own domestic horse, but not quite so large or so strong as the average
well-bred creature familiar in our modern life. Its remotest ancestor
was the Hyracotherium, or Orohippus, while an intermediary stage was
that of the Hypparion, or Protohippus, in which, as shown in the
diagram, the change from the foot to the hoof had advanced to a very
great extent.]
The common wheat occurring in the lake-dwellings of the Stone Age is a
small-grained but mealy variety; but the so-called Egyptian wheat with
large grains also occurs.
[Sidenote: Gardening in the Stone Age]
Traces of regular gardening and vegetable culture are altogether
wanting. Some finds, however, seem to indicate primitive arboriculture,
apples and pears having been found dried in slices in the
lake-dwellings of the Stone Age; there even appears to be an improved
kind of apple besides the wild-growing crab. But although they are
chiefly wild unimproved fruit-trees of whose fruit remains have been
found, we can imagine that these fruit-trees were planted near the
settlements, and the great nutritious and health-giving properties
of the fruit, as a supplement to a meat fare, must have been all the
more appreciated owing to the lack of green vegetables. The various
wild cherries, plums, and sloes were eaten, as also raspberries,
blackberries, and strawberries. Beechnut and hazelnut appear as wild
food-plants.
The original home of the most important cereals--wheat, spelt, and
barley--is not known with absolute certainty; probably they came from
Central Asia, where they are said to be found wild in the region of
the Euphrates. The real millet came from India; peas and the other
primeval leguminous plants of Europe, such as lentils and beans,
came likewise from the East, partly from India. So that, apart from
flax, which probably has a more northern home, the regular cultivated
plants of the Stone Age of Central Europe--cereal grasses, millet, and
lentils--indicate Asia as their original home. We have therefore a
state of things similar to that observed in the case of the domestic
animals.
[Sidenote: Beginning of the Potter’s Art]
The potter’s art was probably entirely unknown to Palæolithic Man, for
in none of the pure Drift finds have fragments of clay vessels been
found. So where clay vessels or fragments of them occur, they appear
as the proof of a post-Drift period. On the other hand, pottery was
quite general in the Neolithic Age of Europe. Still, the need of clay
vessels is not general among all races of the earth even at the present
day; up to modern times there were, and still are, races and tribes
without pots. From their practices it is evident that the European
Stone men of the Drift could also manage to prepare their food, chiefly
meat, by fire without cooking vessels. The Fuegians lay the piece of
meat to be roasted on the glowing embers of a dying wood fire, and turn
it with a pointed forked branch so as to keep it from burning. Meat
thus prepared is very tasty, as it retains all the juice and only gets
a rind on the top, and the ashes that adhere to it serve as seasoning
in lieu of salt. On a coal fire not only can fish be grilled, stuck on
wooden rods, but whole sheep can be roasted on wooden spits, precisely
as people have the dainty of roast mutton in the East. To these may be
added a large number of other methods of roasting, and even boiling,
without earthen or metal vessels, which are partly vouched for by
ethnography and partly by archæology, and some of which, like the
so-called “stone-boiling,” are still practised at the present day.
[Sidenote: No Perfect Pottery in the Stone Age]
Although, according to this, pottery is not an absolute necessary
of life for man, yet it is certain that even those poorly equipped
pioneers who first settled in Denmark in the Pine Period, in spite of
their having an almost or quite exclusive meat fare, had clay pottery
in general use for preparing their food, and probably also for storing
their provisions. As we have already shown, the remains that have been
preserved in the kitchen-middens are the oldest that have been found
in Denmark. Simple and rude as the numerous potsherds that occur may
appear, they are of the highest importance on account of the proof of
their great age. Unfortunately, as we have already seen, not a single
perfect vessel has come to light. The fragments are very thick, of
rough clay with bits of granite worked in, and are all made by hand
without the use of the potter’s wheel. The pieces partly indicate
large vessels, some with flat bottoms, and others with the special
characteristic of pointed bottoms, so that the vessel could not be
stood up as it was. Smaller bowls, frequently of an oval form, also
occurred with rounded bottoms, so that they also could not stand by
themselves. It is very important to note that on these fragments of
pottery we find only extraordinarily scanty and exceedingly simple
ornamental decorations, consisting merely of incisions, or impressions
made with the fingers, on the upper edge.
[Illustration: MAN’S FIGHT WITH THE GIANT ANIMALS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
From the painting, “The Slaughter of a Mammoth,” by V. M.
Vasnetsov, now in the Russian Historical Museum at Moscow.
]
We shall see how far this oldest pottery of the Stone Age
is distinguished by its want of decoration from that of the
fully-developed Stone Age. But it is very important to notice that
this rudest mode of making clay vessels, which we here see forming the
beginning of a whole series that rises to the highest pitch of artistic
perfection, remained in vogue not only during the whole Stone Age, but
even in much later times.
[Sidenote: Stone Age Potter’s Handwork]
It is true that in the fully developed neolithic Stone Age of Europe
the clay pottery is also all made by hand, without the potter’s wheel,
the oldest and rudest forms still occurring everywhere, as we have
said; but besides these a great variety is exhibited in the size, form,
and mode of production of the pottery. The clay is often finer, and
even quite finely worked and smoothed, and the vessels have thin sides
and are burnt right through. The thick fragments are generally only
burnt outside, frequently only on one side, and so much that the clay
has acquired a bright red colour, whereas the inside, although hard,
has remained only a greyish black. We have numerous perfectly preserved
vessels of the later Neolithic Age. They are frequently distinguished
by an artistic finish and beauty of form, and on their surfaces we find
ornaments incised or imprinted, but rarely moulded on them, which,
although the style is only geometrical, cannot be denied a keen sense
of beauty and symmetry. The clay vessels also show the beginning of
coloured decoration. The incised strokes, dots, etc., are often filled
out with white substance (chalk or plaster), which brings the patterns
out into bold ornamental relief from the black or red ground of the
surface.
After that it is no wonder that pottery advanced to the real coloured
painting of the vessels during the Neolithic Period, at least in some
places.
[Sidenote: Growth of Artistic Taste]
On these vessels the handle now appears, in its simplest form as a
wart-like or flatter projection from the side of the vessel, pierced
either vertically or horizontally with a narrow opening just large
enough to admit of a cord being passed through. Other handles, just
like those in use at the present day, are bowed out broad, wide, and
high for holding with the hand. These generally begin quite at the top,
at the rim of the vessel, and are continued from there down to its
belly, whereas the first-mentioned are placed lower, frequently around
the greatest circumference of the vessel.
There is no doubt whatever that in the main these clay vessels were
made on the spot where we find their remains at the present day. This
easily explains the local peculiarity that we recognise in various
finds, by which certain groups may be defined as more or less connected
with one another. Different styles may be clearly distinguished by
place and group. But, this notwithstanding, wherever we meet with
neolithic ceramics, they cannot conceal their homogeneous character. In
spite of all peculiarities this general uniform style of the ceramics
of the Stone Age, which we can easily distinguish and determine even
under its various disguises, goes over the whole of Europe.
[Sidenote: The Proofs of Man’s Mental Development]
In finds that lie nearer to the old Asiatic centres of civilisation and
to the coasts of the Mediterranean--as, for instance, at Butmir--the
vessels are in part better worked, and the ornaments are richer and
more elegant, and the spirals more frequent and more regular, and
are sometimes moulded on, and sometimes, as we have mentioned, even
painted in colour. But the general character remains unmistakably
Neolithic, and may be found not only on the European coasts of the
Mediterranean and the islands of the Ægean Sea, but in certain respects
also in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The oldest Trojan pottery also exhibits
unmistakable points of agreement with it.
Not only the stone weapons and implements, but, as far as we can see,
even the remains of the oldest ceramics, show that uniform development
of the culture of the Neolithic Period which proves a like course of
mental development in mankind.
[Illustration: THE WORLD BEFORE HISTORY--V
Professor JOHANNES RANKE]
THE HOME LIFE OF PRIMITIVE FOLK
[Sidenote: What the Lake Dwellings Tell]
A picture, of unequalled clearness of delineation, of the general
conditions of the life and culture of Central European Man during the
Neolithic Period, was given, according to the results of the celebrated
researches of Ferdinand Keller and his school of Swiss archæologists,
by the lake-dwellings in the Alpine lowlands. Whereas in cave districts
the caves and grottos often served the men of the later Stone Age as
temporary and even as permanent winter dwellings, in the watery valleys
of Switzerland the Neolithic population built its huts on foundations
of piles in lakes and bogs. In that period we have to imagine the
Alpine lowlands still extensively covered with woods and full of wild
beasts; at that time the huts standing on piles in the water must have
afforded their inhabitants a security such as scarcely any other place
could have given. The first founders and inhabitants of settlements of
pile-dwellings in Switzerland belong to the pure Stone Period. In spite
of their lake-dwellings the old Neolithic men of Switzerland appear
to have possessed almost all the important domestic animals, but they
also knew and practised agriculture. They lived by cattle-rearing,
agriculture, hunting, and fishing, and on wild fruit and all that the
plant world freely offered in the way of eatables. Their clothing
consisted partly of skins, but partly also of stuffs, the majority of
which seem to have been prepared from flax.
[Sidenote: Beginnings of a Social Order]
The endeavour of the settlers to live together in lasting homes
protected from surprises, and in large numbers, is an unmistakable
proof that they were aware of the advantages of a settled mode of life,
and that we have not to imagine the inhabitants of the pile-dwellings
as nomadic herdsmen, and still less as a regular race of hunters and
fishermen. The permanent concentration of a large number of individuals
at the same point, and of hundreds of families in neighbouring inlets
of the lakes, could not have taken place if there had not been through
all the seasons a regular supply of provisions derived principally
from cattle-rearing and agriculture, and if there had not existed the
elements of social order. Even the establishment of the lake-settlement
itself is not possible for the individual man; a large community must
have here worked with a common plan and purpose. Herodotus describes
a pile-village in Lake Prosias, in Thracia, which was inhabited by
Pæones, who defended it successfully against the Persian general
Megabazos. The scaffold on which the huts were built stood on high
piles in the middle of the lake; it was connected with the bank only by
a single, easily removable bridge. Herodotus says:
The piles on which the scaffolds rest were erected in olden times
by the citizens in a body; the enlargement of the lake-settlement
took place later, according as it was necessitated by the formation
of new families.
[Sidenote: The Lake Dweller At Home]
According to the large number of lake-dwellings of the Stone Age in
the Alpine lowlands, and according to the large quantity of products
of primitive industry that have been found there, centuries must have
elapsed between the moment when the first settlers rammed in the piles
on which to build their dwellings and the end of the Stone Period.
The huts of the settlements of the Stone Age were partly round and
partly quadrangular, and, like the pile-hut discovered by Frank near
Schussenried, were divided into two compartments--one for the cattle,
and the other, with a hearth built of stones, for the dwelling of man.
The floor of the hut was made of round timber with a mud foundation,
and perhaps also with a mud flooring; in Frank’s hut the walls were
formed of split tree-trunks, standing vertically with the split sides
turned inward, firmly put together between corner posts. The round huts
had walls of roughly intertwined branches, covered with clay inside and
out; of this clay-plaster numerous pieces have been preserved, hardened
by fire, with the marks of the branches. The pile huts of the lakes
were connected with the water by block or rung ladders. Victor Cross
found such a ladder in one of the oldest stations; it consisted of a
long oak pole provided at fairly regular intervals with holes in which
the rungs were inserted.
[Sidenote: First Traces of Textiles]
[Sidenote: In a Stone Age Kitchen]
Of special importance in estimating the degree of civilisation attained
by the lake-dwellers of the Stone Age are the remains of spinning and
weaving implements and of webs and textile fabrics, plaited work,
etc. Flax has been found wound on the implements made of ribs, that
we mentioned above as flax combs; we have also mentioned the fixing
of blades with flax, or threads made of it, and the numerous wide and
narrow nets made of threads. For spinning the thread, spindles were
used just like those of the present day, a spindle-stick of wood being
fastened into a spinning-whorl made of stone, deer-horn, or clay. The
distaff was probably not yet known; a loom has not yet been found,
either; but numerous weaver’s weights, which served for spinning
the threads, have been. Excellent webs, some of them twilled, were
produced, of which we have many fragments. Remains of mats and baskets
prove that those were manufactured from the materials still employed
at the present day. Corn was baked into a kind of bread consisting of
coarsely ground grains. The millstones that were used for grinding the
corn are found in large numbers. They are rather worn, hollowed slabs
of stone, and smaller flat stones rounded on the top, with which the
grains of corn were crushed on the larger slabs. Some of the kitchen
utensils we find already much improved. Large and small pots for
storing purposes, earthen cooking pots, and dishes, and large wooden
spoons and twirling-sticks--the latter probably for churning--have been
preserved. Vessels like strainers served for making cheese; they are
pots in whose sides and bottoms a number of small holes were made for
pouring off the whey from the cheese.
Here, in the fully developed Neolithic Period we find the early
inhabitants of Switzerland to be a settled agricultural and farming
population. Although hunting and fishing still furnished an important
part of their food, so that in some places even more deer bones have
been found among the cooking remains than bones of the ox, yet the
milk, cheese, and butter of the cows, sheep, and goats, the flesh of
these and of the hog, and bread and fruit, already formed the basis of
their subsistence.
[Illustration: A PRIMITIVE STYLE OF DWELLING STILL WIDESPREAD IN SAVAGE
LANDS
The lake dwellings still in use in New Guinea, illustrated in
this reproduction from an old work, D’Urville’s “Voyage of the
Astrolabe,” are exactly like the lake dwellings of prehistoric
Europe.
]
[Sidenote: Man Learning the Art of Living]
The results of cave research are almost as rich and varied as the
results yielded by the study of the lake-dwellings in their bearing on
the Neolithic stratum. Where there is a Drift stratum in the cave-earth
the confusion of Palæolithic and Neolithic objects can, as we have
said, scarcely be avoided. But there are numerous grottos and small
caves in which the Neolithic stratum is the oldest, so that mistakes
are out of the question. In a large number of such places in the cave
district of the Franconian-Bavarian Jura the conditions under which
finds have been made in the Neolithic stratum have proved almost as
pure and unmixed as in the lake-dwellings.
The cave-dwellers of the later Stone Age in the Franconian Jura were,
like the Swiss lake-dwellers of the Stone Age, mainly a pastoral race.
They possessed all the important domestic animals that the latter
possessed--dog, cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig--and likewise practised
agriculture, or, at any rate, flax-growing; at the same time hunting
and fishing formed a considerable part of their means of subsistence.
So that, not only on artificial pile-works on the shores of lakes, but
also on the banks of South German rivers, there formerly lived a race
which, although still mainly restricted to hunting and fishing, and
using no metal, but exclusively stone and bone tools, already practised
cattle-breeding and primitive agriculture, and was able to increase
the means of existence afforded it by Nature by the first technical
arts--by the chipping and grinding of stone instruments, bone carving,
and, above all, pottery-making, tanning, and the arts of sowing,
weaving and plaiting.
[Sidenote: Beginning of Weaving and Knitting]
Of most importance, as showing the state of civilisation of the
Neolithic rock-dwellers, are the numerous articles carved from bone
that must be looked upon as instruments for weaving and net-knitting.
For the latter purpose there were large, finely-smoothed bone
crochet-needles, some of them carved from the rib of a large ruminant.
The handle-end is smoothed by use, and the end with the hook is rounded
from the same cause. The end is frequently perforated, so that it might
be hung up. Still more numerous were shuttles of various forms.
According to the numerous finds of perforated clay weaver’s weights,
the loom, like that of the lake-dwellers, must have been like the
ancient implement that, according to Montelius, was in use on the
Faröe Islands a comparatively short time ago. Spinning-whorls are very
numerous, being partly flat, round discs of bone pierced in the centre,
and partly thick bone rings or large beads of bone and deer-horn and
flat burr-pieces of deer-antlers.
It was formerly thought that the Neolithic Europeans did not possess
the arts of engraving and carving animals and human figures which
the Palæolithic Men had understood in such conspicuous manner. The
progress of research has now produced more and more proof that in the
later Stone Age the arts of carving and engraving had not died out.
We have the celebrated amber carvings of the later Stone Age from
the Kurisches Haff, near Schwarzort, some of which probably served a
religious purpose; those of ivory, bone, stalactite, etc., from the
caves of France and the Polish Jura; the figures from Butmir, and other
evidences.
[Sidenote: Fortified Settlements in Stone Age]
In Italy, in Lombardy, and Emilia, another group of settlements of
the Stone Age has been found, which again exhibit the civilization
and all other signs of the later Stone Age, and in many respects more
closely resemble the lake-dwellings than do the cave-dwellings. These
are the “terramare,” whose inhabitants, however, had already to some
extent advanced to the use of bronze. A sharp division of strata into
habitation of the pure Stone Age and habitation of the Metal Age has
not yet been made. The huts stood on pile-work on dry land, the piles
being six to ten feet high; the whole settlement was fortified with
trench and rampart, generally with palisades, and was of an oblong
or oval plan. Besides many natural and artificial caves in Italy the
dwelling-pits, which may formerly have borne the superstructure of a
hut, also belong to the pure Stone Age.
[Illustration: LAKE-DWELLERS RETURNING FROM THE HUNT IN THEIR DUG-OUT
CANOES
From a painting by Hippolyte Coutau, in the Geneva Museum.
]
[Sidenote: Strange Homes of Early Man]
Such dwelling-pits of the Stone Age seem to have been distributed all
over Europe. Burnt wall-plaster with impressions of interwoven twigs,
has frequently been found near or in the pits, doubtless indicating
hut-building. In Mecklenburg, where the dwelling-pits were first
carefully examined by Liesch, they have a circular outline of ten
to fifteen yards, and are five to six and a half feet deep. At the
bottom of the pit lie burnt and blackened stones, hearthstones,
charcoal, potsherds, broken bones of animals, and a few stone
implements, the latter being mostly found in larger numbers in the
vicinity of the dwellings. The same circular dwelling-pits of the Stone
Age are found in France. Smaller hearth-pits were recently found in
very large numbers in the Spessart, in Bavaria, with hundreds of stone
hatchets and perforated axe-hammers, some of the former being very
finely made of jadeite.
[Sidenote: America before History]
During the Neolithic Period dwellings were frequently made on heights,
and it seems that even at that time they were to a certain extent
walled round and fortified. Such settlements are numerous all over
Southern and Central Germany, in Austria-Hungary, especially in the
coast-country, and in Italy and France. Many of these stations belong
purely to the Stone Age; indeed, the majority were inhabited already
during the Stone Age, and furnish the typical Neolithic relics familiar
from the foregoing. On the other hand, they continue to be inhabited
even in the later metal periods, and in some cases right down to modern
times. The rock near Clausen, in the Eisack valley, in the Tyrol, on
which the large Säben monastery now stands, was a mediæval castle, and
during the times of the Romans a fortified settlement called Sobona
stood there; and when excavations were made in 1895, for adding new
buildings to the monastery, a well-ground stone hatchet of the later
Stone Age came to light. On many hills in Central Germany are found
traces of the ancient presence of men who lived on them or assembled
on them for sacrificial feasts; the earth is coloured black by charred
remains and organic influences, and this “black earth on heights and
hills” contains frequently, as we have said, the traces of Neolithic
men. In Italy, many finds on such heights--for instance, those made
on the small castle-hill near Imola--seem to exhibit that stage of
the Stone Age that is missing in the terramare, and that precedes the
beginning of the Metal Age of the terramare, but corresponds to it in
every essential except in the possession of metal.