PREHISTORIC REMAINS
Pytheas of Marseilles--Discovery of flint implements--Geological
changes--Palaeolithic man--Eslithic--Palaeolithic implements--
Drift men--Cave men--Neolithic man and his weapons--Dolichocephalic--
Celtic or Brachycephalic race--The Iron Age.
It was customary some years ago to begin the history of any country with
the statement, "Of the early inhabitants nothing is known with any
certainty," and to commence the history of England with the landing of
Julius Caesar B.C. 55. If this book had been written forty or fifty
years ago it might have been stated that our first knowledge of Britain
dates from 330 B.C. when Pytheas of Marseilles visited it, and described
his impressions. He says that the climate was foggy, a characteristic
which it has not altogether lost, that the people cultivated the ground
and used beer and mead as beverages. Our villagers still follow the
example of their ancestors in their use of one at least of these drinks.
Of the history of all the ages prior to the advent of this Pytheas all
written record is silent. Hence we have to play the part of scientific
detectives, examine the footprints of the early man who inhabited our
island, hunt for odds and ends which he has left behind, to rake over
his kitchen middens, pick up his old tools, and even open his burial
mound.
About fifty years ago the attention of the scientific world was drawn to
the flint implements which were scattered over the surface of our fields
and in our gravel pits and mountain caves; and inquiring minds began
to speculate as to their origin. The collections made at Amiens and
Abbeville and other places began to convince men of the existence of an
unknown and unimagined race, and it gradually dawned on us that on our
moors and downs were the tombs of a race of men who fashioned their
weapons of war and implements of peace out of flint. These discoveries
have pushed back our knowledge of man to an antiquity formerly never
dreamed of, and enlarged considerably our historical horizon. So we will
endeavour to discover what kind of men they were, who roamed our fields
and woods before any historical records were written, and mark the very
considerable traces of their occupation which they have left behind.
The condition of life and the character and climate of the country were
very different in early times from what they are in the present day; and
in endeavouring to discover the kind of people who dwelt here in
prehistoric times, we must hear what the geologists have to tell us
about the physical aspect of Britain in that period. There was a time
when this country was connected with the Continent of Europe, and the
English Channel and North Sea were mere valleys with rivers running
through them fed by many streams. Where the North Sea now rolls there
was the great valley of the Rhine; and as there were no ocean-waves to
cross, animals and primitive man wandered northwards and westwards from
the Continent, and made their abode here. It is curious to note that the
migratory birds when returning to France and Italy, and thence to the
sunny regions of Algiers and other parts of Northern Africa, always
cross the seas where in remote ages there was dry land. They always
traverse the same route; and it appears that the recollection of the
places where their ancestors crossed has been preserved by them through
all the centuries that have elapsed since "the silver streak" was formed
that severs England from her neighbours.
In the times of which we are speaking the land was much higher than it
is now. Snowdon was 600 feet greater, and the climate was much colder
and more rigorous. Glaciers like those in Switzerland were in all the
higher valleys, and the marks of the action of the ice are still plainly
seen on the rocky cliffs that border many a ravine. Moreover we find in
the valleys many detached rocks, immense boulders, the nature of which
is quite different from the character of the stone in the neighbourhood.
These were carried down by the glaciers from higher elevations, and
deposited, when the ice melted, in the lower valleys. Hence in this
glacial period the condition of the country was very different from what
it is now.
Then a remarkable change took place. The land began to sink, and its
elevation so much decreased that the central part of the country became
a huge lake, and the peak of Snowdon was an island surrounded by the sea
which washed with its waves the lofty shoulder of the mountain. This is
the reason why shells and shingle are found in high elevations. The Ice
Age passed away and the climate became warmer. The Gulf Stream found its
way to our shores, and the country was covered by a warm ocean having
islands raising their heads above the surface. Sharks swam around, whose
teeth we find now buried in beds of clay. The land continued to rise,
and attracted by the sunshine and the more genial clime animals from the
Continent wandered northwards, and with them came man. Caves, now high
amongst the hills, but then on a level with the rivers, were his first
abode, and contain many relics of his occupancy, together with the bones
of extinct animals. The land appears to have risen, and the climate
became colder. The sea worked its relentless way through the chalk hills
on the south and gradually met the waves of the North Sea which flowed
over the old Rhine valley. It widened also the narrow strait that
severed the country from Ireland, and the outline and contour of the
island began more nearly to resemble that with which we are now
familiar.
A vast period of time was necessary to accomplish all these immense
changes; and it is impossible to speculate with any degree of certainty
how long that period was, which transformed the icebound surface of
our island to a land of verdure and wild forests. We must leave such
conjectures and the more detailed accounts of the glacial and
post-glacial periods to the geologists, as our present concern is
limited to the study of the habits and condition of the men who roamed
our fields and forests in prehistoric times. Although no page of history
gives us any information concerning them, we can find out from the
relics of arms and implements which the earth has preserved for us, what
manner of men lived in the old cave dwellings, or constructed their rude
huts, and lie buried beneath the vast barrows.
The earliest race of men who inhabited our island was called the
Palaeolithic race, from the fact that they used the most ancient form
of stone implements. Traces of a still earlier race are said to have
been discovered a few years ago on the chalk plateau of the North Down,
near Sevenoaks. The flints have some slight hollows in them, as if
caused by scraping, and denote that the users must have been of a very
low condition of intelligence--able to use a tool but scarcely able to
make one. This race has been called the Eolithic; but some antiquaries
have thrown doubts upon their existence, and the discovery of these
flints is too recent to allow us to speak of them with any degree of
certainty.
[Illustration: PALAEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS]
The traces of Palaeolithic man are very numerous, and he evidently
exercised great skill in bringing his implements to a symmetrical shape
by chipping. The use of metals for cutting purposes was entirely
unknown; and stone, wood, and bone were the only materials of which
these primitive beings availed themselves for the making of weapons or
domestic implements. Palaeolithic man lived here during that distant
period when this country was united with the Continent, and when the
huge mammoth roamed in the wild forests, and powerful and fierce animals
struggled for existence in the hills and vales of a cold and inclement
country. His weapons and tools were of the rudest description, and made
of chipped flint. Many of these have been found in the valley gravels,
which had probably been dropped from canoes into the lakes or rivers, or
washed down by floods from stations on the shore. Eighty or ninety feet
above the present level of the Thames in the higher gravels are these
relics found; and they are so abundant that the early inhabitants who
used them must have been fairly numerous. Their shape is usually oval,
and often pointed into a rude resemblance of the shape of a spear-head.
Some flint-flakes are of the knifelike character; others resemble awls,
or borers, with sharp points evidently for making holes in skins for the
purpose of constructing a garment. Hammer-stones for crushing bones,
tools with well-wrought flat edges, scrapers, and other implements, were
the stock-in-trade of the earliest inhabitant of our country, and are
distinguishable from those used by Neolithic man by their larger and
rougher work. The maker of the old stone tools never polished his
implements; nor did he fashion any of those finely wrought arrowheads
and javelin points, upon which his successor prided himself. The latter
discovered that the flints which were dug up were more easily fashioned
into various shapes; whereas Palaeolithic man picked up the flints that
lay about on the surface of the ground, and chipped them into the form
of his rude tools. However, the elder man was acquainted with the use
of fire, which he probably obtained by striking flints on blocks of
iron pyrites. Wandering about the country in families and tribes, he
contrived to exist by hunting the numerous animals that inhabited the
primeval forests, and has left us his weapons and tools to tell us what
kind of man he was. His implements are found in the drift gravels by
the riversides; and from this cause his race are known as drift men,
in order to distinguish them from the _cave men_, who seem to have
belonged to a little later period.
The first dwellings of man were the caves on the hillsides, before he
found out the art of building pile huts. In Palaeolithic times these
caves were inhabited by a rude race of feral nomads who lived by the
chase, and fashioned the rude tools which we have already described.
They were, however, superior to the drift men, and had some notion of
art. The principal caves in the British islands containing the relics of
the cave folk are the following: Perthichoaren, Denbighshire, wherein
were found the remains of Platycnemic man--so named from his having
sharp shin-bones; Cefn, St. Asaph; Uphill, Somerset; King's Scar and the
Victoria Cave, Settle; Robin Hood's Cave and Pinhole Cave, Derbyshire;
Black Rock, Caldy Island, Coygan Caves, Pembrokeshire; King Arthur's
Cave, Monmouth; Durdham Downs, Bristol; and sundry others, near Oban, in
the valleys of the Trent, Dove, and Nore, and of the Irish Blackwater,
and in Caithness.
In these abodes the bones of both men and animals have been found; but
these do not all belong to the same period, as the Neolithic people,
and those of the Bronze and Iron Ages, followed the occupation of the
earlier race. The remains of the different races, however, lie at
various depths, those of the earlier race naturally lying the lowest. An
examination of the Victoria Cave, Settle, clearly shows this. Outside
the entrance there was found a layer of charcoal and burnt bones, and
the burnt stones of fireplaces, pottery, coins of the Emperors Trajan
and Constantine, and ornaments in bone, ivory, bronze and enamel. The
animal remains were those of the _bos longifrons_ (Celtic ox), pig,
horse, roe, stag, fowl (wild), and grouse. This layer was evidently
composed of the relics of a Romano-British people. Below this were found
chipped flints, an adze of melaphyre, and a layer of boulders, sand, and
clay, brought down by the ice from the higher valley.
Inside the cave in the upper cave earth were found the bones of fox,
badger, brown bear, grizzly bear, reindeer, red deer, horse, pig, and
goat, and some bones evidently hacked by man. In the lower cave earth
there were the remains of the hyena, fox, brown and grizzly bears,
elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, urus, bison, and red deer, the
hacked bones of a goat, and a small leg-bone of a man.
Some idea of the time which has elapsed since primitive man inhabited
this rude dwelling may be formed from these excavations. Two feet below
the surface lay the Romano-British layer, and we know therefore that
about 1,600 years was required for the earth to accumulate to that
depth. The Neolithic layer was six feet below this; hence 4,800 years
would be necessary to form this depth of earth. So we may conclude that
at least 6,400 years ago Neolithic man used the cave. A long time
previous to this lived the creatures of the lower cave earth, the bison,
elephant, and the hyena with the solitary human bone, which belonged to
the sharp-shinned race (Platycnemic) of beings, the earliest dwellers in
our country.
It is doubtful whether Palaeolithic man has left any descendants. The
Esquimaux appear to somewhat resemble them. Professor Boyd Dawkins, in
his remarkable book, _Cave Hunting_, traces this relationship in the
character of implements, methods of obtaining food and cooking it, modes
of preparing skins for clothing, and particularly in the remarkable
skill of depicting figures on bone which both races display. In carving
figures on bone and teeth early man in Britain was certainly more
skilful than his successor; but he was a very inferior type of the human
race, yet his intelligence and mode of life have been deemed not lower
than those of the Australian aborigines.
The animals which roamed through the country in this Pleistocene period
were the elk and reindeer, which link us on to the older and colder
period when Arctic conditions prevailed; the Irish deer, a creature of
great size whose head weighed about eighty pounds; bison, elephant,
rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, wolf, otter, bear, horse, red deer, roe,
urus or gigantic ox, the short-horned ox (_bos longifrons_), boar,
badger and many others which survive to the present day, and have
therefore a very long line of ancestors.
The successor of the old stone implement maker was Neolithic man, to
whom we have already had occasion to refer. Some lengthy period of
geological change separates him from his predecessor of the Old Stone
Age. Specimens of his handiwork show that he was a much more civilised
person than his predecessor, and presented a much higher type of
humanity. He had a peculiarly shaped head, the back part of the skull
being strangely prolonged; and from this feature he is called
_dolichocephalic_. He was small in stature, about 5 feet 6 inches in
height, having a dark complexion, and his descendants are the Iberian or
Basque races in the Western Pyrenees and may still be traced in parts of
Ireland and Wales. The long barrows or mounds, the length of which is
greater than the breadth, contain his remains, and we find traces of his
existence in all the western countries of Europe.
He had made many discoveries which were unknown to his Old Stone
predecessor. Instead of always hunting for his food, like an animal, he
found out that the earth would give him corn with which he could make
bread, if only he took the trouble to cultivate it. Instead of always
slaying animals, he found that some were quite ready to be his servants,
and give him milk and wool and food. He brought with him to our shores
cows and sheep and goats, horses and dogs. Moreover he made pottery,
moulding the clay with his hand, and baking it in a fire. He had not
discovered the advantages of a kiln. He could spin thread, and weave
stuffs, though he usually wore garments of skins.
His dwellings were no longer the caves and forests, for he made for
himself rude pit huts, and surrounded himself, his tribe, and cattle
with a circular camp. Traces of his agricultural operations may still be
found in the "terraces," or strips of ground on hillsides, which
preserve the marks of our early Neolithic farmers.
[Illustration: BARBED AND LEAF-SHAPED ARROW-HEADS]
Their implements are far superior to those of the Old Stone men, and are
found on the surface of our fields, or on hillsides, where they tended
their flocks, or dug their rude pit shelters. Their weapons and tools
are highly polished, and have evidently been ground on a grindstone.
They are adapted for an endless variety of uses, and are most skilfully
and beautifully fashioned. There are finely wrought arrowheads, of three
shapes--barbed, tanged and barbed, and leaf-shaped; axes, scrapers for
cleansing and preparing skins for clothing, hammer stones, wedges,
drills, borers, knives, and many other tools. In the Reading Museum may
be seen a heavy quartzite axe and chipped flint hatchet, which were
found with some charred timber on an island in the Thames, and were
evidently used for scooping out the interior of a boat from a tree with
the aid of fire. So this New Stone man knew how to make boats as well as
a vast number of other things of which we shall presently speak more
particularly. His descendants linger on in South Wales and Ireland, and
are short in stature, dark in complexion, and narrow-skulled, like their
forefathers a few thousand years ago.
[Illustration: NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE IMPLEMENTS]
Another wave of invaders swept over our land, and overcame the
long-headed Neolithic race. These were the Celtic people, taller and
stronger than their predecessors, and distinguished by their fair hair
and rounded skulls. From the shape of their heads they are called
Brachycephalic, and are believed to have belonged to the original Aryan
race, whose birthplace was Southern Asia. At some remote period this
wave of invaders poured over Europe and Asia, and has left traces behind
it in the languages of all Indo-European nations.
Their weapons were made of bronze, although they still used polished
stone implements also. We find chisels, daggers, rings, buttons, and
spear-heads, all made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, and
fashioned by the skilled hands of these early Celtic folk. As they
became more civilised, being of an inventive mind, they discovered the
use of iron and found it a more convenient metal for fashioning axes to
cut down trees.
When Caesar came to Britain he found that the inhabitants knew the use
of iron, even the less civilised early Celtic settlers driven northwards
and westwards by the Belgae, had iron weapons, and the wild Caledonians
in the time of Severus, although they were naked, woad-dyed savages,
wore iron collars and girdles and were armed with metal weapons.
Such are some of the relics of antiquity which the soil of our native
land retains, as a memorial of the primitive people who first trod upon
it. Concerning their lives and records history is silent, until the
Conqueror tells us something of our Celtic forefathers. From the scanty
remains of prehistoric races, their weapons and tools, we can gather
something of the earliest inhabitants of our island, and try to realise
their habits and mode of life.