NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES
Our very hasty glance at different aspects of Neolithic culture has
shown its marked diversity in different regions. Its essential and
fundamental characteristic was the introduction of tillage and
cattle-raising, gradually replacing the mere collecting stage of hunting
life, and accompanying a steady growth of independence or control of
nature's bounty or stinginess of food supply. This change increased
rather than diminished the diversity of culture in different regions. In
the rich soil of the loess country and the Danube valley there were
genuine farms; in the north cattle and hog-raising probably prevailed,
gradually shading over into hunting as one neared the forests. Along the
Baltic and the great lakes of Sweden and on all the European rivers
fishing was an important source of food. Differences in size, form, and
comfort of dwellings tell the same story. In the north we find
half-underground huts, probably with shelters of logs or skins in or
along the forests. At Grosgartach and in the lake-dwellings and
elsewhere we find rectangular houses, veritable homes rather than mere
shelters. Primitive man bound the body of his dead with thongs and
buried it away in the earth. Then he deposited it in a small stone hut
much like his shelter. He enlarged and improved it. Finally the great
monument with its circle and alignments seems to have become a temple,
and the body, placed in a small cyst or vault, is completely buried, or
is burned. These marked changes in burial customs and rites in western
and northern, not in eastern or central, Europe, must have been
accompanied by changes in the conception of the after life, whether we
can trace and interpret them or not.
The same must be said of all industrial products. Every one of them
tells a story, if we can understand and interpret it. We are not
surprised to find in the late Paleolithic (or early Neolithic) paintings
at Cogul women dressed in waist and short skirt not unlike those worn
to-day. The dress represented in the idols of southeastern Europe has
persisted in the peasant dress of certain isolated regions, especially
in Albania, almost or quite into the present.[94] We have noticed the
spinning, weaving, and dyeing of the lake-dwellers, and a similar
industry was spread all over Europe. The costume of the Bronze period
has been preserved in the oak coffins of Scandinavia.[95] We do not know
how much it had changed and improved since Neolithic times. The use of
wool had doubtless increased greatly. Our northern Neolithic hunters
were probably clad largely in skins and furs.
[Illustration: MODERN ALBANIAN PEASANTS IN NEOLITHIC GARMENTS]
Two manufactured articles are of especial interest to the archæologist:
the stone axes and the pottery. They occur in every settlement. Stone is
imperishable, and clay well fired lasts almost as well. They vary
according to age, place, fashion, and conditions, and form the
foundation for all comparative, "typological" study.[96] Their remains
play the same part in archæology as the characteristic fossils,
"_Leit-fossilien_," in paleontology, not only determining age but
throwing light on the migrations, relations, life, and thought of their
makers.
The Neolithic period gained its name from the polished stone implements
which then appeared. Paleolithic man had learned by long experience the
value of flint as the best material for his tools. He had learned to
chip and flake it; first by blows, then by pressure, until the
Solutrean lance-heads or "points" showed a beauty of form and finish
unsurpassed by the best craftsmen of any later date. He had learned to
give it a fair cutting edge by small "retouches." It seems never to have
occurred to him to grind or whet the edge of his tools. If the axe
thickened rapidly from the edge and was somewhat like a wedge, it was a
good remedy against the brittleness of the flint, its great defect; and
he put the more strength into the blow. The extreme hardness of flint
made polishing very difficult. Most utensils of daily use were not
polished at all. Many of the beautiful daggers, genuine works of art,
were finished by a uniform, fine flaking down to the close of the
period. Flint implements were not polished in Italy, Greece, Spain, and
large parts of eastern Europe;[97] they increase in abundance in
Scandinavia and England. Other kinds of less brittle but somewhat softer
rock were generally used for polished axes.
During the upper Paleolithic period, especially in the Magdalenian
Epoch, daggers, lance-heads, awls, and needles were made of bone. For
pointed implements, flint, while sometimes used, was far less suitable,
except when the point was very short, as in engraving and carving tools.
These bone implements were scraped into shape and often well smoothed.
It seems but a step from smoothing a bone to polishing the edge of an
axe, if not of too hard rock. But the chipped flint axe was very good,
and they were accustomed to it. Forrer thinks that the change must have
been made where flint was scarce and pebbles abundant.[98]
In Scandinavia the kitchen-midden period was followed by an "arctic"
culture, so called because of its distribution in the far north. Here we
find implements of slate or schist polished only along the edges. This
seems like a very natural intermediate stage. We do not know just where
those attempts were first made. They may have been made at different
points in Asia and Europe and at different times, and thus there may
have been several independent centres of discovery and of radiation.
The lake-dwellers used a variety of material; indeed, they seem to have
been quite expert practical mineralogists. Characteristic is their use
of certain rocks which combined great toughness and hardness, and were
thus superior to flint; so chloromelanite, saussurite, nephrite, and
jadeite. These minerals are rare, and the implements made of them were
small chisel-like blades, rarely exceeding an inch in length. They were
usually mounted in a socket of horn fastened into a wooden handle. We
shall see that the source of these minerals is still anything but clear.
The axe of the kitchen-midden[99] is hardly more than a disk struck off
from a flint nucleus, with two sides broken off and the top of the
triangular remnant removed. The axe of later Neolithic time was at first
nearly of the shape of a flattened almond, but gradually changed and
took more of the form of a chisel. The stages in this process of change
are of value in determining the chronology of the period, and will be
discussed in the next chapter. These axes were rudely shaped by flaking
and then ground and polished on large flat stones, which still show the
grooves left by the implement as it was rubbed back and forth. The
different steps in shaping and finishing such axes are well shown by
Hoernes in specimens selected from the rich collections made at Butmir,
Bosnia.
[Illustration: AXES FROM LAKE-DWELLINGS SHOWING ATTACHMENT TO HANDLES]
The lake-dwellers followed a different and improved method. They
selected from the bed of a stream a smooth pebble of somewhat flattened
and elongated egg shape. With a flint flake or saw[100] and sand they
cut a groove in the edge, and split the stone by a sharp blow,
somewhat as a peanut or almond falls apart. The rounded surface of each
half was nearly of the desired form, and only the flat surface required
much shaping. A skilful workman now can finish an axe of this kind in
half a day.[101]
We cannot trace the variety of axes characteristic of different times,
places, and uses. One, which from its resemblance to a shoemaker's last
has been called by the Germans the "_Schuhleistenbeil_," demands
mention.[102] This is a heavy, thick, clumsy implement, with one end
edged or pointed. The lower surface is flat or slightly concave, the
upper nearly semi-circular in cross-section. It reminds us somewhat of
the grub-hoe or mattock, and probably served a similar purpose--to break
up the ground. It is very common in the loess regions of southeastern
Europe, but in the more stony soils of the uplands was generally
replaced by a pick made of a stout tine of deer's horn. Broader and
flatter hoes are found, and stone ploughshares. We must clearly
recognize the distinction between the mattock and a somewhat similar but
lighter polished concave axe, with sharp transverse cutting edge, used
along the Baltic and elsewhere for hollowing out boats. Adze and
mattock are similar in general form, but the carpenter's tool is a much
finer instrument than the agricultural implement, and serves a very
different purpose.
Bone was still used for pointed tools and weapons. A bundle of sharp
pointed ribs found at Robenhausen had probably been used for hackling
flax, Horn was used for sockets for the smaller chisels, and for a
variety of other purposes. Wooden bowls, scoops, and other articles
occur among the remains of the lake-dwellings.
Flint held much the same place in Neolithic industry as iron or steel
with us. Its quality varied greatly in different localities. Our
Neolithic ancestors had discovered that it worked better when freshly
mined than when long exposed and weathered. Hence a mine of flint of the
best quality was as valuable as a field of iron ore or a gold mine
to-day. The most celebrated source of flint in France was Grand
Pressigny, near Tours, Department of Indre-et-Loire.[103] The color and
texture of this flint enables us to recognize it wherever found. It was
exported as far as Brittany, Normandy, Belgium, and western Switzerland.
At Spiennes, in Belgium, they sunk shafts sometimes to a depth of forty
feet. Here horizontal galleries extended out into the layers of chalk
containing the best quality of flint. Similar mines were located at
Grimes Graves and at Cissbury, in England.[104] The flint was exported
sometimes in blocks, sometimes as half or completely finished
implements. Around Grand Pressigny workshops are numerous. But they are
by no means limited to the immediate vicinity of the mines. In some
localities the manufacture was almost limited to one particular article.
Here the product was exported in finished form.
During the Bronze period Halle was a seat of wealth, and the large
amount of copper found here suggests that the production of salt had
begun here before the close of Neolithic times. Hoernes says that the
production of salt at Hallstadt, a source of great wealth and luxury
during the earliest Iron Epoch, and of no small extent during the Bronze
period, had its beginnings in Neolithic days. The value of salt in trade
or barter can hardly be overestimated.
A very small amount of gold, mostly in the form of beads, has been found
in the Neolithic monuments of France erected at the very close of this
period. Occurring native in small nuggets in the beds of streams and
rivers of many parts of Europe, its color and malleability must have
attracted the notice of the searchers after new material for implements.
Large nuggets were found in Spain at a much later date with callais, a
mineral resembling turquoise, which occurs from Portugal to
Brittany.[105]
Objects of copper were found by Pumpelly at Anau contemporary with the
appearance of turbary sheep, about 6000 B. C.[106] It appears in Egypt
perhaps 1,000 years later. We find traces of it in the oldest city of
Troy (Hissarlik). It may well have entered southeastern Europe by way of
Troy, or northward from Greece through the Balkan Peninsula to the
Danube valley. A more westerly route lay open through Italy, or the
islands west of it, into Spain. Native metallic copper seems to fail in
Europe proper, but mines for ore were opened in Tyrol, and probably
elsewhere, before the end of the period.
Copper was very useful for ornaments, especially rings, armlets, and
bracelets; for pointed objects like needles, pins, awls, and even
daggers; to a certain extent for knives and razors. Copper axes were
modelled at first after old stone patterns. This metal had one fatal
defect, however; it would not hold an edge. Copper utensils were
beautiful, but generally less useful than similar ones made of stone.
They were largely for display and luxury, though this may hardly be true
of its use in Egypt and the Orient. In Europe it could not shake the
hold of the old, established flint. When the copper ore contained
impurities of antimony or zinc, the alloy was harder. Then we find a
very small percentage of tin, which slowly increases. There must have
been long searching and experimenting before the classical recipe for
bronze, ninety per cent copper and ten per cent tin, was established. We
cannot well speak of a new copper culture or period. This began with the
introduction of the harder and more beautiful, but always rare and
expensive bronze. Still the great characteristic of the Bronze Age lay
not so much in the introduction of a new metal as in the wider
relations, communications, exchange of goods, and knowledge, and freer
movements of individuals and peoples, which had brought it about. The
discovery of metals, of salt, of minerals, and other materials useful
for ornament and of the Baltic amber, was gradually furnishing
considerable material which could be readily exchanged for the products
of other sometimes distant and more advanced provinces and lands. The
centres of distribution were often at some or considerable distance
from the sources of the raw material, so especially in the case of flint
implements. The location of the seat of manufacture and distribution
depends largely on freedom and ease of communication. This leads us to
glance at trade and trade-routes during this period.
We must bear in mind that the means of transportation were few and
inadequate. The wheeled cart appeared during the Bronze period, but we
have no proof of its use earlier. The horse was not yet domesticated
in Europe, and did not come into use in the Orient much before 2000 B.
C.[107] Cattle may have been used as beasts of burden at an early
period, but of this we know nothing. Roads of a certain kind, often
probably hardly more than mere trails, almost certainly existed,
especially in the neighborhood of the great stone monuments and larger
villages. The great bar to free communication was the forest. To avoid
this almost impassable barrier the roads and trails seem usually to
have kept to the uplands, especially those where the chalk prevented a
heavy forest growth. Certain river valleys, like that of the Thames,
were heavily forested almost or quite to the shore, and hardly
inhabited at this time. But when the forest drew back somewhat from
the water's edge there was a most attractive place for human
settlement. The river bottoms were fertile and easy of cultivation.
There was grass for herds, wood for buildings and fuel. The rivers
swarmed with fish down to recent times, and there was a great variety
and abundance of smaller animal life. Such valleys formed natural
routes of trade and migration.[108] We are not surprised to find that
the earliest settlers of Sweden made their way from shore to interior
along the rivers and lakes, whose shores are dotted with settlements
of this age.[109] Déchelette tells us that this was true of the
grouping of the Neolithic stations of France in three great provinces
in the basins of the Seine, the Garonne, the Rhone, the Saone and the
Loire. We remember the lake-dwellers. The valley of the Danube has
been the great thoroughfare since the arrival of man in Europe. The
great ancient civilizations of Egypt and Chaldea arose in the valleys
of the Nile and the Euphrates.
We know that the people of the shell-heaps must have ventured some
distance from shore, fishing for cod. The transition from Paleolithic to
Neolithic might almost be characterized as a time of change from a
hunting life to one very largely of fishing. Long before this emigrants,
probably from Asia Minor, had sailed out into the Mediterranean and
settled Crete. Here, before 3000 B. C., a veritable sea-power had arisen
carrying on trade with Egypt and the shores of the Ægean. The voyage of
the Argonauts, a "much-sung" story and saga in Homer's time, may well
have had a historical foundation in expeditions for trade and plunder
along the shores of the Black Sea, up its rivers, and extending as far
as distant Colchis. Hence the importance of Troy in ancient times and of
Constantinople to-day.
Returning to the Baltic region,[110] we find that a cave on the island
of Stora Karlso, close to the west shore of Gothland, contained
Neolithic deposits nearly three metres thick. In the upper layers there
were remains of domestic animals, in the lower only wild forms. This
island lies some thirty miles from Oland, just off the east coast of
Sweden. Montelius tells us that before the end of the Neolithic period
there was communication between Sweden and Finland, as well as with
Denmark and Germany; that trade between these regions was active, and
that there is reason for thinking that there was communication between
the west coast of Sweden and England. It seems highly probable that
boats were creeping along the coast of Spain and France from harbor to
harbor, although the evidence is here less clear and compelling.
Our knowledge of Neolithic boats is still very incomplete.[111] Those of
the lake-dwellers seem to have been usually hardly more than dugouts
hollowed by fire. One, however, from Lake Châlain (Jura) was about
thirty feet long and two and one-half wide, made out of an oak-trunk.
Such boats served well for river navigation, but were too shallow and
clumsy for the open sea. It would have been a comparatively easy matter
to add one or two planks along each side of such a dugout and thus
build up a fairly seaworthy craft. The rock-sculptures of Bohuslan,
Sweden, which probably date from early in the Bronze Age, represent
boats of fair size carrying as many as thirty men.[112]
The wares exchanged in this trade were limited in material and value.
Metals and metallic objects were still unknown, except as copper and
gold came in before the end of the period. Still, there were many
objects which met a fairly wide demand. We have already seen that
different lake-dwellings differed markedly in their products. Some were
almost purely agricultural. In others we find remains of pottery
evidently manufactured on the spot in larger quantities than the village
could use. Much of this must have been exported along the lake, perhaps
farther. Schliz distinguished at Grosgartach a rude home-made pottery
from a finer ware apparently brought from some centre of finer and more
artistic work. The Neolithic housewife was probably very proud of this
"china." The finer grades of cloth manufactured at Robenhausen and
elsewhere were probably carried far and wide, but it is impossible to
trace it. The flint mined at Grand Pressigny was transported to greater
or less distances, as well as manufactured at the mouth of the mine. At
the various workshops the implements were made in great numbers and
still more widely disseminated. This was equally true of flint regions
in other parts of Europe. Stone arm-rings, mace-heads and other fine
articles found sparsely in northern Europe may well have been copies of
a few articles brought from Italy or even farther.[113]
The nephrite and jadeite of the lake-dwellings were long supposed to be
imports from eastern Asia--until it was discovered that the material of
many of those implements differed in microscopic structure from the
Asiatic, and then were supposed to be of indigenous material. Probably
both extreme views are untenable. A certain amount of communication with
the Orient is shown by the occurrence of rings made of recent shells of
Tridacna or Spondylus in Egypt, throughout the Mediterranean region, in
France, and occasionally in middle Europe. The material apparently came
from the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean. The same is true of a shell of
Meleagrinia found in a hut-foundation in Rivatella, Italy.[114]
Ornaments in the form of Mediterranean shells strung as necklaces are
not uncommon in France, and occur elsewhere. The Mediterranean lands
were in close communication with Egypt and Asia Minor; Spain with
Africa, which furnished ivory and carved ostrich egg-shells carried
farther north in rare instances. Stone palettes similar to those found
in Egyptian graves occur in southern France and elsewhere. More careful
search and study will doubtless greatly increase the number of similar
illustrations.
Scandinavia was already showing its appreciation of beauty of form and
finish, which made its products unsurpassed during the Bronze period.
Its marvellous flint daggers and hammer-axes were widely distributed and
excite our admiration to-day. But the product which it was later to
export to Greece and Italy in payment for the metal and art-treasures of
the south was amber, an admirable material for jewelry, easily cut,
transparent, of various hues, and taking a brilliant polish. So Homer
speaks of a royal necklace, "golden, adorned with amber, like a blazing
sun." Far back in Neolithic times we find jars containing large
quantities of amber in the form of rude beads. One such hoard contained
4,000 articles, and weighed 17 pounds. The amber was evidently used for
necklaces, and was common in the graves of the earlier epochs. It seems
to have made its way slowly over North Germany. Amber beads occur very
sparingly in the lake-dwellings. During the Bronze period it disappears
largely in Scandinavian graves and is here less used for ornaments, but
appears in Greece and Italy, where its beauty and possibilities could be
properly appreciated. The value of amber in Scandinavia as an article of
export rose to such an extent that the inhabitants largely gave up the
use of it and exchanged it wholesale for the more attractive and useful
metal. During this period there was a regular trade-route between the
Baltic and the Mediterranean.
[Illustration: BOATS FROM ROCK CARVINGS IN BOHUSLAN, SWEDEN. (EARLY
BRONZE AGE)]
As Hoernes[115] says, it was this new trade which brought with it the
close of the Neolithic period in northern Europe. But the change from
the age of stone to that of bronze was anything but abrupt or sudden; in
fact, it extended over more than 1,000 years. It was apparently not
brought about by the invasion of a conquering race, though it was
accompanied and followed by marked change and shifting of the population
of central Europe. First we find a few copper ornaments and implements
stealing into France and southern Europe. Then the metal becomes more
abundant as people increase in wealth and can afford luxuries. Then
bronze comes in from southeast and south, and very slowly north of the
Alps. It meets the current of amber from the north.
Thus the two most beautiful, precious, and desirable materials of the
time have come together. Both are easy of transport. A trade which has
long been preparing or proceeding on a small scale expands rapidly,
perhaps suddenly, and ushers in a new period, which, after all, chiefly
carries on or brings into prominence that which had begun or advanced
during the preceding age.
More interesting and, perhaps, more important than exchange of flint
axes and amber is the spread of patterns, methods, influences; of new
ideas and stimuli from mind to mind and people to people. A new
implement, like the mace-heads and arm-rings, of which we have spoken; a
new form of axe or dagger; the form and ornament of pottery; the
building of dolmens or the spread of immigration with the accompanying
change of cult and thought--all these brought not only economic
improvement but growth of mind. Sophus Müller, and Montelius in a less
degree, may have been somewhat extreme in their emphasis on the
importance of oriental and Mediterranean influences and leadership, but
their main thesis was correct.[116] Civilization and culture were far
older in the Orient than in Europe, and far more advanced south than
north of the Alps. These were the centres of radiation of ideas and
stimuli as well as patterns, inventions, and discoveries.
This does not mean that northern Europe was a passive recipient. It
accepted and adopted whatever and only what it would, and probably
refused many a valuable suggestion. In many cases it improved on the
patterns or example of its teacher and inspirer. The art of polishing
stone implements and the use of bronze may not have been indigenous in
Scandinavia; but here, as time went on, genuine works of art were
produced superior to any in the world, far more artistic than the
beautiful technique of the Egyptians. Prehistoric domestic animals were
almost certainly introduced from the East. But the lake-dwellers usually
improved the breed by intercrossing with forms derived from their own
fauna. They increased the list of cultivated plants. The idea or
conception passed from tribe to tribe, but the new stimulus did its
fermenting work differently, according to the mind or medium into which
it fell. There was always readaptation and more or less change. To be a
wide borrower and at the same time to usually improve on one's teacher
requires something very close to genius, though the originality may be
less obtrusive. We have no reason to be ashamed of our Neolithic
ancestors.
The result of this exchange of products and ideas will be more apparent
during the next period. Trade-routes and lines of communication will
then become far more clear and fixed. But it is important to notice that
these routes are already opening in all directions, perhaps more
numerous because still experimental, tentative, and somewhat vague. The
routes of transportation during prehistoric times, as usually in pioneer
periods, were mainly along river valleys. Where basins almost or quite
touch one another centres of contact and distribution naturally arise.
Hence the prosperity of the Department of Saone-et-Loire, in France. A
study of any good relief-map of Europe will show the chief routes of
trade almost at a glance. The great east-and-west artery is the valley
of the Danube, with its tributaries extending far northward, almost
touching the headwaters of rivers flowing into the North Sea or Baltic.
The westernmost north-and-south route is by sea along the Atlantic coast
from Spain to England or Denmark. A second was formed by the Rhone and
Rhine, eastward and parallel to the French highlands extending from the
Mediterranean to Belgium, broken by the pass of Belfort. A third ran up
the valley of the Elbe and down the Moldau to the Danube. This was the
most important route in Europe, especially for amber. A fourth, from the
Baltic to the Black Sea, followed the Vistula and the Dniester. From
ancient times the Black Sea and its tributaries have been the great
route of communication between the Ægean and southern Russia as well as
parts of the Balkan Peninsula. During the greater part of the Neolithic
period it was probably only a sluggish and irregular current of trade
which trickled along most of these routes, put it was the beginning and
promise of larger and better things, and must not be despised or
neglected.
In any study of the industries of this period the manufacture of pottery
is of the greatest interest and most fundamental importance. Pottery is
to the archæologist what characteristic fossils are to the
paleontologist. It is almost indestructible. In its texture, form, and
ornament it affords wide scope for individual or tribal skill and
invention, and yet over wide areas the general type shows a remarkable
unity and persistency. A single sherd may often tell a long and reliable
story. The pottery of the Mediterranean basin and of many oriental
localities is a fairly sure guide to the age of a long-buried settlement
and to the relations of its people with other, often distant regions.
The chronology and much of the history of Egypt, Troy, and Crete, and
many ancient settlements of Greece and Italy, are based largely on the
study of their pottery. It is far more expressive and informing than the
average stone or bone implement.
The time is not yet ripe, however, for such deductions from the study of
the pottery of northern and middle Europe. A good foundation has been
laid, much material gathered which is being built up into a firm system.
But in this pioneer work many rash generalizations have been based upon
a foundation of facts drawn from a very narrow area, often incompletely
understood. Here we must proceed cautiously and can give only a very
brief and inadequate outline sketch of the most important results in
which we may have a fair degree of confidence and which are needed in
our further study.
Pottery appears first in the transition epoch from Paleolithic to
Neolithic, at Campigny and in the kitchen-middens. Long before this time
there must have been containers for fluids. A concavity in the rock may
have been the first reservoir and a mussel-shell the first drinking-cup.
Wherever gourds occurred they were doubtless hollowed out and made most
convenient jars and dishes. Vessels of bark and wood probably came into
use early in the north. Skins of animals tightly sewn with sinew and
with well-greased seams formed excellent bottles, still used in the
Orient. Where the art of plaiting twigs, splints, or reeds into mats and
baskets had been discovered, it was not a long step to coat the inside
with clay and dry or finally burn it before the fire. The potter's
wheel did not come into use until the Bronze period. Pottery had been
used in the Orient long before this time. It is found well made and
beautifully decorated in the oldest strata at Susa. The art may have
been introduced from Asia or lost during the long migration and then
reacquired. Here we are still in the dark.
[Illustration: POTTERY FROM NEOLITHIC GRAVES]
The pottery of northern Europe can be distributed into a few groups or
general types, every one of which is wide-spread and fairly distinct,
though mixture or combination of types is not uncommon, especially along
the boundaries of distribution where two types meet. There is much
difference of opinion and discussion concerning details, but general
agreement as to fundamentals and essentials.[117]
Intermediate or "hybrid" forms also occur. The classification is hardly
natural and is responsible for much confusion and dispute. It can have
only temporary and provisional value. These three groups are:
1. Banded pottery, _Céramique rubanée_, _Bandkeramik_.
2. Corded pottery, _Céramique cordée_, _Schnurkeramik_.
3. Calyciform pottery, _Vases caliciforms_, _Zonenbecher._
They differ mostly in ornamentation, but often also as distinctly in
form.
1. _Banded pottery_ occurs all over Europe except northeast of the Oder,
perhaps also in Great Britain. Its shape is usually that of a spheroidal
gourd with the upper fourth removed; and its system of ornament may have
been derived from the system of cords by which the jar was once
suspended. Sometimes we find a low neck, rim, or collar around the large
mouth. The ornament in what seems to be its most primitive form consists
of lines marked in the clay, arranged parallel to one another in bands
covering most of the body of the jar. These bands, either broad or
narrow, run in a zigzag or saw-tooth pattern horizontally around the
base. By doubling each saw-tooth we get a diamond-shaped area. Even this
simple ornament admits of a large variety of patterns. But the bands may
be curved instead of angular, forming scrolls, meanders, or spirals.
Logically, these should represent the latest development of the type.
But the spiral may yet prove to be actually older than the angle. The
bands may be raised and projecting (Bosnia) or be merely painted on a
flat, sometimes burnished, surface. The incised lines may be plain or
filled with a white material (encrusted). The briefest consideration
shows that we have here a very generalized type or group of types which
made its first appearance in Europe on the lower Danube and then
underwent development by simplification or sometimes, perhaps, by
increased complexity, as it radiated from this centre, becoming more and
more modified as it went westward or northward.
The banded pottery of southwest Germany and the Rhine region is found in
dwellings as well as graves, usually accompanied by the mattock or the
deer-horn pick, but lance-heads fail. The rectangular houses belonged to
people of a settled and quite advanced agriculture. We find cellars, and
barns or granaries. The dwellings are single or in groups, sometimes, as
at Grosgartach, forming quite a village or town. They are situated by
preference on the loess terraces of the streams and rivers, near enough
to the water for boat communication. The pottery varies in fineness and
beauty according to the size of the dwelling and therefore the wealth of
its owner. Social differences, rank, and fashion are appearing in truly
modern form.
2. _Corded Pottery._ The most characteristic and, perhaps, culminating
form is the Amphora or flasklike vase with wide neck, which starts
abruptly from a globose portion with flat base. Its prototype may have
been the leathern flask or bottle. Here the ornament consists of
parallel lines arranged in a band or in bands around the neck, but often
extending somewhat on to the upper surface of the bulb. The lines look
as if made by winding a cord around the neck while the clay was still
soft; hence the name of the group. It seems to have been originally a
purely northern product, which toward the close of the Neolithic period
was carried southward by a distinct movement of population. It is found
almost entirely in graves, often accompanied by calyciform cups. Schliz
says that it is never found in remains of dwellings. The household
pottery was apparently crude and coarse, with no distinctive type of
ornament. The carriers of the culture were apparently herdsmen rather
than tillers of the soil, and always more or less hunters. Their finest
implements were their weapons.
3. _Calyciform Pottery, Zonen-or Glocken-becher_, has been by some
united with Corded Pottery. It has the shape of a goblet or inverted
bell with flaring rim and flat base.
[Illustration: POTTERY
_A._ Banded pottery.
_B._ 1. Origin of banded ornament from cords suspending a more
or less hemispherical vessel derived from the hollow gourd.
2. Corded ornament derived from suspension of flask (Amphora).
_C._ Cups and Kugelamphore (globular flask) from Groszgartach.]
The ornament is in circular zones separated by bands of well-polished
surface covering the whole outside. It is found in Asia Minor, Egypt,
Italy, and in western Europe along the whole zone of megalithic
monuments, whence it spread northward and eastward into middle Europe.
The incrusted pottery characterized by incised lines filled with a white
material may have had a distinct origin and development, though its
technique has often been borrowed and applied to other types. The
pottery of the oldest lake-dwellers is crude, coarse, with little or no
ornament. Hence it is difficult to connect it with any other type.
Form and shape of pottery are often quite or very persistent. We cannot
understand why the base of so many jars was left rounded, or in some old
lake-dwellings pointed, when it might easily have been flattened,
apparently to good advantage. But even the form, and still more the
ornament, changes according to time, place, and fashion; hence these are
very useful in tracing periods and cultures and their relations. Where
different types meet there is usually more or less change or
modification, often difficult to interpret. Our knowledge of European
pottery is still small and unsatisfactory, but it has already been of
much use in tracing migrations of culture and relations between
provinces often widely separated.