The advance in culture typified by our vases was equaled in all the
details of life. The people built strongly walled cities; they
constructed roads and bridges; their architecture, true predecessor of
the Roman, was unique and highly evolved. All the plain and good
things of life were known to these people, and their civilization was
rich in its luxury, its culture and art as well. In costumes, jewelry,
the paraphernalia of war, in painting and statuary they were alike
distinguished. Their mythology was very complex, much of the Roman
being derived from it. Most of our knowledge of them is derived from
the rich discoveries in their chambered tombs, scattered all over
Italy from Rome to Bologna. There can be no doubt of a very high type
of civilization attained long before the Christian era. Roman history
is merged in the obscurity of time, five or six hundred years later
than this. The high antiquity of the Etruscan is therefore beyond
question. But its highly evolved art and culture show that we have no
longer to do with European origins; to discuss it further would lead
us to trench upon the field of classical rather than prehistoric
archæology.
V. _The northwestern corner of Europe, including Scandinavia, Denmark,
and the Baltic plain of Germany, throughout the prehistoric period has
been characterized by backwardness of culture as compared with the
rest of Europe. It was populated from the south, deriving a large part
of such primitive civilization as it possessed from the south and the
southeast as well._
That this region was necessarily uninhabited during the Glacial epoch,
long after the advent of man in southern Europe, is indubitable. It is
proved by the extent of the glaciated area, which extends on the
mainland as far south as Hamburg, Berlin, and Posen, and over the
entire British Isles at the same time.[M] It was by the melting of
this vast sheet of ice that those high level river terraces in France
and Belgium were formed, in which the most ancient and primitive
implements of human manufacture occur. In the area beneath this ice
sheet no trace of human occupation until long after this time occurs.
This fact of itself, is not absolutely conclusive, for glaciation
would have obliterated all traces of anterior habitation or activity.
As to the possibility of a tertiary population before the Glacial
epoch, it presents too remote a contingency for us to consider,
although we do not deny its possibility. It too far antedates
prehistory, so to speak.
At the notable International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric
Archæology at Stockholm in 1874 a landmark in these sciences was
established by substantial agreement among the leading authorities
from all over Europe upon the proposition now before us.[N] First of
all, every one subscribed to the view that the palæolithic or oldest
stone age was entirely unrepresented in Sweden. The earliest and
simplest stone implements discovered in the southern part of that
country betray a degree of skill and culture far above that so long
prevalent in France and Germany. Stone is not only rubbed and polished
into shape, but the complicated art of boring holes in it has been
learned. Norway also seems to be lacking in similar evidence of a
human population in the very lowest stage of civilization. Stone
implements anterior to the discovery of the art of rubbing or
polishing are almost unknown. Only about Christiania have any finds at
all been made. In Denmark some few very rude implements have been
found. They are so scarce as to suggest that they are mere rejects or
half-finished ones of a later type. The kitchen middens, or shell
heaps, of Jutland, for which the region is most notable, as described
by Steenstrup, abound in stone implements. They all represent man in
the neolithic age. Polished stones are as abundant as the rudely
hammered ones are rare. From the absence of all the very early stone
implements, and from the sudden appearance of others of a far more
finished type, the possibility of a gradual evolution of culture about
Scandinavia _in situ_ is denied on all hands. The art of working stone
has surely been introduced from some more favored region. The only
place to look for the source of this culture is to the south.
[Illustration: FLINT DAGGER.
(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]
[Illustration: STONE AXE.
(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]
[Illustration: BRONZE AXE.
(From Montelius, 1895 b.)]
Tardy in its human occupation and its stone culture, Scandinavia was
still more backward, as compared with the rest of Europe, in its
transition to the age of bronze. This is all the more remarkable in
view of the rich store of raw materials on every hand. Nowhere else in
Europe does the pure stone age seem to have been so unduly protracted.
A necessary consequence of this was that stone-working reached a
higher stage of evolution here than anywhere else in the world save in
America. In other parts of Europe the discovery of metal-working, of
course, immediately put an end to all progress in this direction. The
ultimate degree of skill to which they attained is represented in the
accompanying cuts. The first, a flint poniard, shows the
possibilities, both in the line of form and finish, of manufacture by
the chipping process. To equal this example one must look to the most
skillful of the American Indians, as in Tennessee, where they were
too remote from mines of native copper to make use of a ready
substitute for stone. Our second implement is an axe hammer, made of
diorite. To shape, sharpen, bore, and polish a piece of stone like
this certainly required a long apprenticeship in the art.
[Illustration: BRONZE BRACELET: 650-500 B. C. (From Montelius, 1895
b.)]
Bronze culture, when it did at last appear in this remote part of
Europe, came upon the scene suddenly and in full maturity. Whether
this was as early as the eighth to the tenth century, as Montelius
avers, is disputed by many. All are nevertheless agreed that evidence
is absolutely lacking that the art was of indigenous origin. From what
part of the world this knowledge of bronze ultimately came we leave an
open question, as also whether it came with Phoenician traders or
direct from Greece, as Worsaae affirms. It was certainly introduced
into Sweden, making its way into Norway about the same time directly
from the peninsula of Jutland. Its first appearance is in a highly
evolved state. Such crude attempts at manufacture as Chantre finds so
long prevalent along the Rhone Valley, for example, are entirely
absent. Both in form and ornamentation the hand of the master is
apparent. This bronze age, like that of stone, lasted a very long
time--far longer than anywhere else on the continent. Central Europe
passed through three stages of metallic progress while Scandinavia was
evolving two. Not until the second or third century of our era--not
until the time of the Romans, it would appear--did iron begin to
supplant bronze. History repeats itself. The excessive duration of the
bronze age, as in the case of stone antecedently, led to the
attainment of a remarkable skill. The two accompanying cuts are
typical of the best work of this time. In the one case, merely
superficial ornament, especially the skillful use of the spiral; in
the other, real beauty of form in the bracelet, are clearly apparent.
Possessed of such skill in the working of bronze, it is small wonder
that the need of a better metal was not felt. Only when fashioned into
weapons of war does iron reveal its supremacy over bronze. This, of
course, with the campaigns of historical times, brings us to the end
of our chronicle.
The prehistoric experience of metal-working in Scandinavia is typical
of the other details of its cultural evolution. In its earliest epoch
no trace of domestic animals is present. It is rather a remarkable
fact that even the reindeer seems to have been unknown.[O] What can
Penka say to this in his positive affirmation that the original Aryans
got up into Scandinavia, having followed the reindeer from central
Europe north after the retreat of the ice sheet? The fact is,
archæologically speaking, from the evidence furnished by the kitchen
middens, that if they ever did this "they left a fine country, where
deer were plenty, to subsist upon shellfish on the foggy coasts of
Denmark."[P] The entire absence of economic motive for such a
migration is at once apparent. Men seldom travel far under such
conditions. Quite early, however, even in the stone age, do evidences
of domestic animals occur, to the dog being added the ox, horse,
swine, and sheep. Pottery in a rude form also follows. Finally, and in
apparent coincidence with the bronze culture, comes a new custom of
incineration. The dead are no longer buried, but burned. A profound
modification of religious ideas is hereby implied. It seems to have
been at about this time also that our Alpine racial type entered
Scandinavia from Denmark, although, as we have already observed, it is
yet far from certain that the new race was the active agent in
introducing the new elements of culture. All that we know is that they
both came from the south, and reached this remote region at about the
same time.
* * * * *
That the origins of culture in Europe are certainly mixed would seem
to be about the main conclusion to be drawn from our extended
discussion. It has an iconoclastic tone. Yet we would not leave the
matter entirely in the air, nor would we agree with Mantegazza (1884)
in his conclusion that "Ignoramus" sums up our entire knowledge of the
subject. There is some comfort to be drawn even from this mass of
conflicting opinions. Our final destructive aim has been achieved if
we have emphasized the danger of correlating data drawn from several
distinct sciences, whose only bond of unity is that they are all
concerned with the same object--man. The positive contribution which
we would seek to make is that the whole matter of European origins is
by no means so simple as it has too often been made to appear. It is
not imperative that conclusions from all the contributory sciences of
physical anthropology, philology, and cultural history should be
susceptible of interweaving into a simple scheme of common origins for
all. The order of races, for example, need mean nothing as respects
priority of culture. Nor do the two sciences, philology and
archæology, involve one another's conclusions so far as civilization
is concerned. Language and industrial culture may have had very
different sources; their migrations need stand in no relation to one
another in the least. Each science is fully justified in its own
deductions, but must be content to leave the results of others in
peace. Such is the ultimate conclusion to which all the latest
authority is tending. Only by a careful comparison of data from each
sphere of investigation may we finally hope to combine them all in a
composite whole, as many-sided and complex as the life and nature of
man itself.