THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. SHELL-HEAPS
During the last great advance of the ice in the earlier Magdalenian
epoch the Scandinavian peninsula had been buried beneath a great mass of
ice, and resembled the central portion of Greenland to-day. A great
glacier extended southward, obliterating the Baltic Sea and crowding
into northern Germany. As the glaciers withdrew, North Germany became a
vast tundra, across which we may imagine the reindeer and other Arctic
and subarctic mammals retreating northeastward before the milder forest
and meadow conditions already prevailing in France and Russia.[27] The
low temperature of the water of the emerging Baltic is shown by the
presence of an arctic bivalve, _Yoldia arctica_, which has given its
name to the epoch. A few scattered bone implements show the presence of
reindeer hunters in Germany at this time.
Before the close of the Yoldia period Germany began to pass from tundra
to forest--a transformation which was also now progressing in Denmark.
The temperature moderated slowly. The land rose in such a way that it
separated the Baltic from the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean, with which
it had been connected, and made of it a great fresh-water lake. The
characteristic animal of this lake was a small pond animal, _ancylus_,
which has given its name to both lake and epoch.
The next epoch--the Litorina (or Tapes) depression--was characterized by a
sinking of the land in which the barrier between the Baltic and the
North Seas gave place to a wide communication. The Baltic became more
salt than at present, and the oyster-banks became abundant. It was
during this epoch that the shell-heaps were accumulated.
The following chart gives a condensed view of the succession of events
(in reverse order):[28]
+------------------------------+---------------------------+-------+
| WESTERN AND MIDDLE | | DATE |
| EUROPE | NORTHERN EUROPE | B. C. |
+------------------------------+---------------------------+-------+
| 4. Typical Neolithic. | Typical Neolithic. | 6000- |
| | Beech and fir forests. | 2500 |
| 3. Daun Stage. | Litorina Epoch. | |
| | Oak forests. | |
| | Northern climatic | |
| | optimum. | 8000 |
| Campignian | Shell-heaps. | |
| 2. Gschnitz Stage. | Ancylus Epoch. Birch and | |
| | pine forests. | 10,000|
| Azilian-Tardenoisian. | Magelmose. | |
| 1. Bühl Stage. | Yoldia Epoch. | |
| | Swedish-Finnish Moraines | 16,000|
| Magdalenian (later) | Tundra. Dryas Flora. | |
+------------------------------+---------------------------+-------+
The growth and succession of the forests of Denmark, accompanying
changes in conditions of soil and climate, have been clearly traced by
Steenstrup.[29] The scene of his investigations was a moraine country
broken by low ranges of hills in the island of Zealand, north of
Copenhagen. The hills are often strewn with erratic blocks of rock
brought by glaciers, with here and there small lakes, ponds, or
peat-bogs often giving place to meadow or forest.
Some of these depressions are filled with a poor variety of peat, dug
for fuel, and the sides are often abrupt, steep, and deep. These sides
furnish a calendar by showing the different layers which have been
formed by successive generations of tree-growth falling into the bog.
Thus, in the upper layers we find remains of trees which still flourish
in Denmark, while the deepest strata contain the remains of reindeer.
The thickness of these layers is between five and seven metres. Their
formation, according to Steenstrup, occupied 10,000 to 12,000 years.(1)
The following layers are found in these "calendars," beginning at the
surface:
1. Surface layer. Remains of the beech, which furnishes the chief beauty
of the forests of Denmark to-day.
2. Oak. The beginning of this layer was contemporary with the Litorina
depression.
3. Scotch pine (_pinus sylvestris_). The earliest pines were dwarfed,
the trunks showing as many as seventy rings to the inch. In upper strata
their trunks were a metre or so in diameter. In the Lillemose moor, near
Rudesdal, the whole eastern side, twenty metres deep, was filled with
pines. While no human remains have been found in these moors, a stone
axe embedded in a pine trunk, and a stone arrow-head in a bone of the
_bos primigenius_ (which, like the auerhahn or pine partridge lived on
the young pine shoots) have been discovered. The soil best adapted to
the pine is a damp soil, poor in humus, whereas the present rich,
fertile soil of Denmark is best suited to the beech. This explains the
fact that pine forests no longer grow there.
4. At the bottom, poplars and aspens. The clay underlying the pines and
poplars contains leaves of arctic willows and saxifrages.
Through these types of strata we may trace the epochs described
at the beginning of the chapter. The pine characterizes the
Azilian-Tardenoisian-Ancylus Epoch; at the time of the Litorina
depression it was fast giving place to the oak, which remains
characteristic of the Neolithic and Bronze periods, yielding to the
beech during the Iron Age. But this advance must have been gradual and
the boundary of advance irregular.
Blytt has traced a very similar succession of changes in flora and
climate in southern Norway, and Geikie in Scotland.[30] These changes
are very important in our study of the traces of man's first appearance
in Denmark as furnishing not only their setting but also their
chronology.
Shell-heaps are found all over the world in favorable sheltered
localities where sea food is abundant, especially near clam flats. Hence
they are not characteristic of any one race or time. Some are very
ancient, some comparatively or very modern. They merely show the remains
of the camping-grounds of people in a low stage of culture. Every one
has its own history and its own slight or marked peculiarities.
The Danish shell-heaps or kitchen-middens are mounds generally about
fifty metres wide and one hundred metres long, and perhaps one metre in
thickness. But, as we should naturally expect, the size varies greatly
according to the advantages of the situation, the number of inhabitants,
and the length of time that it was inhabited.
[Illustration: SHELL-HEAP]
[Illustration: SHELL-HEAP AXE]
[Illustration: SHELL-HEAP JAR]
The age of these shell-heaps is shown approximately by the presence of
the auerhahn, proving the neighborhood of pine forests. The charcoal in
the fireplaces came from oak wood, showing that oak forests are
overspreading the country. The Baltic was more salt than at present, and
the shore line was depressed. These facts indicate a period of
transition from the Ancylus to the Litorina Epoch. The stone implements
resemble those of western Europe during the late transition epoch, and
do not occur in the oldest graves. There are no domestic animals except
the dog, and no cultivated plants except some wheat in the later
remains. All this seems to prove that genuine Neolithic culture had not
yet reached the shores of the Baltic. They are composed mostly of oyster
shells with a mingling of those of scallops, mussels, and periwinkles.
The oyster has now disappeared from large parts of the coast and in
others has decreased in size. Land elevation has narrowed the connection
of the Baltic with the North Sea, and the water contains less salt.
Remains of cod and herring show that the fishermen who lived on or near
these harbors ventured out to sea in dugouts or on rafts, and that they
must have made lines for fishing in fairly deep water. Remains of other
fish occur. Bones of birds are often very abundant, especially swamp,
shore, and swimming species; wild geese and ducks, swans and gulls, the
_Alca impennis_ or wingless auk, now extinct. The blackcock, or "spruce
(pine) partridge," was then common, but has now disappeared from Denmark
with the pine whose buds formed a large part of its food.
Bones of stag, deer, and wild boar form, according to Steenstrup, 97 per
cent of all those of mammals found at Havelse.[31] Bones of seal, otter,
wolf, fox, bear, beaver, and wildcat also occur. There are no traces of
reindeer or musk-ox. These animals had already migrated or died out.
Steenstrup noticed that the long bones of birds are about twenty times
as numerous as others of their skeletons, and that the heads or ends of
the long bones of mammals are generally missing. These were exactly the
parts which are gnawed by dogs, whose remains also occur. Hence he drew
the inference, now universally accepted, that the dog was domesticated
in Denmark at this time. It was a small species, apparently akin to the
jackal and of southeastern origin. No remains of other domesticated
animals have been found, nor of cultivated plants, except a few casts of
grains of wheat in the pottery of the upper layers of some of the
heaps.
Daggers, awls, and needles were made of bone; also combs apparently used
for stretching sinews into long threads. The flint implements are rudely
chipped, never polished. We find long flakes used as knives, and
numerous scrapers and borers.[32] The axe, if we may call it so, was of
peculiar form, approaching the triangular and looking as if made out of
a circular disk of flint by breaking away two sides of the periphery,
leaving a somewhat flaring cutting edge. The middle was thick, the edge
tapered somewhat rapidly, making a rough but quite durable instrument.
Longer implements in the form of chisels or picks were also roughly
flaked with skilfully retouched edges, often with one end narrowed or
bluntly pointed. In all cases the work is very rude compared with the
best specimens of Paleolithic time. Arrow-heads are common, usually with
a broad edge instead of a point, well suited to killing birds and small
mammals. The bone harpoon seems to have gone out of use.
The pottery is thick, heavy, crude, with practically no ornament, except
finger-prints around the upper edge. The jars are sometimes of large
size; often the base is pointed instead of flat or rounded. Hearths of
calcined stones are abundant. Sometimes these are surrounded by circular
depressions in the heaps, which may mark the form and position of huts
or shelters; or these may have been placed under the lee of the near-by
forests. No graves or human remains of this period have been found.
Shell-heaps quite similar to those of Denmark were discovered at Mugem,
in Portugal, in the valley of the Tagus, twenty-five to thirty metres
above sea-level, and thirty to forty miles from the mouth of the river.
The shells are of marine origin, and indicate a considerable elevation
of land since their accumulation. The stone implements are very
primitive and of Azilian-Tardenoisian type. Large flat stones, perhaps
for grinding, perhaps for dressing skins, occur. Pottery occurs only in
the upper layers, where the bones of mammals increase in number. There
are no polished implements, no traces of domesticated animals, not even
of the tame dog. Graves were found here and there; and while the skulls
were badly contorted, they seemed to show that the inhabitants were
partly long-headed, partly broad-heads. Remains, apparently of the same
age, have been found in Great Britain.
Even the Danish shell-heaps are not all of the same age. According to
Forrer, Havno is ancient; Ertebolle is also old, but was long inhabited,
and some of its uppermost layers may be full Neolithic; Aalborg and
others are younger. Mugem strikes us as more ancient than the similar
Danish remains. Other remains near the Baltic suggest very strongly
quite marked differences in age or in the culture of their inhabitants,
or in both these respects. We can notice only two of these.
Maglemose lies on the west coast of Zealand near the harbor of Mullerup.
Here a peat-bog has encroached upon a fresh-water lake and has covered a
mud bottom strewn with shells of pond-snails and mussels. Pines had
grown in the swamp, and their stumps still protrude into or above the
moss. The implements were found a little above the old lake bottom
between seventy centimetres and one metre below the surface of the peat.
The remains of the settlement were distributed over an area about one
hundred feet long and broad. The charred or burned wood was very largely
(eighty per cent) pine, ten per cent hazel, a little elm and poplar. No
oak was found here, but oak-pollen grains were found in the same level
as the settlement, or slightly higher and later. Flint cracked by heat
and charred fragments of wood were found, but no definite hearths. Bones
of fresh-water fish and of swamp turtles occur. The shore could not have
been very distant even if it stood considerably higher, but no bones of
marine fish have been found. Many birds were hunted. The mammals include
boar, deer, stag, and urus. The dog is the only domesticated animal.
Flint chips are abundant at Maglemose; long knife-flakes and axes are
rare. Scrapers and nuclei are numerous. The arrow-heads are long and
pointed instead of broad and edged, as in the usual Danish shell-heap.
Many of these so-called arrow-heads may have been nothing more than
microliths used for a great variety of purposes. No flint implements or
fragments show any trace of polishing. Bone implements are numerous. We
find rude harpoons of a very late Magdalenian type. Also, some of the
bone implements are ornamented with various patterns of incised lines,
and even one or two rude drawings of animals occur. The culture
evidently differs quite markedly from that of the ordinary shell-heaps.
It is worthy of notice that the mud of the lake bottom and the overlying
peat were continuous over and around the whole area of the settlement;
there is no sign of any island at this point and the settlement was
some 350 metres from the original shore of the lake. There are abundant
traces of fire but no hearths. No traces of piles have been discovered.
All this seems to corroborate Sarauw's view that the people lived on a
raft all the year round. Sarauw considers the remains as of the same age
as the oldest shell-heaps. But there is a wide-spread tendency to
consider Maglemose as considerably older, belonging probably to the
close of the Ancylus Epoch.
Virchow has described a heap composed of mussel-shells on the outlet of
Burtnecker Lake, east of Riga, called Rinnekalns.[33] Its most
interesting feature is its pottery made of clay mixed with powdered
mussel-shells, giving it a peculiar glitter. It is ornamented with lines
arranged in an angular geometrical pattern encircling the vessel.
Similar pottery can be followed far southward into Russia and westward
as far as East Prussia, but not farther into Germany. Bored teeth used
for ornaments occur. Bone implements are numerous, often ornamented with
fine lines in zigzag or network. We find harpoons also. The flint
industry was poorly and sparingly developed. Graves were discovered, but
their contents proved that they belonged to a much later period.
The culture is peculiar, paralleled to a certain extent but not repeated
in western Europe. We still seem to detect the influence of a decadent,
late Magdalenian style of ornament. Virchow considered them as very late
Paleolithic or very early Neolithic.
The shell-heaps of different regions resemble one another in general
features, but differ and show their individuality in details of culture.
These peculiarities may be due to difference of age or of culture or
population, or to both. We must first attempt to find some place for
them in the chronological succession discovered in France. They cannot
be much older than the French period of transition, when Scandinavia
first became habitable. But good cave-series covering the transition
epoch are rare, and usually very incomplete. In 1887 Piette found a
remarkable series in a cave or natural tunnel at Mas d'Azil, near
Toulouse.[34] The most important strata were the following:
1. A dark layer evidently Magdalenian.
2. A yellow layer deposited by river floods.
3. Dark Magdalenian layer, with reindeer harpoons, engravings, and
sculptures. Reindeer becoming rare; stag increasing.
4. Barren yellow layer, like 2.
5. Reddish layer (Azilian). No reindeer. Stag abundant. Flints nearly
all of Magdalenian types. Flattened stag-horn harpoons perforated at
base. Bone points and smoothers. Pointed flat pebbles. Bones of stag,
bear, boar, wildcat, beaver.
6. Bones of wild boar, stag, horse. Flints similar to those in 5.
Beginnings of pottery and of polishing; but not of polished axes.
Piette's Arisian. Beginning of Neolithic.
7. Neolithic and Bronze remains.
Layer 5 evidently represents a period posterior to the Magdalenian and
anterior to the real Neolithic. Hence Piette considered it as marking a
distinct Azilian Epoch, resembling the Magdalenian in most of its flint
implements, in the absence of pottery and of polished axes. But the
reindeer has here given place to the stag, and the harpoon has changed
correspondingly and is less skilfully made. Bone implements are
decadent.
Another culture, the Tardenoisian, was of exceedingly wide range. It
took its name from Fère-en-Tardenois, Department of Aisne, northeast of
Paris, and was characterized by its very small "pygmy" flints of
various, usually geometric forms.[35] This microlithic industry was
found in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Russia, and along the
southern shore of the Mediterranean. The culture was well represented
along rivers and inlets, and seemed to characterize a fishing rather
than hunting folk.
In 1909 Breuil and Obermaier found in the grotto of Valle, in northern
Spain, a classic Azilian deposit, forming the lower levels of a series
rich in these microliths or pygmy flints. The Azilian was more nearly a
continuation of the Magdalenian culture, while the Tardenoisian, in
France, seemed to be an importation from the Mediterranean region. Since
the two were so closely related in point of time it seemed safe and wise
to combine the two names and call the epoch the Azilian-Tardenoisian,
the Azilian representing the older portion.
The station of Campigny, on the lower Seine, seems to be somewhat later
than the Azilian-Tardenoisian.[36] Here, in a pit oval in outline, with
a long diameter of 4.30 metres, evidently an ancient dwelling, there
were found bits of pottery, utensils of older stone epochs, no polished
implements, but the tranchet or axe and the pick (pic) characteristic of
the Danish shell-heaps. These Campignian remains are hardly widely
enough diffused or sufficiently definite to give name to a distinct
epoch. They may well be nearly contemporaneous with the (older?)
shell-heaps.
The whole transition epoch, which we have hastily surveyed, shows us a
series or mixture of disconnected cultures, yet with curious and
striking interrelations. This may be partly due to the fact that the
population of Europe was diminished and scattered. Little groups of
people formed more or less isolated communities, and developed their own
special peculiarities according to situation, needs, and opportunities.
Connecting links, or intermediate cultures, which may once have existed,
have been completely lost or still remain to be discovered. The general
desertion of the caves destroyed one of our best sources of continuous
records.
But the cause of this diversity lies deeper. New cultures and new waves
of migration of peoples were pouring into Europe, especially into the
Baltic region now left free of ice, enjoying a mild climate, and
offering an abundance of food along the shores of its rivers, lakes, and
seas. The Tardenoisian culture had spread northward from the
Mediterranean. The broad-headed people of Furfooz, Grenelle, and Ofret
had apparently crossed Europe from the east and had settled in a long
zone extending northward and southward through Belgium and France and
probably southward into Spain, for we remember the broad-heads found at
Mugem, in Portugal. But their distribution was far wider than this strip
of territory. New Neolithic types of culture had already entered Italy,
perhaps as early as Magdalenian times. Series of waves appear to have
passed into Poland, Russia, and Siberia, and to have moved northward
until they reached the coast in Scandinavia and to the eastward. In all
these cases we may probably imagine a gradual and perhaps slow
infiltration or "seeping" in of the new population rather than an
invasion in crowds or masses, such as we are likely to imagine. Vast
stretches of habitable land had been newly opened, and there was plenty
of room for all comers. In many regions the old population may have
remained comparatively undisturbed until a much later date. But even
they slowly came under the influence of the new and improved technique
and mode of life. All this collision of culture and conflict of peoples
meant stimuli, awakening, the jogging of dull minds, a veritable spur of
necessity. A new day was beginning to break. The dawn was dim and
cloudy, but there was the possibility and prospect of clear shining.