V. The northwestern corner of Europe, including Scandinavia, Denmark, and the Baltic plain of Germany, throughout the prehistoric period has been characterized by backwardness of culture as compared with the rest of Europe. It was populated from the south, deriving a large part of such primitive civilization as it possessed from the south and the southeast as well.
That this region was necessarily uninhabited during the Glacial epoch, long after the advent of man in southern Europe, is indubitable. It is proved by the extent of the glaciated area, which extends on the mainland as far south as Hamburg, Berlin, and Posen, and over the entire British Isles at the same time.[1] It was by the melting of this vast sheet of ice that those high level river terraces in France and Belgium were formed, in which the most ancient and primitive implements of human manufacture occur. In the area beneath this ice sheet no trace of human occupation until long after this time occurs. This fact of itself, is not absolutely conclusive, for glaciation would have obliterated all traces of anterior habitation or activity. As to the possibility of a tertiary population before the Glacial epoch, it presents too remote a contingency for us to consider, although we do not deny its possibility. It too far antedates prehistory, so to speak.
At the notable International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology at Stockholm in 1874 a landmark in these sciences was established by substantial agreement among the leading authorities from all over Europe upon the proposition now before us.[2] First of all, every one subscribed to the view that the palæolithic or oldest stone age was entirely unrepresented in Sweden. The earliest and simplest stone implements discovered in the southern part of that country betray a degree of skill and culture far above that so long prevalent in France and Germany. Stone is not only rubbed and polished into shape, but the complicated art of boring holes in it has been learned. Norway also seems to be lacking in similar evidence of a human population in the very lowest stage of civilization. Stone implements anterior to the discovery of the art of rubbing or polishing are almost unknown. Only about Christiania have any finds at all been made. In Denmark some few very rude implements have been found. They are so scarce as to suggest that they are mere rejects or half-finished ones of a later type. The kitchen middens,
- ↑ Cf. maps and data in J. Geikie, 1894; Penck, 1884; and Niederle, 1893, p. 25.
- ↑ Bertrand, 1876 a and 1876 b, gives a full account of it. The best recent authorities upon Scandinavian culture are Sophus Mueller, 1897, and Montelius, 1895 b. Other works of reference are those of Worsaae, Nilsson, Hildebrand, Madsen and Rygh, full titles being given in our supplementary Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of Europe. Comprising nearly two thousand titles, it will be provided with a detailed subject index.
