Food, Cannibalism, Mammals Fish, Hunting, and Fishing.
The first care of man on his arrival upon the earth was necessarily
to make sure of food. Wild berries, acorns, and ephemeral grasses
only last for a time, whilst land mollusca and insects, forming but
a miserable diet at the best, disappear during the winter. Meat
must certainly have been the chief food of prehistoric man; the
accumulations of bones of all sorts in the caves and other places
inhabited by him leave no doubt on that point. The horse, which in
Europe was hunted, killed, and eaten for many centuries before it was
domesticated, was an important article of diet, and was supplemented
by the aurochs, the stag, the chamois, the wild goat, the boar, the
bare, and failing them, the wolf, the fox, and above all the reindeer,
which multiplied rapidly in districts suitable to it. The elephant
bones picked up on Mount Dol and elsewhere are nearly all those of
young animals; and it is probable that they had been killed for food by
man. In the Sureau Cave in Belgium,[49] in that of Aurignac in France,
and Brixham in England, have been found complete skeletons of the URSUS
SPELAEUS, which bad evidently been dragged in with the flesh still
on them, for all the bones are in their natural position. In other
caves, the thorax and the vertebrae of the skeletons were missing; the
cave-man, having despatched his victim, bad evidently taken only the
more succulent parts into his retreat. Beasts of prey merely gnaw the
comparatively tender and spongy tops of the bones, leaving the hard,
compact parts untouched. In the caves that were inhabited by man,
however, we find the apophyses neglected, whilst the diaphyses are
split open. We cannot, therefore, make any mistake on this point,
or attribute to the beast of prey what is certainly the work of man.
Whilst he evidently preferred to hunt and eat the larger mammals,
man when pressed by hunger did not despise the small rodents, which
were, of course, more easily captured. Amongst piles of the bones of
horses and stags have been found the remains of martens, hedgehogs,
and mice; and from the Thayngen Cave have been taken the bones of more
than five hundred bares. In Belgium the water-rat seems to have been
considered a dainty, and in the Chaleux Cave alone were found more
than twenty pounds' weight of the bones of this creature, nearly all
bearing traces of having been subjected to the action of fire.
The remains of birds are rarer, and Broca has remarked that the most
ancient hunting implements which have come down to us; those from the
Moustier Cave, for instance, were adapted rather to attack animals that
would show fight than those that would simply fly or run away. The
Gourdan Cave, however, has yielded the bones of the moor-fowl, the
partridge, the wild duck, and even the domesticated cock And hen; the
Frontal Cave, the thrush, the duck, the partridge, and the pigeon;
and in other caves were found the bones of the goose, the swan, and
the grouse. Milne-Edwards enumerates fifty-one species belonging to
different orders found in the caves of France, and M. Riviere picked
up the remains of thousands of birds in those of Baousse-Rousse on
the frontier of Italy.[50]
The skulls of the mammals bad been opened, and the bones
split. Brains and marrow probably figured at feasts as the greatest
delicacies. Travellers, whose tales are a help to us in building up a
picture of the remote past of our race, relate that the Laplanders,
as soon as an animal is killed, break open its skull and devour the
brain whilst it is still warm and bleeding. This was probably also
the custom amongst prehistoric cave-men.
The flesh of animals was not, alas, the only meat eaten, and
excavations in different parts of the globe have led to the discovery
of traces of the practice of cannibalism which it is difficult not
to accept.[51]
Dr. Spring noticed at Chauvaux a great many bones which were nearly
all those of women and children, side by side with which lay others of
ruminants belonging to species still extant. All these bones bad alike
been subjected to great heat, and none but those which bad contained no
marrow were left unbroken. This appears an incontrovertible proof of
cannibalism, and Dr. Spring concludes that it was certainly practised
by the earliest inhabitants of Belgium. We must add, however, that
other excavations in the same cave at Chauvaux prove that it was
used as a burial-place, some skeletons being ranged in regular order
with weapons and stone implements placed beside them.[52] M. Dupont
mentions having found in the caves of the Lesse, which date from the
Reindeer period, human bones mixed with other remains of a meal. He
notes a similar fact in another cave that he considers belongs to
Neolithic times. "But," he adds, "none of these bones bear any trace
of having been struck with a flint or other tool with a view to their
fracture. If any of them are broken it is transversely, and the cause
of the fracture has been merely the weight of the earth above them;
moreover, they show no trace of the action of fire."[53] M. Dupont,
therefore, still retains some doubt of the cannibalism of the cave-men
of the valley of the Lesse, and attributes the presence of the bones of
the dead amongst the rubbish of all kinds accumulated by the living,
to their idleness and indifference. One example at the present day
tends to confirm this opinion, for travellers tell us of the same
revolting carelessness amongst the Esquimaux, who cannot certainly
be classed amongst cannibals.
The Abbe Chierici, speaking at the Brussels Congress[54] of the
excavations in one of the Reggio caves, remarked that human bones
were mixed with those of animals, and that both showed traces of
having been burnt. These bones date from the Neolithic period, and
with them were picked up various objects of remarkable workmanship,
including fragments of pottery, half a grindstone for crushing grain,
and some admirably polished serpentine hatchets.
Other facts leave no doubt of the cannibalism of the earliest
inhabitants of Italy. Moreover, hesitation on this point is
impossible for other reasons, as Roman historians allude to the
practice. Pliny,[55] in saying how little removed was a human sacrifice
from a meal, adds, that it ought not to surprise us to meet with this
monstrous custom amongst barbarian races, as it prevailed in ancient
times in Italy and Sicily.
It is generally admitted that we can tell whether the fracture of long
bones was intentional by the way in which they were broken. This fact,
which is true alike with the bones of men and of animals, is the most
important proof we have of the cannibalism of the men of the Stone
age. To the examples already given, we can easily add others culled
from France. In the Pyrenees and in the caves of Lourdes and Gourdan,
for instance, human bones have been found mixed with the cinders and
ashes of the hearth, and still bearing the marks of the implements
with which they were broken.
At Bruniquel a human skull was found which had been opened in the
same way as the heads of ruminants amongst which it was picked up, and
on its external surface were deep notches, which appear to have been
made with a flint hatchet. Similar traces of revolting feasts on human
flesh are not at all rare; near Paris, at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,
and at Varenne-Saint-Maur, for instance.[56]
The excavations in the Montesquieu-Avantes Cave, about six miles from
Saint-Girons, have brought to light a hearth covered over with a layer
of stalagmite; numerous fragments of human bones, crania, femora,
tibiae, humeri, and radii were found in this layer, and in that of the
subjacent clay. In many cases the medullary orifice had been enlarged
to make it easier to get out the marrow. It is impossible to attribute
this to a rodent, for the bones gnawed by animals of that kind present
a regular series of marks. The conclusion is inevitable: these bones,
alike of men and of animals, were the remains of a meal.[57]
In Kent's Hole, the celebrated cave in Devonshire, amongst many objects
dating from the Stone age, were found some human bones bearing traces
of having been gnawed by man. The eminent anthropologist, Owen, came
to a similar conclusion -- that cannibalism had been practised --
after examining the jaw-bone of a child found in Scotland; and so did
the Rev. F. Porter, after the excavations near Scarborough, where
several skeletons were found under a tumulus, which had apparently
been thrown where they were discovered by accident.
The Cesareda caves in Portugal have yielded some bones split
lengthwise; and beneath the dolmen near the village of Hammer, in
Denmark, human bones and those of stags have been found half gnawed,
and showing only too clearly the origin of the marks upon them. Worsaae
quotes similar facts at Borreby, Chantres refers to the same thing in
the caves of the Caucasus, Captain Burton at Beitsahur, near Jerusalem,
Wiener in the SAMBAQUIS of Brazil, even in deposits which he considers
of recent origin.[58]
Brazil is not the only part of the American continent in which we find
traces of the use of this revolting food. In the kitchen-middings of
Florida Wyman found human bones, which had been intentionally broken,
mixed with those of deer and beavers. The marrow had been taken from
all of them and eaten by man. Yet more recent discoveries of a similar
kind have been made in New England.[59]
We must, however, add that many of these facts are contested. Every
people considers it a point of honor to repudiate the idea that its
ancestors fed on human flesh, and yet everywhere history tells us
of the practice of cannibalism. Herodotus speaks of it amongst the
Androphagae and the Issedones, people of Scythian origin; Aristotle
amongst the races living on the borders of the Pontus Euxinus;
Diodorus Siculus amongst the Galatians; and Strabo, in his turn,
says: "The Irish, more savage than the Bretons, are cannibals and
polyphagous; they consider it an honor to eat their parents soon
after life is extinct."[60]
From the ancient tombs of Georgia have been taken human bones that
have been boiled or charred, which were doubtless those of the victims
eaten by the assistants in the FETES which have ever accompanied
funeral rites.
In the fourth century of our era Jerome speaks of having met in Gaul
with the Attacotes, descended from a savage Scotch tribe, who fed on
human flesh, and that though they possessed great herds of cattle and
flocks of sheep, with numbers of pigs, for whom their vast forests
afforded excellent grazing grounds[61]; and though the Scandinavian
kitchen-middings have not so far yielded any traces of the practice of
cannibalism, Adam of Bremen, who preached Christianity at the court
of King Sweyn Ulfson, represents the Danes of his day as barbarians
clad in the skins of beasts, chasing the aurochs and the eland,
unable to do more than imitate the cries of animals and devouring
the flesh of their fellow-men.[62]
Nothing could exceed the barbarity of the Mexican sacrifices, the
numbers of the victims, and the refinements of torture to which they
were subjected. Prisoners, who had often been fattened for months
previously, perished by thousands on the altars. The palpitating flesh
was distributed amongst the assistants, and a horrible custom compelled
the priests to clothe themselves in the still bleeding skins of the
unfortunate wretches, and to wear them until they rotted to pieces.
Without going back to an antiquity so remote, in how many different
regions of Africa and America, and in how many islands of Polynesia
have not our sailors and missionaries reported the practice
of cannibalism in our own day? It is difficult, therefore, not to
believe, although the fact cannot perhaps be very distinctly proved,
that the first inhabitants of Europe degraded as were the conditions
of their existence, did eat human flesh and acquire a depraved taste
for it; impelled thereto not only by the pangs of hunger, but also
by a revolting superstition.
Animals, however, were very plentiful all around. Stags, elks, aurochs,
horses, and the large pachyderms multiplied very rapidly in the wide
solitudes, the pasture lands of which afforded them a constantly
renewed supply of food, and the beasts of prey in their turn found an
easy prey in the ruminants.[63] The ways of animals do not change, and
the travellers who are exploring the interior of Africa tell us that
now, as in the day we are trying to recall, hundreds of elephants and
rhinoceroses congregate in a limited area, whilst innumerable herds
of giraffes, zebras, and gazelles graze peacefully in the presence
of man, whose destructive powers they have not yet learnt to dread.
Delegorgue speaks of one lake peopled by more than one hundred
hippopotami, and of a region less than three miles in diameter
containing six hundred elephants. Livingstone tells us that he
saw troops of more than four thousand antelopes pass at a time,
and that these animals showed absolutely no fear. We may give a yet
more curious instance. Captain Gordon Cumming, crossing the plains
stretching away on the north of the Cape, saw troops of gazelles and
antelopes, compelled by a long drought to migrate in search of the
water indispensable to them, and be describes with enthusiasm one of
these migrations, telling us that the plain was literally covered
with animals, the hurrying herds defiling before him in an endless
stream. On the evening of the same day, a yet more numerous herd
passed by in the same direction, the numbers of which were absolutely
incalculable, but which, according to Cumming, must have exceeded
several hundred thousand.
Such must have been animal life in Europe in Quaternary times. "Grand
indeed," cries Hugh Miller, "was the fauna of the British Isles in
those days. Tigers, as large again as the biggest Asiatic species,
lurked in the ancient thickets; elephants, of nearly twice the bulk of
the largest individuals that now exist in Africa or Ceylon, roamed in
herds; at least two species of rhinoceros forced their way through the
primeval forest, and the lakes and rivers were tenanted by hippopotami
as bulky and with as great tusks as those of Africa."[64]
Material proofs of the presence of animals are not wanting. The
accumulation of coprolites in the cave of Sentenheim (Alsace) bears
witness to the number of bears which once haunted it. Nordmann took
from a cave near Odessa 4,500 bones of ursidae, associated with
no less numerous relics of the large cave-lion and cave-hyena.[65]
The Kulock Cave, now some six hundred and fifty feet above the river,
contained the remains of no less than 2,500 bears, and similar relics
occur by thousands in the osseous breccia of Santenay and in the
cave of Lherm, where they form a regular ossuary. It would be easy
to quote similar facts from Belgian, German, and Hungarian caves. In
almost every case the position of the skeletons seems to show that the
bears sought a last refuge in the caves, and that death had surprised
them during their winter sleep. Pachyderms were no less numerous than
bears. The remains of mammoths are found from the north of Europe to
Greece and Spain, and we meet with them in Algeria, ,gyp Asia from
the Altai Mountains to the Arctic Ocean, and in America in Mexico
and Kentucky. They seem to have entrenched themselves especially in
Siberia, whence tusks are still exported as an article of commerce. In
the extreme North, those parts of Wrangel's Land which have been
explored are strewn with the bones of mastodons, and in some parts of
Sonora and Columbia these remains form almost inexhaustible deposits.
Animals of the cervine and equine groups were, if possible, yet more
numerous. M. Piette estimates the number of reindeer whose bones he
has picked up in the Gourdan Cave as over. 3,000, and the number of
cervidae found at Hohlefels is positively incalculable.
In 1826, Marcel de Serres called attention to the great number of the
bones of animals of the equine family found in the neighborhood of
Lunel-Viel; at Solutre, the remains of horses cover a great portion
of the slope which stretches from. the eastern side of the mountain
to the bottom of the valley. Here are found those vast accumulations
to which the inhabitants of the valley give the characteristic name
of HORSE-WALLS. The number of horses, the bones of which have gone to
form these walls, may be estimated without exaggeration at 40,000. The
bones are mixed together in the greatest confusion, many of them show
traces of having been burnt, and the flesh of the horse was evidently
the favorite diet of the people of Solutre.[66]
At first man obtained by force, often aided by strategy, the animals
he coveted. He bad not yet learnt to tame them and reduce them to
servitude. Neither the reindeer nor the horse was as yet domesticated,
and neither in the caves nor in the various deposits elsewhere has a
complete skeleton been found, but only -- a very significant fact --
the bones on which had been the greater amount of flesh. The absence
of any remains of the dog, so indispensable an animal in the keeping of
flocks, is yet another proof that domestication was still unpractised.
It was with most miserable weapons, such as a few stones, scarcely
even rough-hewn, and a few flint arrows, that the cave-man did
not hesitate to attack the most formidable animals, and with such
apparently inadequate means he succeeded in wounding and even killing
them. The French Museum possesses mammoth and rhinoceros bones bearing
fine scratches produced by the weapons which had been used to despatch
the animals. The metacarpus of a large beast of prey, found at Eyzies,
retains marks no less clear, and the skull of a bear front Nabrigas
has in it a large wound which must have been made by a missile of
some kind.
In Ireland a stone hammer was found wedged into the head of a CERVUS
MEGACEROS; in Cambridgeshire, the skull of an URSUS SPELAEUS still
containing the fragment of a celt which had given the animal his
deathblow; at Richmond (Yorkshire) the bones of a large deer which
had been sawn with a flint implement. The fine collection in the
University of Lund, contains a vertebra of a urns pierced by an arrow,
and the Copenhagen Museum, the jaw of a stag pierced by a fragment
of flint. Steenstrup mentions two bones of a large stag into which
stone chips had penetrated deeply, and in which the fracture had been
gradually covered over by the bony tissue. A bone of some bovine animal
with an arrow deeply imbedded in it has been taken from a bed of peat
in the island of Moen, celebrated for its tumuli and the number of
objects found in them. At Eyzies, a flint flake has been found firmly
fixed in one of the lumbar vertebrae of a young reindeer, and M. de
Baye mentions an arrow with a tranverse edge stuck in the bone of a
badger.[67] The Abbe Ducrost found a flint arrow-head sticking in a
vertebra of a horse.
Nor were those already mentioned the only animals on which man made
war. We shall speak presently of the contests with each other, which
began amongst men in the very earliest days of humanity. Human bones,
perforated by arrows and broken by stone hatchets, bear ineffaceable
traces to this day of homicidal struggles.
In many places fresh-water and marine fish were utilized as food
by man. In the numerous caves of the Vezere, in those of Madeleine,
Eyzies, and Bruniquel, excavations have brought to light the vertebrae
and other bones of fishes, amongst which predominate chiefly those
of the jack, the carp, the bream, the drub, the trout, and the
tench -- in a word, all the fish which still people our rivers and
lakes. In the Lake Stations of Switzerland, fish of all kinds are
no less abundant. At Gardeole, amongst the bones of mammals have
been found the shells of mollusca, and remains of the turtle. and of
goldfish. Fish was not, however, caught by all these primitive people,
not even by all those who lived by the sea. In researches carefully
carried on for years in the Maritime-Alps, M. Riviere found neither
fishing-tackle nor fish-lines.
Whilst the cave-men of the south of France seem not to have utilized
any but fresh-water fish, the Scandinavians, at a date probably
less remote however, did not hesitate to brave the ocean. The
kitchen-middings contain numerous remains of fish, amongst which those
of the mackerel, the dab, and the herring are the most numerous. There,
too, we meet with relics of the cod, which never approaches the coast,
and must always be sought by the fisherman in the open sea.
Although we are in a position to assert that men were able to catch
fish during every prehistoric period, if not in every locality, we
can speak less positively of their mode of doing so. The earliest
fishing-tackle was doubtless of the most primitive description: the
bone of some animal, a fragment of hard wood, or even a fish-bone
pointed at each end and pierced with a hole, served their purpose
(Fig. 10). The Exhibition of Fishing-Tackle held at Berlin in 1880
contained several such implements, some of wood, others of bone. Others
have also been found in the Madeleine Cave, and in different stations
of the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland. It is interesting to note
their resemblance to those still in use amongst the Esquimaux.
FIGURE 10
Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn from the Martinet Cave
(Lot-et-Garonne). -- 2. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn
(one third natural size). -- 3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark. --
5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin. -- 6. Bone fish-hook; pointed
at each end, from Wangen.
Prehistoric mail also turned to account the teeth of animals. We
may quote in this connection the molars of a bear from which the
enamel and the crown have been removed, and the thickness of which
has been lessened by rubbing (Fig. 11). The small flints picked up
in great numbers in the department of the Gironde also date from a
remote antiquity; they are sixteen millimetres long by four wide,
and though we cannot assert it as a fact, they are supposed to have
been used for catching fish.
FIGURE 11
Bears' teeth converted into fish-hooks.
FIGURE 12
Fish-hook made out of a boar's tusk.
The Museum of Lund possesses two flint fish-books of a curved shape,
one of them, which is four centimetres long by nearly three wide,
was found by the seashore; the other and smaller one came front
the shores of Lake Kranke.[68] Fish-hooks made of bone, which is
more easily worked than flint, very soon replaced those in that
material. They are numerous in the Lake Stations of Wangen, Mooseedorf,
and St. Aubin. Some are cut out of the horns of oxen, others of stags'
antlers; while others again are made of boars' tusks (Fig. 12), but
all alike greatly resemble modern forms. The peat-bogs of Scania have
yielded a bone fish-hook seven centimetres long, which is considered
very ancient, and the Museum of Stettin possesses one, also very
old, found in a gnarly deposit of Pomerania. We must not forget to
mention, although it probably belongs to a much more recent period,
a fish-hook in reindeer horn, now in the Christiania Museum. It was
found in a tomb in the island of Kjelnoe, not far from the Russian
frontier. Numerous skeletons, wrapped up in swathings of birch-bark,
repose in this tomb. All around lay fragments of pottery, lance-
and arrow-heads,[69] and combs of reindeer horn, the date of which
it is impossible to fix exactly.
In America, stone fish-hooks are rare. The most ancient are of
bone, and resemble those now in use. They have been picked up in
Dakota, and in the cinderheaps of Madisonville (Ohio), in Indiana,
in Arkansas, on the shores of Lake Erie, and in a kitchen-midding of
Long Island. The greater number of them are polished, and some of
them have near the top a hole by which they could be fastened to a
line or cord. The fish-hooks of California are remarkable for their
rounded forms and sharply curved points; the top was covered with a
thick layer of asphalt to which the line was probably fastened. They
are numerous in all the islands of the Pacific coast. In that of
Santa Cruz Schumacker excavated a tomb which must have been that of
a fish-hook manufacturer, for care had been taken to place near the
deceased, not only the implements of his craft, but also a number of
fish-hooks in various stages of advancement. The Californians used the
shells of the MYTILUS CALIFORNICUS and HALIOTIS to make fish-hooks, and
these were even more curved than those made of bone. The shape seems
but little suited for fishing, but even in our own day the natives of
the Samoa Islands use similar tackle with great success. The Indians
of the northwest coast make fish-hooks of epicea wood, and those of
Arizona utilize for the same purpose the long spikes of the cactus. It
is very probable that European as well as American races knew how to
use wood in the same manner. During the lapse of centuries, however,
these fragile objects have been reduced to dust, and we are unable
to make any further conjectures on the subject.
The use of bronze, the first metal to be generally employed,
does not seem to have introduced any great modifications in
fishing-tackle. Bronze fish-hooks are, however, thinner and lighter
than those in other materials, and resemble those in use amongst
fishermen at the present day. A certain number have been found in
the Lake Stations of Switzerland, in lakes Peschiera and Bourget,
as well as in Scotland, Ireland, and the island of Funen off the
coast of Denmark. We must not omit to mention the important foundry
of Larnaud, or the CACHE of Saint-Pierre-en-Chatre, both so rich in
bronze objects. In America, where the copper mines of Lake Superior
were worked at a remote antiquity, a few rare copper fish-hooks have
been found, the greater number in the Ancon necropolis.[70] Gold
fish. hooks are comparatively more numerous, and have been discovered
in New Granada and the Cauca State.[71] One of these was found some
forty-nine feet below the surface of the ground, and as there is no
trace of disturbance, we cannot assign to it a recent origin. The
gold fish-hooks are about four inches long, and look like big pins
with the lower end bent back upon the upper.
Other fishing implements were also used by out- prehistoric
ancestors. At Laugerie-Basse a rough drawing shows us a man striking
with a harpoon a fish that is trying to escape. These harpoons were
generally made of reindeer horn (Figs. 10 and 13). Some had but one
barb, others several. One of the largest was found in the Madeleine
Cave; it is eight inches long, and has three barbs on one side and
five on the other. Most of these weapons have a notch in the handle,
with the help of which they could be firmly fastened to a spear or
lance. Different fashions prevailed in different localities, and
sinews, leather thongs, roughly plaited cords, creepers, and resinous
substances were often pressed into the service.
FIGURE 13
A, a large barbed arrow from one side of the Plantade shelter
(Tarn-et-Garonne). B, lower part of a barbed harpoon from the Plantade
deposit.
Many harpoons have been found in the caves of the south of France;
others come from Belgium, from Keyserloch in Germany, Kent's Hole in
England, from Conches, Wauwyl, and Concise in Switzerland. Excavations
in Victoria Cave, near Settle (Yorkshire), yielded amongst other
interesting objects a bone harpoon cut to a point and with two barbs on
either side. On the banks of the Uswiata, a little Polish river flowing
into the Dnieper, two harpoons made out of the horns of some bovine
animal were found, both in perfect preservation, and with several
barbs.[72] Count Ouvaroff, in an excellent work published a little
before his death, mentions a bone spear from the shores of the Oka, and
Madsen and Montelius speak of Scandinavian harpoons. These weapons must
have been especially useful in the North during the severe frosts of
winter. The fisherman made a hole in the ice and struck the fish with
his harpoon when the poor creatures came up to the surface to breathe.
From the most remote times the Americans knew how to make and use
harpoons. As many as twenty. eight different kinds are known.[73] In
some the barbs are bilateral, but most of them have them on one side
only. Some, however, are made of stag or elk horn, and one harpoon
from Maine is made of whalebone. A harpoon-point found near Detroit
(Michigan) is nearly a foot long by one inch thick. Excavations in
a rock shelter in Alaska yielded a harpoon which lay side by side
with some of the most ancient Quaternary mammals of America. A good
many copper harpoon-heads are also mentioned; one of the largest from
Wisconsin is ten inches long. Others have been found in the island of
Santa Barbara (California) and in Tierra del Fuego, where the natives
of the present day still use similar ones. These harpoons with barbs
are by no means simple weapons, the idea of which would naturally
occur to the human mind, so that it is really extremely strange
to find weapons so entirely similar in regions so different and so
widely separated from one another. This constant similitude in the
working of the genius of man is, as We shall never tire of repeating,
one of the most striking facts revealed by prehistoric researches.
Herodotus tells that the Poeni (Carthaginians) plunged baskets into
the water and drew them up full of fish. It is probable that the Lake
Dwellers of Helvetia employed a similar process, but these ancient
Swiss were already more advanced than that. They knew how to cultivate
hemp, to spin it, and to make nets of it; the remains of some of these
nets have often of late years been taken from the beds of the lakes.
It is almost impossible to class with any certainty the numerous Lake
Stations of Switzerland. Some few certainly date from the Stone age,
others from the transition period, between it and that of the early
use of metals, or even from the Bronze age. As therefore they have
been occupied at different times by different people, some of them
having even been still in use in the time of the Romans, it is most
difficult to fix with any precision the date to which belong the
various objects mixed together beneath the deep waters of the lakes. We
can only say that the nets differ very much in the size of the meshes,
and the thickness of the rope used. Those found at Robenhausen are
very like those in use in France at the present day. There has, in
fact, been no advance in the art of making fishing-tackle since the
remote days of the Lake Dwellers.
We are ignorant of the mode of manufacture of prehistoric nets. Did
the Lake Dwellers, as some archaeologists are disposed to think, use
a loom? Did they use shuttles and rollers such as are employed by the
Esquimaux and Californians of the present day? It is impossible to
say, but it is supposed that the bears' teeth sharpened to a point,
found in some stations, were used to tighten the meshes. These meshes
were generally square, and each one was finished of with a knot of
the same size at each intersection.
The lead weights so indispensable to fishermen of the present
day for sinking the nets, were represented in prehistoric times by
stones. These stones, which are drilled or notched, are found in all
the Lake Stations. The fragments of pottery pierced with a hole found
at Schussenried, a Lake Station of the Stone age on the Feder-See
(Wurtemburg), were probably used for the same purpose. In some of
the Swiss Lake Stations have also been found pieces of wood and cork,
pierced with one or more holes, which had certainly served as floats.
Numerous stone implements of the most primitive forms, often of rock
not native to the country, have been found in some of the islands
of Greece, as well as in Corsica, Sardinia, Elba, and Sicily. These
discoveries bear witness to the presence of man in these islands at
a very remote antiquity, though no other traces of the existence of
prehistoric human beings have as yet been found there. These men can
only have reached the islands by way of the sea. Boats were the only
means of communication between the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland and
the mainland, and, as we have seen, the ancient Scandinavians hunted
fish on the deep ocean. We must therefore admit that attempts at
navigation were made in the very earliest days of humanity. Alan,
impelled by necessity, or perhaps only by curiosity, was not afraid
to launch his bark, first upon the rivers, and later upon the more
formidable waves of the sea
Illi robur et aes triplex
Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci
Commisit pelago ratem
Primus.[74]
The Latin poet is right, and we cannot but admire those who were the
first to brave the terrors of the deep and the horrors of the tempest;
for they were gifted alike with the intelligence which conceives,
the courage that dares, and the strength that achieves.
Trees torn up by the roots by the force of the waters, and floating
on the surface of those waters, naturally attracted the attention
of primeval man, and the first boats were doubtless the trunks of
such trees roughly squared and then hollowed out with the help of
fire. Later experience led to the addition of a prow which would
more easily cleave the water, and a stern which would serve as a
pivot. These canoes, if such a name may be already given to them,
were at first guided by branches stripped of their leaves, or with
long poles. Then oars or paddles were introduced, which are better for
beating the water, and in later barks traces have been made out of what
is supposed to have been a mast, indicating the use of a sail. The art
of navigation may now be said to have been inaugurated. In different
parts of Europe have been found boats which certainly belong to
very remote times, though their exact date cannot be fixed. Their
construction greatly resembles that of the pirogues of the Polynesians,
or the kayaks of the Greenlanders. One of the most ancient, now in the
Berlin Provincial Museum, was taken from a peat-bog of Brandenburg.[75]
It is 27 feet long and scarcely 16 inches wide.
Sir W. Wilde describes several boats from the marshes and peat-bogs of
Ireland,[76] many of which have handles cut in the wood at the ends,
by the help of which they could easily be dragged along overland. Sir
W. Wilde adds that the Irish also used CURRAGHS, or CORACLES, which
were mere wicker frames covered with the skins of oxen. These frail
barks introduce us to a new mode of navigation; they are met with
not only in tire different countries of Europe, but also in America,
and were in use there in pre-Columbian times. Even more interesting
examples have been found in Scotland.[77] Towards the close of last
century a pirogue was taken from the ancient bed of the Clyde at
Glasgow. Since then have been discovered, at depths varying from six
to twelve feet, more than twenty similar boats. The deposits in which
they lay had formerly been beneath the sea, but are now some twenty
feet above the level of the ocean. Great changes have therefore taken
place since these barks were launched upon the waves.[78] Their mode
of construction is an excellent indication of the date to which they
belong. Some which are hollowed out of the trunks of oaks by the
help of fire, or with a blunt tool, are supposed by Lyell to date
from the Stone age. Others have clean-cut notches, evidently made
with metal implements. Some are made of planks joined together with
wooden pegs, and one canoe found in County Galway even contained
copper nails. Most of the boats from the bed of the Clyde seem to
have foundered in still waters. Some, however, were discovered in a
vertical position, others had the keel uppermost, and these latter
had evidently sunk in a storm. In one of these boats was a diorite
hatchet of the kind characteristic of Neolithic times; another,
the wood of which was perfectly black, had become as hard as marble,
and in it was a cork plug. Then, as now, the oak which yields cork
was foreign to the cold climate of Scotland.
We will quote but one of the discoveries made in England. In
1881 a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, was found at
Bovey-Tracey in Devonshire. It lay in a deposit of brick-earth more
than twenty-nine feet below the highest level reached by the waters
of the Bovey.[79] It was more than thirty-five inches wide, and its
length could not be exactly determined, the workmen having broken it
in getting it out. An eminent archaeologist is of opinion that this
boat dates from the Glacial epoch, perhaps even from a more remote
time. If this hypothesis, the responsibility of which we leave to
him, be correct, this is the most ancient witness in existence of
prehistoric navigation. We must also mention a boat found near Brigg
(Lincolnshire), a few feet from a little river that flows into the
Humber. It is about forty-five feet long by three and a half feet wide,
and is some three feet high. The prow is fluted. There are no traces
of a mast, though the size of the boat must have made it difficult
to manage with oars alone.
One of the pirogues preserved at the Copenhagen Museum is made of one
half of the trunk of a tree, some six feet long, hollowed into the
shape of a trough, and cut straight at both ends.[80] It is curious to
compare this clumsy structure with a boat recently discovered beneath
a tumulus at Gogstadten in Norway (Fig. 14), of which, though it dates
from historic times, we give a drawing, as it is a good illustration
of the progress made. The dead Viking had been laid in his boat,
as the most glorious of tombs; with its prow pointing seawards, for
would not the first thoughts of the chief when he awoke in another
life be of the sea which had witnessed his triumphs? The sides of
the boat, which was more than sixty-six feet long and fifteen across
the widest part, were painted, and around it was ranged a series of
shields lapping over one another like the scales of a fish, and not
unlike the designs seen in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry. A block of
oak intended to receive the mast was placed in the centre of the boat,
and near the skeleton were oars some fifteen feet long and similar
in form to those now in use.
FIGURE 14
Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten.
Inlaying the foundations of the bridge of Les Invalides, Paris, a boat
was taken out of the mud which had lain there for many centuries. Like
most of those already mentioned, it had been made out of a single
trunk roughly squared. Everywhere, we must repeat once again, man's
original ideas were the same; everywhere the tree floating on the top
of the water excited his curiosity, and became the starting-point for
one of his most important discoveries. Traces of similar attempts
at navigation are met with in other parts of France; a canoe was
found in the Loire near Saint Mars, and the Dijon Museum possesses
another from the same river, the latter some sixteen feet long, and
traces have been made out of what are supposed to have been seats,
but may have been mere contrivances for strengthening the boat. A
canoe taken last year from the bed of the Cher is of the shape of a
trough closed at the end by pieces of wood fixed by means of vertical
grooves. The prow had been shaped in the first instance in the trunk
itself, and it was probably owing to an accident, a collision perhaps,
that it had had to be mended in this way (Fig. 15).
FIGURE 15
Ancient boat discovered in the bed of the Cher.
The Lake Dwellers of Switzerland owned boats from the time of their
first settlement in their water homes. One of them found at Robenhausen
is more than ten feet long, and is very shallow, varying from six to
eight inches. Like most of those already mentioned, it was hollowed
out of the trunk of a tree, bulging out towards the centre, and
rounded at the ends. So far none but stone tools have been found at
the station of Robenhausen, so that we must presume that it was with
such tools that the boat was made. The lakes of Bienne and. Geneva,
and the stations of Morges and Estavayer have also yielded boats
which are doubtless less ancient than those of which I have just
spoken. In nearly all of them the prow is curiously pointed. One of
them from the Lake of Neuchatel, large enough to bold twelve people,
has a beak at the stern and a rounded prow; but there is no sign of
any contrivance for keeping the oars in place.
Lastly, a boat bas been found in Switzerland some 3,900 feet above
the valley of the Rhine, but no one can say how it came to be at such
a height.
FIGURE 16
A lake pirogue found in the Lake of Neuchatel. 1. As seen from the
outside. 2 and 3. Longitudinal and transverse sections.
These canoes, whatever their shape or size, can only have been worked
by means of oars, yet oars have seldom been found. The Geneva Museum,
however, has one which came from the muddy bed of an Italian lake,
and others are preserved in the Royal Museum of Dublin, which have
every sign of great antiquity. In de fault of the actual oars, we
have other proofs of their use. Gross[81] mentions a boat (Fig. 16) in
which holes had been made in the upper parts of the sides to hold the
oars. In 1882 a pirogue was taken out of the bed of the Rhone at Cordon
(Ain), which had been half buried in the mud of the river. The wood
was black and the upper portions were charred, but the middle part was
still intact and very hard. The holes, pierced in the sides at regular
intervals, may have served to keep the oars in place. The position of
the rowers at the bottom of the boat was very unsatisfactory. It was
not, however, until later that we find seats so placed as to enable
the rowers to put out all their strength. At a recent meeting of
the Anthropological Society (July 21, 1887) M. Letourneau observed
that the rudder came into use very slowly. It was not known to the
Egyptians or to the Phoenicians, nor, which is still more strange,
to the Greeks and Romans. Their vessels, whatever their size, were
guided by two large oars (GUBERNACULUM) placed in the stern. The
Chinese appear to have been the only people who were acquainted with
the use of the rudder from time immemorial. It is probable that from
them it passed to the Arabs and even perhaps to the people of Europe.
A discovery made near Abbeville is the most ancient example we have of
the use of the mast. Some works being executed at the fortifications of
the town, brought to light a boat which must have been some twenty-one
feet long. Two projections form part of the planking, leaving between
them a rectangular space in which the mast was probably fixed.[82]
Professor Gastaldi speaks of a wooden anchor taken from a peat-bog
near Arona, beneath which was a pile dwelling. He dates it from the
tinge when the use of bronze was already beginning to spread in the
north of Italy. A stone of peculiar shape found at Niddau is, they
say, an ANKERSTEIN (anchor stone). This name is also given by Friedel
to a good-sized round lump of sandstone with a deep groove near the
middle. Lastly, Kerviler, in crossing a basin of the Bay of Penhouet,
near Saint-Nazaire, found several stones which had evidently been
used to keep boats at anchor, and with the aid of which we can get
an idea of the methods employed by ancient navigators (Fig. 17).
FIGURE 17
Stones used as anchors, found in the Bay of Penhouet. 1, 2, 3,
stones weighing about 160 pounds each. 4 and 5, lighter stones,
probably used for canoes.
Such are the only details we have on the important subject of
prehistoric anchors, but we may add that ancient fishermen probably
ventured but a short distance from the land, and would not need
anchors, as they could easily carry their light boats on shore.
We leave now passed in review the conditions of the life of our
remote ancestors, noting the animals that were their contemporaries,
and the fish that peopled the watercourses near which they lived. We
have studied the earliest efforts at navigation, made in the pursuit
of fish, and we must now go back to examine the weapons, tools, and
ornaments of these ancient peoples, and trace in those objects the
dawn of art. This will be the aim of our next chapter.