, striking pictures in the landscape; as, for instance, that of Mount Badon near Bath, Old Sarum near Salisbury, and Caer Caradoc near Church Stretton. They were probably places of refuge belonging to a tribe or clan, which afforded shelter to the flocks and herds, as well as to their possessors, during the frequent raids which are universal among lowly organised communities. They cluster more thickly on the spots which command the fertile valleys—as, for example, the sides of the Severn and of the Dee, and on the Chalk-downs overlooking the rich "bottoms" of the southern counties. Each group of hills, writes General Lane Fox, in the South Downs, had a stronghold of its own, intended "to contain the inhabitants of the surrounding district, who dwelt in the valleys beneath, where fuel and water were obtainable, and where traces of their cultivation still exist, and who, like the savages of Africa and many other parts of the world, resorted to their strongholds in times of danger, each man carrying with him fuel, water, and provisions sufficient to sustain him until the foe retired."
Britain occupied hy Tribal Communities.
The abundance of these camps gives us a clue to the social condition of the country at the time. The population was large, but it was split up into small tribal communities normally at war with each other, like the Afghans, the Kaffirs, or the villagers encountered by Mr. Stanley in his voyage down the Congo, each ready either to defend itself or to take the opportunity of attacking any of its neighbours. There was probably no strong central military power; but each tribe obeyed its own chief, whose dominion was limited to the pastures and cultivated lands protected by his fort, and extended but a little way into the depths of the forest, which were the hunting-grounds common to him and his neighbours.[29] There must have been social differences resulting from the possession of property, principally in the shape of flocks and herds; and the variation in size and in the contents of the burial-places shows that it was unequally distributed.
Burial of the Dead.
.png)
Fig. 103.—Long Barrow at West Kennet (restored by Thurnam).
The Neolithic tribes in Britain buried their dead sometimes in caves which had previously been used by them for dwellings, and sometimes in chambered tombs, which probably represent the huts of the living. Each of these was generally used as a vault common to the family or tribe, and contained skeletons of all ages. The interments are shown to have been successive and not simultaneous, from the bones being in various stages of decay, as well as from the fact that the bodies could not have been crowded together in the space in which the skeletons are found.
The Neolithic tombs consist of barrows or cairns, varying in size, and long, oval, or circular in plan. The more important contain a stone chamber, built of slabs of stone set on edge, and very frequently with a narrow passage leading into it, which was also used for interments after the chamber was filled. The long barrows of Wiltshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire are the most elaborate in this country; and some, as, for example, that of West Kennet (Fig. 103), are as much as 350 feet long. In this, as may be seen in the restoration by Dr. Thurnam, there was a boundary wall of rubble stone from two to three feet high, with large upright blocks of stone placed at intervals, forming a peristyle like those surrounding the topes of India. Dr. Thurnam[30] calls attention to the fact that, according to Aristotle, the Iberian people were in the habit of placing as many obelisks
Fig. 104.—Plan of Long Barrow at Uley, Gloucestershire.
round the tomb of the dead warrior as he had slain enemies; and it is not without interest that a structure of this sort has been remarked in Britain, since, in the next chapter, we shall see reason to believe on other evidence that the Neolithic inhabitants of our country were of Iberian stock. In some cases the chambered barrow was very complicated, as, for example, at Uley, in Gloucestershire. Not only is there a boundary wall laid in horizontal courses, faced on the outside, and carried up to a height of two or three feet, but at the small end within there are courses continued across, so as to divide it into three chambers (see Fig. 104). At the larger end the outer wall curves gracefully inwards until it reaches the doorway (Fig. 105). Inside, a narrow passage leads to the tomb proper. The entrance was originally on the outside closed by a block of stone.
Fig. 105.—Entrance to Long Barrow, Uley.
There are, as might be expected, many modifications of the form of the chamber; sometimes it is cruciform, at others it is divided into a series of niches, or takes the form of a long passage. In some cases the stone chambers are isolated from each other within the tumulus. Kits Cotty House, in Kent, and Wayland Smith's Cave, are still simpler forms, without a gallery.
The dead were buried in these tombs as they died, in a contracted or crouching posture, which is probably due, as Mr. Evans suggests, to their sleeping in that position, and not at full length on a bed. In the caves and tumuli which I have examined, I have been unable to detect any regularity in the position, although very generally the corpse had been interred on its side. Dr. Thurnam believes, from the many cases in which he has met with cleft skulls, that human sacrifices were offered, as was the habit among the Gauls, according to the testimony of Cæsar and Mela.[31] Domestic animals were also slaughtered, and were eaten with the wild animals, such as the boar, roe, and stag, in honour of the dead. In the barrow of Tilshead Lodge[32] were two skulls of the Celtic short-horn, nearly perfect; and in another barrow were part of a skull and a number of bones of the feet in their natural positions. In both these instances it would appear that the heads and feet were thrown on the yet incomplete barrow, "as offerings to the manes and other deities."
The Belief in a Future State.
Implements of various kinds, flakes, arrow-heads (Figs. 106, 107, 108), scrapers, celts, and pottery, are very generally found in the tombs, and probably were intended for the use of the dead. Sometimes they have been purposely broken, so that they might be of no use to the living, and from the idea that the spirits of the things might join the dead in the world of shadows. Some large and important chambered tombs, however,
 |
 |
 |
| Fig. 106.—Walker's Hill. | Fig. 107.—Rodmarton. | Fig. 108.—Rodmarton. |
| Leaf-shaped Arrow-heads from Chambered Long Barrows, 11. | ||
which must have been made at considerable cost of labour, contain remarkably few implements, and this may be due to the custom of burying models, of some perishable material, of the valuables of the deceased. At the present day wooden models are sometimes placed in the hut of the dead by the Eskimos, and bank notes and imitation dollars, made of paper covered with silver foil, are burnt by the Chinese to enrich the spirit of the dead. In the Etruskan tombs jewels were placed, too thin and fragile to be serviceable to the living. If this practice were carried on in the Neolithic age, the models would have perished without leaving a trace behind. It must also be observed that the large size of a tomb may be due to its having been prepared by a great man for himself during his own lifetime, after the manner of the builders of the Egyptian pyramids, while the few articles placed in it with his body may perhaps measure the value placed upon him by the survivors.
The view that the tombs and their contents imply a belief in a future state is fully borne out by an appeal to almost universal habits and modes of thought, current equally among civilised and barbarous peoples.[33] The tomb was, to the Neolithic mind, as truly the habitation of the spirits of the dead as the hut was that of the living. It was the home of the dead chieftain, and the centre into which the members of the family or clan were gradually gathered, and where they led a joyous and happy life similar to that which they enjoyed on the earth. Hence the offerings made to them, and the superstitions which have clustered round them, to be remarked among the survivals from the Neolithic age into the Historic period. The little cups, bowls, basins, and hollows on some of the slabs of the stone chambers of the tombs were probably intended to hold offerings made to the spirits of the dead, such as those on the capstone of the cromlech[34] at Bonnington Mains, near Ratho, a few miles west of Edinburgh, on one of the props of the cromlech at L'Ancresse, Guernsey,[35] and in many other localities.[36]
General Conclusions as to Neolithic Culture in Britain.
From the preceding pages the reader will gather a distinct idea of the physical condition of Britain in the Neolithic age, and of the manners and customs of the inhabitants. The population was probably large, divided into tribal communities possessed of fixed habitations, and living principally on their flocks and herds, acquainted with agriculture, and subsisting in a lesser degree by hunting and fishing. The arts of spinning, weaving, mining, and pottery-making were known, and that of boat-building had advanced sufficiently far to allow of voyages being made from France to Britain, and from Britain to Ireland. Traffic was carried on by barter, and stone axes were distributed over areas far away from those in which the stone was found. Tombs also were built, some of imposing grandeur, for the habitation of the dead in the after-world, in which the spirits were supposed to lead a life not very different from that of the living, and at which they were worshipped by the family or tribe, after the manner of the Red Indians and many African peoples.
Neolithic Civilisation on the Continent.
The traces of this civilisation have been discovered in almost every part of Europe, under conditions which prove that the manners and customs of the people were tolerably uniform, and only presented those minor differences which may be noted in the social state of the present inhabitants. We may survey them from the standpoint offered by the discoveries made in the pile-dwellings of Switzerland, and at the same time complete our ideas as to the Neolithic civilisation of Britain.
In the year 1829[37] an excavation for the sake of deepening the harbour at Ober Meilen, on the lake of Zurich, revealed the existence of piles and other antiquities, which, however, excited as little interest at the time as the discoveries in Kent's Hole, which were being made by Mr. MacEnery about the same date. Their importance was recognised in the year 1854. From that time down to the present day researches have been carried on in many of the lakes of Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, which have resulted in proving that a large population dwelt in houses built on platforms, at a short distance from the shore, in the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and in Switzerland as late as the first century after Christ.[38] In most cases the habitations had been burnt, and the platforms, with what remained of the huts and of the household stuff, had dropped down to the bottom of the lake, and, together with the refuse and the various articles lost from time to time, constituted a relic bed, which places before us the manners and customs of the inhabitants in most extra- ordinary detail. In some cases this had happened repeatedly, each conflagration being marked by its layer of ashes and charred piles.
The artificial platforms for the huts were built sometimes on piles interlaced with timbers, and sometimes on bundles of brushwood, or fascines, occasionally weighted with clay or stone, and were connected with the land by a narrow causeway. They were intended for defence, and it is an interesting point to note that when the means of attack were improved in the Bronze age, the settlements were built at a greater distance from the margin, so as to be farther away from the reach of the slingstone and of the arrow. In other words the attack and defence kept pace with each other, just as is the case at the present time with the large guns and the armour plates. Similar habitations[39] are described by Major Burton[40] in Dahomey, and by Captain Cameron[41] in Lake Mohrya, as the homes of certain African tribes, and they were used in Asia Minor in the Apamæan lake[42] as late as the middle of the fourteenth century, by the "Christian fishermen who live here on the lake in wooden huts built on piles." According to Herodotus, the pile-dwellings on Lake Prasias afforded to their inhabitants a secure protection against the arms of the Persians under Megabazus, in the march to the Hellespont and the conquest of Thrace.[43]
The pile-dwelling of Robenhausen,[44] which lies buried in a peat-bog on the south side of Lake Pfäffikon, may be taken as an example of one of these communities in the Neolithic age in Switzerland. It consisted of a platform made of timbers and roughly-hewn boards, fastened to upright piles by wooden pins, occupying an irregular quadrangular space about three acres in extent, and about 2000 paces from the old shore. On this were built wooden huts with thatched roofs, 27 feet long by 22 wide, and between them were the cattle-pens, sheep-folds, and pig-sties. The remains of six of these huts were exposed in digging a canal, in a space of 150 feet long by 40 feet broad. In this at six different points at equal distances were little heaps of corn, pieces of woven and plaited cloth, stores of raw flax, together with a mealing stone, and also six groups of stones which had formed the hearths. It is evident, therefore, as Mr. Messikomer observes, that each was inhabited by one family, which had its own arrangements for preparing victuals and making clothes, and we may conclude that the whole settlement was not a community with common store-houses like a Mexican pueblo. The litter for the cows was chiefly of straw and rushes, and that for the sheep, pigs, and goats, of sprigs of fir and twigs of brushwood. In one place a considerable quantity of ears of wheat and barley was found along with bread; in another corn and bread with burnt apples and pears; in a third flax in hanks or skeins, spun and plaited into cords, nets, and mats, and woven into cloth, along with earthenware weights for the loom. The corn had been reduced to meal in mortars or on mealing stones, and afterwards either made into porridge, or into little round loaves baked on hot stones, or under the embers. It was also eaten parched. Caraway and poppy seeds were also used, probably for flavouring, and a small round cake of the latter was discovered, which may have been intended for use as a narcotic.
The villagers of Robenhausen also laid up stores of the water-chestnut, the common nut, the walnut, and apples, of which no less than 300 were found together beech-nuts and acorns, which were probably intended as food for the swine; as well as the raspberry, strawberry, elderberry, blackberry, the cherry and sloe. Fragments of pottery were very abundant, as well as various implements of stone, antler, and bone, of the kind described above, and sometimes with the handles of wood preserved in a perfect condition (Fig. 100). Fragments of leather prove that they were acquainted with the art of tanning, and a wooden last that they were in the habit of making shoes or sandals to measure. There were also wooden bows, bowls, and various other articles, which are only preserved under very exceptional circumstances. The asphalt of the Val de Travers, now so commonly employed for pavements, was used for cementing the stone implements into their handles, and the fires were lighted by means of a flint flake and a piece of iron pyrites, used in the same manner as "the flint and steel" of the present time.
The large quantities of bones thrown away in the refuse-heap at the bottom of the lake show that the villagers lived on the wild animals of the district, as well as on their flocks and herds, and the produce of their fields and gardens. They also ate large quantities of fish. The domestic animals, with the exception of the large oxen, were of the same breeds as those kept in Neolithic Britain, and of these at least three—the swine, the sheep, and the cows—were kept in pens close to the huts of their owners.[45]
The Domestic Animals.
The interest of these discoveries in Switzerland does not merely consist in their enabling us to realise that the civilisation of Britain was closely related to that of Switzerland, and to obtain a more just idea of the Neolithic peoples, but in the light they throw on the origin of the domestic animals and of the cultivated fruits. In discussing these questions it will be necessary to examine the independent testimony of each breed.
The Dog.
The dog of the Neolithic age in Switzerland was about equally remote from the wolf and the jackal, and intermediate in size between a hound and a spaniel.[46] There is no reason for supposing that it was descended from the European wolf; but Mr. Darwin's view[47] is probably correct, that it may have been derived from an extinct form which had been imported from some other region. Its nearest native ally, in the wild state, is the jackal, an inhabitant of the warm regions of South-eastern Europe and of Southern and Central Asia; and it is therefore probable that the breed of dogs was originated under the care of man in one of those countries.
The Hog.
The two breeds of hogs, the turf-hog (Sus palustris), or Torfschwein of Rütimeyer, and the common domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus), found in the pile-dwellings, represent the extremes, from the interbreeding of which our present domestic hogs are derived. The first of these is considered by Professor Rütimeyer and Mr. Darwin to have been originally wild in Europe, because it is found along with wild animals at the bottom of peat-bogs, and because its bones are traversed by more strongly defined ridges and grooves, as in the case of wild as distinguished from domestic animals. It is certainly true that the muscular development, rendered necessary by the struggle for life between wild animals, enables us to distinguish the wolf from the dog, or the wild from the domestic oxen; but it is not a sure guide to the definition of the wild from the domestic hog, since the looseness of the texture in the bones of the hogs, and the absence of strongly pronounced ridges, are almost as great as in the elephants. Professor Rütimeyer's test will not, moreover, enable us to discriminate between the animals which have been aboriginally wild and those which have escaped from the yoke of man to revert to the feral conditions of life. In the latter case, the animal must exert its muscular powers in acquiring food and in defending itself against its enemies, by which the points d'appui of the muscles must be correspondingly strengthened. Nor can its aboriginal wildness be inferred from its wide distribution through Europe, because, at the present time, the swine introduced into North and South America and Australia by the colonists are gradually spreading over those countries. Under favourable conditions of life there is every reason to believe that it would in like manner have become wild in Europe. The enormous abundance of its remains in the Neolithic pile-dwellings, coupled with the pig-sties, and stores of acorns and beech-nuts found at Robenhausen, where no other breed of swine has been discovered, seem to me good evidence that it was introduced into Europe as a domestic animal. The small size of its tusks, as compared with the wild boar, was most probably the result of a long domestication before the animal arrived in Europe.
The common domestic hog, descended from the wild boar, may have been originally tamed in Europe, since the wild boar was a member of the European fauna in Pleistocene and Prehistoric times. But, nevertheless, the latter is found also in Asia, and it is therefore very probable that it was domesticated in the same region as the dog and the turf-hog.[48]
The Domestic Oxen, Sheep, and Goats.
Among the two or three races of oxen found in the pile-dwellings, the interest centres more particularly in the small, delicately-shaped Celtic short-horn, which was the sole domestic ox in Britain as late as the English conquest. According to Professor Rütimeyer, it was not originally wild in Europe; while Professor Nilsson, on the other hand, holds that it lived in a wild state in North Germany and Scandinavia. The animal is undoubtedly found in the turbaries of Britain, Ireland, and of the Continent, in association with the remains of animals such as the stag and roe. But this fact tells us nothing of its aboriginal condition, since the cattle introduced into America and Australia have become wild, and are now spreading with a remarkable rapidity over the latter continent. Its nearest living analogues in the wild state, at the present time, are some of the smaller oxen of Southern Asia, but it has not as yet been traced, with any certainty, to any one breed of wild cattle.
The second race of cattle, or the Bos frontosus, is allied to the Celtic short-horn, according to Nilsson,[49] and, according to Rütimeyer, to the urus. The skull of the animal has been so modified by the development of a frontal protuberance between the horncores, to which the race owes its name, that, in my opinion, it cannot with any certainty be assigned to either. It is probably a mere link in the series by which the one graduates into the other, and may be the result of a cross between the two. What careful selection will effect in modifying the cranial characters may be gathered from the fact that the polled Galloway cattle[50] have lost their horns and acquired a frontal protuberance within so short a time as eighty years. From the small development of the horncores, it is probably more closely allied to the Celtic short-horn than to the urus.
The third or large domestic ox (Bos taurus) may have been derived from the wild urus which inhabited Europe in the Pleistocene and Prehistoric ages, and as late as the sixteenth century after Christ.[51] Nevertheless, from its appearing in the domestic state along with non-European animals, it is probable that it was introduced as a breed already in the service of man. According to Professor Nilsson, it was imported into Scandinavia from Southern Europe. The same remarks apply equally to the probable ancestry of the domestic horse.[52]
The sheep of the pile-dwellings was horned, and of a fine delicate breed, and the goat possessed keeled horns arching backwards, nearly in one plane, and was probably the ancestor of the Welsh goat. Neither of these animals is represented by any wild stock in Europe, and both were unknown in the Pleistocene age. It is therefore clear that we must seek their ancestry in some other quarter of the world.
The remains of most of these domestic animals are found in association with Neolithic implements, not merely in Britain and Switzerland, but in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and Scandinavia, and imply that the same breeds were kept by the herdsmen of that remote age over the greater part of the Continent. It is, however, interesting to note that the local varieties presented now by our domestic breeds, and produced by long-continued selection, have not been observed, up to this time, in Neolithic Europe.
It is a remarkable fact that the domestic animals appear to have been introduced into Europe en masse, and not, as they might have been expected, one after another. The dog probably was the first servant of man, and aided him in hunting; but the association of the remains of the animals in Europe affords no direct evidence on the point.
Animals probably derived from Central Asia.
From this outline it is clear the domestic[53] animals were not domesticated in Europe, but that they had already been under the care of man probably for long ages in some other region. The turf-hog, the Celtic short-horn, the sheep, and the goat, must have been domesticated in the countries in which their wild ancestors were captured by the hunter in Central Asia. To this region also belong the jackal, the wild boar, and the wild horse, and in ancient times the urus. It is therefore probable that all these domestic animals came into Europe with their masters from the south-east,—from the Central Plateau of Asia, the ancient home of all the present European peoples.
This conclusion is confirmed by an examination of the Neolithic cultivated seeds and fruits.
The Cultivated Seeds and Fruits.
The seeds and fruits, cultivated by the Neolithic inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwellings, give us most important information as to the arts of agriculture and gardening in the Neolithic age. In the fields, as Professor Heer[54] has shown, there were no less than eight kinds of cereals.
Small lake-dwelling wheat (Triticum vulgare antiquorum, Heer).
Egyptian wheat (T. turgidum, L.)
Two-rowed wheat (T. dicoccum, Schr.)
One-rowed wheat (T. monococcum, L.)
Compact six-rowed barley (Hordeum hexastichum densum, Heer).
Small six-rowed barley (H. sanctum, Heer).
Common millet (Panicum miliaceum, L.)
Italian setaria (Setaria Italica, L.)
Of these the first, peculiar from its small ear and small grain, was the most common: it lasted down to the Roman conquest of Switzerland, and then became extinct. The Egyptian wheat does not agree exactly with any existing variety, and was rarely grown. The two-rowed kind differs from all known varieties, while the one-rowed is only known in the Neolithic age by the presence of a single ear. The small six-rowed barley is probably the original form from which the common four-rowed barley has descended; the axes of the ears having become longer by cultivation through many ages, and the spikelets having been pushed farther asunder by the greater development of the grain.
Several of our most familiar seeds and fruits grew in the Neolithic gardens and orchards. All, however, were smaller than those now under cultivation, as well as nearer to the wild forms from which they descended. They were—
Peas (Pisum sativum, L.)
Poppies (Papaver somniferum antiquum, Heer).
Flax (Linum angustifolium, Hudson). Caraway seeds (Garum carui).
Apples (Pyrus malus, L.)
Pears (Pyrus communis, L.)
Bullace plums (Prunus institia, L.)
The cereals are of Mediterranean habit, and have been used by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans from the earliest times. Two weeds also which grew in the cornfields, the common blue corn-bottle (Centaurea cyanus, L.) and the Cretan catchfly (Silene cretica), are indigenous in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. The small-leaved flax is also a native of Southern Europe.
It is remarkable that the seeds of the wild plants found in the lake-dwellings are absolutely identical with those of the present time; while the seeds of the plants under cultivation have been improved by the care of man in the many centuries which separate the Neolithic age from our own times.
It is therefore evident that in the fields, gardens, and orchards the pile-dwellers possessed vegetables not traceable to wild stocks now growing in Switzerland; and it is certain, from the researches of Professor Heer, that the foreign stocks have been derived from Southern Europe or from Asia Minor. They show that agriculture was probably first invented in the warmer regions of the south and east, and that the knowledge of it was afterwards introduced into northern, western, and central Europe.
The Shell-Mounds of Denmark.
The discoveries made in the refuse-heaps of Denmark by Prof. Steenstrup, and others,[55] reveal to us a state of culture on the shores of the Baltic far below the general level of that of Switzerland and Europe in the Neolithic age. Vast accumulations of shells and bones of fishes, birds, and animals, close to the sea-shore mark the sites of ancient encampments, which were occupied during at least two-thirds of the year, and were no mere resting-places for nomad hunters. Oysters, cockles, mussels, and periwinkles formed the principal shell-fish which were eaten; and the herring, cod, dorse, eel, and flounder, the principal fishes. The shell-fish, Sir Charles Lyell remarks, are of the usual dimensions to which they arrive in the open sea, and not stunted as they are now in the Baltic; from which it may be inferred that the Baltic was more closely connected with the ocean than at present, and not so brackish at the time of these accumulations as it is now. The cod and the herring also are deep-sea fishes, and are not likely to have been caught without the use of coracles or canoes.
Among the birds, the great auk (Alca impennis), now extinct in Europe, and fast becoming exterminated in Greenland, is the most abundantly represented in the refuse-heaps. There are also wild ducks, geese, wild swans, and capercailzies. The last of these feeds principally on the buds of the pines, and consequently it may be inferred from its presence that at this time the country was covered with dense forests of pine, or the earliest of the three great forest-growths which are shown by the discoveries in the peat-bogs to have occurred in the following order:—
1. Scotch firs.
2. Oaks.
3. Beeches.
respectively associated with articles of the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages. The most common mammals are the stag, roe, and wild boar, but there are also
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The beaver.
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Otter.
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This assemblage of animals, all wild, with the exception of the last, tells us that here we have to deal with man as a hunter, fowler, and fisherman; not as a farmer, or herdsman, but as master only of that domestic animal which would be useful to him under those conditions, of life. The dog, it must be remarked, not only picked, as Prof. Steenstrup has shown, the bones left by the hunter, but at times was himself used for food.
Are we to consider these remains as marking a stage in the history of mankind before the introduction of flocks and herds, and of agriculture, or, in other words, before the appearance of the Neolithic civilisation as it has been defined above? Prof. Worsaae holds that they must be so viewed, while Prof. Steenstrup brings forward evidence to connect them with the Neolithic tumuli which abound in the district. The latter argues that, although the implements in the refuse-heap are, on the whole, exceedingly rude, the flakes are admirably made, that polished stone axes occur, and that some of the implements have been made out of polished stone axes. He therefore believes that if they do not belong to the age of the Neolithic tumuli, they must be of a later and not an earlier age. On weighing both sides of the question it seems to me very probable that the refuse-heaps were accumulated by a section of the same people who raised the tumuli over their dead; and that they found it advantageous to live by hunting and fishing in a region teeming with game of various kinds; or that they were compelled to forsake their domestic animals except the dog, and to take refuge in the gloomy pine forests on the shores of the Baltic, under the pressure of invasion. The remains do not appear to me to mark a phase preceding the Neolithic culture in northern Europe.
The Neolithic Art.
Fig. 109.—Plumed Hatchet on roof of Dol-ar-Marchnant.
Although the Neolithic men were immeasurably above the Cave-men in culture, they were far below them in the arts of design. They have not left behind any well-defined representations of the forms either of plants or animals. Their engravings consist of the hollows, or cup-stones, on the slabs composing the stone chambers of their tombs, of spirals and concentric circles; and their highest artistic achievement is the rude figure of a stone axe in its handle of wood, engraved (Fig. 109) on the roof of the sepulchral chamber of Dol-ar-Marchnant, near Locmariaker in Brittany.[56] A group of axes is also represented on a slab in the neighbouring tomb of Manné-er-h'Rock.[57] The peculiar upward curvature of the handle in these figures is precisely of the same kind as that presented by the wooden handle of the axe obtained by Mr. R. D. Darbishire from Ehenside Tarn,[58] Cumberland. These engravings prove that the implement, which is to us a symbol of the Neolithic civilisation, was highly prized by its owners. It alone has been drawn sufficiently well to be recognised by modern anthropologists.
Neolithic Civilisation derived from Central Asia.
The origin of the domestic animals, as well as of the cereals, proves that the Neolithic peoples migrated into Europe from the south-east, from the mysterious birthplace of successive races, the Eden of mankind. Central Asia. They probably came by the same routes as those pursued by subsequent migrations, one branch going by way of Asia Minor and Greece, and passing through Italy into Spain; and another traversing the region of the Don and the Volga and the great plains of the Danube, and thence, undeterred by any natural obstacle, penetrating to the borders of the ocean. They must have occupied the Continent for a long period before their arrival in this country, and Britain must have been colonised long before Ireland, since the barrier of sea, which kept the Romans out of the latter island,
would be a more serious obstacle to the canoes made out of the trunk of a big tree than to a Roman fleet. The south-eastern derivation of the Neolithic peoples will go far to explain the sharp line of demarcation between them and their predecessors the Cave-men, who retreated before them farther to the north and to the north-east.
General Conclusions.
The Neolithic implements, and the domestic animals and plants, described in the preceding pages, have been discovered over the whole of Europe with the exception of northern Russia and northern Scandinavia. They imply that the Neolithic civilisation was long established, and that it underwent so little change, if any, in the lapse of ages that no traces of a change have been preserved to our times. Its duration varied in different countries, and it yielded place to a higher culture in Greece and Italy long before it passed away from central and northern Europe. Glass beads brought from the Mediterranean, and probably of Phœnician work, occur in the Neolithic tombs of France, and in the pile-dwellings of Switzerland. There is every reason to believe that Egypt and Assyria were highly organised empires, and that the Mediterranean peoples were far advanced in the path of civilisation, while the Neolithic phase held its ground in France and Germany, in Britain and in Scandinavia.
The introduction of this civilisation is the starting-point of the history of the present inhabitants of Europe. To the Neolithic peoples we owe the rudiments of the culture which we ourselves enjoy. The arts which they introduced have never been forgotten, and all subsequent progress has been built upon their foundation. Their cereals are still cultivated by the farmer, their domestic animals still minister to us, and the arts of which they only possessed the rudiments, have developed into the industries—spinning, weaving, pottery-making, mining; without which we can scarcely realise what our lives would be.
- ↑ For further details as to this classification, see Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, c. i.; and Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, c. i.
- ↑ Geological Report on Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset.—Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. 1865.
- ↑ Int. Congress Prehist. Archæol. November vol. p. 89. See also Mr. Townshend Hall, Quart. Journal Geol. Soc. Lond., June 1879.
- ↑ "From Haverford we proceeded on our journey to Menevia, distant from thence about 12 miles, and passed through Camros, where, in the reign of K. Stephen, the relatives and friends of a distinguished young man, Geraldus, son of William, revenged his death by a too severe retaliation on the men of Ros. We then passed over Niwegal sands, at which place, during the winter that K. Henry the Second spent in Ireland (as well as in almost all the other western ports), a very remarkable circumstance occurred. The sandy shores of South Wales being laid bare by the extraordinary violence of a storm, the surface of the earth which had been covered for many ages reappeared, and discovered the trunks of trees cut off, standing in the sea itself, the strokes of the hatchet appearing as if only made yesterday; the soil was very black and the wood like ebony; by a wonderful revolution the road for ships became impassable, and looked not like a shore but like a grove cut down perhaps at the time of the deluge, or not long after, but certainly in very remote times, being by degrees consumed and swallowed up by the violence and encroachments of the sea. During the same tempest many sea-fish were driven by the violence of the wind and waves upon dry land. We were well lodged at S. Davids by Peter, Bishop of the See, a liberal man, who had hitherto accompanied us during the whole of our journey."—Itinerarium Camhriæ. Book i cap. 13.
- ↑ Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xxiv. p. 363. See also The Great Ice-age, c. xxvi.
- ↑ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. vii. 118.
- ↑ Hart Descrip. of Fossil Deer of Ireland, 2d ed., 1830, p. 13.
- ↑ My thanks are due to this gentleman, and his brother, Dr. Moss, for their courtesy and kindness in having excavations made to show the exact position of the remains in the bog, at the meeting of the British Association at Dublin in 1878. The bog occupies the site of a tarn, and rests on the boulder clay. Above the latter is a thin layer of blue fluviatile clay, which, as it passes up towards the peat, becomes more and more mingled with black, peaty material. The animal remains rested in and on the blue clay, passing upwards through the peaty mud; in one case, which I have examined, the antler tips were within six inches of the upper friable black peat. Prof. Leith Adams believes that Irish elks have never been met with in peat bogs. There are, however, many cases on record of their occurrence in peat, and Mr. Kinahan, whose experience in Irish geology is second to none, informs me that they do occur in the Irish peat.
- ↑ Hart, op. cit. pl. ii. Richardson, Nat. Hist. of Gigantic Irish Deer, 1846, pp. 22, 25.
- ↑ Journ. Royal Geol. Soc. Ireland, 8th March 1866.
- ↑ Vita Sancti Thomæ, i. p. 170, 8vo edit. E. A. Giles, Oxoniæ.
- ↑ Dawkins on "British Fossil Oxen," Part I. Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc. Lond., 21st March 1866.
- ↑ Proceed. Soc. Antiq. Scot. ix. 52.
- ↑ Geol. Mag. vi. 339.
- ↑ A fine antler was obtained from the clayey gravel below the peat, by Mr. Andros, in these excavations on the north side of the Thames. It was exhibited, on 26th February 1879, at a meeting of Erith and Belvedere Nat. Hist. Society.
- ↑ The principal writers consulted in making the list for Ireland are Sir W. Wilde, Dr. Ball, Dr. Scouler, and Mr. Scott, in whose catalogue, published in the Journ. Geol. Soc. Dublin, Feb. 10, 1864, the detailed references will be found; also Mr. Thompson, Nat. Hist. of Ireland, vol. vi.
- ↑ Cave-hunting, c. viii.
- ↑ Cave-hunting, p. 439; Pengelly, Kent's Cavern, Science Lectures for the People, 1872, p. 19; Reports of Kent's Cavern Committee; Brit. Ass. Reports, 1865 to 1878.
- ↑ Cave-hunting, p. 267; Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, c. xxv.
- ↑ Wiltshire County Mirror, June 20, 1866.
- ↑ Through the Dark Continent, i. p. 432.
- ↑ Captain Mudge, Archæologia, xxvi. p. 361, pl. 47.
- ↑ Sir W. Wilde, Cat. of Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, p. 235.
- ↑ Ethnol. Soc. Journ. vol. ii. p. 419.
- ↑ This mode of mining was employed in Britain as late, if not later than the time of James the Second, in obtaining the iron ore, which made the iron trade of Kent and Sussex of such importance down to the close of the seventeenth century. The large woods in the neighbourhood of Hastings, in the direction of Battle, Brede, and Ashburnham, mark to a great extent the broken ground caused by these excavations, which cover considerable areas, and render them worthless to the farmer.
- ↑ Op. cit. p. 427.
- ↑ "Hill Forts of Sussex," Archæologia, xlii. 1869.
- ↑ "Hill Forts of Sussex," Archæologia, xlii
- ↑ The social state of Britain at this time is fairly represented in the well-known nursery rhyme of the marauding "Taffy," if for "house" we substitute camp.
- ↑ "Ancient British Barrows," Archæologia, xlii. p. 211.
- ↑ Cæsar, vi. 19; Mela, iii. 2.
- ↑ Thurnam, Archæologia, p. 22.
- ↑ See Tylor, Primitive Culture, chaps, xi. to xvii.
- ↑ Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, i. p. 95, 2d edit.
- ↑ Lukis, Journ. Brit. Archeol. Ass. iii, p. 342; Archæologia, xxxv. p. 232.
- ↑ Simpson, British Archaic Sculpturings. Edinburgh, 1867.
- ↑ Keller, Lake-dwellings, transL by J. E. Lee, 8vo, 2d. edit p. 11.
- ↑ A coin of Claudius was found with other coins in the pile-dwelling of Marin. Keller, Lake-dwellings, transl. by J. E. Lee, 2d. edit. p. 427.
- ↑ Keller, Lake-dwellings, transl. by J. E. Lee, 8vo, 2d. edit, pp 496-500.
- ↑ Burton, Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond. i. p. 311.
- ↑ Cameron, Across Africa, 8vo, 1877, ii. p. 53.
- ↑ See Hitzig, Supplementa Tabulæ Syriæ, c. ii.; quoted by Keller, Lake-dwellings, p. 497.
- ↑ Herodotus, v. 16.
- ↑ For the history of pile-dwellings, see Keller, op. cit.
- ↑ Keller, op. cit. p. 50. Their excrements form a layer varying from two to ten inches in thickness, mixed with litter.
- ↑ Rütimeyer, Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten, 4to, 1861, pp. 117-162.
- ↑ Darwin, Variation under Domestication, i. p. 19.
- ↑ Dr. Rolleston calls attention to the exceeding variability of the wild hogs of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and considers that the Neolithic swine may be of foreign derivation.—Trans. Lin. Soc., SS. i. p. 264.
- ↑ Nilsson "On the Extinct and Existing Bovine Animals of Scandinavia," An. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 2d ser. iv. (1849).
- ↑ Letter of the Earl of Selkirk, published in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxiii. p. 177.
- ↑ Dawkins, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxii. 391.
- ↑ Professor Rütimeyer adds the ass to the domestic animals found in the Neolithic pile-dwellings of Wauwyl, and that of Auvernier, of late Bronze age. Keller, Lake-dwellings, pp. 543, 545.
- ↑ I am not aware of any well-authenticated case of the discovery of any of the domestic animals in any part of Europe in any deposits older than the Prehistoric age; and I find, on consulting Professors Gaudry and Rütimeyer, and Drs. Virchow and Forsyth Major, that they also have not met with the domestic animals in the undisturbed Pleistocene strata of their respective countries. The remains of the domestic animals, however, are frequently found in caverns brought into association with Pleistocene species, either by the hand of man, or by the burrowing of rats, rabbits, badgers, or foxes.
- ↑ Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten. Keller, op. cit. p. 518 et seq., gives a valuable abstract of Dr. Heel's treatise.
- ↑ Steenstrup, Sur les Kjokkenmoddings de l'Age de la Pierre, Congres. Int. Archéol. Préhist. Copenhague, 1869. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times 4 ed. c vii. Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 4th ed. p. 12. Worsaae, La Colonisation de la Russie et du Nord Scandinave. Mém. Soc. Roy. des Antiq. du Nord, 1873–4; transl. par E. Beauvois, 1875. Copenhague.
- ↑ See Fergusson's Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries. Ireland, pp. 206-220. Brittany, 8vo, pp. 361-365. Mr. Fergusson considers all these to be of comparatively modern origin. Some are later than the Neolithic age, hut those mentioned in the text appear to me to be undoubtedly Neolithic.
- ↑ Galles, Rapport à la Société Polymathique du Morhihan. Le 25 Nov. 1863.
- ↑ Archæologia, xliv. pp. 273-292.