before the dawn of Roman history men lived on platforms built on piles in water, but with their streets and canals laid out in the same regular fashion as the later Roman military camps. The history of ancient Greece used to start about 750 b.c., and all before that was reckoned prehistoric, and no one knew whether to believe in the Trojan War of Homer or not. But not many years ago excavations were made in various spots in the ancient Greek world with the result that the city of Troy of which Homer sang was actually unearthed, while in the island of Crete ruins of palaces were disclosed telling plainly of luxury, art, and commerce four thousand years ago. Modern investigators also pick out the survivals and relics of earlier periods in the languages and customs of later times. For example, the resemblance between the word for " bride" and the verb meaning "to steal away" in Indo-Germanic languages is taken as evidence of marriage by capture in early times, and another indication pointing in the same direction is the formality of prearranged abduction and mock pursuit in early German law. In Roman religion the disabilities of the priest or flamen of Jupiter, who might not ride horseback, nor have knots in his clothing, nor touch beans and she-goats, nor trim his hair and nails with an iron instrument, point back to a primitive period of magic and taboo and to the Bronze Age before iron came into use.
The two sciences which especially investigate the so-called prehistoric period are archaeology and anthropology. Archaeologists devote themselves primarily to the discovery and interpretation of works of art and other Archaeology
and
anthropology
material objects, but in the course of their investigations they often come upon inscriptions and other written records previously unknown. For instance, gold coins of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain in the early Middle Ages give us the names of several kings not mentioned elsewhere. Similarly, the anthropologists, who study man himself and are interested in observing, measuring, and classifying the various types of humanity, do not confine their attention to prehistoric skeletons, but in the
