different surroundings. The configuration of the land in which he lived is practically the same as we now see it. The severe arctic conditions with the appropriate fauna had entirely disappeared, and the introduction of new arts must have radically changed his daily life. The most important of these are the training of domestic animals, agriculture, and the development of pottery. What were the burial rites of palaeolithic man we have at present no means of knowing, but for his neolithic successor we know that these were matters of great moment. The abundance of arrowheads of flint indicate the common use of the bow and arrow as a weapon, while the art of weaving marks an immense stride in the direction of comfort and civilization. Of the form and construction of his dwelling we have only a limited knowledge, derived with some uncertainty from the analogy of the dwellings for the dead (barrows) and more certainly from the remains of the villages found erected on piles on the shores of lakes.
A much-debated question arises here that cannot be passed over. The changes just mentioned are not such as would be produced by internal causes alone. Much of the evidence is in favour of neolithic man being an immigrant, coming into northern and central Europe long after palaeolithic man and his characteristic fauna had disappeared. Where did the earlier race go and who are its modern representatives, if any? The answers to this question are many. W. Boyd Dawkins is of opinion that the reindeer was followed by man in its journey to the north after the retreating glaciers, and that the modern representative of palaeolithic man is the Eskimo. His arguments are ingenious but unconvincing; they mainly consist in the similarity of the habits of both races in using harpoons and implements of similar form and make, their power of carving and drawing on bone, the absence of pottery, disregard of the dead, &c. As to the positive evidence, it is almost enough to say that the Eskimo, like the cave-men, used the material nearest to hand that served their purpose, and that nothing is more remarkable than the similarity of primitive weapons used by widely separated peoples; while the negative evidence as to the absence of pottery is of little value; their conditions of life would allow them neither to make it nor keep it. Till recently we had no evidence at all of the treatment of the dead by palaeolithic man, but this is no longer the case; the discoveries in the Grottes de Grimaldi, Monaco, show several methods of burial, near a hearth, or in rude stone cists (see Dr Verneau in L’Anthropologie, xvii. 291). A stronger argument would be furnished if it could be shown that by his physical character the Eskimo is an intruder in his present home, and is unrelated to his neighbours. But this has not yet been done, and the skulls of the Eskimo do not resemble any of those hitherto found in the caves. In fact, what evidence there is on the subject is rather against than in favour of the wanderings northward of the inhabitants of the caves. There are indications, on the other hand, that in the south of France, in the Pyrenees, the reindeer was in existence, with man, at a later period than that of the caves, while the type of skull is that of Cro-Magnon. Here, therefore, it may be that something like a bridging of the gap between palaeolithic and neolithic times may be forthcoming. But it still remains to be found, and for the present we must be content with uncertainty.
The neolithic period has often been loosely called the age of polished stone, from the fact that in no case has a polished or ground stone implement been found in a palaeolithic deposit. The term is not only loose but inaccurate. In the first place, there is no reason why the cave-men should Neolithic.not be found to have polished a stone implement on occasion, for they habitually polished their weapons of bone. Secondly, neolithic man was by no means uniform in his methods; he polished or ground the surfaces of such tools or weapons as would be improved by the process; but to take a common instance, he found that the efficacy of his arrow-point was sufficient when chipped only, and polishing is only occasionally found, as in Ireland. Many other implements also are found in neolithic times with no trace of grinding and yet with every appearance of being complete.
The most trustworthy evidence with regard to this and the succeeding archaeological periods is to be found in the grave-mounds. For the earlier part of the neolithic age, however, these are by no means fruitful of relics. From their shape they are called in England “long barrows” to distinguish them from the round barrows which belong to a succeeding time, though evidence is being accumulated to show that this division is not of universal application. Long barrows are by no means of such frequent occurrence in Britain as the round variety; they are most common in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Dorset, and occur as far north as Caithness. Some of them contain within the mound a stone chamber, at times with a gallery leading to it, and in the chamber the interment or interments took place. Similar barrows have been found on the continent of Europe, and both in Britain and abroad have one feature in common, viz. that no metal, with possibly the exception of gold, has ever been found in them. This similarity of burial custom, though it may conceivably indicate intercourse, certainly does not prove identity of race, as has been sometimes claimed. The type of skulls found in the interment is clear evidence against such an assumption.
In Britain, the burials were at times by inhumation only, and occasionally a great number of bodies were interred in the same barrow: at others, cremation had preceded burial. Another remarkable feature is that in many instances it is certain from the relative position of the bones of the unburnt burials that the corpse had been allowed to decay before the burial took place. This curious practice is known among many savage tribes of the present day. Its occurrence in Britain has been adduced in favour of the prevalence of cannibalism at this time, and not altogether without reason. While metal is entirely absent in the long barrows (and in fact relics of any kind are very rarely found), it is significant that in the succeeding round barrows also metal occurs but seldom, and then always of the types attributed to the earliest part of the Bronze Age. When, therefore, the mound pottery is of a class that may well be anterior to metal, and no metal is found with the burial, it is not unreasonable to assign such barrows to the Stone Age. A similar argument may be applied to the stone implements, but in the opposite direction. Many stone implements are found either isolated, or perhaps with no other relics that serve to fix their period. The material alone is often considered sufficient evidence of their being before the age of metals; but it is at any rate quite certain that a large number of stone axes, more particularly those with a socket for the handle, belong really to the Bronze Age. This uncertainty makes any account of the neolithic age difficult, unless the material is taken as the main basis.
Neolithic man, like his forerunners, still recognized that flint and allied stones provided the best material for his cutting and piercing implements, though he made use to a great extent of other hard stones that came ready to his hand. The mining of flint was undertaken on a large scale, and great care was taken to get down to the layer containing the best quality. In Norfolk, at Grime’s Graves, and in Sussex, at Cissbury near Worthing, the flint shafts have been carefully explored by William Greenwell, General Pitt-Rivers and others. The system was to sink two shafts some little distance apart and deep enough to reach the desired flint-bed, and the two shafts were then joined by a gallery at the bottom. At Grime’s Graves large numbers of deer’s horns were found, which had evidently been used as picks, as is proved by the marks found in the chalk walls; and the horn had been trimmed for the purpose. Cups of chalk were also found in the galleries and were believed to have been used as lamps. At Cissbury great quantities of unfinished and defective implements were found in the work, as well as horn tools, as in Norfolk. At such factories the primitive appliances correspond very closely with those in use among existing savages. The pebble was used as a hammer or an anvil, and the more delicate flaking was done by pressure with a piece of horn rather than by blows. Naturally enough the number of completed implements found in these factories is small; the finished tools would be bartered at once and carried away from the factory. All the animal remains found in these pits belong to present geological conditions, thus emphasizing what has been stated above, that the absence of polished implements is no evidence for great age. Many other factories have been found in Britain, in Ireland and on the continent of Europe: at Grovehurst in Kent, at Stourpaine near Blandford, at Whitepark Bay, county Antrim, and in Belgium at Spiennes. Among the North American Indians the method would seem to have been somewhat different. After journeying to the site of a suitable quality of stone, they did not always complete the implements on the spot, but made a number of oval chipped disks of good stone which they carried away and worked up into the required implements at their leisure. These disks bear a strong likeness to some of the ovate implements from the Drift in Europe; in fact, but for the difference of surface condition or patina, they would be identical.
