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Title: The New Stone Age in Northern Europe
Author: John M. Tyler
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[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED LAKE-DWELLINGS]
THE NEW STONE AGE IN NORTHERN EUROPE
by
JOHN M. TYLER
Professor Emeritus of Biology, Amherst College
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1922
Copyright, 1921, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Printed in the United States of America
Published March, 1921
TO
JOSEPH DÉCHELETTE
PATRIOT AND ARCHÆOLOGIST
KILLED IN BATTLE AT VINGRÉ (AISNE)
OCTOBER 3, 1914
PREFACE
The dawn of history came late in Northern Europe and the morning was
stormy. We see the Roman Empire struggling in vain to hold back
successive swarms of barbarians, pouring from a dim, misty, mysterious
northland. Centuries of destruction and confusion follow; then gradually
states and institutions emerge, and finally our own civilization, which,
though still crude and semibarbarous, has its glories as well as its
obvious defects.
The growth, development, and training of these remarkable destroyers and
rebuilders was slowly going on through the ages of prehistoric time.
Most of the germs, and many of the determinants, of our modern
institutions and civilization can be recognized in the habits, customs,
and life of the Neolithic period. Hence the importance of its study to
the historian and sociologist. It has left us an abundance of records,
if we can decipher and interpret them. It opens with savages living on
shell-heaps along the Baltic. Later we find the stone monuments of the
dead rising in France, England, Scandinavia, and parts of Germany. They
begin as small rude shelters and end as temples, like that at
Stonehenge. People were thinking and cooperating, and there must have
been no mean social organization.
We find agriculture highly developed in the valleys of the Danube and
its tributaries. We see villages erected on piles along the shores of
the Swiss lakes--probably a later development. We find implements,
pottery, and bones of animals; charred grains of wheat and barley and
loaves of bread; cloth and ornaments--almost a complete inventory of the
food and furnishings of the people of this period. We should call them
highly civilized, had they been able to write their own history. What
was their past and whence had they come?
Implements and pottery tell us of exchange of patterns and ideas, or may
suggest migrations of peoples, and finally map out long trade-routes.
Some day the study of the pottery will give us a definite chronology,
but not yet.
We can reconstruct, to some extent, these phases of prehistoric life.
Our greatest difficulties begin when we attempt to combine these
separate parts in one pattern or picture, to trace their chronological
succession or the extent of their overlappings and their mutual
influence and relations in custom and thought. Here, we admit, our
knowledge is still very vague and inadequate. Twenty years ago the
problem seemed insoluble; perhaps it still remains so. But during that
time explorations, investigations, and study have given us many most
important facts and suggestions. Some inferences we can accept with a
fair degree of confidence, others have varying degrees of probability,
sometimes we can only guess. But guesses do no harm, if acknowledged and
recognized as such.
I venture to hope that historian and sociologist may find valuable facts
and suggestions in this book. But, while writing it, I have thought more
often of the eager young student who may glance over its pages, feel the
allurement of some topic and resolve to know more about it. The
bibliography is prepared especially for him. It is anything but
complete. The literature of the period is almost endless. I have
referred to only a few of the best and most suggestive works. They will
introduce him to a chain of others. If he studies their facts and
arguments he will probably reject some of my opinions or theories,
modify others, and form his own. If I can do any young student this
service, my work will have been amply repaid. America has sent few
laborers into this rich harvest field.
I wish that this little book might play the part of a good host, and
introduce many intelligent, thoughtful, and puzzled readers to the
company and view-point of the prehistorian.
In prehistory we find man entering upon course after course of hard and
rigid discipline and training, usually under the spur of necessity, the
best of all teachers. Every course lasts through millennia. Their chief
end is to socialize and humanize individual men. Environment, natural or
artificial, is a means to this end. It compels men to struggle, each
with himself; only as men improve is any marked change of conditions
possible or desirable. Men must "pass" in the lower course before they
can be promoted to the next higher, to find here a similar field of
struggle on a somewhat higher plane. Human evolution, as a process of
humanizing and socializing man, is and must be chiefly ethical; for
ethics is nothing more nor less than the science and art of living
rightly with one's neighbor. And man is incurably religious, always
feeling after the power or powers in or behind nature, whose essential
character she is compelling him to express, as her inadequate but only
mouthpiece. He will gradually become like what he is feeling after,
dimly recognizing, and rudely worshipping. These are the most important
departments of the school of prehistoric man.
The story told us by the evolutionist and prehistorian is full of
surprises. It tells us of the failure of dominant species of animals and
of promising races of men. It shows men plodding wearily through
hardship and discouragement, and finding therein the road to success.
The apparently dormant peoples and periods often prove in the end to
have been those of most rapid advance. "The race is not to the swift nor
the battle to the strong." But it enables us to plot the line of human
progress by points far enough apart to allow us to distinguish between
minor and temporary oscillations and fluctuations and the law of the
curve. The torch is passed from people to people and from continent to
continent, but never falls or goes out. There is always a "saving
remnant." We have grounds for a reasonable hope, not of a millennium,
but of success in struggle. The economist, sociologist, and even the
historian, are lookouts on the ship; evolution and prehistory must
furnish chart and compass, and tell us our port of destination.
Many or most of the best thoughts in this book are borrowed. Some of
these borrowings are credited to their owners in the bibliography. Of
many others I can no longer remember the source. The recollection of
successive classes of students in Amherst College, with whom I have
discussed these topics, will always be a source of inspiration and
gratitude. I owe many valuable suggestions to my colleagues in the
faculty, especially to Professor F. B. Loomis. To the unfailing kindness
and ability of Mr. and Miss Erb, of the Library of Columbia University;
to Professor H. F. Osborn for his generous hospitality; to the staff of
the Boston Public Library; to Doctor L. N. Wilson, of the Library of
Clark University; most of all, to Mr. R. L. Fletcher and his assistants,
of the Library of Amherst College, my debt is greater than can be
expressed in any word of thanks.
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER
I. THE COMING OF MAN 3
THE ANCESTORS OF MAN. THE PRIMATES AND ARBOREAL
LIFE. THE DESCENT FROM THE TREES.
PITHECANTHROPUS. THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND.
HUMAN RACES AND EARLIEST MIGRATIONS. THE
ARRIVAL IN EUROPE. THE GREAT ICE AGE. HEIDELBERG
MAN. NEANDERTHAL AND CRO-MAGNON
RACES.
II. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION. SHELL-HEAPS 36
THE RETREAT OF THE GLACIERS. DANISH SHELL-HEAPS.
MUGEM. MAGELMOSE. RINNEKALNS.
AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN EPOCH OF TRANSITION.
CAMPIGNY. THE FIRST IMMIGRANTS.
III. LAND HABITATIONS 53
NEOLITHIC CAVE-DWELLERS. PIT-DWELLINGS AND
HUTS. GROSGARTACH. FORTIFIED VILLAGES,
FOREST, AND STEPPE. LOESS.
IV. LAKE-DWELLINGS 69
PLATFORMS AND HOUSES. DOG, CATTLE, PIGS,
SHEEP. CULTIVATED PLANTS. FRUITS, SPINNING
AND WEAVING-EPOCHS.
V. A GLANCE EASTWARD 91
CRADLE OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE. BABYLONIA.
ANAU, SUSA. THE BEGINNINGS OF AGRICULTURE.
PLATEAUS AND PIEDMONT ZONES. HOE-TILLAGE.
THE PLOUGH. SUMMARY.
VI. MEGALITHS 114
DOLMENS. "GALLERY CHAMBERS." MENHIRS.
DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD. INCINERATION.
VII. NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 131
DRESS. FLINT AND BONE IMPLEMENTS. AXES.
MATTOCKS. FLINT MINES. SALT. GOLD. COPPER.
TRADE. WARES. AMBER. TRADE-ROUTES. POTTERY,
BANDED, CORDED AND CALCYCIFORM, INCRUSTED
POTTERY.
VIII. NEOLITHIC CHRONOLOGY 160
FINAL RETREAT OF GLACIERS. YOLDIA EPOCH.
ANCYLUS EPOCH--LITTORINA DEPRESSION. DATE
OF BEGINNING AND OF END OF NEOLITHIC PERIOD.
FOREST SUCCESSIONS. MAGELMOSE AND SHELL-HEAPS.
SUCCESSIVE TYPES OF AXE. CHARTS.
IX. NEOLITHIC PEOPLES AND THEIR MIGRATIONS 179
PALÆOLITHIC RACES AND MIGRATIONS. MEDITERRANEAN
RACE. ROUTES OF MIGRATION. AFRICAN,
MEDITERRANEAN, SOUTH RUSSIAN STEPPE ROUTE.
NEOLITHIC PEOPLES AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.
NORDIC PEOPLES. THE DANUBE VALLEY. THE
"MELTING-POT" OF CENTRAL EUROPE. PIONEER
LIFE.
X. NEOLITHIC RELIGION 206
PALEOLITHIC RELIGION, THE AGE OF WONDER:
NEOLITHIC RELIGION AND EXPERIENCE. RITUAL.
TABOO AND TRIBAL RESPONSIBILITY. GREEK MYSTERIES.
THE COMING OF THE OLYMPIANS, AND
THE RETURN OF THE ANCIENT CULTS, SOURCES
OF THEIR VITALITY. CULT OF THE GODDESS AND
MOTHER-RIGHT. RELATION TO AGRICULTURE.
SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMEN.
XI. PROGRESS 228
THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE BALTIC. SOURCE
OF PROGRESS NOT IN WAR. AGRICULTURE. HOME
TRAINING. THE NEIGHBORHOOD. RELIGION. PHILOSOPHY.
MINGLING OF CULTURES AND PEOPLES.
XII. THE COMING OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS 246
ARYAN AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. ORIGINAL
LANGUAGE; SPREAD AND MODIFICATIONS. EARLIEST
MIGRATIONS. THE ACHÆANS. THE AGE OF
HEROES. CITY-STATES IN GREECE. ABSORPTION
OF INVADERS. HOMELAND. INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGION.
PERSISTENCE OF NEOLITHIC SURVIVALS.
FOLK-LORE AND FAIRY-TALE. COMMON PEOPLE.
LEGISLATION. THE CHURCH. LIFE CURRENTS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 293
INDEX 309
ILLUSTRATIONS
Reconstructed Lake-Dwellings _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Human Figures, Spain--Early Neolithic 32
Drawings of Animals (Cro-Magnon) from Altamira 32
Shell-Heap 40
Shell-Heap Axe 40
Shell-Heap Jar 40
Weaving and Plaiting from Lake-Dwellings 84
"Crouching Burial" (Hockerbestattung), Adlerborg,
near Worms 116
Menhir, Carnac, Brittany 116
Dolmen, Haga, Island of Borust 116
Alignment, Carnac, Brittany 124
Modern Albanian Peasants in Neolithic Garments 132
Axes from Lake-Dwellings Showing Attachment to
Handles 136
Boats from Rock Carvings in Bohuslan, Sweden.
(Early Bronze Age) 146
Pottery from Neolithic Graves 154
Pottery 158
Successive Stages and Forms of Baltic Sea 162
Forms of Prehistoric Axe 174
Female Idols, Thrace 218
Female Idol, Anau 218
Ancient Fishermen 232
Early Agriculture 236
MAP
Migrations of Peoples 184
THE NEW STONE AGE
IN NORTHERN EUROPE
The first of the two numbers and the letter in the footnotes
designate the position in the Bibliography at the end of the
volume of the title referred to; the second refers to the page of
the book or article.
THE NEW STONE AGE IN NORTHERN EUROPE
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF MAN
Man has been described as a "walking museum of paleontology." He is like
a mountain whose foundations were laid in a time so ancient that even
the paleontologist hardly finds a record to decipher; whose strata
testify to the progress of life through all the succeeding ages; whose
surface, deeply ploughed by the glaciers, is clothed with grass and
forest, flower and fruit, the harvest of the life of to-day.
Some of his organs are exceedingly old, while others are but of
yesterday; yet all are highly developed in due proportion, knit and
harmonized in a marvellously tough, vigorous, adaptable body, the
instrument of a thinking and willing mind. Most surviving animals have
outlived their day of progress; they have "exhausted their lead," to
borrow a miner's expression, and have settled down in equilibrium with
their surroundings. But discontented man is wisely convinced that his
golden age lies in the future, and that his best possessions are his
hopes and dreams, his castles in Spain. He is chiefly a bundle of vast
possibilities, of great expectations, compared with which his
achievements and realizations are scarcely larger than the central point
of a circle compared with its area.
Physically he belongs to the great branch or phylum of vertebrate
animals having a backbone--sometimes only a rod of cartilage--an internal
locomotive skeleton, giving the possibility of great strength and
swiftness, and of large size. Large size, with its greater
heat-producing mass relative to its radiating surface, implies the
possibility of warm blood, or constant high temperature, resulting in
greater activity of all the organs, especially of the glands and the
nervous system. Large size, as a rule, is accompanied by long
life--giving opportunities for continuous and wide experience, and hence
for intelligence. Yet most vertebrates have remained cold-blooded, and
only a "saving remnant" even of men is really intelligent. Man belongs
to the highest class of vertebrates, the Mammals, which produce living
young and suckle them. Among the highest mammals, the Primates, or apes,
the length of the periods of gestation, of suckling the young, and of
childhood, with its dependence upon the mother, have become so long that
she absolutely requires some sort of help and protection from the male
parent. From this necessity have sprung various grades and forms of what
we may venture to call family life, with all its advantages. How many
mammals have attained genuine family life and how many men have realized
its possibilities?[1]
The upward march of our ancestors was neither easy nor rapid. They were
anything but precocious. They were always ready to balk at progress,
stiff-necked creatures who had to be driven and sternly held in the line
of progress by stronger competitors. The ancestors of vertebrates
maintained the swimming habit, which resulted in the development of the
internal skeleton and finally of a backbone, not because it was easiest
or most desirable, but because any who went to the rich feeding-grounds
of the sea-bottom were eaten up by the mollusks and crabs. Our earliest
air-breathing ancestors were crowded toward, and finally to the land,
and into air-breathing by the pressure of stronger marine forms like
sharks, or by climatic changes.[2] Reptiles, not mammals, dominated the
earth throughout the Mesozoic era, and harried our ancestors into
agility and wariness; at a later period the apes remained in the school
of arboreal life mainly because the ground was forbidden and policed by
the Carnivora. They and their forebears were compelled to forego some
present ease and comfort, but always kept open the door to the future.
In spite of all this vigorous policing, malingerers and deserters turned
aside from the upward line of march at every unguarded point or fork in
the road, escaped from the struggle, and settled down in ease and
stagnation or degeneration, like our very distant cousins, the monkeys
and lower apes. Long-continued progress is a marked exception, not the
rule, in the animal world, and is maintained only by the "saving
remnant." And these continue to progress mainly because Nature is
"always a-chivying of them and a-telling them to move on," as Poor Joe
said of Detective Bucket, and her guiding wand is the spur of necessity.
The Primates, or apes, are, as we have seen, the highest order of the
great class of mammals. Most of them, like other comparatively
defenseless vertebrates, are gregarious or even social.[3] They have a
feeling of kind, if not of kindness, toward one another. This
sociability, together with the family as a unit of social structure, has
contributed incalculably to human intellectual and moral development.
Man is a Primate, a distant cousin of the highest apes, though no one of
these represents our "furry arboreal ancestor with pointed ears."
Arboreal life was an excellent preparatory training toward human
development. Our primate ancestor was probably of fair size. In climbing
he set his feet on one branch and grasped with his hands the branch
above his head. Foot and leg were used to support the body, hand and arm
for pulling. Thus the hand became a true hand and the foot a genuine
foot, opening up the possibility of the erect posture on the ground and
the adaptation of the hand to higher uses. Meanwhile the climbing and
leaping from branch to branch, the measuring with the eye of distances
and strength of branches, the power of grasping the right point at the
right instant, and all the complicated series of movements combined in
this form of locomotion furnished a marvellous set of exercises not only
for the muscles but for the higher centres in the cortex of the brain.
Very probably gregarious life and rude play, so common among apes, was
an extension course along somewhat similar lines.
Our ancestors became at home in and well adapted to arboreal life, but
the adaptation was never extreme. It was rather what Jones[4] has called
a "successful minimal adaptation." They used arboreal life without
abusing it by over-adaptation, which would have enslaved them, and made
life on the ground an impossibility when the time came for their
promotion to this new and more advanced stage.
At the close of his arboreal life the ape had inherited or acquired the
following assets: His vertebrate and mammalian structure had given him a
large, vigorous, compact, athletic, adaptable body. The mammalian care
of the young had insured their survival, but only at the expense of
great strain and risk of the mother. Something at least approaching
family life was already attained. Arboreal life with its gymnastic
training had moulded the body, differentiated hand and foot, given the
possibility of erect posture, emancipating the hand from the work of
locomotion and setting it free to become a tool-fashioning and
tool-using organ. The ape has keen sense-organs, an eye for distances,
and other conditions; and the use of these powers has given him a brain
far superior to that of any of his humbler fellows. These are full of
great possibilities and opportunities, if he will only use them.
But why did our ancestor descend from his place of safety in the trees
and live on the ground, exposed to the attacks of fierce, swift, and
well-armed enemies? Very few of the Primates, except the rock and
cliff-inhabiting baboons, ever made this great venture. There must have
been some quite compelling argument to induce him to take so great a
risk. The change took place probably at some time during the latter half
of the Cenozoic or Tertiary period, the last great division of
geological time, the Age of mammals.[5] The earliest Tertiary Epoch, the
Eocene, was a time of warm and equable climate, when apes lived far
north in Europe, and doubtless in Asia also. Some of these apes were of
fair or large size, showing that conditions were favorable and food
abundant. The next epoch, the Oligocene, was similar but somewhat
cooler. The third, the Miocene, was cooler still and dryer. Palms now
forsook northern Europe, being gradually driven farther and farther
south. Life became more difficult, food scarcer. Apes could not longer
survive in northern Europe, but had to seek a warmer, more favorable,
environment farther south, for many of the fruit and food trees had
been crowded out and famine threatened.[6] But insects and other small
and toothsome animals remained on the ground, and were abundant along
the shores of rivers and lakes. There, too, were fruits and berries,
roots and tubers. There the food supply was still more than sufficient.
Thus far we have glanced at Europe only. But the same changes are taking
place in Asia, the cradle and home of most placental mammals, the main
area of a huge zoological province of which Europe was but a westward
projection, and with which America had direct connection from time to
time in the region of Behring's Straits. Here, during late Miocene and
early Pliocene times, in the latter part of the Cenozoic era, a dryer
and somewhat harsher climate had been accompanied by the appearance of
wide plains fitted for grazing animals, as well as stretches of forest,
with all varieties of landscape favoring great diversity as well as
abundance of mammalian life. It was, perhaps, the golden age for most
mammals, when food was plenty, climate not too severe, and every
prospect pleased. This slow and gradual, but fairly steady, lowering of
temperature was to culminate in the Great Ice Age of the Pleistocene
Epoch, so destructive to mammalian life in the northern hemisphere.
A second climatic change, perhaps even more important than the lowering
temperature, was the increase of aridity. Even during the Oligocene
Epoch "the flora indicates a lessening humidity and a clearer
differentiation of the seasons,"[7] The great trough of the inland sea
which had stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean began to
rise, the first uplift taking place along the Pyrenees and western Alps.
The Miocene was marked by a series of great movements. The old inland
sea was displaced, subsidence gave place to uplift, and the greatest
mountain system of the globe, including the Alps and the Himalayas,
began to grow through vast repeated uplifts in the crust.[8] The
continents were elevated and widened. The forest-dwelling types became
restricted and largely exterminated, and animals of the plains, in the
form of horses, rhinoceroses, and the cloven-hoofed ruminants, expanded
in numbers and in species. This profound faunal change implies dryer
climate. There was now a lesser area of tropic seas to give moisture to
the atmosphere. The mountains were now effective barriers, shutting off
the moisture-bearing winds from the interior of the continents.
These changes would have been noticeable in Europe north of the Alps,
but were far more so in central Asia along the northern face of the
great plateau of Thibet, with its eastern and western buttresses, and
its towering rampart of the Himalayas on the south, cutting off the warm
moisture of the Indian Ocean. Northward of this vast plateau and
westward over the far less elevated Iranian plateau and Afghanistan,
forest was fast being replaced by parklands of mingled groves and
glades, or by grassy plains, or even by dry steppes. Dessication,
aridity of climate, was fast compelling forest and arboreal mammals to
migrate or radically change their habits of life.[9]
Almost all the apes found their old environment and continued their
arboreal life by migrating far southward through India or into Africa.
But at the rear of the retreating host were forms from the cooler
northern regions. They were hardy and vigorous, and probably larger than
most of their fellows. Possibly some of them were caught in isolated
decreasing areas of forest surrounded by steppe or plain. Some of them,
at least, began to descend from the trees, to seek the new food
supplies of riversides, glades, and thickets, and thus gradually to
become accustomed to life on the ground. It was a very hazardous
experiment; only the most hardy and wary and the quickest in perception,
wit, and movement survived. Among these were our ancestors, driven like
all their forebears by the spur of necessity into a new mode of life
under trying conditions.
They were still only apes, with long arms and short legs, and probably
scrambled mostly on all fours. They had heavy brows, retreating
foreheads, projecting jaws, and a brutal physiognomy. Of the mental life
of the man who was to be descended from them there were few signs. They
were bundles of very slight possibilities.
But let us not "despise the day of small things." They were still far
from the invisible line between apedom and manhood. Physically they
resembled man quite closely. They had hand and foot, and a fair-sized
brain, though they had scarcely begun to realize the possibilities of
these structures.
Arboreal life could teach them little more; continuance in that school
would have meant a very comfortable stagnation. They were now promoted
to a new school of vastly more difficult problems, greater risks and
dangers, and more severe and trying discipline. They had had an
excellent course of manual and sensory training; now they must continue
this and add to it the use of whatever wits they had, under peril of
death. Nature was still compelling them to "move on."
This descent to the ground probably was accomplished either in India or
on the Iranian plateau, or somewhat farther to the northeast, somewhere
in the great horseshoe of parkland which curved around the western
buttress of the great central Asiatic plateau of Thibet. Can we locate
it somewhat more definitely?[10]
At this time, during the Pliocene Epoch, there were being deposited in
India the so-called Siwalik strata--vast, ancient flood-plains,
stretching for a distance of 1,500 miles along the southern foot-hills
of the Himalayas. They are composed of materials washed down from the
mountains by a system of rivers, persisting with little change into the
present. Says Osborn of the mammals found here: "It is altogether the
grandest assemblage of mammals the world has ever seen, distributed
through southern and eastern Asia, and probably, if our vision could be
extended, ranging westward toward Persia and Arabia into northern
Africa. It is the most truly cosmopolitan aggregation because in its
Upper Pliocene stage it represents a congress of mammals from four great
continents.... The only continents which do not contribute to this
assemblage are South America and Australia."[11] The older, Miocene,
portions of this fauna are chiefly browsing forest forms, emphasized by
the absence of both horses and Hipparion, as well as of grazing types of
cattle and antelopes. Grazing forms, showing the decline of the forest
and the spread of open parkland and grassy areas, become abundant during
the Pliocene Epoch. "Among the Primates we find the Orang, an ape now
confined to Borneo and Sumatra; also the Chimpanzee, another ape, now
confined to Africa, the Siwalik species displaying a more human type of
dentition than that of the existing African form."
In the older, Miocene, portion we find Sivapithecus, an ape which
Pilgrim considers as more nearly resembling man than any other genus of
anthropoids, while Gregory speaks of it as belonging to the anthropoid
line.[12] Somewhat later, in late Pliocene or early Pleistocene, there
was living not far away, in Java, a far more renowned form,
_Pithecanthropus erectus_, _Du Bois_, which seems to stand almost
exactly midway between higher apes and man. The remains consisted of two
molar teeth, a thigh-bone, and the top of a skull. The cranium is low,
the forehead exceedingly retreating, giving but very small space for the
frontal lobes of the brain. But the brain-cast, made from the cranial
cavity, shows, according to Du Bois, that the speech area is about twice
as large as in certain apes, though only one-half as large as in man. In
size the brain stands somewhat above midway between the highest recent
apes and the lowest existing men. The thigh-bone shows that
Pithecanthropus could have stood and walked erect quite comfortably.
There has been and still is much difference of opinion regarding the
position of this most interesting being. Opinion was long divided nearly
equally between those who considered it as the highest ape and others
who held it to be the very lowest man.
It is worthy of notice that, when Pithecanthropus was alive, "Java was a
part of the Asiatic continent; and similar herds of great mammals roamed
freely over the plains from the foot-hills of the Himalaya Mountains to
the borders of the ancient Trinil River, while similar apes inhabited
the forests. At the same time the Orang may have entered the forests of
Borneo, which are at present its home."[13] Where man's distant cousins,
the anthropoid apes, and his still nearer relation, Pithecanthropus,
were all living and some, at least, apparently progressing, could hardly
have been far from his original home. But the climatic conditions of
that time lead us to seek his original cradle somewhat farther northward
than India, or even Beluchistan, and nearer to, if not in, the great
steppe zone of central Asia. We lose sight of our ape-man as he is
advancing toward the threshold of manhood, not far away. Whether we
think that Pithecanthropus was approaching or had already passed it
depends much upon where we draw the line between ape and man, a line
largely artificial and as difficult to fix as the day and hour when the
youth becomes of age, and what human characteristics we select to mark
it. In his erect posture and some other physical traits he seems already
to have attained manhood; mentally he was probably far inferior to even
the lowest savage races of to-day. We are not sure whether he was our
ancestor or merely a cousin of our ancestor, once or twice removed; we
still lack foundations for any hypotheses as to exactly when, where, or
how the erect ancestral ape-man emerged into real manhood.
Millennia passed between the days of Pithecanthropus and the first human
migrations, and we may imagine primitive man as having become fairly
well accustomed to life on the ground, and as having mastered his first
lessons in meeting its dangers and difficulties. He had probably taken
possession of a much wider area than the home of the ape-man, perhaps of
the whole of the parkland zone curving around the western buttresses of
the plateau of Thibet. From this region routes of migration radiated in
all directions, all the more open because of the elevation of land which
lasted through Upper Pliocene and early Pleistocene times.[14] Sumatra
and Java then formed an extension of the Malay Peninsula, reaching more
than 1,000 miles into the Indian Ocean; while the Orang seems to have
been able to reach Borneo somewhat earlier. The way was equally clear
westward into Europe, the Dardanelles being then replaced by a land
bridge, while a second bridge spanned the Mediterranean over Sicily into
Italy, and a third existed at Gibraltar.[15] These routes were evidently
followed by herds of great herbivora, and probably by the earliest
human emigrants into Europe.
Following Keane,[16] we shall divide mankind into four great groups or
races, and then glance at their radiation from southwestern Asia toward
all parts of the globe. These great primitive divisions are:
I. _Negroids._ Color yellowish brown to black, stature large or very
small. Hair short, black or reddish brown, frizzly, flattened-elliptical
in cross-section. Nose broad and flattened. Cheek-bones small, somewhat
retreating. Examples: Negritoes, Negroes.
II. _Mongoloids._ Color yellowish. Stature below average. Hair coarse,
lank, round in cross-section. Nose very small. Cheek-bones prominent.
Examples: Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Thibetans, Siberian "Hyperboreans."
III. _Americans._ Color reddish or coppery. Stature large. Hair long,
lank, coarse, black, round in cross-section. Nose large, bridged, or
aquiline. Cheek-bones moderately prominent. (Probably a branch of II.)
Examples: Indians of North and South America.
IV. _Caucasians._ Color pale or florid. Hair long, wavy or straight,
elliptical in cross-section. Nose large, straight or arched. Cheek-bones
small, unmarked. Examples: Hamitic, Semitic, and European peoples.
We may now imagine quite primitive human beings starting from their
early home and seeking their fortunes widely apart. They came under
quite different climatic and other physical conditions. Their
environment, problems, stimuli, and opportunities were unlike. Thus,
having become more or less unlike in the homeland, they gradually became
differentiated into the present great groups or races already mentioned.
Some started earlier or marched more rapidly than others. Many proved
unequal to the dangers and difficulties of the journey or new place of
settlement, and disappeared. Many stagnated or degenerated. Only the
comparatively successful or fortunate have survived. Hence, our scheme
is hardly an adequate expression of prehistoric racial groups and their
characteristics, except in very general outline.
We have seen that the apes, retreating before the approach of harsh and
dry climatic conditions and diminished forest areas and food supply,
migrated southward into India and Africa. The Orang settled in Borneo,
Pithecanthropus in Java, the Chimpanzee and Gorilla went into Africa.
These routes presented the fewest difficulties and demanded the least
readaptation or change of habit. The climate was mild and food
generally abundant and easily obtained. Their environment was neither
stimulating, trying, nor exacting. Progress was hardly to be expected,
but survival was far easier than in more northerly regions.
The Negritos followed almost exactly the same routes. We find them
purest and perhaps least modified in the "Pygmies" of the African
forests; but also in the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islands, and the
Philippines. De Morgan believes that he has found proofs of their
presence on the Iranian plateau at a comparatively late date.
Behind them Negroid peoples poured into Africa, apparently in successive
waves. Some of them went into the Malay Peninsula, probably generally
submerging the Negritos, and reached New Guinea and Australia.
Inhabiting a series of islands and other more or less isolated areas,
mingling often with Negritos, probably later also more or less with the
Malays, they became much modified, and their relations to the African
Negroes and to one another are still anything but clear.
The Mongoloids pushed eastward. The earliest migrations seem to be those
of the Malays, a great, very interesting, and little-known though
much-studied group of peoples. They followed the oceanic Negritos along
the Malay Peninsula and occupied the great chains of islands stretching
through the Indian Ocean and far into the Pacific, through more than
ninety degrees of longitude along the equator. But much of this spread
is probably of quite recent date.
The Mongoloid peoples seem to have passed along the northern front of
the Central Asiatic plateau into Siberia, China, and Japan, and to have
sent off the great American branch. Even before the Mongols had started
on their eastward journey the Caucasians may have turned westward,
following the old Negroid route. There was probably also more or less of
an eastern dispersal, but we cannot consider the problem of these
Oriental Caucasic remnants and traces. The great body went westward. The
Hamitic peoples distributed themselves along the southern shore of the
Mediterranean, and many may well have occupied a large part of the
Sahara region, then a land of watercourses capable of supporting a
large population. Behind them came the Semitic folk. Judging from their
languages the Hamitic and Semitic peoples seem to have been in contact
over a wide area, and for a long space of time. The Semites found a new
and permanent home in Arabia, on whose plateaus and surrounding
grasslands they increased and multiplied, and sent off fresh waves of
migration and conquest in all directions.
We have already noticed that our classification of races is based upon a
study of recent and still surviving peoples. The very earliest
inhabitants of Europe would find no place in it. Probably they long
antedated the Hamites. African Negroids and Caucasians came from a
common home, and journeyed for a time over a common road, though
probably at far different times. It would be strange if the earliest
inhabitants of Europe showed no traces of this common home and ancestry.
Since the remote period which we are considering Negroes and Caucasians
have become widely different, and their racial characters have become
clear and sharp. This may not have been altogether the case with the
first peoples to arrive in Europe. But attempts to relate the
Neanderthal crania with those of modern Australians or Tasmanians, or
any existing race, have met with no great success. In regard to these
questions we are still in the dark.
Beside the African routes into Europe, along the south shore of the
Mediterranean and over the Sicilian and Gibraltar land bridges, while
they lasted, two others must be noticed. One of these extended through
Asia Minor and across the land bridge at the Dardanelles, while the
second led westward along the northern border of the Caspian and Black
Seas and the Caucasus Mountains. The most southerly of these four routes
through Africa were probably the first to be travelled, the most
northerly last of all. We shall have to study these routes more closely
in a later chapter.
It was at some time during the Glacial period, the Great Ice Age, when a
vast ice-cap covered northern Europe with glaciers extending far
southward and advancing or retreating according to climatic conditions,
that man arrived in Europe. During the first Glacial Epoch the advance
of the ice covered the most northern part of Great Britain and the Rhine
valley almost as far south as Cologne; Scandinavia was completely
buried, like central Greenland to-day, and North Germany probably to the
Harz Mountains. Eastward the southern edge of the ice sheet ran nearly
along the line of 50° N. lat. across Russia. In Siberia the effects were
less marked and the limits were much farther northward. Between the
parallel of 50° and the northern edge of the Alpine glaciers a zone was
left ice-free, but three-fifths of Germany was overwhelmed. Southern
England and France, not yet separated by the English Channel, formed one
great habitable province, and but a small part of France was glaciated.
The climate was tempered by proximity to the sea.[17] The average yearly
temperature of northern Europe was probably not more than 4°-6° Cent.
(39°-43° Fahr.), which is colder than at present. But the formation of
these enormous masses of ice demanded heavy snowfall and a moist or very
damp climate. Hence the edge of the great ice sheet advanced or
retreated according to climatic conditions.
There were four periods of advance before the final retreat of the ice,
not counting minor oscillations.[18] These are known as the Gunz,
Mindel, Riss, and Wurm Glacial Epochs. Alternating with these were the
interglacial epochs of ice retreat--the Gunz-Mindel, Mindel-Riss, and
Riss-Wurm; while the final retreat is usually termed Post-glacial.
During the first and second interglacial epochs the climate appears to
have been warmer than at present. But at times dryness may have
contributed to the retreat of the ice even more than warmth, and then
the climate would have been continental, harsh, and extreme.
Even during epochs of glacial advance conditions in France and in the
German zone must have been better than we should expect. Some kind of
grazing or browsing pasturage must have been rich and abundant to
support large animals like the reindeer or even the woolly mammoths
characteristic of the second and third glacial epochs, which furnished
abundant food for prehistoric hunters. Farther south the glacial epochs
may well have been times of heavy rainfall, transforming the Sahara
desert and the dryer steppes and plateaus of Asia into veritable
gardens.
The retreating ice left behind it a land covered with rocks, clays,
gravels, and sands brought by the glaciers and their streams. Here and
there basins had been gouged out where lakes or ponds long remained--as
in Maine and Minnesota to-day--to be later drained, or, if shallow, to be
overgrown with sphagnum and changed into great bogs. Scattered thickets
of shrubs and stunted hardy trees, poplars, willows, and others
occurred. In sheltered and well-drained valleys and mountainsides the
trees grew larger and even forests began to appear. This tundra
landscape still characterizes wide areas of northern Canada and
Siberia.[19]
The tundra was followed by steppe conditions, where elevation of land to
the north and northwest had cut off the tempering oceanic winds. The
climate was harsh, dry, continental, with cold winters and hot summers.
The winds carried great storms of dust and piled it up in drifts in
valleys and on suitably situated mountainsides in the form of loess, so
important to the future agricultural development of Europe, though its
most massive accumulation is seen in China, which received and held the
driftings from the great elevated plains of central Asia. As the climate
became moister, if the temperature did not fall too low, steppe finally
gave way to the meadow and forest of modern Europe. Tundra, steppe, and
forest had each its special types of animal as well as plant life. The
characteristic tundra animal is the reindeer, though musk-ox, woolly
mammoth, and others were wide-spread at this time. The peculiar steppe
animal is the horse. The characteristic forest and meadow animals are
the deer and their allies; the wolf and bear; the wild boar and cattle
seem to be at home in forest and glade and along the streams.
In France, where there was far less glaciation, the succession of
tundra, steppe, and forest is less apparent. Here we find a mingling of
varied forms which have come in from very different regions, driven from
their original homes by change of climate or drawn by favorable
conditions.
The first unmistakable relic of man in Europe is a human lower jaw found
in the Mauer sands near Heidelberg, some seventy-nine feet below the
surface of the bluff.[20] It seems to belong to the second or
Mindel-Riss interglacial epoch, and its age is estimated by Osborn at
about 250,000 years. Remains characteristic of the oldest Paleolithic
epochs occur between thirty and forty-five feet below the surface. If we
are to find an archæological name for this epoch, there seems to be no
better one than Eolithic, the dawn of the Stone Age, when European man
had hardly more than begun to chip a stone implement, although we must
recognize the unreadiness of many or most archæologists to find a place
for such rude products.[21]
The third interglacial period (Riss-Wurm) and the fourth period of
advance (Wurm) cover what is known as Lower Paleolithic time, which is
the earlier four-fifths or more of the Old Stone Age or Paleolithic
period, extending approximately from 125,000 B. C., to 25,000 B. C.
During the greater part of this period Europe was occupied by the
Neanderthaloid people. Neanderthal man had a very large head with heavy,
overhanging eyebrows meeting above the nose, and a markedly retreating
forehead. The face was high and the large nasal opening indicates a
broad, flat nose. The lower jaw was heavy and the chin retreating. The
trunk was short, thick, and robust, the shoulders broad; the limbs short
and heavy, the arms and lower legs relatively short, and the hands very
large. Although the much-discussed Piltdown skull may quite probably be
regarded as belonging to the earliest part of this period, the finer
form of cranium seems to testify to a higher race of better mental
development than the Neanderthaloids, huddling in their caves and
shelters. It may easily represent a far more progressive ancestral race,
of which they are somewhat degenerate descendants, though Osborn
dissents from this view.[22]
Their remains are found in caves and rock-shelters all over Europe. Here
we find their hearths; the bones of the animals which they had hunted
for their food; their almond-shaped flint axes, "hand-stones"
(_Coups-de-Poing_), the scrapers for dressing skins and shaving wooden
tools, and a variety of other forms. Here they buried their dead. During
the third warm interglacial epoch they lived in the open, as at the
station of Chelles, which has given its name to the earliest Paleolithic
epoch.[23] Their origin and route of migration is quite uncertain, but
it seems probable that they entered Europe from the southern shore of
the Mediterranean.
The post-glacial period is characterized by the final retreat of the
ice. The change of climate was not steady but marked by a series of
oscillations, repeating on a much smaller scale the glacial and
interglacial epochs of the long past. The climatic change is accompanied
by the appearance of tundra and steppe, followed by meadows and the
forest conditions of modern times. Game was abundant and general
conditions severe but healthy and fairly favorable.
A new race has appeared on the scene which replaced the Neanderthal
folk, and had practically none of their primitive or degenerate,
ape-like characteristics.[24] The Cro-Magnon people have excited the
wonder and admiration of all anthropologists. They were of tall stature,
had long legs, especially below the knee, giving swiftness in running.
The forehead is broad and of good height, the features are rugged but
attractive, and the brain is very large. They seem to represent a new
race and new immigration, probably from Asia, which spread over Europe.
The Cro-Magnon brain was anything but dull. In this remote time, more
than 20,000 years ago, there sprang up an art never since surpassed in
its own field except, perhaps, by that of the Greeks. Their bone
implements are adorned with the most lifelike carvings or sculptures. On
the walls of caves we find paintings as realistic and alive, and often
as finely executed in detail and coloring, as the best animal painters
of our day could produce. These people must have had a high and keen
appreciation of the beauty of form and proportion. All this artistic
movement must have had its source in new ideas and conditions, springing
from a thinking as well as a feeling and observing mind. They also
frequently buried their dead, decorated with strings of perforated
shells, and surrounded by flints or sometimes by a layer of red earth or
ore. With them were the bones of food animals and the flint weapons
needed for the journey into or use in the life beyond.
The life of the Cro-Magnon hunters on their arrival in Europe was
anything but unendurable, especially along the Riviera. There were
open-air encampments where men passed at least the summer months in
tents or huts. The race seems to have culminated during the cold middle
Magdalenian epoch, which indicates that they were well adapted to its
conditions. Game was abundant and relatively easily captured. They had
food and raiment, fair shelter, excellent art, alert brains, and
probably a fair degree of social life. They may well have been content,
courageous, and full of hope for themselves and their descendants.
[Illustration: HUMAN FIGURES, SPAIN--EARLY NEOLITHIC]
[Illustration: DRAWINGS OF ANIMALS (CRO-MAGNON) FROM ALTAMIRA]
Upper Paleolithic time, beginning with the arrival of the Cro-Magnons,
about 25,000 years ago, is divided into four epochs, or, better,
four culture-stages: Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, and
Azilian-Tardenoisian. Even in late Magdalenian days, after a cold and
dry interval accompanied by steppe conditions and a new formation of
loess, the air became moister and the temperature gradually moderated
until it became much like that of to-day. Tundra and steppe animals
became more rare; a forest and meadow fauna took possession of Europe.
Instead of the reindeer we find stag and roe-deer, cattle, wild boar,
bears and wolves, beaver and otter. These were less easily hunted and
probably less abundant than the reindeer and horse had been. As
hunting became less profitable, fishing grew more attractive. The
streams probably swarmed with fish, and the salmon was probably as
abundant throughout northern Europe as in Scandinavia to-day. A change
of life is suggested by the implements. The harpoons became ruder. The
beautifully flaked lance-heads and the smoothed bone daggers give place
to small flints, "microliths," less fitted for attacking large and
dangerous animals. The country seems to have supported a smaller and
decreasing population. Cro-Magnon man had always been a reindeer hunter,
accustomed and well adapted to the life and conditions of tundra or
steppe. The changes were not in his favor or to his liking. Many
probably left France and Germany. Those who remained deserted the
rock-shelters and cave-mouths, where every spring the water seeping down
and dripping through the roof dislodged masses of stone.[25] The shelter
was less needed. Men dwelt more in the open, and fewer records of their
presence were preserved.
But Europe was not deserted. There was no "hiatus." Other peoples were
coming in, perhaps better suited to the new conditions, probably mostly
of Asiatic origin. Broad-heads, as well as new long-heads, appear, less
attractive physically and mentally, but apparently of tougher fibre and
greater staying power than our more striking and charming
Cro-Magnons.[26] A new grand mingling of peoples had already begun or
was in its last stages of preparation already advancing from afar in
successive waves. In Italy genuine Neolithic culture may already have
been introduced. It steals very slowly into northern Europe and
overspreads it. The Cro-Magnon race generally migrated or died out, but
left its traces in the physical characters of the people of Dordogne and
elsewhere.
The Azilian-Tardenoisian epoch leads over to the Neolithic, our chief
object of study. Its relative position in prehistoric time is shown in
the following scheme:
_A._ _Eolithic Period._ Stone implements exceedingly rude, hardly
recognizable as artificially chipped; otherwise like _B_.
_B._ _Paleolithic Period._ Stone implements chipped or flaked, never
polished. No domesticated plants or animals. No pottery. Man a collector
or hunter, more rarely a fisherman.
_C._ _Transition Period_, resembling _B_ in most respects.
[_A_, _B_, and _C_ make up the Old Stone Age, before the use of metals.]
_D._ _Neolithic Period._ Some stone implements polished. No metal except
that copper is introduced toward the end of the period. Agriculture with
domestic plants and animals. Pottery but no potter's wheel. Dawn of
Civilization.
_E._ _Bronze Period._ Bronze implements or utensils. Dawn of History.
Begins about 2500 B. C. in northern Europe.
_F._ _Iron Period._ Iron introduced. Historic Times. Begins about 1000
B. C. in northern Europe.
CHAPTER II
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.
CHAPTER III
LAND HABITATIONS
Our history of Paleolithic times is drawn very largely from the
successive strata of remains found in rock-shelters and near the mouths
of caves, where the succession of epochs is clear and indubitable. We
naturally look for similar reliable testimony concerning the
chronological succession of Neolithic utensils, pottery and other
remains. Here, however, we have been disappointed to a large degree.
Paleolithic layers were generally or frequently overlaid by beds of
stalagmite or fallen rocks, which have saved them from disturbance. But
the Neolithic and Bronze layers are superficial, usually of no great
thickness; they have been less solidified and protected, and far more
exposed to the disturbing work of burrowing mammals and of men digging
for buried treasures. These circumstances, combined with far less
continuity of occupation, have greatly diminished the chronological
value of their study.
Neolithic cave remains occur in somewhat limited areas scattered all
over Europe.[37] They have been studied in England, France, Spain,
Austria, and Germany in at least fairly large numbers. In Austria the
cave province extends through Galicia, Moravia, and Bohemia. Here we
find primitive pottery; rude stone and numerous bone implements;
domesticated cattle, goats, and pigs. Game was evidently very abundant.
The cave-dwellers, apparently, were pioneers in the less habitable
regions, living mostly by hunting and fishing, from the increase and
products of their herds, and from agriculture to a far less degree. The
pottery and implements remind us somewhat of those of the earliest
lake-dwellings. But we often find bits of copper and bronze, suggesting
a later date or a series of inhabitants whose relics have become much
mixed. It would not be at all surprising if primitive manufactures had
remained here longer in use than in less isolated regions. A deposit of
quite similar general character has been found at Duino, near
Monfalcone, at the head of the Gulf of Trieste.
A second province lies in Bavaria, between Bamberg and Baireuth. Hoernes
considers its remains as also of the same age as the oldest
lake-dwellings, but with peculiarities due to the different geographical
conditions. The cave provinces of other countries are equally
interesting. Every one has its own features and problems. We would
naturally expect that these cave-dwellers would represent the least
progressive and prosperous members of the population of any country. In
our general survey we can afford to give them only a hasty glance. We
can easily understand that where chalk or other soft rock occurred
artificial grottos were often excavated.[38]
Remains of dwellings are common all over Europe, and are likely to be
uncovered wherever excavations are made in grading or for the
foundations of buildings. They are of two forms: the rectangular house
and the round hut. The rectangular form is the rule in the
lake-dwellings, though with exceptions; on the land the reverse is true.
The pit-dwelling at Campigny was elliptical in form with a longest
diameter of 4.30 metres. We remember that the settlement at Campigny is
probably little, if at all, younger than the shell-heaps. But by far the
commoner form of pit-dwelling is circular, with a diameter rarely
exceeding two metres. Such small circular pits are exceedingly common.
At the bottom we find ashes, bones of animals, implements, and fragments
of clay once forming a part of the superstructure, baked hard when the
hut was burned, and still having marks of the twigs and branches over
which the clay had been plastered. We picture to ourselves the hut as
mostly underground, with a diameter usually not exceeding one and
one-half to two metres, excavated to a depth of one or two metres, the
pit often surrounded by a rude wall of field stones. In the centre was
the hearth. The superstructure was merely a cone composed of a framework
of poles interlaced with branches and twigs plastered with clay. In the
primitive hut there was no perpendicular side wall above ground, though
in some the roof may have been raised somewhat on the earth thrown out
from the pit. Such differences of detail are of slight importance. The
huts are of all ages. They were probably erected far back in Paleolithic
time. They seem to be figured in Magdalenian cave-frescoes.[39] Even the
Chellean hunters could hardly have erected more primitive shelters. But
equally rude huts are still inhabited in the Balkan Peninsula,[40] and
are described by classical writers as inhabited by the Germans.
Says Tacitus (_Germania_, XLVI) of the Finns of his day: "They lead a
vagrant life: their food the common herbage; the skins of beasts their
only clothing; and the bare earth their resting-place.... To protect
their infants from the fury of wild beasts and the inclemency of the
weather, they make a kind of cradle amidst the branches of trees
interwoven together, and they know no other expedient. The youth of the
country have the same habitation, and amidst the trees old age is rocked
to rest. Savage as this way of life may seem, they prefer it to the
drudgery of the field, the labor of building, and the painful
vicissitudes of hope and fear, which always attend the defense and the
acquisition of property. Secure against the passions of men, and fearing
nothing from the anger of the gods, they have attained that uncommon
state of felicity, in which there is no craving left to form a single
wish. The rest of what I have been able to collect is too much involved
in fable...."
Let us hope that the reports which Tacitus had been able to collect
concerning the dwellings, as well as the ferocity, filth, and poverty of
the Finns, were somewhat exaggerated. Evidently conical, largely
subterranean huts have been common in Europe down to far later than
Neolithic times. The age of any pit-dwelling can be determined only by
its contents.
In addition to these circular pits, long or short trenches occur. Forrer
found at Stutzheim one cellar more than ten metres long, and varying
from one to three metres in width, with several lateral enlargements as
pantries and storehouses.[41] Forrer considers this as the home of the
chief man, the "manor-house" of the settlement. Around it he found
remains of huts such as we have already described. Frequently space for
storage as well as dwelling was gained by clustering small huts. This
plan would have had the advantage of protection against loss of
everything by fires, which must have been frequent. Such cramped
dwellings, with the garbage scattered over the bottom of the hut, or in
the huts of the most highly cultured deposited in a special hole in one
corner, could hardly have been attractive, clean, or sanitary. But they
were cool in summer and warm in winter, and afforded protection against
wind and weather. People asked and expected no more. Housekeeping was
simple, if not easy. But we can imagine that the return of spring,
allowing them to emerge from their burrows, must have been hailed with
delight.
We have still much to learn concerning these Neolithic dwellings. They
have been discovered by chance, and usually studied only hastily and
superficially. A pit discovered and examined may have been only one of a
large cluster or village, of which the rest remained undiscovered.
Wooden houses of logs, or with a strong frame of poles seem to have
existed in Bronze, or even late Neolithic times. Sophus Müller[42]
describes settlements in Denmark where the abundance of ashes and
utensils prove long-continued habitation, and yet no pits seem to have
been found--this may be due to insufficient investigation--strongly
suggesting, at least, houses entirely above ground built of perishable
materials. It is very hard to believe that even a Neolithic family could
have lived through the winter in one, mainly subterranean, dwelling only
two metres in diameter, with a fireplace in the middle. They would have
been compelled to sleep sitting or standing! Probably Stutzheim and
other similar settlements which have been discovered, represent the real
general average of pit-dwellings, while besides these there were many of
far superior style and comfort. The development of the Greek house is
still a problem, much more that of a North German dwelling.
As an example of late Neolithic settlement of the better or best class,
we may take Grosgartach, near Heilbronn, in the Neckar valley.[43] Here,
where now are low meadows, was once a lake connected with the Neckar.
The Neolithic village was carefully and skilfully explored by Hofrath
Schliz, whose report is a model of careful observation and clear
description.
The situation was very favorable, with loess-clad hills sloping to rich
meadows, and the lake furnishing fish and a line of communication. The
areas occupied by the houses and stalls were clearly marked by the dark
"culture-earth" contrasting sharply with the yellow loess. The principal
house was rectangular. The outer wall was composed of posts with a
wattling of twigs. This was plastered with clay, mixed with chaff and
straw. The inner face of the wall was smoothly finished, and then
"kalsomined" reddish yellow, and still further decorated with fresco in
geometrical designs. The house--5.80 metres by 5.35 metres--was divided
into two rooms. The larger part of the house was occupied by the
kitchen, with its floor about one metre below the surface of the ground,
and entered by an inclined plane or ramp. The other chamber, the
sleeping-room, was nearly a metre above the kitchen and separated from
it by a partition. Benches cut out of the loess were found in both
kitchen and sleeping-room. Stalls for cattle and barns or granaries were
also found. Virchow, in his review of Schliz's monograph, emphasizes
the fact that apparently Grosgartach was deserted by its inhabitants and
fell into decay without leaving any signs of destruction by fire or
violence.
The villages of Butmir, Lengyel, Jablanica, and others in southeastern
Europe show us a condition of advanced culture here also.[44]
Déchelette, speaking of the culture of this region, notices "the
striking analogies between these old walled villages of the Balkans and
the Danube valley, and those of the Ægean villages of the Troad and
Phrygia." Primitive idols, painted pottery, frequent use of the spiral
in decorative art, all these reappear here and there in the Neolithic
stations of southeastern Europe, and in the eastern basin of the
Mediterranean in pre-Mycenæan and Mycenæan days. Evidently houses,
settlements, modes of life, and stages of culture differ greatly during
the same epoch of the Neolithic period in different parts of Europe.
Italy was always far in advance of Europe north of the Alps. But even in
northern Europe there was great diversity. Shell-heap dwellers still
remained long after a much higher culture prevailed throughout most of
Denmark. The life and thought of the pioneer hunters of northern
Germany, and still more of northern Russia, were very different from
those of the agriculturists along the valley of the Danube and in the
Balkan Peninsula. In Greece little city-states began to arise early.
Even in northern Europe density of population and size of settlements
varied greatly. One illustration of these differences can be seen in the
occurrence of fortified villages and refuges.[45] The age of these
fortifications is as great a problem as that of the remains found in a
pit-dwelling. The village may be, probably usually is, much older than
the surrounding wall, and an earthen wall may contain Neolithic or even
perhaps Paleolithic implements. The custom of fortifying villages
evidently spread rapidly during the Bronze and Iron periods. Sophus
Müller tells us that all walled settlements north of the Alps are far
younger than the Neolithic period.[46] This statement, often disputed or
neglected, is probably an exaggeration, but may well be true of the
region surrounding the Baltic. The sparse and scattered hunting and
pioneer population of Scandinavia and Germany had no need of building
permanent walls around their single houses or small villages. They had
very little wealth to protect.
But an agricultural population inhabiting a fertile region open to
attack might well surround their villages with a wall, or provide a
burg, or fortified place or "refuge," whither they might drive their
cattle or transport their grain. Examples of this are Stutzheim and
Urmitz, in the Rhine valley, always a great thoroughfare, and in
Switzerland and along the maritime Alps villages of this sort seem to
have been fairly frequent. Apparently they were still more numerous in
the valley of the Danube and in the Balkan Peninsula. It is not at all
surprising to find them in Thessaly, so near to the advanced
civilization of Greece.
Another class of settlements usually well protected were the workshops
(ateliers) and manufacturing villages, especially those where flint
was mined, or where flint implements were made in large quantities and
distributed by trade over wide areas.[47] During the Neolithic period
these settlements would have held much the same place and importance
as our centres of coal, iron, manufacturing, and business have with us
to-day. Grand Pressigny and Camp de Chassey, in France, and Cissbury,
in England, are single examples of a great number of such fortified
mining and manufacturing villages. For a further study of these very
interesting remains the reader is referred to the manuals of
Déchelette and Hoernes.
Even before the close of the Paleolithic period tundra and steppe were
giving place to forests, which were advancing even into Scandinavia. The
forest looms large and terrible in the works of classical writers and
German antiquarians. Says Tacitus: "Who would leave the softer climes of
Asia, Africa, or Italy to fix his abode in Germany, where Nature offers
nothing but scenes of ugliness, where the inclemency of the seasons
never relents?... The face of the country, though in some parts varied,
presents a cheerless scene, covered with the gloom of forests, or
deformed with wide-extended marshes." He says that the soil produces
grain and is well stocked with cattle, though of small size. But grain
does not grow in primeval forests, and herds of cattle need at least
open glades for pasturage. It is an extreme picture tinged by the
homesickness of a citizen of sunny Italy. Northern Europe was generally
heavily forested until long after Tacitus's time. The Romans began in
earnest the work of deforesting France, and the work was carried on all
over Europe in mediæval times. The Neolithic immigrants probably made
small clearings with the aid of fire, especially where the trees were
low and not too thick, as on many light-soiled areas. They could make
but little impression on the heavy forest growth, though they could
limit its spread. They probably did not need to make wide clearings of
dense forest. There were many open stretches of country of greater or
less extent awaiting occupants and culture. This was true especially of
districts occupied by the loess, whose origin from dust drifted by
Paleolithic wind-storms we have already noticed.
Geikie describes loess as typically a "fine-grained, yellowish,
calcareous, sandy loam, consisting very largely of minute grains of
quartz with some admixture of argillaceous and calcareous matter."[48]
It is for the most part a wind-blown deposit. It is widely developed
over low-lying regions, but sweeps up to heights of 200 to 300 feet and
more above the bottoms of the great river valleys. Again, in many places
we find it heaped up under the lee of hills, the exposed windward slopes
of which bear no trace of it. Wherever there is loess we are likely to
find the remains of steppe plants and animals. The ancient steppe area
which generally covers, and probably extends considerably beyond, the
loess district, is the region occupied by most of the primitive
settlements. Even to-day it is less wooded than the rest of northern
Europe. Such steppe regions in the North German plain are the great
diluvial river terraces, especially the terraces of the Saale and Elbe
and the eastern edge of the Harz Mountains; in South Germany the lower
Alpine "Vorland" from Switzerland to lower Austria, the uplands of
Suabia and Franconia, the valleys of the Main and Neckar, and much of
northern Bohemia. These steppe regions of Germany, northern Austria, and
Switzerland extended southeastward in a zone following the Danube,
widening out in the great Hungarian plain into the vast steppe region
extending eastward from the Black Sea or Pontus. From this Pontic steppe
a band of more or less open country extended northward along the
Carpathians until it almost or quite joined the open regions of the Elbe
and along the Harz. A farther extension of this same band seems to have
opened the way from the Harz region through northwest Germany into
Belgium and northern France, and very probably into Brittany. We see at
once the importance of these long lines of open or thinly forested
country to the immigrations and settlement of Neolithic peoples.
Periodical floods or other conditions kept open many river valleys,
whose importance we shall estimate in a later chapter. All this land,
except the uplands of Suabia and Franconia, and some similar areas, was
comparatively fertile, the loess areas particularly so, and suited to a
primitive agriculture.
In England the valleys of the Thames and other rivers were heavily
wooded and not populated until much later. But the long lines of
chalk-downs and oolitic uplands were far less favorable to forest
growth. In Norfolk and Suffolk there were apparently open spaces.
Yorkshire and Derbyshire had very similar landscapes. The forest was
held back wherever the porous chalk formation made a large outcrop. In
these places man could settle and find pasturage for his flocks and
attempt a poor sort of agriculture, even in Neolithic days. Hence we
find these regions dotted with Neolithic settlements. The immigrants who
came in during the Bronze period settled in the same regions. Here again
clearing of the forest on any large scale was apparently not attempted
until Roman times, but along its boundaries, where the forest growth was
not too heavy, these primitive agriculturists may well have cut off the
lighter growth for fuel and buildings, and thus have gradually
appreciably extended the arable area.
CHAPTER IV
LAKE-DWELLINGS
The winter of 1853-1854 was exceedingly cold and dry. The surface of the
Swiss lakes sank lower than at any time during many preceding centuries.
The lowering of the water tempted the inhabitants along the shore to
erect dikes and thus fill in the newly gained flats. During this process
the workmen along the edge of the retreating water came upon the tops of
piles, and between those great quantities of horn and stone implements
and fragments of pottery. Aeppli, a teacher in Obermeilen, called the
attention of the Antiquarian Society in Zurich to these discoveries. The
society recognized at once their importance, and under the leadership of
its president, Ferdinand Keller, began a series of most careful
investigations which have contributed more to our knowledge of life
during the Neolithic period than any discoveries before or since.
The number of these lake-dwellings is very large. Lake Neuchatel has
furnished over 50; Lake Leman (Geneva) 40; Lake Constance over 40; Lake
Zurich 10. The shores of the smaller lakes have also contributed their
full quota.[49] In some of the lakes where the shore was favorable,
remains of a lake-dwelling have been found before almost every modern
village. Sometimes we find the remains of two villages, one somewhat
farther out than the other. In these cases the one nearer the shore is
the older, usually Neolithic, while the one farther out belongs to the
Bronze period.
These settlements are by no means limited to Switzerland. They stretch
in a long zone along the Alps from Savoy and southern Germany through
Switzerland into Austria.[50] Herodotus mentions them in the Balkan
Peninsula. The amount of bronze seems to increase as we pass from east
to west. They are found frequently in the Italian lakes, mostly
containing relics of the Bronze Age, though here the western settlements
contain little or no metal. A second series has been discovered in
Britain and northern Germany, and extending into Russia. These are
considerably younger. The scheme of the lake-dwelling was used in
historic times in Ravenna and Venice. Large numbers are still inhabited
in the far east.
A sunny, sheltered shore, protected by hills from storms and action of
waves, was always an attractive site.[51] The character of the land, if
open and suitable for pasturage and cultivation, was doubtless
important. Much depended on the character of the bottom. Where the shore
shelved off gradually and was composed of marl or sand, the piles could
be easily driven, and could hold their place firmly. Even if the shore
was somewhat too hard and the piles could be driven only a little
distance, they were strengthened by piles of stones, often brought from
a considerable distance. When a suitable location had been discovered
and selected the trees were felled partly by the use of stone axes, and
partly by fire, and one end of the log was pointed by the same means,
according to Avebury. Their diameter was from three to nine inches, and
their length from fifteen to thirty feet. During the Bronze period
larger trees were felled and split, and larger piles had to be used in
the deeper water farther from the shore.[52]
These rudely sharpened piles were driven into the bottom by the use of
heavy stone mallets. This must have involved an immense amount of hard
labor, for at the settlement of Wangen 50,000 piles were used, though
not all probably at the same time. Messikommer calculated that at
Robenhausen over 100,000 were used. We find sometimes a different
foundation. It consists of a solid mass of mud and stones, with erect
and also horizontal logs binding the whole structure firmly together.
This is evidently a ruder, simpler, and perhaps more primitive, mode of
building. It was less suited to an open situation, exposed to heavy
waves, and seems to occur more often in smaller lakes now often filled
with peat.[53] Wauwyl and Nieberwyl are good illustrations of such a
"_Packwerkbau_." Some have considered them as originally floating rafts.
When the piles had been firmly driven, cross-pieces were laid over the
top, and on this a "flooring" of smaller poles, or of halved logs or
even split boards, whose interstices were probably filled with moss and
clay, forming a solid and fairly even surface, on which the dwellings
could be erected. The framework of the houses was of small piles, some
of which have been found projecting considerably above the
platforms.[54] "The size of the house is further marked out by boards
forced in between the piles and resting edgeways on the platform, thus
forming what at the present day we should call the skirting boards
(mop-boards) of the hut or rooms. The walls or sides were made of a
wattle or hurdle work of small branches, woven in between the upright
piles, and covered with a considerable thickness of loam or clay." This
is proved by numbers of pieces of clay half-burnt, or hardened in the
fire, with the impressions of the wattle-work still remaining. These
singularly illustrative specimens are found in nearly every settlement
which has been destroyed by fire. The houses were rectangular except in
a few cases. They were apparently thatched with straw or reeds. The
hearths consisted of three or four stone slabs.
These houses were calculated by Messikommer at Robenhausen to have been
about 27 by 22 feet, a very respectable size. One was excavated at
Schussenried, whose side-walls and floor were fairly well preserved.
This was a rectangle about 33 by 23 feet (10 by 7 metres), and was
divided into two chambers. The front room, 6-1/2 by 4 metres, opened by
a door facing south, and with remains of a hearth in one corner. The
rear room, 6-1/2 by 5 metres, was without outer door, and was apparently
a bedroom.[55] Beside these houses, or forming a part of them, were
stalls for the cattle, granaries, and probably workshops. (The
distribution of different remains is well shown in Keller's _Lake
Dwellings_, I, p. 45.) The stone and bone implements, and the pottery of
the lake-dwellers can be more conveniently considered in connection with
those of other regions.
We pass now to the remains of animals and plants found here, especially
in their relations to the food supply of the people.[56] Altogether
about 70 species of animals have been discovered. Of these 10 are fish,
4 reptiles, 26 birds, and 30 mammals, of which 6 were probably
domesticated. The largest of these were the great _Cervus alces_ or
moose--sometimes called elk--the wild cattle, and the stag (_Cervus
elaphus_). Bones of the stag and ox are very numerous and equal those of
all others together. Of the horse very few remains are found until the
Bronze period. Wild horses seem to have lived on in certain parts of
Europe until a late date, but apparently they had emigrated almost
altogether from this region. The horse of the Bronze Age was
domesticated. The lion had left this region, but lingered on in the
Balkans down to historic times. The brown bear and the wolf still roamed
in the forest. In the oldest lake-dwellings the bones of wild animals
make up a far larger proportion of the remains than in the latest ones.
We find a somewhat small dog (_Canis familiaris palustris_) closely
resembling that of the Danish shell-heaps. It was apparently of the
jackal type, and much like the modern Spitz. This would have been an
excellent watch-dog to give warning of the approach of enemies. But at
the close of the Neolithic, with the increase of flocks of sheep, a
larger dog more closely related to the wolf seems to have spread widely
through the country (_Canis familiaris matris optimæ Juit_). This form
was much like, and probably the ancestor of, our present sheep-dogs. A
third form (_Canis intermedius_) also occurs. The origin and
relationships of the various forms of this oldest domesticated animal
are still anything but clear. That they all go back to the jackal and
the wolf rather than to a form like the Australian dingo, still seems to
be most generally accepted. (But see Schenk.[57])
Man gained the dog by domesticating the jackal and different species of
wolves in different parts of the world and then by crossing, or, by a
more or less unconscious selection, bred different varieties, until we
have at present a chaos of intermingled forms. Something similar but on
a smaller scale was true of the domestic cattle. One kind of domestic
cattle appears fully domesticated in the oldest lake-dwellings. It is
unlike any wild European form. This is the _Bos brachyceros_. It was
almost certainly imported. Mingled with its forms we find those of the
_Bos primigenius_, a native of Europe and North Asia, but apparently not
domesticated. This is the urus, which was common in Europe in Cæsar's
day, and lasted in central Europe until 1000 A. D. and still lingers in
Poland.[58] This was a very large and powerful form with long spreading
horns, whose domestication appears to have commenced toward the close of
the Neolithic period. It is not improbable that it was domesticated, or
at least tamed, independently in different countries at quite different
times. Raising of cattle was at its height during the Bronze Age;
afterward the results seem to decline and the cattle to degenerate.
One of the Vaphio vases of about 1500 B. C. represents the capture of
large, long-horned cattle in a net, while the second shows similar
animals tamed. Apparently the smaller and lighter brachyceros was first
tamed, and this success led to a series of experiments with the larger
and more difficult form.[59]
If we draw a line from northwestern Russia diagonally across Europe
southwestward to the mouth of the Rhone, it will divide fairly well the
distribution of the descendants of those two forms. To the eastward in
Russia and Austria, also generally through Germany, and extending also
along the shores of the Baltic, we find the large, heavy, usually
long-horned descendants of the primigenius stock. The cattle of Spain,
and southward into Africa, of France and England, are more of the
short-horned, light-built, smaller brachyceros type. Holstein and Jersey
are good representatives of the two types, though the Holsteins are,
perhaps, a somewhat marked variety. Some regard the cattle of the Scotch
highlands as the best representatives of the _primigenius_ type, though
reduced in size. This same type, on account of its size and endurance of
harsh climate, has furnished the range cattle of our Western plains.
Two fairly distinct forms of swine occur in the lake-dwellings. The
first is the so-called turbary pig (_Sus scrofa palustris_). This is a
small form with comparatively long legs. It differs markedly from the
wild boar, and was probably imported already domesticated. Being more or
less left to feed and shift for itself, it may well have declined in
size from its primitive oriental ancestors. Remains of the larger
European wild boar (_Sus scrofa ferus L._) also occur from the beginning
as products of the hunt. But during the Bronze period domesticated
descendants of this variety grow numerous, and are crossed with the
smaller turbary pig.
"The domestic sheep," says Brehm, "is a quiet, gentle, patient, simple,
will-less, cowardly, wearisome animal. It has no character. It
understands and learns nothing; is incapable of helping itself."[60] It
is certainly absolutely dependent upon man for guidance and protection.
This lies partly in its inherited nature and original surroundings, but
suggests long domestication. Like the goat, it is originally a mountain
form, but adapts itself readily to the dry herbage of the steppe. It is
not a native of central Europe but introduced. It is much rarer than the
goat in the oldest lake-dwellings, but gradually becomes more abundant,
especially in the Bronze period.
The turbary sheep (_Ovis aries palustris_) is very small, with slender
legs, long narrow skull, and bones somewhat like those of the goat. It
was certainly not developed in Switzerland, and before it arrived there
it had apparently been much modified by conditions of life or by
crossing. Its anatomical characteristics are made up of at least three
wild forms. The first of these is the goat-like maned sheep (_Ovis
tragelaphus_) ranging over the mountains of northern Africa, extending
across into Abyssinia. This form seems to have been domesticated in
Egypt before the middle of the fourth millennium. At a much later date,
in Homeric times, herds of sheep of a similar form were kept in Greece.
It was much larger than the turbary form.
The arkal (_Ovis arkal_) is the steppe sheep of central and western
Asia. It is the ancestor of the oriental and African fat-tailed sheep.
The western Asiatic forms seem to have developed the fine wool at the
expense of the coarse hair, like that of the goat and of many other
forms.
A third form is the Moufflon, of the mountains around the Mediterranean
and of its larger islands--here probably introduced. Similar forms appear
in Europe during the Bronze period.
Other species are found in different parts of Asia. The balance of
probabilities seems to incline toward the view that the turbary sheep
came into Europe from western and central Asia with other "turbary"
forms, that it had been long domesticated, and either here or on its
westward migration may have more or less crossed with the descendants of
other varieties. The oldest domesticated goats seem to be descended from
the Bezoar goat (_Capra ægagrus_), from the mountains of southwestern
Asia.
The presence of oxen, sheep, and goats is enough to prove that the
people must have practised agriculture to some extent to have kept these
animals alive through the winter. That they were kept on the platform is
shown by the presence of manure in the remains underneath. Whether this
was used for fertilizer we do not know, nor their method of cultivating
the ground. No agricultural implements have come down to us.
"The small-grained, six-rowed barley (_Hordeum hexastichum sanctum_) and
the small lake-dwelling wheat (_Triticum vulgare antiquorum_) were the
most ancient, most important, and most generally cultivated farinaceous
seeds of our country. Next to them come the beardless compact wheat (_T.
vulg. compactum muticum_) and the larger six-rowed barley (_Hordeum
hexastichum densum_), with the two kinds of millet, the common millet
(_Panicum miliaceum_) and the Italian millet (_Setaria italica_). The
Egyptian wheat (_Triticum turgidum L._), the two-rowed wheat (emmer,
_Triticum dicoccum Schr._), and the one-grained wheat (_Trit.
monococcum_) were probably, like the two-rowed barley, only cultivated
as experiments in a few places; and the spelt (_Triticum spelta L._),
which at present is one of the most important cereals, and the oat
(_Avena sativa L._) appeared later, not till the Bronze Age, while rye
was entirely unknown among the lake-dwellings of Switzerland."[61]
Oats occur in the Bronze period in western, middle, and northern Europe,
in the Alpine lake-dwellings, and in the Danish islands. The ancient
Egyptians and Hebrews, Indians and Chinese, did not cultivate them; they
were raised in Asia Minor and America only since historic times. We
remember that wheat and barley are mentioned in the oldest records of
the Old Testament--as in Gideon's barley loaf--but rye and oats not at
all.
The grains seem to show a gradual improvement in productiveness from the
very oldest settlements to those of the Bronze period. They are found
charred and perfectly preserved wherever the houses were destroyed by
fire. Even the ears and stalks have been saved for us in the same
manner. Charred loaves of bread, and cake made of poppy-seeds, were also
found. "Bread was made only of wheat and millet, the latter with the
addition of some grains of wheat, and, for the sake of flavoring it,
with linseed also. Bread made of barley has not yet been found, and it
is probable that barley was chiefly eaten boiled, or more probably
parched or roasted."[62] Flint sickles made of a long flake set at a
right angle with the wooden handle have been found in Denmark, and
others whose blade is formed by a row of small, sharp flints set in the
edge of a wooden block occur in Egypt. The hand-mills or mealing-stones
are very abundant, as might be expected.
The occurrence of the seeds of the Cretan catchfly (_Silene cretica L._)
is interesting, as it is not found wild in Germany or in southeastern
Europe, but over all the countries of the Mediterranean. Similarly, the
corn-bluebottle (_Centaura cyanus L._) is found wild in Sicily. This
seems to show that these plants came in with the wheat from Italy. But
it is still possible that both Switzerland and Italy received them from
a source somewhat or considerably farther east or south.
Apples and pears, split and dried, occur abundantly. Some of the apples
are so large that they suggest a certain amount of care and cultivation.
Sour crabapples, and the stones of cherries, plums, and sloes are found
accompanied by the seeds of the wild grape; of elderberries,
raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Acorns, beechnuts, and
hazelnuts were stored up. Besides the seeds of the poppy, already
mentioned, those of caraway were used apparently to flavor the bread.
Altogether some 170 plants have been discovered and determined from
these localities.[63]
Basket-making and the weaving of mats from bast-fibres had led up to a
highly developed weaver's art. Few or no remains of wool have come down
to us from Neolithic time, though it occurs in graves of the Bronze Age
farther north. It would not preserve by charring, as all other
lake-dwelling organic remains have been saved for us, and our failure to
discover it is not surprising. We can hardly believe that these people
did not use the wool of their flocks of sheep, or failed to felt the
hair of their goats. But flax has been found in all stages of
preparation and manufacture in great quantities. Says Messikommer of
Robenhausen: "Every house had its loom." We find not only threads,
cords, and ropes, twine and nets, but cloth of varying pattern and
design. Some pieces were so finely woven and well preserved that their
discoverers could hardly believe that they were not of modern make.
Fringes and embroidery occur.[64]
Linen alone could hardly have furnished sufficient protection against
the cold and dampness of the Swiss winter climate. The more primitive
inhabitants had an abundance of furs. Garments of sheepskin were
doubtless in use. And probably wool and goat's-hair were woven or felted
into outer garments. Dye-stuffs of black, yellow, red, and blue coloring
furnished a variety of tints and shades.
Very few human bones have been found among those lake-dwelling remains;
and only a few burial-places, or rather tombs, in the neighboring
mainland. The discussion of their mode of burial and racial
characteristics may well be deferred to a later chapter.
Of their religious cult we know almost nothing.[65] No idols or fetiches
have been recognized. Certain "crescents" of clay, supported with the
horns turned upward, have been considered by some as head-rests, for
which purpose they are still used by certain African tribes. Others have
considered them as representatives of the crescent moon; still others as
conventionalized ox heads and horns. It seems highly probable that
they had some religious significance, but its exact nature is still
uncertain. We shall return to them later.
[Illustration: WEAVING AND PLAITING FROM LAKE-DWELLINGS]
A lake-dwelling of any size is inconceivable without a well-advanced
social development. It could hardly be founded, builded, or maintained
without close co-operation. Families had to live closely crowded
together, almost as in our modern cities. Neighbors had learned to get
on with one another and live together in peace, and to submit to a close
regulation or discipline by law or custom. They seem to have been a
peaceful folk and exposed to no great dangers from outside attack, at
least in Neolithic time. When the ice fringed the shores or covered the
small lakes, they must have been easily open to attack. A few brands
thrown into the thatched roof would have brought sure destruction.
Traces of conflagration occur, as at Robenhausen, which was twice
destroyed by fire.[66] But these occurrences are rare. Neolithic
settlements seem to have been more frequently abandoned because of the
growth of peat than by any sudden or violent destruction. Conditions
probably changed in this respect during the Bronze period.
Their food was varied and more than fairly abundant. They had their
domestic animals to furnish flesh, milk, probably butter and cheese.
Agriculture was primitive, but in some cases we find large stores, we
might say granaries, of wheat; and wild fruits and vegetable foods were
abundant. The forests offered game, and the lakes were well-stocked with
fish. There may have been times of hardship and dearth, but famine could
hardly have ravaged a people with these three sources of supply.
The lake offered a thoroughfare for their canoes, and communication was
easy for long distances. To cite only one illustration: flint was
brought from Grand Pressigny, in France, and manufactured in certain
Swiss localities. There was much variety and division of labor between
different villages. One manufactured flint very largely--so at and around
Moosseedorf; while Robenhausen and Wangen have furnished great
quantities of cloth. Others were rather centres for the manufacture of
pottery. Even in the same village one area is richer in one product, a
second in another. There was much variety as well as freedom of
intercommunication. The whole region lay a little back from the great
Danube thoroughfare, but near enough to it to retain connection with the
larger world. Life was not altogether monotonous.
The lake-dwellings have been divided according to their age into three
groups or stages, representing three epochs more or less marked.[67]
_Stage I._ _Archaic Epoch._--Axes small and made out of indigenous
material. "Hammer-axes" and utensils of horn and bone rude. No
decorations on weapons, utensils, nor on the crude pottery. Plaiting and
weaving practised. Population in Switzerland at this time seems to have
been sparse. Food obtained from hunt more than from domestic animals.
Examples: Chavannes (Schafis) Moosseedorf, Wauwyl. People
brachycephalic.
_Stage II._ _Middle Neolithic Epoch._--Weapons and utensils more perfect.
Stone axes finely polished, often with hole for handle, sometimes very
large. Beside the commoner minerals five to eight per cent of implements
made of nephritoids (nephrite, jadeite, and chloromelanite). These are
almost absent in Epochs I and III. Pottery of far better material and
manufacture, with traces of ornament. Remains of domestic and wild
animals nearly equal. Domestic animals are turbary pig, goat, sheep,
turbary cattle, but _primigenius_ form present though less common.
Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic people nearly equal in number.
Examples: Robenhausen and Concise.
_Stage III._ _Copper Epoch._--Hammer-axes, beautifully finished. Bone and
horn implements. Nephritoid minerals less used. Pottery more artistic.
Cord-decoration appears. Certain ornaments, weapons, and implements are
made of copper. Domesticated animals improve and form a larger part of
the food than game. Cattle especially increase in numbers, and a new
race of sheep has arisen. Long-heads more numerous than broad-heads.
Examples: Roseax, at Morges. Locraz, Ferril (Vinelz).[68]
It is interesting to notice that remains of domestic cattle are abundant
in all ages, that goats are more abundant than sheep in the earliest
lake-dwelling, but that the sheep became equally numerous in the second
epoch, while they decidedly outnumbered the goats during the Bronze
period. This is what we should expect from the advance of culture.
Says Keller:[69] "The shores of the western portion of Lake Constance
are probably more thickly studded with settlements than those of any
other Swiss lake. In fact, here are found happily united all the
requirements necessary for the erection of dwellings of this nature. A
deposit of marl stretches along nearly the whole of its shores and of
tolerable breadth. A rich tract of country between the shore and the
hills which rise quietly behind; forests of pine and oak; pleasant bays
with a gravelly bottom; a great abundance of fish in the lake, and a
superfluity of game in the surrounding forests, were circumstances
highly favorable to the colonization of these shores."
Could we have sat on one of these village platforms of a summer
afternoon and looked out to the wheat-fields on the shore, and seen the
canoes come in with fish or game, and the cattle returning from the
mainland pasture; could we have watched the men fashioning implements
and all manner of woodwork, and the women grinding the grain or moulding
pottery, or spinning and weaving; we should have found a great deal to
please and interest us. The fruits and berries, the smell of roasting
fish and baking bread, of cakes well flavored with the oil from beechnut
or flax, or perhaps sifted over with the seeds of poppy or caraway,
would have been far from disagreeable. We should have felt that it was a
goodly land, and that life was well worth living. We should not have
been disturbed by shrieking steamboats, puffing and groaning
locomotives, or honking automobiles, or by telegraphs or telephones, by
letters which must be answered or books which must be read. There were
no stocks and bonds, bills or notes, strikes or lockouts. There was no
labor question; all simply had to work. No one went to school, except to
nature, and there were no lectures. "The name of that chamber was
peace."
We ought not to forget in our comfort that everybody could not live in a
lake-dwelling, that all over Europe there were other settlements or
dwellings, more lonely or isolated, where food was never abundant and
sometimes very scarce, where labor was unremitting and the reward
scanty. But even in those less civilized regions there was probably
usually much rude comfort; and if there were times of scarcity and want,
there were also times of feasting and abundance. All over Europe there
were, even in Neolithic time, children, boys and girls playing around
the houses; and young men and women looking out on life with the same
inexperience and illusions, courage and hopes, which lure us onward
to-day.
CHAPTER V
A GLANCE EASTWARD
The culture of the oldest lake-dwellings appears suddenly in Europe, and
its beginnings are exotic in all their essentials. The turbary cattle
were quite different from the wild _primigenius_ race of the surrounding
regions; and we find no remains of the intermediate forms which should
occur if domestication had taken place here. The same is true of the
turbary pig. Wild sheep are unknown in northern Europe, and the moufflon
of the Mediterranean islands can hardly have been the ancestor of our
Swiss flocks, and is very possibly descended from domesticated ancestors
which reverted to wild life. Something very similar may be said of our
oldest cereals, wheat and barley.
We must evidently turn eastward or southward to find the cradle of the
whole culture. Even if it came partly from Italy, it could hardly have
developed there. Egypt may have made contributions, but mostly at a
later date. We naturally turn first to Asia, the great centre of
mammalian evolution, probably the oldest seat of cattle-raising and
agriculture, cradle of man and centre of his earliest development. The
true Neolithic cultures in northern Europe can hardly be older than
about 6000 B. C.; the lake-dwellings are probably far younger. We must
first inquire into the location, age, and character of the oldest
agriculture in nearer Asia, where great discoveries have been made
during the last twenty years.
We naturally turn first to Babylonia. Under the temple of Bel, at
Nippur, was an immense platform constructed of sun-dried bricks, most of
them stamped with the name of Sargon or of Naram Sin. The date of Sargon
seems still uncertain; many historians place it at 2800 B. C.; others,
and apparently most archæologists, like Obermaier, still hold to the old
date, 3750 B. C.[70] Without any attempt to decide this question, we
will hold in this chapter to the older date; and believers in the latter
date can subtract 1,000 from our figures for earlier times, though this
does not apply to Pumpelly's estimates.
Says Delitzsch[71] of this mound: "In the deepest layers of these
remains, or what amounts to the same, back many centuries beyond the
fifth millennium, everywhere interesting and valuable remains of human
civilization come to light, fragments of vessels of copper, bronze, and
clay, a quantity of earthenware so beautifully lacquered in red and
black that we might consider them of Greek origin, or at least
influenced by Greek art, had they not been found eight metres deep under
Naram Sin's pavement." Here we find the Bronze period, or possibly late
Copper, before 5000 B. C. A city with a high and complex culture had
already arisen. No one believes that the culture could have originated
in the rank, almost untamable, primitive jungle of Mesopotamia. Its
beginnings must be sought elsewhere and earlier. But the age and
character of Babylonian civilization encourage one to seek further in
western Asia.
In 1904 Pumpelly[72] made most thorough and careful investigations at
Anau, near Askabad in Turkestan, about 300 miles east of the southeast
corner of the Caspian Sea, and 200 miles west of Merv. The remarkable
results of his work are described in two large volumes, and have not
received the attention which they deserve. He excavated in two large
Kurgans or mounds. The north Kurgan is the older and chiefly concerns
us. The Neolithic remains occur in thin compact strata aggregating some
forty-five feet in thickness. The earliest settlement was a town
covering at least five acres, possibly nearly ten.
At the time of the beginning of the settlement, which Pumpelly estimated
as somewhat before 8000 B. C., the inhabitants lived in rectangular
houses built of uniform sun-dried bricks. They were skilful potters,
though unacquainted with the potter's wheel, making different grades of
coarse and fine vessels. These were unglazed, but often painted with a
definite series of geometrical patterns. They had the art of spinning,
for whorls are found in all strata from the lowest up. They cultivated
cereals, for the casts of the chaff of wheat and barley are found in the
clay of the thicker pots. At first they had no domestic animals, only
the bones of wild forms being found. When ten feet of culture strata had
been accumulated the remains of a tame _Bos namadicus_, the Asiatic
variety of the _Bos primigenius_, or urus, occurred. That this animal
had already been domesticated is inferred from the less compact
microscopic structure of the bones modified by artificial conditions. At
this time the change of structure, if not complete, was evident. It had
been for some time under the new conditions. The turbary pig appears
about 7500 B. C.,[73] the turbary sheep about 1500 years later, but
preceded by varieties of the great horned mountain sheep. The turbary
cattle appear to have been a small variety of the _Bos namadicus_,
somewhat dwarfed by drought and hardship.
The camel appears at Anau somewhat after 6000 B. C., and seems to be a
means of intercourse and transport far antedating the horse, in a region
already showing signs of dessication.
Spherical mace-heads occur reminding us of those used in Egypt. But no
lance-head or arrow-point or other stone weapon was found in the lower
levels. We do not know how they killed or captured the larger animals;
they may have used the sling or bolero. In the lowest strata we find the
bones of young children, but not of adults, buried in a contracted
position under the floors of the dwellings. The first objects of copper
and lead appear about 6000 B. C., and, open the Æneolithic period.
Pumpelly distinguishes a Copper period, here longer and more distinctly
marked than in Europe. The turquoise bead found in one of the graves
came, in all probability, from the Iranian plateau, as did probably the
copper and lead also.
He has shown us that even on the steppe the cultivation of cereals
precedes the domestication of sheep and cattle. The nomadic life
follows instead of preceding agriculture. The pioneers in this region
cultivated the zone of steppe, into which rivers poured from the
mountains. When cattle and sheep and goats had multiplied, the herdsmen
drove them farther and farther on the rich pasturage of the boundless
steppe. Thus nomads gradually appear. There are also different varieties
of nomadism. Nomadic tribes were far less active and dangerous neighbors
even after the domestication of the camel than when, about 2000 B. C.,
they had domesticated the horse. The first herdsman may have differed
from the latter nomad almost as much as the most pacific sheep-herder of
our Western plains differs from the liveliest cowboy.
Pumpelly's time-estimates have been criticised by Doctor H. Schmidt, of
Berlin.[74] He makes the rate of growth far more rapid than Pumpelly
thought and shortens the periods. In determining length of periods he
relies far more on artifacts and less on probable rate of accumulation.
The criticisms seem hardly well founded. Pumpelly's estimate of rate of
increase was based upon a careful and broad comparison of accumulations
in the deserted city, Anau, in Merv, and other localities. They seem
conservative, but we must recognize that such estimates are always only
approximate. His estimates result in a series of dates generally in
close agreement with those of most students of oriental archæology.
In the Third Culture Epoch there was found "copper, with sporadic
appearance of low percentage of tin." This describes well the close of
the Copper period or the beginning of the Bronze Age, the rest of which
is not represented at Anau, the settlement being deserted, probably
because of aridity. Pumpelly thinks that the last strata deposited
before the desertion comes down to the Bronze Age, and, assuming the
latest possible date for the beginning of this period, places it about
2200 B. C. This is almost surely much too late. Obermaier dates the
beginning of the Bronze period at 4000 B. C.[75] (If we substitute the
later date, 2750 B. C., for Sargon's region, the Bronze period would
begin about 3000 B. C., the date accepted by Montelius.[76]) Pumpelly
places the beginning of the Copper Epoch at 5000 B. C., again agreeing
with Montelius. His estimates seem generally somewhat too conservative,
as he doubtless intended they should be; the earliest remains may be
considerably older than he thought. Investigations made during the last
twenty years seem generally to lead us to believe that the beginnings
of Neolithic culture are far older in western Asia than we had supposed,
while in middle and northern Europe they are probably somewhat younger
than we had thought. In this connection we may well remember that Evans
found eight metres of Neolithic remains under the palace at Cnossus, in
Crete, and estimated their age at about 14,000 years.
The culture at Anau is very similar in all its essentials to that of the
European lake-dwellers, and is much older. The same cereals and the same
kinds of domesticated animals appear in both. The brick houses are
better and the very fine painted pottery is new and peculiar. These and
the art of spinning and the cultivation of cereals were brought hither
by the first settlers; their development to this stage must have taken
place elsewhere and occupied a long period of time. Sheep could not have
been domesticated here, for they and the goats are natives of the
mountains, and could not survive wild on the steppe. Neither is the pig
a steppe animal, but lives naturally in forest glades and along
watercourses. Pumpelly has evidently discovered a very old and
interesting station in the spread of this ancient culture, but not its
cradle. This was apparently in some mountainous region. The nearest and
most likely place to search for it is somewhere on the Iranian plateau,
to which the turquoise bead and the later-introduced copper and lead
found at Anau also point.
Here at Susa (Shushan), about one hundred miles from the apex of the
Persian Gulf, de Morgan excavated in a mound rising about thirty-four
metres above the level of the plain and continuing some six metres below
the surface, which has been raised that amount since the first
settlement was made.[77] The total thickness of the remains is therefore
about forty metres. The lowest strata as yet have been only slightly
studied. The uppermost ten to fifteen metres cover a period of about
6,000 years. If the lower strata were accumulated at the same rate, the
first settlement was begun about 18,000 years ago at a conservative
estimate. Montelius, the best authority on European prehistoric
chronology, basing his conclusions on de Morgan's discoveries, places
the date of the beginning of Neolithic culture in this part of Asia at
about 18,000 B. C., or somewhat earlier.[78]
Over twenty metres of these remains are purely Neolithic. There was the
usual abundance of flint nuclei, flakes, and utensils. There was
obsidian, evidently brought from a distance--de Morgan thinks from
Armenia, a thousand miles away. This is not impossible; we shall find
that trade or barter was far more extensive at this time than has
usually been supposed.
Here again we find abundant pottery in the lowest strata. It is of a
"dark brown pattern painted on a pale ground, partly imitating basketry
and textiles, partly rendering plants and animals with childish
simplicity.... It resembles in a striking way a few widely scattered
series which are all that have been secured hitherto from a very
ill-explored area: from a Neolithic site underlying the Hittite castle
at Sakye-Giezi, in North Syria, from the surface of early mounds in
Cappadocia, and from low levels of the Hittite capital, at Boghaz-Keui;
and, more surprising still, from an important site, also Neolithic, at
Anau, on the northern edge of the Persian plateau looking over into
Turkestan; and at a number of points scattered over the flat lowland on
the north side of the Black Sea, and thence into the Balkan Peninsula as
far south as Macedonia and Thessaly. These resemblances are general and
their value may be overestimated; there are differences in detail, but
the general similarity seems to link the peoples over this wide area at
the same time in one region of kindred art and culture, if not of
blood."[79]
The discoveries at Susa and elsewhere in this region seem to prove that
compact settlements of fair size had arisen in western Asia long before
the founding of Anau.[80] Such settlements could have been formed only
by sedentary peoples practising agriculture, not by mere wandering
hunters. Our definite knowledge of the domestic animals of Susa is very
small. But, as we have just seen, the peculiar, fine, decorated pottery
found in the oldest strata of Susa, Anau, and many other localities
scattered over a wide area, is certainly a strong argument for believing
that an agriculture in general very similar to that of the oldest strata
at Anau was wide-spread over the Iranian plateau, Asia Minor, and
elsewhere. Where or when it began we do not know. We can only conjecture
as to the place and mode of its beginning. It may not be out of place to
mention a very general hypothesis of this sort, and this we will now
attempt to frame.
The Bühl moraines, in Lake Lucerne, are estimated as having been
deposited between 16,000 and 24,000 B. C., during the Early Magdalenian
stage of post-glacial time, which would, therefore, be contemporaneous
with the earliest settlement at Susa.[81] The climate of Europe was then
somewhat colder and much moister than at present. The ice-cap extended
much farther south in middle Europe than in Russia or Siberia. Under
these circumstances central Asia probably enjoyed a much moister climate
than at present, without extreme cold. The Caspian and Aral Seas
occupied a much larger area than at present, and were very likely
connected. The Tarim basin may well have been a great lake surrounded by
a zone of garden instead of the sandy waste which it is to-day.
Conditions of increased moisture would have made the now parched regions
of the Iranian plateau an exceedingly rich and favored region. Toward
the close of the Post-glacial Epoch the mountains were probably well
forested, but alternating dryer times would have brought open glades,
with lakes interspersed.
When Europe changed from tundra to forest man became largely a
fisherman, more or less settled at some favorable spot, and collecting
his vegetable food in all directions. The same may well have been true
of life at this early date in Persia. The man hunted or fished, the
woman and the children gathered all kinds of animals and plant food,
berries and other fruits, acorns and other nuts. One of the richest
sources of food must have been the roots, tubers, and other underground
stems. If there were any patches of richly seeded grasses or grains on
the near-by glade or hill, we may be sure that the woman did not fail to
beat off the ripe seed with a stick, and carry it home with her. The
primitive family was not dainty or particular in its appetite. The women
were the first botanists, the first to notice the nutritive, medicinal,
or poisonous qualities of plants, and the first physicians.[82]
When she turned homeward with her load of spoil, some berries, seeds,
and small bulbs doubtless fell to the ground and escaped her notice.
These grew and flourished in the richer soil around the hut or shelter,
for all the garbage could not have accumulated in the hut. Some
unusually observing woman noticed this, and protected the plants, or
even cultivated them a little with her digging-stick, and pulled out
some of the largest smothering weeds. She began to plant a few others,
and gradually started a garden. The garden is older than the farm, and
hoe and digging-stick vastly older than the plough. This woman had
discovered, and almost created, a new world of science and culture
which was to revolutionize life.
Rice growing wild in large fields under suitable conditions is still
gathered by all savages. This grain needed no preparation except
boiling, while wheat and barley must be crushed or ground between
stones, probably used at first for grinding dry nuts. Peas and beans,
many vetches, and other members of this family so characteristic of the
dryer uplands, were gathered very early, and may have been cultivated
before wheat. Melons and many of the gourds always must have been eaten.
We shall notice later that the zone of Persia and Asia Minor lay on the
boundary line between two great botanical provinces, a northern and a
southern, and furnished a very wide range of plants for this earliest
experiment station.[83] A great variety of plants were tested sooner or
later, and only a few of the very best and most capable of improvement
have been retained to our day. On the steppe at a later date wheat and
barley were most profitable, and most widely cultivated. But even here
hoe-culture was for a long time the only mode. It still exists in
Africa, Asia, and Japan; and was the only mode of culture known in
America at the time of its discovery. Hoe-culture was at first, and has
generally remained, woman's work; ploughing with cattle was a man's
job. This had far-reaching results to which we must return in a later
chapter.
But we must not think that the Iranian plateau, with its great zone of
piedmont steppe stretching eastward and westward along its northern
border across the continent of Asia, was the only place where
agriculture could start and reach a high degree of development in
ancient times. Its possibility lay in the habit of the woman of
collecting the vegetable food and smaller animals, while the men hunted
and fished. Useful food plants furnishing large amounts of food are to
be found in all continents, and differ markedly in different soils and
climatic zones. Hence even the beginnings of agriculture were probably
not confined to any one region, but were wide-spread, manifold, and
independent. The Chinese migrating eastward and southeastward down the
great river valleys from eastern Turkestan may have carried with them
the cultivation of wheat, or adopted it independently. The rice culture
of China may have been borrowed from India or independently evolved.
India and the Malay Archipelago and Africa have every one its own
agriculture, of whose origin and early development we know nothing.
But western Asia, or more precisely the Iranian plateau, had another
piedmont region beside the zone stretching along its northern border.
This second piedmont zone of grass-land, or oasis, as Breasted has
pointed out, bends in the form of a horseshoe along the western slope of
the Iranian plateau, then northward and westward around the headwaters
of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and southward through Syria.[84] Here
it dries out in the great Syrian and Arabian deserts. But these also, as
well as the Arabian plateau stretching along the Red Sea, may have been
well watered and inhabitable in early post-glacial time. The Arabian
plateau and its piedmont zone in those days may well have been an
independent centre of agricultural development, which gave place to the
nomadism so characteristic of the Semitic peoples only at a later date.
Of the early history of Arabia we are still completely ignorant. But in
the twilight of history we see those Semites coming into the
Mesopotamian valley from the west while the Sumerians entered from the
east. Those two streams of migration, mingling, founded the great
Babylonian Empire, to which all oriental peoples looked up with an awe
and reverence, as well as fear, which we can scarcely appreciate.
Evidently, and this is the fact of chief importance to us, parts of the
nearer east were highly civilized before anything better than savagery
had developed in northern Europe.
But far older than these cities of the Mesopotamian river valleys is the
culture of the forests, glades, lakes, and riversides of the plateaus.
Evidence seems steadily to accumulate that here we are to seek for the
beginnings of agriculture and the domestication of animals which were
slowly to change the face of the earth and the life and character of
man.
Hoe-tillage of the ground is evidently far older than cattle-raising or
nomadic life. It had been brought to Anau before 8000 B. C., and had
probably already been practised at Susa and elsewhere thousands of years
earlier. But we cannot help asking whether other plants may not have
been cultivated long before cereals. Roots and tubers are much more
conspicuous than the smaller grains. These underground storehouses of
nutriment adapted to give the plant a quick and sure start, during a
short spring period of growth and flowering, are abundant everywhere.
They still form the staple crop in many parts of the world. We remember
the potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, the cassava, and a host of others.
In our northern regions we still cultivate beets, turnips, and carrots,
though now becoming more and more food for cattle. These plants also are
less closely limited to the steppes and plateaus. They occur all through
the mountain or shore regions, and for this reason would have been
likely to attract the attention of "collectors."
Primitive woman had no plough, only the digging-stick, the agricultural
implement of the Australians. Later they learned to make a hoe,
sometimes out of a tine of deer's horn, sometimes of stone or other
material, something half-way between a hoe and a pick. With such an
implement a fair amount of soil could be broken up and well stirred.
When domestic animals were introduced into Africa the plough followed
only in the eastern regions; all through the rest of Africa the old
hoe-culture held its own. Europeans introduced the plough into America.
As a means of breaking up the ground the plough is infinitely superior;
for tillage and cultivation the hoe is far more useful. When wheat has
once been sown it cares for itself; further cultivation is
unnecessary--it is the lazy man's crop. Perhaps that, with a touch of the
spur of necessity, persuaded the male to undertake ploughing. When the
plough was invented many vegetables formerly cultivated probably became
less profitable or attractive, and were given up. A revolution took
place in agriculture. Probably the plough was at first dragged by women.
It is impossible to say just when it was invented. It was used during
the Bronze period, for it is represented in rock-carvings of that age.
Some stone ploughshares may be Neolithic.
Studying European Neolithic agriculture in the light of the methods of
savage and barbarous peoples, or even of our pioneer ancestors, we
imagine them living on the border of the forests which furnished food
and wood for buildings and implements. The first step was to burn and
clear a place where the undergrowth was not too heavy, and to break up
the soil with pick or hoe. Here the patch of grain was sowed. The soil
fertilized by the ashes gave him a fair crop, but became exhausted after
a few years of cultivation, and he was compelled to break up a new
field. Some investigators have thought that the lake-dwellers used the
manure from their cattle on their fields, but in most parts of Europe
cultivation of the soil was probably crude and superficial. On the chalk
downs of England, chief places of settlement by Neolithic peoples in
this region, we find terraces and narrow strips which may have been
prepared at this time, though their age is very uncertain. They often
are of a size and form not well adapted to plough-culture. They have a
look of permanent occupation. These may well have been fertilized. The
evidence is very uncertain. When the loess soil was of fair depth
cultivation may have gone on for many years without fertilizers of any
sort.
The primitive plough was hardly more than a pointed stout branch or stub
of a tree, whose longer fork was fastened to the yoke. It made a furrow
triangular in cross-section, broad at the top and narrowing to an edge
at the bottom. It did not "turn" a strip, and between two furrows a long
ridge was left unbroken. Even in Roman times cross-ploughing was common
or usual. Even this rude culture needed the strength of cattle to draw
the plough. The plough is associated in our minds with oxen, and the
first man who made his cow, instead of his wife, draw the plough was a
great benefactor.
Even the domestication of cattle was less easy than it seems at first
sight. Wild animals rarely reproduce in captivity. Pumpelly thinks that
the way toward the domestication of our larger cattle may have been
paved by a long period of drought driving them from the steppe into the
better-watered oases, and thus into association with man. But this
could hardly have been true of the mountain sheep and goats, on which
man may well have experimented before he attempted the more difficult
task of domesticating the larger, more powerful, and less manageable
_Bos namadicus_. How did man hit upon the plan of castrating the bull
and thus changing this intractable, ugly beast into the docile and
patient ox? There seems to be a good amount of plausibility in Hehn's
brilliant suggestion that this may have come about in connection with
some ancient systems of religious rites and beliefs.[85] There is
nothing impossible or very improbable in this view. But the very
brilliancy of the conjecture and the clearness with which it is
expressed, and the wealth of learning used to support it, warns us
against too ready acceptance. We can only confess our complete ignorance
and wait for future discoveries as patiently as we can.
At present nearly all our knowledge of what was going on in this dim and
remote past must be gained by a study of savages still holding the
customs of the past in a somewhat or greatly modified form and spirit.
Certain very general inferences may be made without great danger. But to
frame clear and exact conceptions of life in these remote ages from
these sources would demand a union of the boldest genius with the most
wary caution. All these peoples have changed greatly during past
millennia both for better and worse, usually probably in the latter
direction. Customs have all been modified by changed conditions,
surroundings, and inferences. It is exceedingly difficult to distinguish
between what is really primitive and what is degenerate, perhaps of
comparatively recent origin. The problem bristles with tantalizing
questions, which tempt us to spin fascinating hypotheses all the more
dangerous because of their attractiveness and apparent simplicity. Our
great need is new facts and discoveries, and a clearer knowledge and
understanding of old ones.
We may well connect and condense the chief results of our study in this
chapter. It seems to be clear that a culture essentially similar to that
of the European lake dwellers existed at Anau, in the piedmont zone, a
little north or northeast of the Iranian plateau, with which it had
trade relations. The oldest turbary forms of domesticated animals appear
here at least 1,500 years before the founding of the Swiss lake
dwellings. They were mostly introduced from some mountain region, the
nearest probable source being the Iranian plateau, but their first
domestication may have taken place equally well elsewhere in western or
central Asia, or even in Arabia. Susa shows similar remains extending
back into a far more remote past; and the similarity or kinship of the
pottery in the oldest strata at Susa and Anau and elsewhere leads us to
believe that a culture similar in other respects also was widely
distributed at this time. We can hardly doubt that agriculture was
practised by the founders of all these settlements.
We can only frame conjectures as to the origin of agriculture. It seems
to have been introduced by the women of hunting and fishing tribes. The
first agricultural implement was probably the digging-stick, which was
followed by the hoe. Hoe-culture is still common in Asia and Africa.
Finally, during the first part of the Bronze period, or perhaps somewhat
earlier, the plough drawn by cattle and guided by a man superseded the
hoe as a means of breaking up the soil for the culture of grain.
CHAPTER VI
MEGALITHS
Megaliths, those great stone monuments of prehistoric time, have always
excited the wonder and interest of all observers.[86] Under the name of
dolmens or stone chambers, cromlechs or stone circles, tumuli or mounds,
they form a striking contrast to the insignificant and ephemeral
thatched huts of wood and clay which formed the homes of the living.
These chambers, especially those of later date, are often accompanied by
circles or radiating lines of rude pillars, the Menhirs or standing
stones. In the more fertile and densely populated regions the great
blocks have been removed and used in the foundations of buildings. They
must once have been far more numerous. But Déchelette reports nearly
4,500 as still existing in France;[87] England contains almost or quite
as many; and they are very numerous in Denmark and Sweden. We will
mainly follow Sophus Müller in his study of these monuments in
Denmark.[88]
The simplest, and apparently the oldest, dolmens are the small
rectangular chambers consisting of four stones set up on edge with one
large one forming the roof. These are usually between 5 and 7 feet in
length, 2 to 3-1/2 feet wide, and 3 to 5 feet in height. One of the end
stones is shorter, leaving an opening under the roof through which one
may reach or even crawl into the chamber. Somewhat larger chambers of
the same type and having five or six wall stones are not uncommon.
Even these small chambers were intended for long use, and to contain
more than one body; some contain the remains of a dozen. The bones lie
in layers covered with flint chips, or in little heaps where they have
been collected to give room for new interments. Many of the smaller
chambers were too short to allow the body to lie fully extended; in some
it was evidently placed in a sitting posture leaning against the wall.
These smaller dolmens were surrounded by a heap of earth reaching nearly
to the top of the side stones, but not covering the roof, and hardly
deserving to be called a tumulus. The roof was usually composed of one
great stone, flat below but arching above and forming a sort of
monument. In one chamber this roof-stone is eleven feet long and three
feet thick. On each side of the doorway a stone is often set upright to
keep back the earth of the tumulus, and a covering stone may be laid
across them. Here we have a form intermediate between the small dolmen
without entrance-stones and the large chambers, which we shall consider
later.
The earthern tumulus may be round in outline or elliptical, forming the
long grave--the _Hunnenbett_ of popular German speech. The round tumuli
rarely exceed 40 feet in diameter. They were as a rule surrounded by a
circle of upright stones, now generally removed. The long tumuli are
rarely more than 5 or 6 feet high, and 20 to 30 feet wide. The length
varies greatly: usually between 50 and 100 feet, but infrequently from
100 to 200 feet; one is 500 feet long with over 100 of the marginal
stones still standing.
The chambers in the round and long tumuli in Denmark are very similar,
but in the long tumuli there are usually two or more dolmens, often
symmetrically located. In other cases it looks as if a tumulus had been
lengthened to cover chambers added later. A large amount of variety in
such details is not surprising. More rarely we find two or more small
tumuli side by side, each with one or two chambers. That those smaller
dolmens or chambers are the oldest is suggested not only by their
simplicity but even more by the pottery and implements contained in
them, though this is not invariably true, as the small dolmens continued
in use throughout the Neolithic period, in some regions far later. The
gifts which they contain are usually not numerous and often very scanty.
[Illustration: "CROUCHING BURIAL" (HOCKER-BESTATTUNG) ADLERBORG, NEAR
WORMS]
[Illustration: MENHIR, CARNAC, BRITTANY]
[Illustration: DOLMEN, HAGA, ISLAND OF BORUST]
The wide distribution of these simplest stone monuments is exceedingly
interesting. They occur in Denmark and Sweden, in North Germany and
Holland, in Great Britain and France, Portugal and Spain, in North
Africa, in the Ægean Islands, in Palestine and farther eastward, in
Thrace and Crimea, along the eastern shore of the Black Sea. They are
very numerous in India.[89] Throughout this wide extent they agree not
only in general form and structure, but also in certain interesting
details. For instance, the oriental and southern dolmens frequently have
a round opening in the upper part of the slab closing the entrance,
corresponding to the wide opening above the door of the Scandinavian
dolmens. The difference in the form of the opening may be explained by
the difficulty of cutting a circular opening in the hard granite rocks
of the northern area. There was a general unity of thought in
essentials, especially in those oldest forms. There was much diversity
in execution or expression in later structures. Some of them took the
form of pyramids in Egypt. In Mycenæ we find the "Tomb of Atreus," a
magnificent building in the form of a beehive. The large chambers,
"Giant Chambers" or _Riesenstuben_ of northern Europe, especially of
France, are connected with the older small dolmens by many intermediate
forms. For example, if another pair of stones is added to the sides of a
fair-sized dolmen, we have a chamber six to eight feet in length. Such
dolmens always have a covered entrance to the doorway of at least two
pairs of upright stones extending out through the tumulus. Then the
number of stones in the sides of the chamber is increased to seven,
eight, or nine; and the entrance passage is at right angles to the main
axis of the chamber, giving a rude T-shaped form to the whole structure.
The number of stones in the roof of the chamber increases with its
length. Chambers fifteen to twenty feet long are not uncommon, a length
of twenty to thirty feet is rare, a very few attain forty feet. The
height was between five and seven feet.
The inner surface of the great stones forming the sides of the chamber
is fairly flat. It could have been no easy matter to find in any region
a sufficient number of suitable great blocks of the right form. They
evidently had some method of splitting large boulders. In some chambers
both halves of the same block have been found. These blocks could have
been split by heat or by freezing water in a groove or by wooden wedges.
But we do not know the exact method. Near the top the blocks often
failed to meet exactly. Large holes were filled with bits of wall of
small stones and small chinks were stuffed with clay and moss.
It is surprising to find that these smaller and larger chambers were
erected without any deep foundation for the upright stones. Many of them
have fallen from the heaving of the frost. The monuments were generally
adequately protected against this by the thick tumulus.
The tumulus was enlarged proportionately and usually completely covered
the chamber. Its height averages ten to fifteen feet, and its diameter
over ninety. The culvert-like entrance had to be lengthened accordingly.
But one large chamber did not suffice for successive generations. It was
often extended or additions were made so that quite complicated forms
occur. In England we find frequently a row or cluster of small chambers.
Here the roof is sometimes made of successive layers of stone
approaching as they ascended until one slab covered the "false arch." In
Brittany we find great diversity as well as complexity of form. In some
parts of France the entrance continues the main line of the chamber
instead of being at right angles to it. The French have well
characterized these as "_Allées couvertes_."
Some of these "gallery chambers" were very large and contained a large
number of bodies; sometimes from 40 to 60, in one case 100. The tumulus
at Mont St. Michel measures 115 by 58 metres, and forms a veritable
hill. Thirty-five thousand cubic metres of stone were employed in the
construction of the chamber. Other chambers are from 30 to 50 feet in
length. The celebrated chamber at Bagneux, 25 feet long, is composed of
fourteen great blocks, of which three form the roof. The great tumulus
at _Fontenay-le-Marmion_ in Normandy covered eleven chambers in two
parallel rows. All the material for these great structures could hardly
have been found in the same vicinity. In one case it appears to have
been brought from a quarry two miles away. Some large stones, weighing
thousands of tons, seem to have been transported many miles.
Some of the latest structures show a certain amount of degeneration.
Certain galleries were apparently roofed with timber. We find "dry"
masonry, of smaller stones laid in courses but without mortar,
alternating with or replacing the great blocks, especially in structures
of Æneolithic or Bronze Age. The custom was declining and soon after
this disappeared.[90]
The age of these stone monuments can generally be fairly closely
determined by the contents, unless these have been removed or destroyed
by treasure-hunters, as is often the case. In many cases the objects
originally deposited seem to have been few and insignificant. Later,
secondary interments were often made in tumuli, but these usually betray
their later date by their position above the original chamber or near
the side of the mound. We must keep in mind that chambers in the north
containing only stone implements may be often of the same age as those
farther south containing copper or even bronze, for metal made its way
northward only gradually. The custom of building dolmens seems to have
persisted later in England than in France. The English round tumuli or
barrows belong to the Bronze period. It is not surprising that one
country should be more conservative than another, especially if it is
somewhat remote.
In Brittany we find the Menhirs or "standing stones," unhewn pillars,
regularly accompanying the dolmens. They are by far most abundant in
northwestern Europe, but occur elsewhere also. The largest known is the
Menhir of Locmariaquer in Morbihan, now fallen and broken. It was almost
21 metres long, and weighed nearly 300,000 kilograms. But specimens are
usually much smaller. They seem to characterize the Æneolithic Epoch and
the early Bronze Age.
Their meaning is often uncertain. Some of them standing singly were
probably erected much later, serving merely to mark boundaries. When
associated with dolmens they are probably objects of a religious cult
associated with the burial, rather than mere monuments to the dead. They
may well be examples of the world-wide pillar-cult. They remained
objects or centres of worship until late in historic time. The church
had a long and hard battle with their cult. Some of them appear to have
been thrown down and churches to have been erected over them. On some of
them Christian symbols have been carved. Among the people they are still
held in reverence or awe. Whatever may have been their origin, they must
have had some religious significance or association.
These pillars may be grouped in circles, cromlechs, or in long radiating
rows, alignments. Stone circles occur in the Mediterranean region, in
Syria, Upper Egypt, and in India. But circles and alignments belong
especially to Brittany, Great Britain, and Scandinavia. The most
noteworthy are the three adjacent or connected at Carnac, in Morbihan,
extending nearly 4,000 metres, and composed of nearly 3,000 Menhirs.
Stonehenge and Avebury in England are almost equally celebrated. They
represent the culmination of megalithic development, but are essentially
places of worship and assembly rather than of burial, though tumuli may
be clustered around them like graves in a churchyard.
The changes in the mode of disposal of the dead are evidently the
results of changed views concerning the future life. In early
Paleolithic times man buried his dead with the best flint axe in his
hand, with his ornaments and a supply of food, and often a quantity of
shells brought from a distance and evidently objects of value. The dead
man took with him his weapons and all his wealth. For the living to keep
back a portion of what belonged to the departed was robbery, which might
be avenged by all sorts of evils and plagues; for all this material
wealth and ornament was as much needed and as useful there as here.
Apparently, though this is anything but certain, the dead were buried at
first in Europe, extended at full length, and in the caves not far from
the abode of the living.
Soon we find them buried in a crouching position, with knees and hands
brought close to the chin. Sometimes we find rows of shells, which may
have been attached to cords or bands used to hold the body in this
forced position. This mode of burial in a contracted or crouching
position (_Hockerbestattung_) was usual in Europe in Neolithic time, but
has been discovered in all continents, even in America and Australia.
Very different explanations of this peculiar custom have been offered by
different observers, _e. g._, that it saved the labor of digging a
larger grave, an excellent economic argument; that the dead was laid in
its Mother Earth in the same position which as a foetus it had
maintained in the maternal body, etc., etc. But the predominant thought
appears to have been that the spirit remained in, with, or near the
body, and that binding the body prevented the spirit from walking and
returning to see the survivors. To the same end the most valuable
possessions of the dead had been buried with him. This does not
necessarily argue that there was no affection of the living for the
departed, or no belief in their possible helpfulness. But the community
generally felt that it was a wise precaution, and generally well to be
on the safe side. This belief in the possible return of the dead in
their bodily form and presence is still deeply imbedded in our modern
minds, ready to spring up as a conscious belief; and the departed are
still rarely expected to bring good tidings or benefits.
[Illustration: ALIGNMENT, CARNAC, BRITTANY]
This mode of burial continued common through upper Paleolithic time; was
very common, if not the rule during the Neolithic period in various
parts of Europe. Pumpelly found at Anau children, and only children,
buried under the floors of the houses, and notices that this custom was
general throughout the life of the Kurgan.[91] He gives instances of
this custom reported elsewhere. Whether this custom was as wide-spread
as the pottery of Anau and Susa seems doubtful. I can find no reports of
it. But conditions at Anau seem to have been unusually favorable to the
preservation of these perishable remains. It is not impossible that we
have here one of the ways in which the fear of the dead may have been
gradually dispelled. May we not imagine that one of the first steps was
the refusal of the mother to allow her dead child to be banished from
the house? The evidence is too slight to allow of more than a guess.
As time went on and communities became more closely united leaders must
have arisen for whom the people had only affection, in whose wisdom and
willingness to help they had full confidence, and who were gratefully
remembered as fathers, elders, and wise in counsel, and whose return
would have been gladly welcomed. This thought seems to be the foundation
of the wide-spread and ancient cult or worship of ancestors. Such cases
were certainly common at a somewhat later date, as in the Greek cities,
where the bones of the dead leader or hero were guarded as the chief
protection of the state. This feeling seems to find expression in the
dolmen or house of the dead, with a carefully prepared opening in the
door as if inviting the spirit to free egress. Anniversary feasts in
honor of the departed were certainly common in ancient days. Close
friendship and social relations were cultivated with the departed as
knowledge and culture increased.
The Egyptian pyramids and mummies, the graves and older dolmens, seem to
testify to a very close and dependent relation between spirit and body.
The spirit hovered around the body and returned to it, and where the
mouldering bones lay there was the spirit's home. Its life was a very
direct continuance of the life in the body. Hence also the food and
libations and the rich burial gifts. But toward the close of the
Neolithic period we find the great stone chamber giving place to a small
cyst or vault, hardly more than a stone coffin, and entirely
underground. At the same time the great stone circles seem at least to
be changing from burial places to temples or centres of worship. A new
method of disposal of the dead has appeared in different parts of
Europe, in Brittany, for example. Up to this time the body has been of
great importance; it has been scrupulously preserved, and provision made
in the grave for the supply of all bodily needs, though the burial gifts
have steadily diminished in number and value. Now the body is burned
immediately after death, as if its preservation were no longer of any
importance but a clog and hindrance from which the spirit was to be set
free as soon as possible. The custom of incineration gains ground in
Europe until in the Bronze Age it is the rule and inhumation the
exception. The old crass materialistic view has evidently given place to
a far higher and more spiritual conception of life after death, and
probably also before it. We here catch a fascinating glimpse of the
steady bold working and tendency of the mind of Neolithic man. It is
only a glimpse of one aspect of his thought and tendency. We lack the
facts to enable us to widen or deepen it. But it is enough to promise a
broad field of future discoveries.
But one fact leads us to hazard a question. Not very far in the Bronze
Age the first great wave of Celtic migration seems to have broken into
northern Europe, as the Achæans had already found their way toward or
into Greece. The Celts seem to have had their Vale of Avalon and Islands
of the Blessed, whither the spirits of the departed migrated. We
remember that when Ulysses went in search of the spirit of Achilles, and
of other comrades in the war before Troy, he sought him in no
underground world, but sailed far across the seas into the west. Such
beliefs, and customs like incineration, are a slow growth, probably far
older in origin than the Indo-European or Aryan migrations, of which
some have thought them characteristic. May not this old and wide-spread
belief be merely a continuance of views and conceptions already held by
our Neolithic folk?
We have already noticed the wide distribution of these megalithic
structures.[92] They stretch along the shore of the Baltic, North Sea,
and Atlantic Ocean down to the Mediterranean. Here they form a band
along the south shore. We find them also in Soudan. In Egypt and Greece
a far more precocious culture made it possible to replace them by
pyramids and "treasure-houses." We find them in Palestine and farther
eastward, along the Black Sea, and in India. In Europe they follow the
coast lines, and do not seem to have been erected by the dwellers in the
valley of the Danube. Their distribution is very similar to that of the
great Mediterranean race and its extensions, but they extend far beyond
the boundaries of any one tribe or people. They are the expression of a
certain thought or conception which spread widely. It might be more
correct to say that the general underlying conception was practically
universal, but found expression in this form in one area, while in other
regions it could not find this expression because conditions were
unfavorable.
It is exceedingly difficult to say just where the first dolmens were
built. Opinions differ widely. They could have been built only in an
area which had a fairly large and settled population who could unite in
a large and difficult work, and had the means of carrying it out. The
people were agriculturists who possessed no low grade of natural
material or mental culture. Many such general considerations lead us to
look for their first appearance somewhere in the region east of the
Mediterranean, which was evidently the home of many other very ancient
forms of culture.[93]
CHAPTER VII
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.
CHAPTER VIII
NEOLITHIC CHRONOLOGY
"We must imagine Europe in upper Paleolithic times again as a terminal
region, a great peninsula toward which the human emigrants from the east
and from the south came to mingle and to superpose their cultures. These
races took the grand migration routes which had been followed by other
waves of animal life before them; they were pressed upon from behind by
the increasing populations from the east; they were attracted to western
Europe as a fresh and wonderful game country, where food in the forests,
in the meadows, and in the streams abounded in unparalleled
profusion.... Between the retreating Alpine and Scandinavian glaciers
Europe was freely open toward the eastern plains of the Danube,
extending to central and southern Asia; on the north, however, along the
Baltic, the climate was still too inclement for a wave of human
migration, and there is no trace of man along these northern shores
until the close of the Upper Paleolithic, nor of any residence of man in
the Scandinavian peninsula until the great wave of Neolithic migration
established itself in that region."[118]
We must now attempt to determine the succession of these great changes
in the climate and face of Europe, and then see if we can fix any dates
for some of the changes and for the introduction of new cultures.
In the oscillations of the ice-front marking the final retreat of the
Alpine glaciers there were three epochs of advance. Two of these, the
Bühl and Gschnitz advances, with the interval of retreat between them,
were occupied by the Magdalenian or last epoch of Upper Paleolithic
time. The third advance, the Daun Epoch, or perhaps the latter part of
the Gschnitz and the first part of the Daun, is represented by the
Azilian-Tardenoisian Epoch, a period of transition from Paleolithic to
Neolithic time. These changes have been clearly traced by Osborn.[119]
We are most closely concerned with the changes which took place around
the Baltic in Denmark and Scandinavia during this post-glacial retreat
of the ice. Here also we find the same disappearance of the tundra and
"barren-ground" fauna already noticed in France, and the appearance of a
park-flora of forests interspersed with open glades or meadows. But we
need not be surprised if we find that the retreat of the great Baltic
or Scandinavian ice-sheet does not keep step exactly with that of the
Alpine.[120]
1. The last ice-sheet had covered most of Scandinavia except the western
half of Denmark and, perhaps, the most southern portion of Sweden. But a
broad mass of ice covered most of Schleswig, at least the eastern half
of Holstein, and a fairly wide zone of land south of and more or less
parallel to the south shore of the Baltic. To the eastward and northward
a great sea extended to the Arctic Ocean. This earliest stage marked the
farthest advance of the ice just before the final retreat.
2. Slowly and gradually the ice retreated until finally it occupied only
the mountains of the backbone of Scandinavia. The region of the Baltic
Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia, a large part of Sweden and a good portion
of Finland were covered by a great sheet of water, the Yoldia Sea,
connected by a broad sound at the present Skager Rack with the North Sea
and Atlantic, and still opening widely into the Arctic Ocean
northeastward. The submerged regions had been greatly depressed,
especially in the north. The clays deposited along the shores of the sea
are now raised often to a height of one hundred metres above
tide-level. But to the southward the depression was only slightly
marked.
[Illustration: SUCCESSIVE STAGES AND FORMS OF BALTIC SEA
1. Culmination of last advance of ice.
2. Yoldia Sea during retreat of ice.
3. Yoldia Sea at greatest size.
4. Scandinavia during Ancylus Epoch.
(The white represents the ice; dark gray represents the land; light gray
the Baltic Sea.)]
It is important to our later study to notice that these clays, which are
thick and fine-grained, are composed of thin layers of alternating dark
material deposited in fall or winter, and lighter, more sandy, brought
down by the spring freshets. The temperature of the sea could hardly
have been much above freezing-point, as is shown by the presence of
arctic forms of mollusks, like _Yoldia arctica_ and _Astarte borealis_.
The land-plants of this epoch, the so-called Dryas flora, are dwarf cold
tundra forms, now occurring in Spitzbergen, Lapland, and Arctic Russia
and Siberia. But certain plants, especially in Sweden, lead us to infer
that while the winters were long and severe, the short summers were warm
or even hot. This does not surprise us in northern tundra regions.
Reindeer still lived in the region. This Yoldia Epoch is our second
great post-glacial stage. Man had apparently not yet reached Denmark,
though some reindeer hunters probably roamed over Germany.
3. Toward the end of the Yoldia Epoch the land rose in southwest Sweden,
connecting this country with Denmark and cutting the connection of the
remains of the Yoldia Sea with the North Sea. A similar emergence in
Finland completed the change of this sea into a great landlocked body
of water called the Ancylus Lake, from the most common and
characteristic mollusk, _Ancylus fluviatilis_. The glaciers had shrunken
to a narrow band covering the mountains between Norway and Sweden. The
climate, while moderating, was still cold. The Arctic flora retreated
northward and was followed in Denmark by woods and even forests of
willows, aspens, and poplars, entering from the south and southeast.
These were followed by pines, especially in the dryer districts, later
by alders, coming from the east across Finland, according to Hoops.[121]
The Ancylus Epoch forms our third stage. The settlement at Maglemose
probably took place toward its close.
4. The elevation and emergence of land so characteristic of the Ancylus
Epoch was followed by a depression of this region, especially in its
southern portions. That part of the Ancylus Lake corresponding to the
Baltic regained broader and deeper connections with the North Sea than
it has at present. Hence the waters of the Baltic contained a larger
percentage of salt than now. The marine life, _Littorina littorea_,
_Tapes_, and others, testifies to a rise in temperature since the
Ancylus Epoch. Oaks had already begun to crowd out the pines, and will
be followed after a time by the beeches loving a soil rich in humus,
rather than the sandy barrens occupied by the pines. A similar evidence
is furnished by other plants, some of which reached a higher latitude
than now. The summer temperature was perhaps 2-1/2° Cent. higher than at
present, an "optimum temperature" for the plant life of this region.
This improvement of climate is most marked in northeastern Europe and
seems far less noticeable even in Germany. Our fourth stage is marked by
a greatly improved climate and the spread of the shell-heaps.
5. A fifth stage ushers in the full Neolithic period. Between the
Littorina stage and the genuine Neolithic culture of lake-dwellings and
megaliths there is a considerable gap in our knowledge, a period during
which agriculture and domestic animals were brought in and utensils and
pottery and general conditions were greatly improved.
We may now venture to attempt to gain an absolute chronology of more or
less definite dates for the appearance of the cultures which we have
noticed. We must clearly recognize that our best results can be only
tentative and provisional. A careful study and comparison of the pottery
of northern Europe will some day furnish data for a reliable system.
For the sake of convenience we will begin by attempting to set a date
for the close, rather than the beginning, of the whole Neolithic period.
We have seen that this was brought about by the introduction of the
metal bronze. Copper had come into use somewhat or considerably earlier,
but it seems hardly worth while to consider it as characterizing a
distinct period. It is rather the last phase of the Stone Age, when
wider communications and trade were making the transition to the use of
metals like bronze and iron.
According to Montelius,[122] who is our best authority on chronology,
the use of bronze in sufficient quantities to mark the beginning of a
new period took place in different countries at the dates given in the
second column of the following table, the first column showing the date
of the first use of copper:[123]
+-------------------------------+-----------------+
| REGION | YEAR B. C. |
+-------------------------------+--------+--------+
| | COPPER | BRONZE |
| +--------+--------+
| Egypt and Chaldæa | 5000 | 3000 |
| Troy, Greece, and Sicily | 3000 | 2500 |
| Hungary and Spain | 3000 | 2000 |
| Middle Europe and France | 2500 | 2000 |
| North Germany and Scandinavia | 2500 | 1900 |
+-------------------------------+--------+--------+
These dates mark the beginning of the more or less general use of
metals, not the first appearance of a few imported articles. Some
authorities would place the beginning of the Bronze period a few
centuries earlier, and that of the introduction of copper some 500 years
earlier.[124] Forrer dates the beginning of both epochs a little later
than Montelius. The date 2000 B. C. would seem to mark the end of the
Neolithic period in middle Europe with approximate accuracy.
In attempting to determine the date of the beginning of the Neolithic
period we may begin with a remote point of departure for comparison and
select the Bühl stage and the beginning of the Magdalenian Epoch. Nuesch
made a careful estimate from the deposits at Schweizersbild near
Schaffhausen, Switzerland. His method of estimating is described fully
by Obermaier.[125] He places the beginning of the Neolithic deposits
here at 6000 B. C., and considers 20,000 years as a fair estimate for the
time elapsed since the first occupation of this locality by Magdalenian
hunters at some time during the Bühl Epoch. Obermaier, summing up the
evidence, concludes that the beginning of the Magdalenian Epoch could
not have been later than 16,000-18,000 B. C., and that it ended not far
from 12,000 B. C. Osborn says: "Bühl moraines in Lake Lucerne are
estimated as having been deposited between 16,000 and 24,000 years B. C."
He also appears to place the Maglemose culture at about 7000 B. C.[126]
We may now turn to the great Scandinavian ice-sheet, whose retreat may
have begun somewhat later and proceeded more slowly on account of its
more northerly position. Here De Geer has made a report based on a very
careful study of the annual layers of deposition formed during the
glacial retreat. We have already seen that the material brought down by
the spring freshets differs in color and texture from that of late
summer and autumn. Hence these annual layers are almost as distinct and
as easily counted as the rings in the trunk of a tree. This method
promises great accuracy of results, and the thickness and character of
the layers and their included organic remains throw much light on the
climatic and other conditions under which they were laid down. But even
here the length of certain periods of halt in the glacial retreat can be
only very roughly approximated. The number of annual layers of deposit
in the Swedish Lake Ragunda lately drained shows the number of years
since the lake was uncovered almost at the end of the retreat of the
Scandinavian ice.
Says Sollas: "The Ancylus Lake was in existence at a time when the ice
had very nearly, though not quite, accomplished its full retreat, _i.
e._, a little more than 7,000 years ago (the length of post-glacial
time); and Baron de Geer, although he has not yet been able to bring the
beach of the lake into connection with his system of measurements,
thinks, as he has kindly informed me, that its probable date may be
7,500 years counting from the present."[127]
Menzel, in a chart embodying the results of his study of De Geer's work,
places the beginning of the retreat of the ice in Germany at 21,000 B.
C., the maximum of the Littorina depression and epoch of kitchen-middens
at 6000 B. C., full Neolithic at 4500 B. C., beginning of Bronze period
1700 B. C.[128]
Keilhack, basing his study on the silting and dune-formation at
Swinepforte, estimates that the time elapsed since the maximum of the
Littorina depression down to the present has been about 7,000 years,
making the date of the depression about 5000 B. C. He considers his
estimate as somewhat more probable than De Geer's.
Anderson has called attention to the change of position of the earth's
axis at different times. When the position of the earth's axis was such
as to give most sunlight in Sweden, the midnight sun was above the
horizon at Karesuanda, the most northern astronomical station, 62 days.
During the time of most unfavorable position it was above the horizon
only 38 days, a difference of 24 days. This change should influence
climate and vegetation. The period of maximum sunshine, according to
this view, was 9,000 years ago, about 7000 B. C., somewhat earlier than
the maximum of the Littorina depression. It would tend to give a
climatic optimum at nearly the same time as estimated by Menzel.
Steenstrup[129] discovered the succession of forest growths in the
peat-bogs or moors of Zealand, north of Copenhagen. In the layers of
some of the depressions he found what seemed to be almost a complete
record of forest life from the time of the retreat of the glaciers. The
upper layers of peat contained remains of trees still flourishing in the
surrounding country: alders, birches, and beeches. Then came oaks, and
still deeper the pines. Beneath these were aspens, arctic willows, and
other plants of the far north. Remains of the reindeer occur in their
lowest layer. The pines hardly, if at all, reached Denmark before the
Ancylus Epoch, preceding periods showing only the Dryas flora.
The pines had a hard struggle for life at first. They are dwarfed and
their rings of annual growth are very thin, sometimes as many as seventy
to the inch of thickness. Still some of these dwarfs attain the very
respectable age of 300 to 400 years. Gradually they prospered, and in
the upper layers there are trunks more than a metre in diameter. All
these facts point to early and long occupation. Steenstrup reckoned the
age of the oldest layers of these accumulations at 10,000 to 12,000
years, dating their beginnings therefore at 8000 to 10,000 B. C. Pine
was still growing in the neighborhood of the shell-heaps, or the
capercailzie or pine partridge would probably not have occurred.
But in the shell-heaps we find only oak charcoal, not pine. This was at
least beginning to retreat and give place to the oak. At Maglemose we
find pine charcoal but oak pollen grains in layers apparently of the
same age as the settlement. Placing the shell-heaps in the early part of
the pine epoch would date them as early as 7000 B. C., or even earlier,
according to this chronometer. Hence the older writers, who placed the
shell-heaps in the pine epoch, dated them considerably farther back
than we do now.
Steenstrup's study, a work of genius, is entirely compatible with and
probably implies a considerably later date than we used to accept.
The following table shows the dates assigned by different students to
Maglemose and the shell-heaps:
+---------------+-------------------+------------------------+
| | B. C. | B. C. |
| Obermaier | Maglemose, 10,000 | Shell-heaps, 8000 |
| Forrer | | Shell-heaps, 8000-6000 |
| Sollas | Maglemose, 7,500 | |
| Osborn | Maglemose, 7,000 | |
| Menzel (Chart)| | Shell-heaps, 6000 |
| Keilhack | | Shell-heaps, 5000 |
+---------------+-------------------+------------------------+
The shell-heaps and Maglemose hardly seem to differ in age as much as
Obermaier thinks; De Geer's study was very careful and certainly demands
respectful attention. The tendency toward later dates for these cultures
seems to be strong and increasing. If we place Maglemose at 7000 to 7500
B. C., and the shell-heaps 6500 to 6000 we have probably made them as
ancient as the facts can well allow. It is better to hold judgment still
somewhat in suspense. Even if Obermaier should yet prove to be correct
in his apparently extreme dates, it is still evident that the Neolithic
period began late and was of short duration compared with the millennia
in which Paleolithic time was reckoned.
Our records are scanty for the earlier portions of the more or less than
5,000 years which we have allowed for the Neolithic period.[130] We find
the shell-heap culture spreading from Denmark into Sweden and Norway.
Following closely, or overlapping it, crossing Norway from the region of
Christiania, we find the Nostvet and Arctic cultures, perhaps nearly
related, perhaps distinct, but leading over to the genuine Neolithic
Scandinavian culture. Here we find forms intermediate between the axe
and "pick" of the shell-heap and the axes of later epochs.
We have already described the rude, somewhat triangular axe of the
shell-heaps. The axe of Paleolithic time had had nearly the shape of an
almond. We will compare the pointed end to the back, and the cutting
edge to the edge of our axe or carpenter's hatchet. The earliest
polished axes of Denmark still retained nearly the shape of a somewhat
long and thin almond.[131] Their cross-section might be compared to an
ellipse with pointed instead of rounded ends. This is the
"_spitznackiges Beil_" of Müller and Montelius. It occurs all over
Europe and still farther, while the two following forms have a
continually more restricted distribution. It is not found in the
village settlements or stone graves, and evidently characterizes a
period between these and the shell-heaps.
The second form, the _dunn_--or _schmalnackiges Beil_--may be compared to
a long and flattened almond with a small part at the pointed end removed
and a narrow strip cut off from each side. The flatter surfaces nearly
meet at the end opposite the cutting edge, leaving this end thin. The
surfaces have become much more nearly flat, and the cross-section a
rectangle with somewhat short ends and slightly curved sides. These
belong to the period of the earliest stone graves or still earlier. They
could be easily fastened in a wooden handle. This form is very common in
Scandinavia.
The third form, the _breit_--or _dick_--_nackiges Beil_, has almost
exactly the shape of a thick chisel-blade with broad and thick back
opposite the edge, and is rectangular in cross-section. It appears in
the later megalithic tombs and the underground stone vaults or cists.
[Illustration: FORMS OF PREHISTORIC AXE
Hammer axes--Late Neolithic.
Thin-backed axe. Dunn-nackiges Beil--Early and Mid-Neolithic.
Palæolithic hand-stones--"Coups-de-Poing."]
Late in the Neolithic period, usually after the introduction of
copper, we find an axe--or "hammer-axe"--shorter and much thicker,
somewhat in the shape of a very light stonemason's hammer, and with a
hole for the handle. These axes sometimes had two cutting edges,
sometimes one edged and the other blunt for hammering. Many of them
were exceedingly beautiful in form, design, and finish. But this
method of fastening the head to the handle greatly weakened the
brittle stone. Many of them were probably merely articles of luxury or
adornment. The hole was made by twirling a stick or bone, with plenty
of sand, water, and patience.
We have thus in the axes and the megaliths a well-established sequence
of forms, but no means of fixing dates except at the beginning and end
of the whole period. Apparently there was a long time between the
Scandinavian shell-heaps and the fully established Neolithic culture, of
which we have practically no records.
Peculiar types of axes (except the mattock), and the megaliths do not
occur in the province of the banded pottery, which itself will probably
some day give us the clew to a system of chronology. The pottery of
Thessaly, Thrace, and certain parts of the Balkan Peninsula is being
gradually synchronized with that of Mycenæan and pre-Mycenæan Greece.
Important discoveries seem reasonably certain in a not distant future.
We can only wait for them with what patience we can assume.
Our real and definite knowledge of the age of the lake-dwellings is
hardly better. Hoops tells us that they belong to the Beech period of
the Swiss flora. But this period may be much older in Switzerland than
in Scandinavia; how much older we do not know. The underground stone
burial-cysts of Switzerland look late. The small number of the villages
containing no trace of copper and the high grade of household arts and
technique in even the oldest of them suggest the same conclusion. Here
again it seems dangerous to even conjecture a date.
Montelius, whose opinion on these subjects is certainly of great value,
says: "All things considered, I am convinced that the first stone graves
were erected here in the north more than 3,000 years before
Christ."[132] (It may be safe, therefore, to date them provisionally
between 3000 and 4000 B. C.) "The epoch of the dolmens with covered
entrance (_Gangräber_) begins about the middle of the third millennium
B. C., and the epoch of the stone vaults or cysts (_Steinkisten_)
corresponds to the centuries about 2000 B. C."
CHART I. POSTGLACIAL STAGES
RETREAT OF ICE AND CHANGES
+----------------+---------------------+-------------------+----------------+
| | | PARALLELS IN | |
| SCANDINAVIA | WESTERN AND | ASIA AND | DATE |
| | MIDDLE EUROPE | ELSEWHERE[133] | |
+----------------+---------------------+-------------------+----------------+
| | 1. Aachen Stage. | | 24,000 (to |
| | | | 40,000) B. C. |
| Ice-retreats in| Solutrean. Dry | | [134] |
| northern | and Cold. | | |
| Germany. | Steppe and | | |
| | Tundra Fauna. | | |
| | | | |
| Swedish-Finnish| 2. Bühl Stage. | | 16,000 (to |
| Moraines. | Early | | 24,000) B. C. |
| | Magdalenian. | | [135] |
| | Moist and cold. | | |
| | Tundra. | | |
| | | | |
| Yoldia Period. | Middle Magd. | | |
| Dryas Flora. | Steppe | | |
| | Loess formed. | Susa founded. | |
| | | | |
| Glaciers in | 3. Gschnitz Stage. | Anau founded.[136]| 10,000 B. C.? |
| Mountains. | Late Magdalenian.| Neolithic | [137] |
| | | Settlements in | |
| Ancylus | | Crete. | |
| Dryas, Birch, | | | |
| Pine | | | |
| Maglemose. | | | |
| | | | |
| Littorina | 4. Daun Stage. | | 6,000 B. C.? |
| Depression. | | | |
| Optimum | Azilian-Tard. | | (7,000) B. C.? |
| Climate. | | | |
| Oak. | Campignian. | Sumerians in | |
| Shell-heaps. | | Babylonia. | |
| | | | |
| Full Neolithic.| Full Neolithic. | Predynastic | 4,000 |
| Beech. | | Egyptians. | (-6,000) B. C.?|
| | | Copper Period. | |
| | | | |
| Bronze Period. | Bronze Period. | XI-XIII Egyptian | 1,900- |
| | | Dynasties. | 2,500 B. C. |
+----------------+---------------------+-------------------+----------------+
CHART II. CHANGES OF CLIMATE IN DENMARK[138]
1. Arctic climate. Temperature about 8° Cent. Younger Yoldia
layers, Older Dryas period. Flora: _Dryas octopetala_, _Salix
polaris_.
2. Subarctic climate. Temp. 8°-12° Cent. Older Dryas. Flora as
in 1.
3. Climate becomes moderate, continental. First maximum temp.
12°-15° Cent. Birches, poplars, junipers.
4. Climate subarctic. Temp. 8°-12° Cent. Birches.
5. Climate arctic. Temp. 8° Cent. _Salix polaris._
6. Climate subarctic. Temp. 8°-12°. Younger Dryas period.
7. Temperature moderates. Dry continental climate. _a._ Aspen
Epoch; _b._ Pine period with oaks beginning to appear=Ancylus
period.
8. Moderate insular climate. Temp. 15°-17° Cent. Climatic
optimum. Older Tapes layers, Maximum of Littorina depression.
Shell-heaps.
9. Temp. 15°-17° Cent. Probably slightly cooler than 8. Oak
Epoch. Beech begins to appear but is still rare. Younger Tapes
(Dosinia) layers.
10. Moderate insular climate about 16.1° Cent. Beech Epoch.
Mya layers.
These climatic changes seem to argue for a comparatively recent date for
the Littorina depression and the shell-heaps.
CHAPTER IX
NEOLITHIC PEOPLES AND THEIR MIGRATIONS
The study of history without a thorough knowledge of geography is almost
as futile as the hope of interpreting the structure of the ape without
thinking of his arboreal life.[139] Contour lines are of vast, often
dominant, importance in the life of every nation. John Bull has been
moulded, if not made, by his island. Italy could never be safe until its
boundary followed the crest of the Alps. Great mountain chains mark
limits, and river valleys are thoroughfares. Whoever holds
Constantinople controls the trade of a boundless area. If this is true
to-day, it must have been far more important in prehistoric times, when
man had only begun to gain a certain degree of independence or mastery
of nature. Culture was then very largely determined by position and
routes of communication. The Alps and Pyrenees formed a long, impassable
barrier between northern and southern Europe, broken only by the Rhone
valley; and northern Europe was split into an eastern or middle and a
western province by the Juras, the Vosges, and the forested Ardennes.
Then, as now, the Pass of Belfort was the narrow opening, and Belgium,
always the battle-ground of nations, the great thoroughfare between
middle Europe and France. From the south, and to a certain degree from
the west, middle Europe was not easy of access. But to the eastward
there are few or no natural boundaries as it goes over into the great
Russian plain, of which North Germany is practically a westward
projection. We might possibly go farther and accept literally the
somewhat exaggerated statement that all Europe is only a peninsula of
Asia.
Osborn has called attention to the fact that from Paleolithic to
Neolithic time Europe gave rise to no new races.[140] The immigrants
entered their new home with all their physical and mental characters
already fixed or determined. The routes of migration of the successive
waves of lower Paleolithic immigrants are still unknown. Remains of
Chellean and Acheulean cultures are rich and widely distributed
everywhere around the Mediterranean, especially in northern Africa, at
this time well watered. The entrance of Neanderthal man into Europe may
well have been from this direction.
The Cro-Magnon race very probably came along the northern or southern
shores of the Mediterranean, and then pushed northward into France;
though the evidence is far from compelling. The race is evidently
Asiatic in its physical characters, reminding us of tribes still living
along the Himalayas, most strikingly of the Sikhs. If they entered from
the south, northern Africa was a station on their march, not their
original home. The Solutrean culture may have been brought by the Brünn
people, who probably came through Hungary and up the Danube, but its
origin and route of migration is still very obscure. Breuil's arguments
for the migration of Magdalenian culture from Poland across Europe are
very strong, and his view seems to accord well with the facts, though
Osborn seems to lean toward a somewhat different interpretation.[141]
The broad-headed people of Furfooz and Grenelle apparently came by the
central European route. The only race showing any Negroid characters is
that of Grimaldi, apparently accompanying the Cro-Magnons, few in number
and having little or no influence on the population of Europe. Evidently
the Mediterranean region was far more precocious than northern Europe,
and the genuine Mediterranean race may have arrived here bringing the
Neolithic culture almost or quite as early as the beginning of the Upper
Paleolithic Epoch in France.
Sergi is of the opinion, though he does not press it, that the
Mediterranean race originated in Africa, perhaps in the region of the
great lakes, and that its most primitive representatives of to-day are
the Hamitic peoples along the southern shore of the Mediterranean.[142]
His definition of the race is based less upon mere breadth and length of
skull than upon contours and form and development of regions. It was a
work of observation, insight, and genius, and was a landmark in the
progress of the science of anthropology.
The area of distribution of the race takes the form of a Y, the arms
following the north and south shores of the Mediterranean while the stem
or lower portion extends through Asia Minor. It includes the Hamitic
peoples, also the Pelasgi and the Hittites, but leaves out the Semites.
Huxley had described the distribution of his Melanochrooi, or dark
Europeans, very similarly, except that in his group the stem of the Y
lay farther south and extended into Arabia. In locating the origin of
the Mediterranean race in Africa, Sergi was doubtless influenced by the
opinion of Darwin and others that man's birthplace was in Africa. Nearly
all paleontologists to-day favor the Asiatic origin; and the stem of the
Y stretching eastward toward Asia Minor or Arabia points to a possible
or probable primitive route of migration. The Asiatic cradle is really
in better accord with Sergi's theory, and meets some objections or
difficulties better, than the African.
We vaguely located this Asiatic cradle somewhere westward or
northwestward of the great plateau of Thibet. We may call it the Iranian
plateau, using the term in the broadest possible sense, including
Afghanistan and perhaps western Turkestan: a great area extending more
than 1000 miles from northwest to southeast, where it sinks into the
valley of the Euphrates. We found a branch of the great Negroid race
starting very early from this region and migrating westward past Arabia
into Africa. This was an easy line of least resistance through regions
where the moist, cooler climate of the glacial period brought only
blessing instead of calamity and curse. The Hamitic and Semitic peoples
naturally followed the same route, travelling as one people or nearly
together, if the relations between the languages are as fundamental and
close as some good authorities think. The Semites settled in Arabia,
while the Hamites went on westward and found a home along the southern
shore of the Mediterranean. We do not know when this migration took
place.
This route was easy and wide, and led into a broad, favored continent.
It would not be surprising if for a very long time most of the travel
went this way. We may venture to guess that Neanderthal man may have
followed it long before the beginning of the Hamitic-Semitic migrations,
but this is only a guess. While rich, well-watered, and probably
park-like in its flora during the moist climate of the glacial epochs,
it was sure to degenerate into desert as the climate became warmer and
dryer; as the Sahara Desert is dotted with the remains of Paleolithic
settlements where the explorer to-day is in danger of perishing from
thirst. Any traveller by this southern route must pass through Italy or
Spain before reaching northern Europe.
[Illustration: _F. B. Loomis, del._
MIGRATIONS OF PEOPLES
1. The southernmost route to the Mediterranean and Africa. The
middle part of this route follows roughly Breasted's "Fertile
Crescent," as shown in his History of the Ancient World,
around the headwaters of the Euphrates and Tigris. 2. Middle
route through Asia Minor. 3. Northern route around Caspian Sea
to Carpathians. _A._ Grass-lands and steppe. _B._ Iranian
Plateau (central portion). _C._ Valley of Mesopotamia.]
A second great western route must have begun very early to compete with
the African. This led along the curve of the mountain ranges of Persia
and Armenia, with Breasted's fertile crescent at their base, up the
valley of the Euphrates and elsewhere into Asia Minor. This route
continued in use as a great thoroughfare for migrating peoples and
invading armies through historic times. Xenophon and his 10,000 explored
it. It is surrounded on three sides by water, although mountain chains
cut off the influence of the sea to some extent. It is a plateau of
glade and forest, though the forests have now largely disappeared. It
has the features of a semitropical climate; here the flora of northern
and southern provinces meet and overlap. One great characteristic of the
region is the abundance and variety of its fruit-trees. It was
apparently the original home of apricot, peach, fig, and orange, as well
as of other fruits introduced into Italy from this region by the Romans.
The vine is luxurious. Somewhere along the line of this great
thoroughfare the wild olive was domesticated, improved, and transformed.
Oaks, walnuts, chestnuts, and many smaller growths furnish a variety of
nuts. The open glades tempted to agriculture and furnished no small
contributions of grain to Rome. Though suffering from dessication, it
may yet again become the garden of the world.
When once a wave of westward migration had entered Asia Minor it was
walled in on the north and south by mountain and sea. There were no
by-roads. Crowded and pressed from behind, it could not stop until they
reached the shores of the Ægean Sea.
Here there were two possible outlets. One was by sea, using as stations
the islands with which the sea is dotted and leading to Crete and to
Greece. Crete, according to Evans, was settled some 14,000 years ago,
and is on the whole less easily reached by short voyages than Attica. A
second outlet led across the Hellespont and around the Ægean Sea into
Greece, or still farther northward and westward around the Adriatic and
down into Italy. We might add still a third fork of this great highway
running northward to the Danube. When we remember how Neolithic
settlements in northern Europe clustered around the lakes and dotted the
river valleys, the primitive minor routes of communication, how early
islands like Crete in the south and Gothland in the Baltic were settled,
we can imagine the importance of a city--or even a village--like Troy even
in prehistoric times. Here a sea route running east and west crossed a
great land route running north and south. Here was a point of exchange,
trade, and transshipment--if we may use the word. We do not wonder that
before the close of the Neolithic period, and perhaps far earlier,
patterns and influences were radiating through the Balkan region, far up
the Danube, and we know not how far into Russia.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Greece, and Italy to a less
extent, were in climate and many other features bits of Asia Minor,
almost shut off from northern Europe by the great Alpine barrier. The
two regions were entered by different routes, each of which had left its
mark on its travellers. Immigrants seeped into Italy and Greece through
broken and rough mountain regions. Great invasions were difficult or
impossible. They were sunny, smiling lands compared with the grim and
dreary north. Men living in this milder climate did not need to be gross
eaters. They lived from the fruits of their orchards to a far larger
extent. Nuts were in early times almost a surrogate for grain. The olive
furnished a delicious oil, and the grapes wine. The butter and cheese of
northern Europe were neither needed nor desired.[143] Most of these
habits, tastes, and desires had become fixed during the march through
Asia Minor.
The peoples which gradually went westward from the Iranian plateau
through Asia Minor, across or around the Ægean Sea into Greece and Italy
and Spain, generally found a very similar environment from beginning to
end of their long journey. There was little in food, climate, or
conditions to compel or stimulate change. Everything tended to more
firmly fix in their structure the already long-inherited characters of
their Iranian ancestors. These characteristics thus fixed have become
stable and persistent, and have remained so in modern times in spite of
repeated invasions and infusions of northern blood. We are perhaps
justified in speaking of a Mediterranean race.
It seems strange that Sergi should find traces of his Mediterranean race
in Russia. Did these find their way so far northward directly from the
Mediterranean area or are they merely sporadic groups more resistant to
modifying influences; or are they perhaps groups which have separated
from the westward migration at the Hellespont and turned northward? The
Nordic peoples of Europe are perhaps after all not so far from their
Mediterranean cousins. The Mediterranean race still holds its own around
the Mediterranean. In France its blood is much mixed and greatly diluted
with later infusions. In England it has generally been almost completely
swamped by Aryan invasions.
Neither of the two routes already sketched leads directly into middle or
northern Europe. The trend in both is toward the Mediterranean. We must
now consider the third and last route, which is of chief interest to us.
We have already seen that the Black Sea prevented all migrations
northward from Asia Minor except at the Hellespont. Eastward from the
Black Sea lies the Caspian, probably much larger in glacial times. The
two seas are separated by the forbidding, almost unbroken, mountain
barrier of the Caucasus; but a narrow passage at each end is left. East
of the Caspian Sea must lie the point where a more northerly westward
route diverges from the road through Asia Minor. Our third route starts,
therefore, from the northern edge of the Iranian plateau, perhaps mostly
from Turkestan, and runs westward north of the great barrier of seas and
mountains just described. It follows the great steppe or prairie which
stretches through southern Siberia and Russia into Hungary. Its western
portion lies along the valley of the lower Danube, the great east and
west artery of communication and migration through Europe. It lies
farther north than any other great route, and leads over steppe instead
of through forest. As the Arabia-Africa route was the first to be
traversed, this may well have been the last. Furthermore, the route
through Asia Minor, ending in a sort of _cul de sac_, may easily have
become well inhabited and hence less open before the Neolithic period
had begun in northern Europe.
It was by no means the most attractive route. It offered far less to
people in the collecting stage than the well-watered parklands of Asia
Minor. The steppe offers to the hunter few means of concealment or
approach to the game. The animals are swift and wary. In any migration
of peoples toward the frontier, the hunters lead the advance and spread
out like an army of scouts. Every river which crossed the steppe would
offer to them a tempting by-road leading off into the forests of Siberia
or Russia. How deeply they would penetrate into the primeval forest or
away from the river valleys is still a question. Very likely they would
find their best hunting-grounds not very far from the northern edge of
the steppe, where the forest is less dense. This question we cannot yet
answer. But most of European Russia is well watered, and here these
hunters would find themselves at home. The main route of the steppe
would be left for a very different population. The piedmont zone of
grasslands in Turkestan was an ideal land for primitive agriculturists
practising a hoe-culture, as at Anau. The northern edge of this steppe
zone, where it joined the forest, may have been equally favorable.
But the piedmont zone and the river banks of the steppe must have been
occupied by agriculturists before 10,000 B. C., probably much earlier.
Pumpelly's explorations seem to warrant this view. Alongside of
agriculture, but at a somewhat later date, sheep-herding and
cattle-raising were practised. But the nomad of these days was a less
dangerous neighbor than at later times because the horse had not yet
been domesticated. During these post-glacial times he would be less
dangerous here than farther south around Arabia, when the dryness which
finally produced the Arabian desert was making itself felt, burning up
the pastures and leaving only the choice between starvation and
migration in mass. Again comparing this migration with the pioneer
movements of peoples in historic times, we have good reason to believe
that the sheep-herders and cattle men--and they were probably both at the
same time--advanced faster than the agriculturists, who were more bound
to the soil. Between herdsmen and farmers there were almost certainly
many intermediate grades. We may be fairly confident, therefore, that
the movement or tide along this route did not take the form of a
procession marching in lock-step, but of a series of waves, generally
with hunters in front and along the forest flank, herdsmen in the
middle, and farmers bringing up the rear and making permanent
settlements at favored spots.
Hunters had been spreading northward at least as early as the beginning
of Upper Paleolithic times. Farming on the lowest grades of agriculture
is essentially Neolithic. A town or village had risen at Susa 20,000
years ago. Neolithic civilization probably reached Crete nearly or quite
15,000 years ago. Small Sumerian cities were being founded in southern
Babylonia at or before 5000 B. C. Population was increasing in density in
the Iranian plateau, as almost every mountain region with its healthy
atmosphere and low death-rate quickly becomes overpopulated. Our pioneer
column was continually pressed forward by new recruits from the rear as
well as by its natural increase. We have practically no records of the
march. But our sketch is no mere invention of fancy. It applies to every
great migration of peoples extending over centuries or millennia. The
last illustration was the great westward movement in America beginning a
century or two ago, and still far from completed.
The Hungarian plain is the last extension of the great south Russian
steppe far into Europe. West of this anything like nomadic life was
practically impossible. Here our pioneers scattered and followed the
river valleys, settling more or less permanently the loess deposits as
farmers, but on less favorable soils devoting themselves more largely to
cattle-raising. The latter form of life seems to have been more common
on the great North German plain, though accompanied by much hunting, a
genuine pioneer life.
We may now turn to Europe and consider the distribution of its races and
peoples.
Of the route of migration of the Neanderthal race we have no sure
knowledge. The wide and rich distribution of ancient Paleolithic
implements in Egypt and northern Africa tempts us to guess that it
represents a very early migration along the Arabian route after the
negroids and before the Hamites and Semites. We have glanced at the
origin of the Cro-Magnon people, and have discovered our uncertainty.
The Tardenoisian culture, with its pygmy flints, is exceedingly
wide-spread,[144] and seems to have started in Europe in the
Mediterranean region, arriving from still farther east. We are tempted
to guess that the great bulk of westward migrations in Paleolithic
times followed the southern, Arabian, route, but there were probably
exceptions.
Coming down to Neolithic times we find the Hamitic peoples in Africa,
apparently representing the first wave in the migration of the
Mediterranean race. It may well have arrived at its present home long
before the beginning of the Neolithic period. It had followed the
southern route. Peoples physically and racially closely akin to the
Hamites followed, probably in successive waves. The Tardenoisian people,
if their culture was carried by a distinct people, may represent an
early wave. The bulk of the population of Greece, Italy, and Spain
followed, but migration seems to shift gradually from the Arabian route
to that through Asia Minor, as the zone of most favorable climatic
conditions moved slowly northward. Before the close of the Neolithic
period the relations between Greece, Crete, and western Asia Minor have
become so marked and close that they almost represent one culture and
people.
The Mediterranean race, thus established in Europe, spread northward. It
could not cross the Alpine barrier. It followed the Rhone valley and the
Atlantic coast, and furnished the basic population in France and Great
Britain, though here frequently crowded back into corners or submerged
by later invasions, peaceful or otherwise. It furnished the great link
or means of communication between the Mediterranean basin and the far
north of Europe. Schliz has some reason for calling these megalith
people largely traders.
In a cave near Furfooz, Belgium, there were found crania, probably of
Azilian-Tardenoisian time, noticeably distinct from those of the
long-headed or dolichocephalic Paleolithic peoples in being short--and
broad-headed, brachycephalic.[145] Brachycephalic crania, perhaps early
Neolithic, were also found at Grenelle near Paris. We remember their
occurrence in the shell-heaps at Mugem, Portugal. Similar crania were
found of about the same age at Ofnet, Bavaria, on a tributary of the
Danube.
Somewhat later we find broad-headed people occupying the higher lands of
southeastern France, the _Massif_, Juras and Vosges, forming thus a
north-and-south zone separating France from middle Europe. They seem
later to have gradually spread westward, somewhat irregularly, and to
have mingled with the Mediterranean peoples of France.
The relation of these "Protobrachycephals" to the great Alpine race,
most of which arrived later, is still a matter of discussion, and the
whole problem of the brachycephalic peoples bristles with interesting
questions. They seem to have originated in the mountain regions of
western Asia, possibly in or near the Armenian highlands, though this
has been disputed.[146] It looks as if they came originally from a
region bordering on or overhanging the steppe route and came into Europe
by way of the valley of the Danube. There were certainly several if not
many waves of brachycephalic migrations into Europe, of which this was
the first. Other waves may have come from different parts of a great
area, and hence show modifications of type. Everywhere the Neolithic
brachycephals seem to inhabit mountainous or rough country, perhaps
because of preference, perhaps because as they gradually made their way
they found these regions unoccupied. They seem to be an unassuming,
unpretentious, peaceable, exceedingly persistent and enduring stock,
which has held on its way with remarkable pertinacity. Some still
maintain that brachycephaly is everywhere largely an adaptation to
conditions and habits of life.[147] The rough country, generally heavily
forested, and well populated with this quiet but firm and solid people,
greatly hindered free communication between France and central Europe.
No human remains have been found in the Danish kitchen-middens, which
may well have been heaped up by broad-heads from Belgium but apparently
mingled with eastern immigrants who brought with them the domesticated
dog not found at Mugem. They left their axes and picks in Sweden and
across into Norway. Behind them came people bearing the Nostvet
culture.[148] Our knowledge of Russian prehistory is still very scanty.
But we find here a variety of cultures, such as we should expect from a
confusion of hunting tribes far from their original home much broken up
and remingled during the long migration. We find in Poland the remains
of a culture akin in its carvings to the Magdalenian culture of western
Europe.
It would hardly have crossed Europe from the west. Breuil[149] seems to
consider it as the station from whence it was carried to France. The
question is exceedingly interesting and important, but is one to which
we can give no sure answer. The carved bone implements are certainly to
be found in Poland and to the northward.
Behind these bits and wrecks of tribes and cultures, for they were
hardly more, came the first great recognizable body of Nordic peoples,
probably also in successive waves mingling on this northern coast toward
which they had been drawn by the climatic optimum. Kossina,[150] who has
given an excellent account of these early northern migrations, speaks of
them as _Urfinnen_ and _Urgermanen_, primitive Finns and Germans.
_Urskandinavier_, primitive Scandinavians, would seem to be a more
appropriate name. For the centre of the least mixed blood of this group
is to be found in the Scandinavian peninsula.
These Scandinavian representatives of the so-called Nordic race or stock
are characterized by tall stature, blond complexion, light hair, blue
eyes, and long head and face. Their origin is still a matter of much
discussion. Kossina and others derive them from Cro-Magnon people,
following the reindeer in its migration northeastward from France at or
toward the end of the Magdalenian epoch. Some suggest that the
Cro-Magnon people were also blonds. If this were so they formed a marked
exception to the color of Paleolithic stocks coming from and through
southern regions. The possibility cannot be denied. But, if the
Cro-Magnons were light-colored, they have left no traces of this in
their descendants at Perigeux and elsewhere. The face of the Cro-Magnon
was short and broad, that of the Scandinavian long and narrow. It might
have changed but has not done so at Perigeux. The Cro-Magnon race was
already declining in physique and numbers during the Magdalenian. Even
if all migrated, could they have furnished enough descendants to give
rise to the Scandinavian population? It seems to me far more probable
that the Scandinavians were hunters or partially herdsmen, who had
wandered by the steppe route through the forests or along their edge,
and had lost the dark pigmentation in the northern climate. This has
been noticed, perhaps to a less extent among Asiatic steppe-dwellers.
The study of prehistoric anthropology in Russia, a vast territory, is
still in its infancy. We have touched upon only one or two of the
questions concerning this so-called Nordic race, which is probably
hardly more than a name for a mixture of peoples.[151] We must not
forget that even in Scandinavia we find traces of a very early
immigration of short-headed people.[152] We still know little concerning
life in North Germany during the Neolithic period. It was probably what
we should call pioneer life, where hunting and cattle-raising and a rude
tillage combined to furnish support.
We must now turn to the valley of the Danube. Here we find a population
characterized by similar ground form of skull, although according to
Schliz[153] showing two fairly distinct varieties, a longer and a
shorter cranium. Probably this population arrived in several successive
waves. Its culture is evidently homogeneous. They are agriculturists
forming fixed and permanent settlements, practising farming of a high
grade. The characteristic implement is the mattock. Daggers and
lance-heads are rare, or fail. They were a peaceful folk settling by
preference, though not exclusively, in the loess districts, as at
Grosgartach. We find, as we had every reason to expect, that northern
Germany and Scandinavia were peopled by a pioneer folk not yet
completely agricultural. The Danube people represent the farmers of the
steppe whose migration probably went on more slowly and gradually, and
who always remained more homogeneous physically and culturally. They
may, or may not, have reached the Danube valley as early as the Germans
and Scandinavians arrived at the Baltic, for they had far less distance
to march. They spread out westward and northward. Here we trace them by
their pottery. Starting from Hungary and the surrounding regions we find
them in Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia, across south and middle Germany as
far as the Rhine. We have already noticed that the banded pottery
covered all this region, while the home of the corded pottery was North
Germany.
But, while the form of the banded pottery is quite constant, the
ornament varies greatly. We find the plain, often rude, saw-tooth
pattern, the meander and scroll, the spiral-painted pottery--sometimes in
the southeast plant patterns, perhaps introduced. I regret that I cannot
find any clear or definite theory as to the exact relations of any of
this pottery to that of Anau or Susa. The greatest variety, as well as
the most complex patterns, seem to occur in most southeasterly regions,
which, at least in later Neolithic times, were much under the influence
of the Ægean culture, just as western Europe borrowed from Italy and
Spain.
Here there was evidently a great and very complex mixture of cultures,
and probably of peoples all of one great primitive stock, shown least
modified in the Mediterranean race, here more influenced, changed, and
varied by steppe climate and conditions, and more or less admixture.
Along the Swiss lakes we find the lake-dwellers. The few human remains
from the earliest lake-dwellings are all brachycephalic--short-heads.
Then in the period when copper was beginning to come in we find
long-heads arriving in greater numbers, but the short-heads regain their
superiority during the Bronze period. The weight of evidence seems to
favor the view that these settlers did not come from the zone of
"proto-brachycephals" inhabiting eastern France, but represent a new
immigration from the east, and, according to Schliz, founded fortified
settlements on the heights of Baden, Wurtemberg, and along the valley of
the Rhine as far as Cologne.[154] We have seen that the pottery of these
earliest immigrants was crude and almost or quite without definite
ornament.
Northern and central Europe seem to have been settled mainly or almost
entirely directly from the east, along western Russia and the Danube
valley. But, especially toward the close of the period, people from the
megalithic zone seem to have penetrated much farther southward into
Germany than their monuments would prove. Schliz thinks that he has
recognized their skulls as well as calyciform pottery over a wide
region. Their presence seems fairly clear, but whether they were
comparatively very few in number, or fairly numerous, is still
uncertain.
There seems to be good reason for believing that in late Paleolithic
time the population of middle Europe north of the Alps was very sparse
and the Baltic region hardly inhabited. A hunting population without
domestic animals except the dog pressed northward through Russia in
waves and fragments, and along the Baltic mingled with a strain coming
from the west, probably broad-heads from Belgium. The great Scandinavian
and North German peoples followed with a frontier culture, a combination
of hunting, fishing, cattle-raising, and agriculture mingled in
proportions varying according to time and place. Their exact route of
migration from the region of the steppes must yet be traced. But the
weight of evidence favors an eastern origin. At a time probably not so
very far from their arrival in the north, agriculturists--we might safely
speak of them as farmers--were coming into the Danube valley and
spreading along its tributaries. Apparently somewhat or considerably
later the lake-dwellers appear along the northern piedmont zone of the
Alps as broad-heads, marking the arrival of the advance guard of the
great Alpine race of to-day. But here again our certainty is not as firm
as we could wish. They extend northward toward and along the Rhine
valley. The close of the period is marked by the southward spread of
peoples from northern Germany crowding back the farmers characterized by
the banded pottery. This movement is augmented somewhat, perhaps very
little, by recruits from the megalithic zone of northwestern Europe and
Denmark. All these people are closing in on central or middle western
Europe. In the Rhine valley along the middle of the course of the river
we find a region of mingling or overlapping cultures which have not yet
been satisfactorily disentangled.
We have spoken of them as pioneers. It was a time and place of pioneer,
frontier life. And frontier men and life have their peculiar physical,
cultural, mental, and temperamental characteristics, almost apart from
time and place. The people have something, at least, in common with the
great American westward migrations and frontiersmen of a far later date.
We have the successive waves of hunters, herdsmen, and farmers often
overlapping or mingling. We have a grand mixing of peoples and cultures,
if not of races. Many a fine art or technique is left behind. Life is
rude, hard, vigorous, vital, joyous. It was so yesterday, it was
probably so millennia ago. For the stratum of frontiersman and
barbarian--not to say savage--lies just below the surface in us all, and a
scratch exposes it. This was a period of vitality, hope, and promise.
CHAPTER X
NEOLITHIC RELIGION
Man's ancestors, as we have seen, owed their progress to their training,
policing, and harassing by stronger and better-armed competitors. The
earliest vertebrates developed a notochordal rod of cartilage, and then
a backbone, by the habit of swimming forced upon them by the mollusks
and crustacea which held the rich feeding-grounds of the ocean bottom
along the shores. In early Paleozoic time the sharks crowded the ganoids
in successive waves toward and into fresh water, until finally some
crawled out on the shore as amphibia.
Land life and air-breathing gave the possibility of warm blood and high
development of brain, and a strong tendency toward viviparous and
finally intrauterine development of the embryo. Reptiles harassed
mammals into the attainment of a certain amount of wariness and
intelligence. The comparatively weak Primates were kept in the trees and
forced to develop hand and brain by the fierce and well-armed
Carnivora. Only a "saving remnant" has progressed, and these mostly
under stern and strenuous pressure. The "aspiring" ape exists only in
our imagination.
The apes had become accustomed to life in the trees, and found it safe
and comfortable. A change of climate compelled those dwelling farthest
north to seek their living on the ground. Most of them fled southward,
many became extinct, a few came down and adapted themselves to the new
mode of life. Nature was in no sense a "fairy god-mother" to them, but a
stern, harsh disciplinarian whose method of education was "not a word
and a blow and the blow first, but the blow without the word, leaving
the pupil to find out why his ears had been boxed"[155]; and nature's
cuffs were frequently fatal. The pupil had to learn by others'
experience. Paleolithic man lived in France poorly armed and
ill-protected against a threatening climate steadily changing for the
worse. Food may have been abundant, but enemies hunting for him were
also numerous. He was compelled to be keen, watchful, prying, wary; to
discover distant danger, and to notice every trace of its approach. He
learned the habits and behavior of animals, and the ways of things--an
excellent course of study. He had to rely on his wits, and they were
none too keen or many.
Some things he could understand: he learned to avoid or to ward off many
dangers. Others seemed altogether beyond his understanding or control.
Here he could only wonder; but the wise old Greeks knew that wonder was
the mother of wisdom. He wondered at storm, lightning, hail, and flood;
at disease and death, and a hundred other things. He sat in the mouth of
his cave and watched that strange creature fire devouring the wood and
sending smoke and sparks skyward. He thought a very little in a dull,
stupid way, dozed and dreamed and awaked to wonder again. Or he saw fire
raging through the forest and fled for his life. But it was warming and
fascinating, and somehow akin to himself. Did it not devour wood and lap
up water on the hearth?
He seems to have come to feel rather than recognize that he was
surrounded by invisible powers, in some respects like himself but vastly
more powerful, who knew what he was doing, and who would hurt him if he
did certain things and might help him if he did others. Certain places
were to be strictly avoided, certain objects must not be touched,
certain things must never be done, or could be permitted only at
certain times. They were taboo. He has started on a long journey of
exploration, experiment, and discovery.
How had he come to believe this? Largely through hard experience of
nature's buffets, whenever he acted contrary to this hypothesis or
feeling. His religion was largely one of fear fitted for a savage mind,
though not without a mingling of hope.
Of course in us cultured folk perfect love, sentimentality, softness of
fibre, heedlessness, forgetfulness, and general superficiality of
life--to make a very inadequate list--have combined to cast out fear, "for
fear hath torment"; and we thank God loudly that we are so much wiser
than our benighted ancestors. Even our New England fathers feared God,
though they feared nothing else, but we fear only everything else except
God and law. But the unlucky scientific wight living and working in the
shadow of adamantine law remains in hopeless bondage to fear.
"Nach ewigen ehernen, grossen Gesetzen
Mussen wir alle unseres Daseins Kreise vollenden."[156]
These great powers might not necessarily be hopelessly hostile. They
might be appeased or won over, possibly controlled. What could he do to
please them? For something must be done. Here ritual arises.[157]
Possibly he offers to one or more of them a share in the feast which he
so much enjoys after a successful hunt. In time this may become a
sacrifice, sent up and out on the wings of fire.[158] Or he practises a
wind or rain dance as the outlet and expression of his intense desire;
and to awaken, encourage, and help the powers of these elements. He
holds a hunting-dance to rehearse and gain power for the killing of the
bear. Call it objectification of his heart's desire, or magic if you
prefer. Magic and religion grow up side by side, and probably from the
same root in these early stages: as alchemy and chemistry, astrology and
astronomy will spring up later.
The pictures on the cave-walls of France probably had a magical or
religious purpose. Here we find very few representations of human
beings. But in a rock-painting at Cogul, possibly Neolithic though
probably older, we see a group of women apparently engaged in some rite
of magic or religion. The occurrence of amulets also does not surprise
us.
We cannot make a study of primitive ritual magic and religion, their
origin, form, and content. But even our hasty glance shows us that man
had been wondering and thinking about this subject during millennia
before our Neolithic time, had been forced to accept many profound
convictions, containing germs of sublime truth overlaid, like our own,
with many errors; he had elaborated a system of ritual, and had
travelled far along the road of religious experience and discoveries
long before this comparatively recent epoch.
The conspicuous features of the religion of this ancient period of
primeval stupidity, or _Urdummheit_, to borrow the German word, were the
host of invisible powers or dæmons, and the law of taboo, the forbidden
thing. Breach of taboo rendered not only the individual lawbreaker but
the whole tribe, however innocent, liable to punishment. The whole
community was responsible for every deed of any and every one of its
members, and suffered or prospered accordingly. When Agamemnon had
wronged the priest of Apollo, the god shot his arrows not at Agamemnon
but throughout the innocent Greek host. The children of Israel were
routed at Ai, because Achan had taken the devoted or forbidden thing.
This stage of tribal responsibility seems to be practically universal.
It gave the law an iron grip on the people, tamed them, and made them
march in lock-step, a necessary stage of terrible discipline. But only
under the protection and stimulus of this tribal feeling of common
responsibility and resulting tribal conscience could the individual
conscience be gradually awakened and developed, and finally break
through the cake or crust of custom into freedom and light.
All these forces and influences were acting throughout the Neolithic
and later periods, and are still with us. Perhaps we can gain a
tolerably distinct and correct view of Neolithic religion among the
Mediterranean peoples by a glance at the ancient Greek mysteries.
Students of Greek art and literature quite naturally have been very
slow to take interest in these crude, often ugly and indecent,
rituals. But for this very reason the primitive stands out all the
more sharply defined against the brilliant, beautiful, artistic
Olympian religion of Greek art and literature, and particularly of
Homer. Students like Professor Murray could hardly be expected to
explore these lower strata with great sympathy. For this very reason,
as somewhat unwilling witnesses to whatever is good or great in
primitive Greek ritual, their testimony is all the more valuable,
though probably hardly as just as that of Miss Harrison.[159] We shall
follow mainly Professor Murray's vivid portrayal.[160] In his
_Saturnia Regna_ he pictures the ritual and belief of the ancient
Greeks before the arrival of Achæans or Hellenes in any strict sense
of the word. Strictly speaking, it is a description of the religion of
the Bronze Age during the earlier part of the second millennium B. C.
It has been growing, developing, and undergoing modifications since
Neolithic time, but in all its essential features it is ancient.
We find here very few traces of the chief Olympian divinities, which
belong to a later age than the objects of worship or cult of these
ancient peoples whom we venture to call Pelasgi. They worshipped powers
or dæmons in indefinite numbers, but with no individual names:
represented, if at all, by emblems or symbols, very rarely in bodily
human form. Of these spirits of death, disease, madness, and calamity
there were "thousands upon thousands, from whom man can never escape or
hide." So much is mainly a heritage from Paleolithic times. But the
conception of spirit has grown more clear, distinct, and elevated, as we
saw in our study of burial rites.
But Neolithic men lived in communities and devoted themselves largely to
tillage of the ground and to raising sheep, goats, swine, and cattle.
Their life was still precarious. "Their food depended on the crops of
one tiny plot of ground. All the while they knew almost nothing of the
real causes that made crops succeed or fail. They only felt sure it was
a matter of pollution, of unexpiated defilement. It is this state of
things that explains the curious cruelty of agricultural works, which
like most cruelty had its roots in terror, terror of the breach of
taboo--the 'Forbidden Thing.'"
Neolithic man, with his new discoveries and industries, had given new
hostages to fortune, and a new and wider scope of application to the old
doctrine of taboo and of tribal responsibility. This strengthened the
hold of the priest or magician on the hopes, fears, and faith of his
people. The law is going deeper as well as wider. There arises an
individual feeling of pollution and of the need of expiation which will
blaze out in the oldest Greek tragedies as almost a veritable sense of
sin. We might almost say that a sense of morality toward the spirit
world is now appearing in a religion previously almost or quite unmoral.
We may easily overestimate the extent and power of the change, but we
can hardly be mistaken in recognizing its dawn and the vast germinal
possibilities of this dim feeling or conception.
In agriculture and throughout nature seed-time was followed by harvest,
fall, and winter's gloom and death. Then in the next spring there was a
return, a rebirth or a resurrection. If the seed failed to come up, if
the blade withered or was blighted, it was because the vegetation spirit
or dæmon had failed to reappear or had been reborn weak or sickly, and
all this because some one had broken taboo, had touched the forbidden
thing. This must be prevented at all cost, they must help the spirit.
Hence there must be every year a time of purification, of renovation,
when the old garments and utensils and everything which could carry the
pollution of death were cast off or cleansed.
All these conclusions, and some others of equal importance to which we
will return later, are expressed or symbolized in the great Dromena,
festivals, mysteries, or whatever you may call these rites of
pre-Homeric Greece. Then, for a time, they are partially, though never
totally, eclipsed, by the brilliant beauty of the Olympian religion with
its glorious temples, statues, and other works of art.
The Olympian gods had conquered the world. They practise neither
agriculture nor industry, nor any honest work. They fight and feast and
drink and play. They are conquering chieftains, royal buccaneers. The
Olympian religion had its time and place, and did its work. It swept
out many indecent features of the older cults, many superstitions and
abuses. It suited the Achæans and their civilization exactly, and we can
never forget its "sheer beauty," But it went bankrupt, lost its hold on
men's minds and hearts, failed and faded out. Professor Murray compares
its end to that of a garden of rare exotic flowers overrun by the rank
weeds which it had temporarily displaced. Miss Harrison more justly
compares it to a flower withering because cut off from its roots.
There was vastly more vitality in the ancient crude symbols and chaos of
conceptions than in the ordered and artistic Olympian hierarchy with its
marvellous representations of the gods in human or superhuman form and
beauty. Even its art and literature could not save it. It had lost its
mysticism. The old Neolithic religion, handed down by peasants and
artisans reoccupied the field, transformed sometimes almost beyond
recognition, like the Ugly Duckling of the fairy tale. It returned
triumphant through sheer power of unlimited vitality and adaptability.
Plato draws his finest illustrations from its mysteries, out of which,
also, the Greek drama arose. Paul quotes from them or from a similar
stratum of belief.
Some of the many sources of its vitality are obvious. It was rooted in
the firm conviction of the existence of a spiritual world toward and
into which its every rootlet was forcing its way and from which it drew
nourishment and power. We might better change the illustration and say
that it was slowly developing a spiritual eye which peered into a higher
world and developed in keenness and clearness of vision in response to
the higher pulsations. By patient experiment and experience, which
produced a hope that could not make ashamed and a faith in which hope
and experiment combined, it was feeling its way into spiritual
knowledge. It knew nothing of practical science or of material cause and
effect. But its world pulsated with the universal life. It recognized
the law of forbidden things and the sure penalty of law-breaking. It had
a tribal conscience and recognized the need of purification. It had the
promise, at least, of individual conscience and consciousness of sin.
Its symbol was the mystery which lifted only a corner of the veil and
left an abundant opportunity for wonder, imagination, thought, and
mysticism, which was entirely lacking in the perfect statue and the
finished creed. It made man, through its sympathetic magic, a coworker
with his divinities or dæmons in gaining the answer to an intensive
desire or prayer acted by all the members of the community with all
their united might, instead of expressed merely in words, the utterance
of his whole being and life. Such a system or chaos overflows with
sublime possibilities.
The introduction of agriculture had produced another most important
change in religious views and ritual. In tillage the earth brought forth
and gave birth to the crops which furnished their chief food supply, and
probably, in their view, to animals and men also; just as the human
mother gives birth to the child. Hence there was a wide-spread belief
in, and cult of, an earth divinity, of course female, or in a goddess or
dæmon of fertility. She is sometimes or usually accompanied by a male
partner, companion or son, but he occupies a lower place.
[Illustration: FEMALE IDOLS, THRACE]
[Illustration: FEMALE IDOL, ANAU
Reproduced from "Explorations in Turkestan." Carnegie Institute of
Washington, Publishers.]
This cult of the goddess seems to have been a marked feature of
Neolithic religion.[161] We find it in the remains of the Minoan periods
in Crete; Isis and her companion god Osiris were very prominent in
Egypt. The cult was wide-spread throughout Asia Minor: Diana, or better
Artemis, of the Ephesians, Ma in Anatolia, the great goddess of the
Hittites are a few examples. Farther eastward we find Astarte. Pumpelly
found a female idol (Astarte?) at Anau. The cult dots, if it does not
cover, the old middle migration route. We remember the wide-spread
distribution of the painted pottery from Susa to Anau and over to
Boghaz-keui in the land of the Hittites. Art and religion are closely
related during the early times and a wide-spread type of art suggests,
though it does not prove, an accompanying form of religion similar
throughout the same wide area. In Greece we find Demeter, and in
"Pelasgic Athens" the goddess Athena always held the highest place. Hera
may well have been another great goddess of the Pelasgi. When the
conquering Achæans came in and their chieftains wedded the princesses of
the land, they married their god Zeus to the goddess of the land. Hence
this cult has been displaced and its records blotted out by later
changes. That so many traces of it outlasted the Bronze Age is a proof
of its firm hold and great vitality.
We have studied these ancient cults in Greece and the Mediterranean
basin because here they are easily discovered and can be restored. They
are covered by only a thin layer of later cults which could not destroy
their vitality. When we attempt to explore northern Europe the
situation is quite different. Christianity blotted out all traces of the
worship of Odin and Thor; what it could not blot out it took over into
its own service in a modified form. Behind Thor and Odin we see the
shadowy form of Dyaus (Ziu?), perhaps a sky-god akin to the Hellenic
Zeus, whose name has come down to us in our weekday, Tuesday. Behind all
these we must search for traces of the deeply buried and almost
obliterated genuine Neolithic cults. These traces could persist only as
superstitions of peasants.
We notice first of all that we find one race extending northward along
the coast of France into England and Denmark, the zone of the megalithic
monuments. In this zone we find figurines and carvings of divinities.
Here Déchelette tells us that the female divinity was undoubtedly
preferred as the guardian of the tombs.[162] This zone was so closely
connected with the Mediterranean region that we should expect nothing
else.
In southeastern Europe, around the valley of the Danube, at Cucuteni,
Jablanica, and elsewhere, we find figurines, and here again the female
divinity is at least the more prominent, if not decidedly
dominant.[163] Déchelette tells us as to its source: "From the earliest
times striking analogies have been proven between the old villages of
the Danube and the Balkans and the Ægean settlements of the Troad and
Phrygia. Primitive idols, painted pottery, frequent employment of the
spiral in decorative art: all these occur scattered through the stations
of southeastern Europe in Neolithic times and in the eastern
Mediterranean basin in pre-Mycenæan and Mycenæan days. Between Butmir
(near Sarajevo, Bosnia) and Hissarlik (Troy) these discoveries mark the
routes which without doubt were already opening communication between
the pre-Hellenic peoples and the pre-Celtic tribes." Reinach adds:
"Eastern Europe, part of Asia Minor and of Egypt, have been revealed as
very intense centres of Neolithic civilization."[164] They may be traced
in rare examples still farther northward into Bohemia and even in
Thuringia. But their distribution outside of southeastern Europe is very
sparse. Traces of the worship of an earth mother,[165] though vague and
few, can still be discovered in the superstitions of the peasant folk of
northern Germany. A primitive belief in spirits of the earth, of
vegetation, of fertility--of dæmons who preside over the crops, who die
in the autumn or winter and reappear in the spring--is common in the
folk-lore and customs of the peasants in many parts of Europe. Our
Maypole has an interesting history and is probably the last survival of
an ancient cult. Still other more interesting illustrations might easily
be cited.[166]
The Balder-myth is familiar to us all. He is a "rare exotic," entirely
out of place in that circle of berserker gods and brutal giants who
lived in or over against the Norse Valhalla, but would have found
himself at home in the land and times of Dionysus. Have we possibly here
an intrusion of a far more ancient religious element which even the rude
dwellers in a harsh Northland could not forget, and would not allow to
die?
Usually accompanying the cult of the goddess we find frequent and
wide-spread traces of a related trend of thought, mother-right
(Mutterrecht), maternal kinship, matriarchy: under which were generally
included the reckoning of descent in the female line, rights of
inheritance by the daughter, hence female rights of property and general
high social and economic position of woman. These features need not be
united--they may appear separately, one here and another there. We are
probably not studying a system of thought or law, but a general tendency
of life.[167]
Mother-right, to use the most general term, survived, partially at
least, down to historic time in Egypt. It persisted in Asia Minor.
Perhaps it crops out in the story of the Amazons. We find traces of it
in ancient law and custom in northern Europe. Says Hoernes: "Among the
Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, and Slavs, remains of mother-right occur
even in historic times."[168] Wundt thinks that maternal kinship was
once universal.[169] We have no time or room to discuss the origin of
mother-kinship. We may yet find that it and mother-right represent
distinct forms of a deep-seated universal tendency, often of independent
origin, occurring usually together but sometimes separate.
Something akin to mother-right, and to a high position and dominating
influence of woman in the family and in society, is only what we should
expect at this time. We have seen that women were the first great
discoverers and inventors; discoverers and founders of all our household
arts and crafts as well as of most of our science. Women were the first
spinners and weavers, the first potters. They were the first herbalists
and botanists and the first household physicians. In the care of the
children they were compelled to be alert, quick-minded, ready for all
sorts of emergencies. Paleolithic man was a mere hunter; the rest of the
time he ate and loafed. The woman provided the vegetable food, as well
as much of the animal, and became the first gardener or farmer. She
introduced tillage of the ground, and thus became economically by far
the more important member of the partnership, and she probably had by
far the more alert, quick-witted brain.
The establishment of agriculture was followed by the cult of the
earth-mother, who gave birth to all the fruits of the ground and
probably to all life. The goddess, with or without a male companion, was
the head of the hierarchy. This again could not have been without its
influence. Says Miss Harrison: "Woman to primitive man is a thing at
once weak and magical, to be oppressed, yet feared. She is charged with
powers of child-bearing denied to man, powers only half understood,
sources of attraction but also of danger and repulsion, forces that all
over the world seem to fill him with dim terror. The attitude of man to
woman and, though perhaps to a less degree, of woman to man is still
essentially magical. Man cannot escape being born of woman: but he can,
and if he is wise he will, as soon as he comes to manhood, perform
ceremonies of riddance and purgation."[170]
One other fact deserves notice. In times of dearth the savage man always
eats up all the grain reserved as seed for the next year, and there is
none to sow. This is the rock on which attempts to introduce agriculture
among savages or nomads have usually been shipwrecked. Here the priest,
or perhaps priestess, of the goddess came to her aid, armed with the
weapon of taboo. Against this alliance the poor, stupid, clumsy, and
slow-witted Neolithic man struggled in vain. He could vent his fury by
pulling his wife about by the hair, but this availed little or naught.
He had to submit and be resigned.
Female magic increases in power as we approach the frontier and frontier
life. At the fall of the Roman Empire northern tribes swept away the old
civilization. Grass grew in the ruined cities, only villages remained
inhabited. The priests, by a liberal preaching of hell and other dire
torments, attempted to subdue these barbarians to law and to introduce
order. Agriculture and industry rearose or returned slowly. Finally
after the "dark ages" great cathedrals sprang up, dedicated not to
apostles or martyrs but to the Virgin, Queen of Heaven. Mr. Adams tells
us that at this time the women of France were the real leaders. Is this
apparent parallelism mere chance, or is it due to a certain amount of
similarity in conditions?
Some one has said that our Neolithic ancestors, especially the
megalith-builders, were priest-ridden. If he had added that they were
tamed and led, and very possibly diligently hen-pecked, by a veritable
matriarchate, I suspect that he would have discovered and correctly
estimated the two great sources of their marvellous progress. For at
this stage, as at some others, the priests and the women were the élite,
and the government was, therefore, ideal for its day.
But the tendency was based upon something far broader and deeper than
changing social and economic conditions and religious feeling. Even the
"mere man" must admit that it was biological and natural. "Nature," says
Humboldt, "has taken woman under her special protection." She has always
been partial to the female. Throughout the long period of mammalian
evolution she has showed very little regard for the males. The more they
fight and kill one another off, the fewer useless individuals to feed.
The same tendency reaches its logical conclusion in the parthenogenesis
of insects. Havelock Ellis says of woman: "She bears the special
characteristics of humanity in a higher degree than man, and represents
more nearly than man the human type which man is approximating." He
boldly asserts that man seems to be the "weaker vessel," and brings
strong arguments for his assertion.[171]
"Das Ewig-weibliche
Zieht uns hinan."
The buried Pelasgic religion regained its rightful place. It had more
vital reality than the Olympian. Has the great Roman Catholic Church, in
its worship of the Virgin, retained at least the symbol of an element of
vital reality which we Protestants, in our recoil from so-called
"Mariolatry," have neglected to our cost in favor of a purely paternal
conception of God? We leave this question to the theologians.
CHAPTER XI
PROGRESS
It is a far cry and long and weary road from the ape descending from the
trees and the ape-man shuffling over the ground, keeping close to his
arboreal refuge, to the lake-dweller and builder of stone monuments.
There was very little in the appearance or structure of the ape-man to
encourage great hopes for the future. The sleek, graceful, wiry,
well-armed cats were far more attractive, promising, and thrilling
actors on the world's stage. Why did not they progress, win the future,
and insure that all the future meetings of art and learning should be
held on the back fence? They certainly did not progress--that is a
stubborn fact.
They had largely or completely exhausted the possibilities of their
special line of development; as cats they were perfect and could
dominate the portion of the world in which as cats they were solely
interested. This was an impassable bar to progress. Why should they
change? They were so thoroughly conformed to the environment of their
time and conditions that any marked change would have been a
disadvantage. But when conditions did change, and the fashion of the
world which had produced them passed away, they became out of fashion,
"back numbers," incapable of meeting new emergencies and crises--like
men, parties, and governments in all ages of human history. They
suffered from over-adaptation and the resulting limitations.
Man did not make this mistake. Isolated tribes and even races might
settle down in contentment, become completely adapted to easy conditions
of life, and stagnate or degenerate. But a saving remnant was always
marching out into new physical or social surroundings, exposed to new
needs, fears, and opportunities, and readapting itself to meet and
profit by them. Man was not, and could not be, precocious. He was always
a bundle of possibilities and great expectations, which he has even now
only begun to realize.
Overpopulation, or other pressure in his primeval home, resulted in
great racial migrations, sending him all over the world to seek his
fortune. He became one of the very few physically cosmopolitan animals,
living everywhere from the equator to the Arctic zone. He became
toughened and hardened and adaptable, able to live under the most trying
circumstances. Everywhere he had to be a close observer, watchful and
wary. He was weak and defenseless, and his life depended upon his quick
recognition of "nature's signs of displeasure," upon the full exercise
of his few small wits. He learned to be faithful in a few things. We
need not repeat or review this weary chapter of his history.
"There were years that no one talked of. There were times
of horrid doubt.
There was faith and hope and whacking and despair."
Man was experimenting with all kinds of climates and conditions. It was
in the hard and cold northern regions that he developed farthest, though
less rapidly at first. We have already glanced at the educational
results of language, of family life in the rock-shelter around the fire,
of the fashioning and use of tools, of his love of ornaments and
display, of his dawning and clearing self-consciousness, of the
beginnings of ownership. We have noticed his burial rites and their
suggestions. All these may have been rude and crude, but they contained
the germs of vast possibilities, though painfully slow of development.
His "castles in Spain" were his richest possessions, though he probably
never knew or suspected them. One hundred thousand years of human life
in Europe produced nothing higher than Neanderthal man.
Suddenly, at the beginning of Upper Paleolithic time Cro-Magnon man
appeared. His splendid physique and large brain, his production and
appreciation of art, and many other qualities, have led some one to
speak of him as the "prehistoric Greek." In our enthusiasm we may easily
overestimate his powers; but, as we study him and his work, we feel that
here was a great race, and that now some great human possibilities are
to be fully attained and made permanent. Apparently he had come from the
plateau region of western Asia. Near his birthplace there must have been
other peoples capable of great things. We remember that Susa was
probably founded not much later than the beginning of the Magdalenian
epoch in Europe. But the Cro-Magnon folk decreased in numbers, in
stature, apparently also in ability and vitality. During the period of
transition to Neolithic time Europe was occupied only by a sparse
population of fishermen along the rivers, while barbarous hunting tribes
were working their way northward toward the Baltic. The shell-heaps of
Denmark are the monuments of the attainments of this epoch.
A higher civilization had already entered the Mediterranean basin. It
was building houses, villages, possibly forerunners of the Greek
city-states. Especially in Greece they were sufficiently separated to
allow independence of development and great variety, and yet near enough
to one another to prevent the ill effects of complete isolation. Here
there was rapid interchange and improvement of physical and mental
attainments, mental stimulation and rivalry, change and progress.
Implements, weapons, pottery; new discoveries, inventions, ideas, arts,
and habits of life and thought spread slowly and gradually from these
centres of progressing culture far to the northward. This was
undoubtedly one important source of stimuli. But we must not
overestimate its influence.[172]
It spread through France into England and Denmark. As time went on this
northward current increased and strengthened until, during the Bronze
period, the Baltic region, especially Denmark, became almost a second
Mediterranean centre of culture and art; just as at a far later time
Flemish cities became the Venices of the north. But the north was never
a beggarly dependent and imitator of the south. It selected and accepted
only what it would, almost always modified and frequently improved what
it had selected.
[Illustration: ANCIENT FISHERMEN
From the mural painting by Fernand Cormon in the Muséum d'Histoire
Naturelle, Paris.]
The larger part of central and northern Europe lay outside of this
great current and was reached by it only slightly and very indirectly.
These regions or provinces were largely working out their own
civilization and culture.
What then was the real source of Neolithic progress?[173] It is not to
be sought in great wars and revolutions. Genuine wars are carried on by
nations with a national government, and as yet there were no nations,
and even tribal government--outside of religion, the great bond of tribal
unity at this stage--was probably weak, loose, and inefficient. There
were no such strong towns or city-states as sprang up later in Greece.
There were here no nomadic hordes to be driven by drought from their
withering pastures to migrate _en masse_ and force their way into less
thirsty and starving regions. There was, as yet, no great overpopulation
of mountainous areas compelling raids or forays into piedmont zones. The
nearest approach to this condition is the slow, evidently peaceful
penetration of parts of France by broad-heads from its eastern uplands
filtering in and mixing with the long-headed older population, and
betraying their arrival mainly by a change in form of head and rise of
cephalic index.
There was little wealth to tempt invasion. There were no cities or
large towns to plunder. There were wide stretches of land thinly or not
at all populated and open to any newcomer. All that we know of Neolithic
religion, far more dominant in tribal life and action than the very
feebly developed political or social organization, the cult of the
goddess, and the accompanying mother-right, suggest peace. The great
invasions of the Bronze and Iron periods introduced or stimulated the
cult of war gods and patriarchal family life and kinship. But these were
still in the future. The picture of Europe at this time as a great arena
of roving savages, thirsting for blood and always at war, seems to be a
caricature.
The people of the banded pottery were evidently peaceful. They left no
weapons except mattocks and hammers. No one, I believe, has ever accused
the broad-heads of blood-thirst. The graves of northern hunters with
corded pottery are all about Grosgartach. The little village was
deserted and decayed. It showed no signs of having been burned. The
lake-dwellings were open to attack at all times, especially after the
ice had formed during the winter. Robenhausen during its long history
burned several times; hardly as often as most of our New England
villages. Here a single brand or fire-tipped arrow in a thatched roof
would have destroyed the whole settlement.
Only in northern Europe, in the country of the corded pottery, do we
find great attention paid to the making of fine weapons like the flint
daggers and axes. Here we have chiefly herdsmen and hunters. Here there
were probably village incompatibilities--Donnybrook fairs,
cattle-lifting, and forays. But these should hardly be dignified with
the name of wars. We find then some North German peoples at the very end
of the Neolithic period pushing southward, often by peaceable
infiltration, sometimes perhaps by violent incursions, when the
resistance was great.[174]
Says Wundt:[175] "So long as he is not obliged to protect himself
against peoples that crowd in upon him, primitive man is familiar with
the weapon only as an implement of the chase. The old picture of a war
of all with all, as Thomas Hobbes once sketched the natural state of
man, is the very reverse of what obtained. The natural condition is one
of peace, unless this is disturbed by external circumstances, one of the
most important of which is contact with a higher culture."
We remember, also, the fewness of fortified villages in northern Europe
until toward the end of the Neolithic period, and then mainly along
great routes of migration; and around mines and workshops. They seem to
fail altogether in Scandinavia at this time. Even the wars, battles, or
quarrels which occurred probably hindered progress far more than they
aided it. Haeckel in his younger days was fierce in his denunciations of
the stupidity of war.
Political or economic revolutions could hardly occur when there was
probably little organized government and even less wealth and class
difference.
Conditions in France may have been somewhat different. Here the great
stone monuments suggest a denser population under a more advanced
organization, religious or political, or both, reminding us of
conditions in the Mediterranean region, with whose culture it was
closely connected. Here fortifications seem to have been quite
numerous.[176] But our knowledge is too slight to allow even a
conjecture.
[Illustration: EARLY AGRICULTURE
From the mural painting by Fernand Cormon in the Muséum d'Histoire
Naturelle, Paris.]
In the southeastern part of Europe we find the people of the banded
pottery who practised an advanced form of agriculture. Here apparently
the men as well as the women worked in the fields. We find their stone
mattocks and ploughshares. Hoe-culture was giving place to ploughing.
Here men were receiving a very different education and training from the
hunters, fishermen, and herdsmen of the north, though there also a
gradual increase of tillage was doubtless taking place. They were
tilling the ground laboriously, monotonously, doing what was wearisome
and disagreeable for a reward sometimes large, sometimes scanty. The
peasant farmer learns forethought, thrift, economy, industry, and a host
of homely virtues, far less known to hunter or herdsman. He is no more a
collector taking what he finds: he has gone into partnership with
nature. He is studying her ways, moods, and whims. He amasses a steadily
increasing store of most valuable lore concerning climate, weather,
soil, plants, animals, and things. He is rooted in a little patch of
ground. His outlook is narrow and he is slow to change. But he learns
his lessons thoroughly. He may enter the school unwillingly but he stays
in it.
He has a permanent home even if it is hardly more than a hut, which is
the centre of his life and thought. It is a hard, healthy life, and
population increases rapidly under such conditions. He probably has a
large family of children, and they educate and socialize him and one
another. He is trained and moulded by "home surroundings." Is not this
the history of the frontiersman or homesteader everywhere at all times?
The home and family attachments and instincts are deeply rooted because
very ancient and entirely natural.
He lives in a village or neighborhood, which is hardly more than a great
patriarchal family, closely united by intermarriage, and by the pressure
of common work to satisfy common needs, common ownership of the soil,
mutual aid in hard times. The religious rites and ceremonies, the feasts
and mysteries, the prayers or magic, are all community affairs. Many of
the divinities are local. These religious bonds are all the firmer and
more compelling because, in the lack of any developed and permanent
political organization, religion is the great tribal bond. We easily
forget the civilizing, refining, and improving unremitting pressure and
power of these simple, uninteresting peasant influences. He is learning
to get on with the members of the family and neighborhood. He is
experimenting upon his neighbors: his experiments and experiences may
often be very trying to himself and them; the results may sometimes be
discouraging. But he is not only practising the essentials and
fundamentals of morality, very incomplete and without code; but a sort
of preparatory course in government. It may easily be self-government in
these small villages. The town-meeting originated here or somewhat
farther north.
We have already seen that his religion had grown out of the experiences
of his daily life. May we not claim that science and a sort of
philosophy may have sprung from the same source? He knew nothing of
cause and effect in the material world. But he was seeking diligently
the invisible bond of relations of things and events. The relation,
according to his views, was mainly of a spiritual character through the
agency of dæmons. His ritual, call it magic if you will, was the
expression of his conviction that results in the material world might be
modified by his lending a helping hand to all the beneficent spirits. He
indulged freely in hypotheses, but these were the outgrowth of millennia
of experience and life, a very healthy form of pragmatism. He who has
never laughed at a modern scientific theory, useful and fruitful in its
time but now outgrown and replaced by a somewhat better one, may cast
the first stone at his "benighted" Neolithic ancestor.
We might even venture to suspect that in his own crude way he was a
philosopher. He must have had something like a philosophy of life, even
if it was hardly more than a dumb instinct.
Says Miss Harrison: "Dike" (usually translated justice), "in common
Greek parlance is the way of life, normal habit. Dike is the way of the
world, the way things happen, and Themis is that specialized way for
human beings which is sanctioned by the collective conscience, by herd
instinct. A lonely beast in the valley, a fish in the sea, has his Dike,
but it is not till man congregates together that he has his Themis.
Greeks and Indians alike seem to have discovered that the divine way was
also the truth and the life. This notion of the way, which was also the
truth and the life, seems to have existed before the separation of
Indian from Iranian. Closely allied to Dike and to Vedic Rta is the
Chinese Tao, only it seems less moralized and more magical. Deep-rooted
in man's heart is the pathetic conviction that moral goodness and
material prosperity go together, that if man keep the Rta, he can
magically affect for good nature's ordered going."[177]
Thus primitive man, long before the dawn of anything like civilization,
was seeking, finding, clearing, and treading out the "way" to an
ordered, right, and healthy individual and social life--not through, but
to, codes of morals and systems of philosophy. His thought was more or
less chaotic, perhaps; it was crudely, often indecently, expressed in
ugly form or action; but it was always acted upon, kept close to life.
We might possibly call him an "Ur-pragmatist," if you will pardon the
barbarism. He had neither the language nor the "conveniences for
thinking" and other things, to write out a cool, logical abstract system
in long words. In this we have outrun him until we have left him out of
sight. His philosophy was not a guidebook or map, but a rough and often
miry trail.
We have tried to express briefly the results of a glance at the
agriculturists of southeastern Europe. Before the close of the Neolithic
period they were in fairly close communication with Ægean culture and
owed considerable or much progress to stimuli from this source. In the
great essentials of human training and development something quite
similar might be said of the lake-dwellers and the broad-heads of
eastern France. North Germany had a different culture and probably
somewhat different religious cults and general views and conceptions.
France and England, too, represented a quite distinct province whose
peoples were always under Mediterranean influence. Denmark was already
a meeting-place for a variety of cultures, thoughts, and influences.
Peoples were gradually closing in from all directions on the central
provinces of northern Europe, and here apparently they met. We find here
a mixture of head-forms, of culture; mixture or modifications of styles
of ceramic ornament, of burial customs--all suggesting a mingling of
peoples of a variety of cultures. Here at or toward the end of the
Neolithic period was the "melting-pot" for the fusion of these peoples
and their cultures. There was conflict of customs and ideas, of _ways_
of life. There was probably much incompatibility, many broken heads. The
pacific people of the banded pottery seem largely to have withdrawn, or
been driven out, before the infiltration or invasions of northern folk.
It was hardly a comfortable place for conservative pacificists. There
were doubtless battles in many regions--perhaps now and here we might
speak of wars. In some places there may have been extermination of the
fighting men. But in most parts there was large fusion, and out of this
mixture of cultures, ideas, thoughts, and habits of life came the
culture of the beginning of the Bronze Age.
The great characteristic of Neolithic culture seems to be a rude, often
barbarous, sometimes ugly but generally healthy, always hardy and
vigorous growth--it grew "like a weed"--the manifestation of an intense
vitality. Because it was healthy it was essentially and generally fairly
sane, matter-of-fact, whole, and balanced. The Neoliths were certainly
no "reversed cripples," in whom one or two of the less essential powers
had outgrown and dwarfed the man. It was an adaptable stock giving rise
to many marked and vigorous varieties, from whose intercrossing
something great and good could hardly fail to arise.
Green refuses to write a "trumpet-and-drum history of England." "Happy
the people--here we cannot say nation--that has no annals." Here is surely
a certain amount of truth which we may be in danger of forgetting. In
plants, and often in men, a long period of silent unnoticeable growth
usually precedes the brief season of flowers and fruit. Is this the rule
in racial, or internal, development?
Is it true, as some historians tell us, that a dormant period of
national history best repays investigation, and that dormant peoples
will bear watching? Is the dormant nation often storing up nutriment,
strength, vitality, just as the plant is doing in its ugly underground
roots and stem? Are fallow periods necessary to its fertility and
apparently dormant times essential to its life and growth? Must periods
of energetic action and effort be followed by times of exhaustion and
rest, as in the history of the strong athlete rejoicing to run a race?
Is China awakening from just such a dormant period? What of India, still
the home of philosophy? Because a nation, after bearing a marvellous
harvest of culture, thought, art, or religion, seems barren and
exhausted, does this discourage or arouse the hope that it will some day
produce an equal or greater fruitage?
How about "darkest Africa"? Here surely we have a case of degeneration
beyond all hope of recovery, not to mention a great future. But is this
quite as certain as some of us seem to think? Is not much of our
so-called Occidental progress really an orgy of wasted energy, neurotic
excitement, half-camouflaged decadence, which will end in degeneration?
We do not know yet. May there some day be a family rather than league of
nations to which every one will contribute according to its special
ability? If this be granted, will Huxley's statement concerning the
individual be applicable to races and peoples: "Its aim will be not so
much the survival of the fittest as the fitting of as many as possible
to survive"? These are sphinx questions demanding an answer from
statesmen. Unfortunately most of our statesmen are only waiting to be
gathered to their fathers in the graveyard of dead politicians. We will
turn homeward after our excursion, gladly leaving our little bundle of
facts and questions at the door of the philosopher of history.
But one question confronts us directly. Is our whole estimate and
valuation of Neolithic life, work, and progress extreme and practically
worthless? Were they, in spite of all our arguments, a mob of crude,
worthless barbarians, undeserving of any gratitude or sympathy, much
less of respect? Do we really owe anything to them?
One historic event of great importance had its growth and rise during
the Neolithic period out of Neolithic life, conditions, and culture.
This was the Aryan culture of Persia and India, of Greece and Rome, and
of our northern ancestors. No one seems to deny its importance and
value. We must glance at its origin and growth, and see if it supports
at all the tentative and often conjectural conclusions at which we have
arrived. This will be the object of our work and study in the next and
closing chapter.
CHAPTER XII
THE COMING OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS
Said Max Müller in his _Biographies of Words_: "I have declared again
and again that, if I say Aryan, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair
nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language. The same
applies to Hindus, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts, and Slavs. When I
speak of them I commit myself to no anatomical characteristics. The
blue-eyed and fair-haired Scandinavians may have been conquerors or
conquered, they may have adopted the language of their darker lords or
their subjects, or vice versa. I assert nothing beyond their
language.... To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood,
Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a
dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."
We may well take this warning to heart, and remember that the first and
most noticeable, if not the one essential, characteristic of the Aryans
was their language. For the sake of convenience and clearness, and of
avoiding misunderstanding or prejudice, we will use the word
Indo-European for the whole group of languages to which Müller applied
the word Aryan. These languages fall into two great divisions or
branches: (1) the Indian and Iranian (Persian), which we will call
Aryan; and (2) the European branch, including Greek, Latin, German,
Slavic, and others. Our first question is: what inferences can we safely
draw from a study and comparison of these different European and Asiatic
languages? Evidently they have all sprung from a parent language no
longer adequately represented by any one of them. They have all been
considerably or greatly modified during the lapse of time. They, and
others whose names we have omitted, are all sister languages descended
or developed from a parent language which must once have been spoken by
a people, very probably representing a mixture of races, having a
definite local habitation, cradle, or home. Here the language originated
as the expression of a certain culture or civilization, and from this
region, large or small, it spread into Persia and India and throughout
Europe. The wide spread of the language testifies to the superiority in
some important respects of either language, culture, people, or all
three. We may well recognize two homes, the first, original cradle of
the language and culture, and the second homeland, far more extensive,
over which the original language, probably with well-marked dialects,
was used just before the final separation and dispersal.
In its distribution from India to western Europe it must often have
wandered far from its original home. Its introducers must often have
been few compared with the large and dense populations among which they
came. The Aryans could have been hardly more than a handful among the
peoples of India. Something similar may be said of its introduction into
Europe about the close of the Neolithic period. Middle Europe was at
this time fairly well populated, at least in its more fertile regions.
The bearers of the new language must have represented a ruling,
conquering, or otherwise very influential class, else it would never
have been accepted by the mass of the people.
When the original or modified Indo-European language, perhaps in several
distinct dialects, was introduced into Europe, it was carried to peoples
of several or many stocks and languages. These had to learn and acquire
it as we acquire a foreign language, but only as a spoken, unwritten
language. Probably no one of them acquired it exactly in its original
form. It was almost impossible for them to pronounce all its consonants
or combinations, its "shibboleths." They retained much of the stress and
accent and more of the cadence of their own tongue. Similarly at a far
later date Latin developed into the various Romance Languages of modern
Europe.
Under the new conditions content and meanings changed as well as forms
of language. Words little used in the new home, especially names of
objects, might easily be lost, while others would be replaced by
favorite apt words from the aboriginal language. A name might be applied
to a new object and thus change its meaning. To cite a familiar modern
instance, the robin redbreast of America is quite a different bird from
that of England. For a long time it was supposed that the occurrence of
the root of the word "beech" in the European languages proved beyond
doubt that the language must have originated in a region where the
beech-tree was common. But the Greek word derived from the same root
means oak; a similar, perhaps not the same, root word in Kurdish means
elm. Our knowledge of the original meaning of the word is very
uncertain. Through all the languages there runs a single word for
weaving or plaiting, but whether the original word referred to the
weaving of cloth or to the plaiting of mats or baskets we do not know.
The work of discovering and restoring the original language is difficult
and far from finished. But the comparative philologists or "linguistic
paleontologists" have established certain facts, or at least theories,
on which we may rely with a fair degree of confidence. We find names for
all the most important domestic animals, including the horse. There are
words for the wagon, its wheels, and various other parts. Words for
tillage and land cultivation agree in the Western branch, but are far
less noticeable in the Aryan languages. Here the vocabulary is rather
that of the herdsman. This seems to allow us to conclude that, when
Eastern and Western branches separated, and probably long before that
time, the Eastern people were herdsmen paying slight attention to
agriculture: the Western predominantly tillers of the ground.
The linguist, as we have already seen, is frequently or usually unable
to discover the exact meaning of the word in the original language, and
hence is uncertain as to the degree of development of any art or
technique. But the culture, as far as discovered, seems to be that of
the average of Neolithic peoples, perhaps fairly well represented by
that of the Swiss lake-dwellers. It may have varied in different areas
or provinces. The language seems to represent most clearly features of
the undivided life and settlement of the people or peoples when it had
spread over a wide territory and become the property of a large
population, otherwise it would be impossible to explain the successive
great waves of Indo-European migration. The cradle where the language
originated and took form must have been far more limited and the culture
simpler.
The original language contains words for summer and winter, ice and
snow; it tells of a fairly cold climate. They had a common word for
metal, probably copper, hence they were living together after the
introduction of this metal. They lived in villages apparently surrounded
by a hedge or wall, or some sort of fortification.
The family was decidedly patriarchal. Of the older mother-right scarcely
more than traces remain, survivals from an older alien culture. The
goddess is no longer supreme. A new divinity, a sky-god, or sun-god, or
manifestation of light or brightness had already appeared--the Greek
Zeus, Latin Ju-piter, with the same root appearing in all the languages.
The earth-goddess is not banished, but remains as consort of the male
divinity. The supreme divinity of the religious cult is no longer local.
There is in it an element or germ of universality overleaping all
provincial boundaries, in many respects a vast improvement over the old
Neolithic religions. It generally held its own, but only by adopting
much from the older native religions on which it was superimposed, as
was the case in Greece.
Indo-Europeanism must have had something to recommend it and make it
highly attractive to enable it to spread so fast and far. The language
itself, while apparently somewhat clumsy, was certainly rich in
conceptions and shades of expression. The clearness and beauty of the
religious cult may have attracted some, though this seems doubtful. All
these features are inadequate to explain the rapidity and extent of its
spread. We must leave this problem for the present.
Even the original language frequently describes the same object or even
action by words having very different roots. It shows great variety in
synonyms and inflections. Feist compares it with English and considers
it a "mixed language" almost from the start, and many facts seem to
favor this view. This does not surprise us when we remember that its
growth and development were late, during the latter half of Neolithic
time, when great movements and minglings of people were taking place and
long routes of trade and communication had opened.
The date of the earliest migrations of Indo-European peoples is roughly
indicated by the presence of a word for metal, probably copper, in the
original undivided language. Aryan names appear in western Asia about
1400 or 1500 B. C. Meyer says that the Achæans had arrived in the
southern Balkans as early as 2000 B. C. and reached Greece about 1200 or
1300 B. C.; the Dorians followed about 1100 B. C. We can hardly be far
from the truth if we consider that they were in their original home
until about 2000 B. C., and that the separation began very soon after.
Their development was a product of the Neolithic period, their spread
was the striking event of earliest historic times.
Inasmuch as their migrations are so recent, especially when compared
with those of the Semites, it ought to be possible for us to discover
certain traits which they brought with them from the homeland. The
Achæans had apparently marched southward from Hungary or thereabouts
through the Balkans into Greece, arriving there not far from 1200 B. C.
They did not come in one invading horde but in successive waves, each
crowding the other before it. Behind the Achæans came the Dorians,
behind them were the Thracians and other wayfarers. Their unit of
organization was the band, brotherhood, or clan, each with its own
leader, reminding us of the Scotch clans of a century or two ago. They
came with their horses and carts, perhaps with war-chariots. They were
the "horse-taming" Achæans. They were youthful, red-blooded,
irresponsible and irresistible, careless, untamed barbarians, swaggering
in from hard battles and long campaigns, having seen the manners and
tested the might of many peoples. They came in contact with ancient,
settled, staid, conservative Pelasgic wealth and culture. They were the
rough riders of their day. They were hard drinkers and fighters; loud,
boastful talkers, good-natured if not opposed; good "mixers."
Their chieftains married the princesses of the old régime, who seem to
have held the right of succession in the kingdom or city-state. The
wooing was rough and more or less forceful; but I suspect that the
princesses yielded not altogether unwillingly, even if the course of
true love did not always continue to run smooth in after years. They
married their gods to the goddesses of the land, and made little
further interference with the old Ægean religion or popular life.
In comparison with the native peoples who had builded Tiryns and Mycenæ
the Achæans were probably few, scattered over Greece. They probably
robbed the subject peoples with one hand, but with the other they
defended them against the forays of sea-pirates and other enemies. They
were no worse than former native rulers, far better watch-dogs of the
city, attractive leaders of an admiring crowd, the best possible
missionaries of a new culture and language. They turned the old
Neolithic world upside down. Evolution had brought revolution: old
things passed away and, for a time, all things became new. We cannot
easily overestimate the extent and importance of the change.
The leaders, and naturally their followers to a less degree, show
clearly the characteristics of the new era, which Wundt has called the
Age of Heroes in distinction from the Age of Totemism and the iron
supremacy of tribal custom. The chief feature was the rise, development,
and dominance of individual personality in the leaders and the
enthusiastic, individual loyalty of the members of the brotherhood or
clan. Up to this time the individual has been entirely submerged in the
customs and culture of the tribe, whose control has been mostly in the
hands of the old men and the priests; now the young warrior and champion
has grasped the reins. In all Homer's pictures the ranks of the common
people, however firm, count for little. The battle is won in single,
hand-to-hand combat by the leader--a dour giant of an Ajax, a dashing
Menelaus, "good at the rescue," a crafty Ulysses, a heroic Hector. The
wisdom of old Nestor is endured with kindly tolerance, hardly with
enthusiasm. It is an age of young men with all their virtues and vices.
But every leader is a distinctly marked individual; no two are alike.
City-states are beginning to appear, but their success depends very
largely on the wisdom and power of the ruler, who seems at first to be
largely irresponsible, a despot in the ancient sense of the word. It is
anything but a true democracy, but it is government by the élite of
their day and world. The new era or _Zeitgeist_ is putting its stamp on
all its peoples. Homer's description of the Achæans would apply almost
equally well to the Celts when they first appear in history; and kindred
spirits are marching and fighting in India and Persia. All seem to
represent a new type which all brought from the common homeland.
The chieftains, with this clan or brotherhood of warlike followers, came
into a country occupied by agriculturists or peasants unused and
untrained to war, such as we have found in the Mediterranean region and
in most of northern Europe. Conquest was usually easy and left little
bitterness. There was no national consciousness or pride to arouse
resistance. It was a totally different kind of invasion from that of
nomadic Semites in Asia, or of Mongols into Europe. It came almost as a
new movement, a renaissance for which the people were ready. Celt and
Greek alike were usually absorbed and lost in the masses of the people
to whom they came. Physically they produced little permanent change in
the people with whom they mingled. They seem to have accepted fully as
much as they contributed, and may often have received credit for many
improvements which they really had little share in bringing about.
We have already seen that Greek philosophy and religion, while retaining
much of the Olympian or Indo-European form, sprang essentially from the
old Pelasgic cults with their greater vitality. How far were Achæans and
Dorians responsible for the glory of Greek art, especially in "Pelasgic
Athens"? The answer can hardly be as obvious and sure as it has appeared
to some.
How far was Roman government and law due to Indo-European influence?
Neither Greeks nor Celts seem to have been very successful in founding
great or permanent states. Italy was far less easy of access from the
north than from Greece, and Rome lay well southward beyond the
Apennines. Some of its most important political features seem to have
sprung from uprisings of the _Plebs_, the common people, probably mostly
of native stock; others, perhaps, from the Etruscans. I cannot attempt
to answer this question or any one of many similar ones. The
Indo-Europeans brought in a new era and started a new world; but just
what was their definite and permanent contribution to European culture?
Europe had been long enough in the school of Neolithic discipline.
Agriculture and settled home life had trained peasants to do many things
which they disliked to do, to observe taboo and to obey ancient custom,
to march in rank and file, and even in lock-step. It was a hard school
in which savage man had been tamed, home-broken, and socialized, and he
had learned its lessons thoroughly. It was high time that men should be
promoted to a higher grade of education the aim of whose training should
be the development of free and vigorous personality. The crust or cake
of custom must yield or be broken and allow the individual to enter upon
the possession of his rights.
It was a critical and revolutionary change. It had been rendered easier
by the accumulation of wealth, and of a certain amount of personal
property in cattle and other goods. In centres of trade the individual
was thrown more and more on his own resources and initiative. With
exchange of goods came exchange of knowledge, ideas, and methods
undermining the ancient customs and traditions. Movements or migrations
of peoples or smaller bands called for leadership by the most capable.
And those became more and more numerous about the close of the Neolithic
period. Neolithic culture had been largely the product of peace and
isolation; it was inadequate to the new conditions. Matriarchy and the
cult of the goddess were unsuited to times of struggle and migration;
with the rise of the chieftain comes the worship of the war-god.
Where did this change or revolution and the rise of this new language
and culture and remarkable people take place? All agree that the cradle
or original homeland must have been somewhere on our third route of
migration, the great zone of steppe and parkland stretching from western
Turkestan westward along the Caspian and Black Seas into the valley of
the Danube, and from the Hungarian extension of the Asiatic steppe
northward to the great plain of North Germany and to Scandinavia. In our
study of racial migrations we found that the great Mongoloid branch went
eastward from the neighborhood of the Iranian plateau, while successive
waves of migration turned westward into Europe, both following a zone of
steppe and parkland enjoying unusually favorable climatic conditions in
early Post-glacial times.
The discovery of Sanskrit and the belief that it represented the parent
of the Indo-European languages led students to place the original centre
of their dispersal far toward the eastern end of this zone. When it
became evident that this view of Sanskrit was untenable, they began to
locate the centre in Europe. Finally some or many students have sought
it in the extreme west and north in Germany or also in Scandinavia. When
careful and thorough scholars have arrived at so many and so different
conclusions, we may well be cautious and remember that new discoveries
may necessitate a change in our own views.
The chief argument in favor of the North German homeland is
anthropological. The earliest Indo-Europeans both in Europe and Asia
were apparently blonds, with light hair and eyes; and such people have
lived along the shore of the Baltic since early Neolithic times.
The claim that the ancient Celts and Achæans were physically more like
Germans and Scandinavians than any other European people is certainly
not without foundation. It has been urged that the Indo-Europeans were
acquainted with the sea and with the eel, which is said to be unknown in
the tributaries of the Black and Caspian Seas, as also their
acquaintance with the beech. Other arguments can be found in special
articles. We have seen that arguments based on the meaning of words like
beech, eel, and sea, rest on a very insecure foundation. The Finns are
almost as blond as the Germans, and Kossina[178] places them with the
Germans as ancestors of the Indo-Europeans. There are in Europe also
blond brachycephals, generally acknowledged to have been of western
Asiatic origin. The arguments for a Germanic origin are attractive, but
hardly convincing, and anything but conclusive.
The objections to this view are weighty. One marked feature of
Indo-European culture was the use of the horse, which held the highest
rank among their domestic animals. But the domestic horse seems to have
been introduced into Europe from the East. The few traces of its
presence in northern Europe during Neolithic times are usually explained
as remains of wild animals killed in the hunt. If they played so large a
part in Indo-European culture, it is strange that they have left so few
remains.
Kossina, in one of his studies, places the cradle of Indo-European
culture in "Scandinavia, Denmark, and northwest Germany, wherever
megalithic monuments with their characteristic pottery occur." Wherever
such monuments occur we find incineration coming in late in Neolithic
time, or more exactly with the Bronze period, except in Brittany and
England, of which later. But incineration seems to accompany the
progress of the European branch, and must have come into use among these
peoples well back in their history to explain its wide occurrence.
The word town, in the original language, seems to signify a settlement
surrounded by a hedge or wall, or some sort of defense. But fortified
towns are hardly known in North Germany at this time. All these cultural
features seem to appear somewhat or considerably too late in North
Germany to suit Kossina's theory.
A second feature of Indo-European culture is the rise of the chieftain.
But the Germans seem to have borrowed the name for king and other
expressions for military organizations, as well as many culture-words,
from the Celts. This fact has led some good authorities to declare that
the Germans received their Indo-European language from the Celts.
The homeland of the Indo-Europeans must have supported a large
population to send out all the tribes which went out from it. Only such
a region can satisfy our requirements, and such was Germany, an
_Officina gentium_, some 2,000 years later. But we notice that the
migrations of peoples have always set westward into Europe, not in the
reverse direction. Similarly the new discovery or idea has come westward
or northward from western Asia or from the Mediterranean region. The
north has almost never been a centre of origination of new ideas and
movements. It has borrowed from the richer south. We would not expect
that the Indo-European movement would form an exception to this rule.
Moreover, the peoples of the banded pottery who had filled southeastern
Europe, coming in, as is generally acknowledged, from the East, had
brought with them a good knowledge of agriculture which could support a
large population.
Now Kossina finds evidence of the spread of the corded pottery southward
at the close of the Neolithic period, and infers that it was carried by
a migration from the north. I am inclined to think that his conclusion
is correct, though it may be doubtful whether the invasion went so far
into the province of the banded pottery as he thinks. He sees in this
the first stage of the Indo-European movement which was to sweep
eastward as far as India. The people of the banded pottery apparently
retreated eastward before this movement, and thus tended still further
to increase the density and power of resistance in these regions.
Furthermore, had this southeastward movement continued, it would have
met the first of a series of waves of invasion which would surely have
turned it backward.
We have seen that all through the Neolithic period brachycephals of the
Furfooz or Grenelle race have been spreading from Belgium and the rough
eastern part of France. At the end of the Neolithic period they are
being crowded by the long-heads. During the Bronze Age the cephalic
index rises all over middle and western Europe. At its very beginning we
find a new people in England--tall, rugged, heavy-faced round-heads, who
burned their dead and deposited the ashes in round barrows. They seem to
have come from the Rhine valley, and may well have introduced
incineration into Brittany, where it appears early. They differ markedly
in stature and features from the Furfooz people. They have quite
certainly come from the east, perhaps from the region of the Armenian
highlands. They have crossed Europe in sufficient numbers and
compactness to retain their anthropological characters until they strike
England and crowd back the old Iberian or Mediterranean peoples. The
movement looks like an invasion in mass, not like a quiet, slow
infiltration. They were the forerunners of a general advance and spread
of the broad-heads.
Were these people Celts or at least partially celticized? To express an
opinion on a Celtic question is to accept an invitation to a Donnybrook
fair. Anthropologically they differ markedly from the later Celtic
invaders. But their custom of incineration is certainly suggestive, and
it is not at all impossible that they spoke a Celtic dialect. They
certainly seem to prove that the westward migration from the region of
the Black Sea or from farther eastward had not ceased or been turned
backward at this time. The spread of North German people southward at
this time would have brought them where they would mingle with Celts
coming westward and receive their first lesson in Indo-European language
and culture, if it came from the east.
There is at present a strong tendency to seek the original Indo-European
homeland neither in the extreme east or extreme west or north, but
somewhere in the open country of southern Russia lying to the north of
the Black Sea or farther eastward toward the Caspian. Here they locate
them mainly in a long zone of parkland extending along the southern edge
of the forest zone and in the valleys of the great rivers. Here at a
much later date Scythians were settled who raised large quantities of
wheat, while others were nomadic. We remember that Neolithic
trade-routes followed mainly rivers and seashore. The islands of the
Mediterranean were occupied early and sea commerce found a centre in
Crete. A great centre of trade arose very early at Troy (Hissarlik), on
the highway between the Ægean and the settlements along the shores of
the Black Sea and in the valleys of the rivers descending from the
interior.
Déchellette has called attention to the striking analogies in form of
settlement, in primitive idols, in pottery with painting and spiral
ornament between the villages of the Balkans, Troy (Hissarlik) and of
the Troad and Phrygia, and of the pre-Mycenæan culture of Crete and
Greece. "Between Butmir and Hissarlik these discoveries mark the routes
which already undoubtedly connected pre-Hellenic peoples and pre-Celtic
tribes."
Meyer tells us that the banded pottery shows the same motives in
ornament in Butmir and Tordos as in Troy and the Ægean, and spreads
thence northward and westward; and that painted pottery in Europe starts
at the end of the Neolithic (2500-2000 B. C.) in the great plain east of
the Carpathians in the region of the Dniester and Dnieper, a region of
high culture in other respects. "Here the connection with the Ægean
world is evident (_augenfällig_)." This people was agricultural. They
burned their dead, and Meyer thinks that incineration spread northward
and westward from this centre. They show no use of metal. Their culture
breaks off suddenly at the end of the Neolithic period.
Here is a region which stands in free communication with the
agricultural population of the parkland zone, open to influences from
the steppe, accepting the higher civilization of Phrygia and the Ægean.
It is a people of advanced agriculture, hence probably of rapidly
increasing population, open to trade and commerce. Here wide and free
communications would be likely to prevent the formation of an unyielding
cake or crust of custom. People meeting from all lands and cultures
might well make and use a language capable of expressing a great variety
of shades of thought peculiar to a variety of peoples and cultures; we
might safely call it a mixed language springing from a mixture of
peoples. Here, as in the Ægean region, the more or less fortified town
or village would be a necessity. Here the horse and wagon would be early
introduced from the east. Here the patriarchate, so characteristic of
nomadic tribes, would be early imported from the steppe, or may have
been developed independently.
There is a universality in the Indo-European religion, a sanity and
proportion in their whole mode of thought, a broad sympathy, a
willingness to accept new ideas and conditions--in general, a breadth of
mind which could hardly be the product of isolation but rather of men
who had "seen the customs of many men and many cities," and could look
with tolerance and charity on alien cultures and fully appreciate their
worth and advantages. Our Teutonic ancestors carried their mental and
cultural environment with them wherever they went. They were apostles of
purity of blood and hence of isolation. They were never good mixers, as
were Celt and Achæan. All three migrated and conquered far and wide, and
both usually disappeared in the alien population. But the Teuton left
little impression on the alien culture, while Achæan and Celt leavened
the whole mass. Here, as in other respects, Celt and Teuton show an
incompatibility and oppositeness which strongly suggest difference of
origin.
But we must carefully avoid too great certainty and definiteness of
assertion. The weight of probability seems to be against any theory
which locates the first, original homeland in the far east or in the far
northwest. But we deal only with probabilities, and may well "carry our
theories on our finger-tips." If the cradle was somewhere in southern
Russia north of the Black Sea, or somewhat farther east or west, its
second homeland just before the great dispersal was vastly larger. Myres
thinks that it extended far to the eastward of the Volga, which perhaps
was the boundary between the eastern and western branches, and whose
upper waters drained a very early home of the Finns.
The Indo-Europeans were settled in a goodly land capable with their
improved agriculture of supporting a very large population. Why did they
migrate in all directions? Here, again, we are left much in the dark.
But Pumpelly, in his explorations at Anau, found the settlement deserted
during the Bronze period about the same time when we find the
Indo-Europeans leaving the homeland. At Anau there are signs that the
desertion was due primarily to aridity or to disturbances accompanying
such a change. It seems highly probable that climatic changes may have
played a most important part in this movement, as they seem to have done
in the later historical migrations from this region or from farther
eastward.
We may close this chapter of uncertainties with one deduction which
seems fairly evident. If the Germans were the first and original
Indo-Europeans, the movement developed here directly out of preceding
Neolithic conditions. If, as seems more probable, it originated farther
to the southeast, and was introduced by the Celts, or in connection with
the amber trade, it made little marked interruption in the development
of the Germans. They and the Scandinavians continued to take from the
south whatever they would, but their development was largely
independent. A complete conquest of Germany and Scandinavia by the Celts
seems very improbable.
The Teutonic and Scandinavian peoples were not precocious, and appear in
history very late. But here apart, in the misty northland, a people was
very slowly developing who, after the decadence and fall of Rome, could
come forward and slowly and wearily rebuild a civilization better than
that which had fallen, and a government of, by, and for the people,
guaranteeing to the individual the right of free action and development,
the grandest feature of Indo-European culture. This, rather than any
precocity, is the glory of the northern peoples. Once again we find
history in the making in an inconspicuous people during an apparently
dormant period.
He that believeth will not despise the day of small things, neither will
he make haste. If the vision tarries long, he will wait for it. "It
shall come and shall not tarry." It will probably come by the way which
he least suspects.
There seems to be a wide-spread opinion that the rise of the
Indo-Europeans was the first dawn of day in a benighted world. Their
migrations were a missionary movement on a grand scale. They dispelled
darkness, ignorance, and superstitions, broke the crust of a stagnant
conservatism, overthrew outworn customs, brought an entirely new
culture, and revolutionized life and the world. We might call attention
to the fact that Indo-European culture and life were a product of
Neolithic experience, that it was the blossoming of Neolithic growth,
that it represented only one part or phase of Neolithic attainment. "The
best traditions make the best rebels."[179] The question remains: Was
Neolithic thought and feeling destroyed by their coming, or did it still
persist, like a river flowing underground, and is most of our deepest
life to-day a fairly direct continuation of the older current only
somewhat modified by the revolution?
We notice first of all the commonness or community of Neolithic feeling
and life, its almost monotonous uniformity, over Europe, eastern Asia,
and probably even far wider areas. We may easily exaggerate this. The
cultures of the Mediterranean basin, of Spain and France, of the Danube
valley, of northern Germany and Scandinavia, not to mention smaller,
more isolated provinces, showed well-marked differences. There was
probably more diversity in the people of every one of these provinces,
especially at centres of trade, even in every larger village, than our
hasty study would lead us to suspect. But in fundamental characters
there was wide-spread and marked similarity; and this, like the wide
range of dominant genera and species of animals, is a sign of vitality
and fitness.
The Neolithic period coincides roughly with the latter part of Wundt's
Totem Age: the Bronze period ushered in his Age of Heroes.?[180]
During the first period the individual counted for very little,
everything was tribal. In the second period the great leaders of
popular migrations emerge, young, vigorous, hot-blooded. With the
appearance of these "kings of men" comes the rise of nations. Tribal
control wanes, and the slow development of individual, personal
judgment and conscience, self-control, and responsibility replaces it
to a great extent.
We read in the history of Israel that the long Egyptian bondage of a
stiff-necked nomad people, being broken to the rudiments of order and
civilization, was followed by an exodus and a period of judges or
popular leaders, when "there was no king in Israel, but every man did
that which was right in his own eyes." It was a period of lawlessness
and anarchy; recovery was slow and painful, and finally only partially
attained by the appointment of a king. A similar education, on a vastly
larger scale both of area and time, was going on all over Europe.
Prehistoric man was guided and controlled by feelings usually expressing
the dictates of a long experience out of which instincts had
crystallized. His feelings were his instinctive responses to new
emergencies. He could not analyze them, reason or argue about them; he
was spared the "malady of thought." He had little or no logic or
science; his philosophy, as we have seen, was a _way_ smoothed by the
feet of his ancestors. He was a man of taste in the literal sense of the
word. He knew what he liked and what he disliked; probably he could not
have explained the reason for either feeling. He was wise in following
these instinctive feelings and tastes; they represented the accumulated
and assimilated experience of millennia.
Of course the experience had been that of individuals. Neolithic man's
school and laboratory of education was mostly the family and the
neighborhood. Here he had to learn to get on with other individuals, to
live and let live, to practise co-operation and mutual aid. Here he
learned the first and grandest lessons in morals; that he would be done
by as he did, and hence that it was best to do as he would be done by.
He has never lost or forgotten the lessons learned in this excellent
"dame's school."
Most of his higher education--and hence of his feeling, conscience,
religion, and life--was tribal. Laws, or rather customs, were propounded
by the elders of the tribe or priests, an exceedingly conservative
court. The chief aim was not rapidity of progress, but confirming and
practising that which long experience had proved to be good. Slowly but
surely the fund of wisdom increased. "It is the three-per-cent man who
gets all the money in the end."
Responsibility was tribal. The man who tried experiments or "fooled"
with the forbidden thing was a common nuisance summarily and thoroughly
abated by the tribe.
Land was common property, though the individual had probably gained some
rights of use. It is doubtful whether he could use the whole or any
part of it entirely as he would. Even at a much later date his use was
largely limited and controlled by ancient custom.
The ritual which still made up most of his religion was also
tribal.[181] Dance and song were practised by the whole community. His
creed, so far as he had one, was a belief in spiritual beings, dæmons,
of great power and marvellous efficiency. Some or many were beneficent;
more were probably maleficent; but those might be appeased, mollified,
bribed, won over, or controlled, if rightly approached through magical
rites or ceremonies.
These dæmons seem to have been supposed to be almost innumerable. No one
was supreme, but some were more important than others. Here then was
room for variety of opinion, of ritual, of the spirit occupying the most
important place; hence also of change and development. The gods in one
country were those of the hills; in another, those of the plains; in a
third, of the forest. Fishing and agricultural tribes had different
dæmons. The wandering trader, passing from tribe to tribe, in his own
heart respected or neglected all alike. Every land had its own gods or
goddesses. When a man migrated to another country he usually left his
old gods at home. If he was adopted into the brotherhood of another
tribe, he changed his religious allegiance also.
A religious hierarchy seems to have grown up during the Neolithic period
headed by the goddess-mother of life. Her rise seems to have accompanied
the introduction of agriculture, which must have brought great changes
in religious ritual and belief. Dæmons who had heretofore held a high
place in the fear or affection of hunting tribes gradually lost their
supremacy or were neglected.
The dethronement of gods or dæmons was usually not sudden or
revolutionary. The new mode of life and its accompanying cult gained
ground slowly. Probably it was at first an extension or modification of
some older one. The dethroned divinity long retained his hold on the
fears or affections of many of the tribe. Finally he was remembered only
by certain old wives in remote or isolated settlements. With the rest of
the people he, or she, was fast becoming an imp, kobold, or fairy--the
subject of fascinating stories, still tinged with mystery, joy, or fear,
but not to be taken too seriously.
Here, apparently, is one, by no means the only, source of folk-lore and
fairy-tale. Folk-lore is an exceedingly wide field and our path leads
through only a little corner of it. It was the growth of millennia. It
preserves for us remnants of ancient beliefs and practices, whose
original meaning had been forgotten long before the birth of the
story-teller. Fossil beliefs of the most widely separated ages may be
found jumbled together in the same story.
It was always intended to be told to a group of sympathetic listeners or
to the whole community. It is genuine literature, but when reduced to
writing or cold print it chills and dies. The story-teller must feel at
once the sympathy or coldness of his listeners. The substance may remain
unchanged, but the shading and emphasis must vary with the feeling and
temper of the audience. Thus in a very true sense it was moulded by the
people. If a story survived with certain forms and content, it was
because it was essentially common and human, appealing to that which is
not individual but at least tribal or racial.
Says Mr. Chesterton: "Our modern novels, which deal with men as they
are, are chiefly produced by a small and educated section of the
society. But this other literature (the kind now called folk-lore, the
literature of the people) deals with men greater than they are--with
demigods and heroes--and that is far too important a matter to be
trusted to the educated classes. The fashioning of these portents is a
popular trade, like ploughing or bricklaying; the men who made bridges,
the men who made ditches, were the men who made deities. Men could not
elect their kings, but they could elect their gods. So we find ourselves
faced with a fundamental contrast between what is called fiction and
what is called folk-lore. The one exhibits an abnormal degree of
dexterity, operating within our daily limitations; the other exhibits
quite normal desires extended beyond those limitations. Fiction means
the common things as seen by the uncommon people. Fairy-tales mean the
uncommon things as seen by the common people.
"As our world advances through history toward its present epoch, its
becomes more specialist, less democratic, and folk-lore turns gradually
into fiction. But it is only slowly that the old elfin fire fades into
the light of common realism. For ages after our characters have dressed
up in the clothes of mortals they betray the blood of the gods."[182]
The charm and wisdom of folk-lore and fairy-tale are mostly due to the
commonness, in the best sense, of their subject, thought, and feeling.
They suit all times and places, and are immortal and timeless like
their heroes. When we attempt to reclothe them in modern form or
language to suit "private interpretation" their strength is departed
from them.
Neolithic feeling, belief, ritual, religion; its music, art, and
literature; its customs, institutions, morals, ways, and life--all these
sprang from the life and experience of the tribe or community. They were
essentially growths in and from the mass of the people, usually owing
comparatively little to the genius of any individual inventor or
discoverer. We have called them Neolithic, but some or many of them were
old far back in Paleolithic time. Like the tree Ygdrasil their roots lay
hold on the foundations of the world.
So deeply rooted a growth or culture is almost ineradicable, though it
has a marvellous adaptability and possibilities of growth and
modification. It could never have been destroyed by its own
Indo-European children, however rebellious. It must survive somewhere
though probably changed for the better. We have found reasons to doubt
whether Roman capacity for discipline and government, Roman laws and
institutions, were predominantly of Indo-European origin. We were still
more doubtful whether the glory of Teutonic or Scandinavian history is
due to its being Indo-European, or whether it was the result of a
continuous, unbroken development from Neolithic times. If ever any
culture seems largely native and indigenous, responsive to outside
influences but always retaining its independent self-determination and
power of selection and choice as to what and how far it will assimilate,
that culture is to be found in northern Germany and Scandinavia.
We have seen the fate of Olympian religion and Achæan thought in Greece.
The Achæans were a small minority completely outnumbered by an
exceedingly conservative native population. They were absorbed and
became a part of the Greek people, and their contribution must not be
underestimated. We have noted the marvellous vitality of the old
Neolithic thought, its re-emergence, its influence on Greek philosophy.
We remember that the great seat of progress was not in Dorian Sparta but
in "Pelasgic Athens," almost unknown to Homer.
The Celt was, if anything, a better "mixer" and more adaptable than even
the Achæan. His prejudices and zeal in regard to morals and religion
seem not to have been deep or strong. The Celts were finally absorbed,
affecting the temper of the people far more than their daily life.
Through all these revolutions, as well as those which were to follow,
family and neighborhood retained their compact unity, perhaps with all
its mutual attractions strengthened by the pressure of the conquerors.
They were still the controlling influence in the life and education of
the individual, as they probably remain to this day. The power of these
smaller communities may have waxed, as tribal control waned. What they
had lost in the mutual support within the tribe they made good by
leaning more closely on their neighbors.
This solidarity makes the common people very stiff-necked, in an
excellent sense of the word. Like the Neolithic folk of Scandinavia,
they select and accept from their more cultured neighbors only that
which they can assimilate to the stores of experience and instincts
which they already possess. The fickleness, of which they are often
accused, is characteristic of a very different class or stratum of the
population, and of far later origin and development. Their own
development is naturally slow, gradual, and continuous.
We have ventured the opinion that the essentials of Neolithic culture
survived the conquests of the Indo-Europeans in a but slightly modified
form. If this is granted, we have every reason to think that the effects
of all succeeding invasions and conquests, changes of dynasties and
governments, international or national policies, internal legislation
and reforms, have been even more temporary, slight, and superficial.
Modern revolutions have been more and more uprisings of the people
asserting the inalienable rights and privileges of their dignity as men.
The trend of popular life and feeling has resembled the flow of a river
or the incoming of the tide. It turns or winds as it meets obstacles in
its path, but keeps in the main to a fairly clear course and direction.
The people may not be against the government, they merely go their way
regardless of it. But we must not trespass on the field of the
historian.
During the Neolithic period everybody, except perhaps certain priests
and elders, belonged to the common people. But accumulation of wealth,
the rise of leaders, the conquest of new lands developed a distinct
aristocracy of birth, wealth, prowess, leadership, and genius. The
common people of to-day, whom, as Mr. Lincoln said, "God must have loved
or he never would have made so many of them," seem to be the whole
population minus the uncommon aristocracy. It is not easy to see just
where we ought to draw the line between mass and class.
All the virtues, brains, and possibilities of progress can hardly be
confined to this upper stratum. Can we define or describe our common
people? They are a very mixed multitude. There is probably more
individual variety than among the conventional refined and cultured, and
this makes them more original and interesting. Hence any composite
picture is usually a blur; a definite picture of any group or part would
be partial and one-sided, very possibly a caricature of the whole. We
dare not try to offer one.
Men and women like Mr. Robert Woods, of Boston, and Miss Jane Addams, of
Chicago, have set themselves patiently, persistently, sympathetically,
respectfully, and wisely to study and help these people. They can and
will describe them, if we will listen. Their faith in the people seems
to be deep and strong.
We all recognize that in times of trial and emergency, when great
testing moral issues are at stake, the people are practically unanimous
in recognizing and supporting the cause of justice and right, unless
befogged, divided, or misled by statesmen. Their taste for right ends
is keen and reliable. Their feelings ring true, and they act
accordingly, whatever the cost.
They are not inarticulate, though their speech is often interjectory.
They are only beginning to produce a large number of spokesmen. Now and
then their demands are voiced by a prophet, asserting that what Jehovah
demands is "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God"; or the prophecy is sung by a poet, like Burns. They may sometimes
or often be misled; but if their heart and feeling is not healthy we may
well despair of the republic.
But the true prophet is very rarely a statesman. His feeling and taste
for ends is marvellously good. Here his word, like the feeling of the
people from whom he sprang, is almost infallible. But the choice of
means and policy, the selection of the next step toward the attainment
of the end, is the real business of the statesman.
The _élite_ of wealth, learning, and culture to-day have generally given
up the search for ends in life. The old question: "What is man's chief
end?" sounds archaic. We are doubtful as to the existence or
desirability of such a thing. We are, in the language of the broker,
very "long" on means, but terribly "short" on ends, for which there is
no market. Some day we shall again find a place for end and purpose in
our philosophy and science, as in the systems of Paul, Plato, and
especially of Aristotle, with his "passion for the obvious," but at
present these thinkers are back numbers. Yet we must have ends of life
beyond mere survival, comfort, or luxury, and getting a living. Some
scale of values, not solely and purely mercantile, would also be useful.
If the aristocracy of wealth, learning, and culture can provide us no
adequate system of ends and values in life, would it not be well for us
to borrow temporarily a few from the people? Might we not to good
advantage even go into partnership with them, cordially accepting their
ends, and loyally and honestly attempting to find the means of attaining
them? The result might be a solidarity of thought, feeling, action, and
final attainment superior even to those of our Neolithic ancestors.
You may possibly say: "We in America are already living under a
democratic form of government--'of the people, by the people, and for the
people.'" Is this the statement of an accomplished fact or the
definition of a dim, far-off event toward which we hope we are moving?
How far did the framers of our Constitution desire or intend that the
will of the people should govern? Was the method of choosing and
electing the President of the United States, as originally devised,
intended to make that election popular or not? We have changed that. Did
they intend that the Senate of the United States should be a means of
carrying out the will of the people, or rather that it should defer or
check its becoming the law of the land? Does our governmental action
to-day represent the will of the people? Is it truly representative?
Perhaps our ancestors were wise in their caution. Perhaps a change has
become advisable. We are asking how far government changes or modifies
the people; how far governmental action, change of President or
controlling party, their legislation and policies, affect the deeper
currents of character and life. The people seem to me to be still
continuing to go their own way and to follow quietly but firmly their
own line of development, largely regardless of the votes of national
Congress or State legislature, perhaps sometimes with a slight sigh of
relief at their adjournment. It may be best that it is so. The
independence and continuity of popular development is still maintained
to-day as throughout prehistoric times.
How far do our vast accumulations of learning and discovery, our deep
or superficial systems of philosophy, our splendid or decadent _fin de
siècle_ art and literature reach and affect these people? Their chief
characteristic is an attempt at distinction, an artificial uncommonness,
a self-consciousness entirely foreign to the thinker of the common mind.
The institution which has the widest and deepest influence on their
feeling, thought, and life is the church. They generally love it, for
they are "incurably religious." It is conservative in the best sense of
the word. It represents, of course imperfectly, the feelings,
aspirations, and hopes of all men everywhere in all ages--in one word, of
humanity. It stands for the worth, dignity, and brotherhood of man, and
the fatherhood of God. It is almost alone to-day in recognizing that
there are ends in life. It offers a way of progress and a reasonable
ground of hope in a somewhat weary age inclined to indulge in criticism,
fault-finding, and pessimism. The fact that it is generally roundly
abused for its defects, mistakes, and sins of omission, for its
inability to accomplish the impossible, is a sign of the great hope and
confidence which we have rightly reposed in it.
The discordant chorus of mutually destructive criticisms arising from
the cultured and intellectual classes seems to show that it is
following fairly well a straight, right, and wise course, as Mr. Lincoln
is said to have suggested concerning his own experience, plans, and
leadership in a similar situation. "Wisdom is justified of her
children," but the families of the elect are small. That the church does
not conform to all the theories--not to say vagaries and fads--of to-day
is no discredit. Most of them will be very unfashionable to-morrow. "The
fashion of this age passeth away."
The existence of our nation evidently depends far more upon the
fundamental and essential, nay obvious, old and common human virtues of
very common people than upon our art and learning, the shrewdness of our
politicians and profiteers, the amount of our wealth and exports, our
inventions or luxuries, the winning of an election, or the defeat of any
party. In one word, which we have already repeated _ad nauseam_, our
chief business to-day is to continue the line of development clearly
marked out by our benighted ancestors of prehistoric days--to exercise,
develop, and strengthen the best instincts and feelings crystallized out
of millennia of experience; to see to it that they are expressed in the
law and practices of the land and commonwealth; and that they are not
smothered under a mass of inventions of yesterday and of conventions of
to-day. The fact that all this is entirely obvious should not conceal
its importance.
The old message comes to us: "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at
this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise from
another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed; and
who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as
this?"
In the northern ocean we see icebergs moving slowly southward. They are
not driven by the winds which to-day are blowing against their broad
fronts. The most conspicuous feature of our field of vision is the white
foam capping the waves. To-morrow it will be blown away, evaporate, and
disappear in the shifting winds which have tossed it into view. The berg
is carried by the great polar current, silent, inconspicuous,
irresistible, unchanging in its course, guided by still deeper and more
ancient and permanent cosmic forces.
We know something about oceanic currents. Of the current of the
evolution of life we know almost nothing; but hope that our theories are
no more inadequate than the feelings of our Neolithic ancestors.
Certainly the current has not yet been charted. We catch glimpses of the
direction of its sweep. Over what stormy and dangerous seas and to what
undiscovered island or continent it is carrying us we do not know. It
seems to set toward fairer climes beyond our vision. We set sail
millions of years ago; we shall not arrive to-morrow.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A FEW SUGGESTIONS
The first series of books referred to in the following lists (A-O) are
general, and every one covers a large field. The works of Déchelette and
Hoernes (A and B) contain a very rich bibliography down to 1907 or 1908.
They should be carefully studied first of all; afterward the remainder
of the list. I have omitted from the following list many excellent
articles to which they refer. This list will satisfy the needs of the
ordinary reader.
The second list (1-378) contains references to articles or books on
special subjects which I have been obliged to treat very briefly in this
small book. These will introduce the reader to other writers on the same
subject. He is urged to make his own bibliography, and will find that he
has started on an endless chain of most fascinating research, for which
I hope he may form an insatiable appetite.
The following list of abbreviations and corresponding complete titles
may save the reader some inconvenience. In this connection he may well
consult the Introduction to Déchelette's _Manuel_ (A) I, pp. xv-xix.
_Amer. Nat._ _American Naturalist._
_Amer. Anth._ _American Anthropologist._
_Sci. Mo._ _Science Monthly._ (Continuation of
_Popular Science Monthly_.)
_A. f. A. (Arch. f. Anth.)_ _Archiv für Anthropologie._
_Zts. f. Eth._ _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie._
_L'Anth._ _L'Anthropologie._
_R. E. A._ _Revue d'école d'Anthropologie_, Paris.
_Rev. Arch._ _Revue Archéologique._
_Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._ _Korrespondenz-blatt der deutschen_
_Gesellschaft für Anthropologie._
_Cong. Int._ _Congrès international d'Anthropologie_
_et d'Archéologie._
GENERAL
A. Déchelette, J. _Manuel d'Archéologie Préhistorique._ Paris,
1908. 3 vols. Vol. I. _Archéologie Préhistorique._
B. Hoernes, M. _Natur-und Urgeschichte des Menschen._ Vienna,
1909. 2 vols.
C. ---- _Urgeschichte des Menschen_, Vienna, 1892.
D. Obermaier, H. _Der Mensch aller Zeiten._ Berlin, 1911-12.
Vol. I. _Der Mensch der Vorzeit._
E. Forrer, R. _Urgeschichte des Europäers._ Stuttgart, 1908.
F. ---- _Reallexikon der prähistorischen, klassichen und
frühchristlichen Alterthümer._ Stuttgart, 1907-08.
G. Müller, S. _Nordische Älterthumskunde_ (trans. Jiriczek).
Strassburg, 1897. Vol. I. Steinzeit-Bronzezeit.
H. ---- _Urgeschichte Europas_ (trans. Jiriczek). Strassburg,
1905.
I. ---- _L'Europe préhistorique_ (trans. Philipot). Paris, 1907.
J. Montelius, O. _Kulturgeschichte Schwedens._ Leipsic, 1906.
K. ---- _Les Temps préhistoriques en Suède_ (trans. Reinach).
Paris, 1895.
L. Avebury, Lord (Sir John Lubbock). _Prehistoric Times._ New
York, 1913.
M. Elliot, G. F. S. _Prehistoric Man and His Story._ London,
1915.
N. Schwantes, G. _Aus Deutschland's Urzeit._ Leipsic, 1913.
O. Wundt, W. _Elements of Folk Psychology_ (trans. Schaub,
E. L.). London, 1915.
CHAPTER I--THE COMING OF MAN
1. Lull, R. S. _Organic Evolution._ New York, 1917.
2. Wilder, H. H. _History of the Human Body._ New York, 1909.
3. Cope, E. D. _Primary Factors of Evolution._ Chicago, 1895,
p. 150.
5. Osborn, H. F. _Age of Mammals._ New York, 1910.
6. Loomis, F. B. "Adaptation of Primates," _Amer. Nat._, XLV,
1911, 479.
7. Gregory, W. K. "Studies in the Evolution of Primates,"
_Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist._, XXV, 1916, Art. XIX, 239.
8. Barrell, J. "Probable Relations of Climatic Changes to
Origin of Tertiary Ape-Man," _Sci. Mo._, N. S., IV, 1917, 16.
9. Matthew, W. D. "Climate and Evolution," _Ann. N. Y. Acad.
Sci._, XXIV, 1915, 170.
10. Pilgrim, G. E. "New Siwalik Primates," _Records of Geol.
Survey of India_, XLIII, 1913, Part IV, 264.
11. Chamberlain, T. C., and Salisbury, R. D. _Geology._ New
York, 1904, Vol. III, 534.
12. Lydekker, L. K. _Geographical History of Mammals._
Cambridge, 1896, 201, 265, 288, 334.
13. Pirsson, L. V., and Schuchert, C. _Text-Book of Geology._
New York, 1915, Part II, 925, 948, 964, 976.
14. Smith, G. E. _Presidential Address_, Brit. Assoc. Adv.
Sci. Dundee, 1912, 575.
15. Heinemann, T. W. _Physical Basis of Civilization._
Chicago, 1908.
16. Fiske, J. _Destiny of Man._ Boston, 1884.
17. Drummond, H. _Ascent of Man._ New York, 1894.
18. Kropotkin, P. A. _Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution._ New
York, 1903.
19. Jones, F. W. _Arboreal Man._ New York and London, 1916.
PITHECANTHROPUS
See A, I, 273; B, I, 181; D, I, 370; 40, 73.
24. Du Bois, E. _Smithson. Report_, 1897-98, 445.
25. Berry, E. W. "Environment of Ape-Man," _Sci. Mo._, N. S.,
III, 1906, 161.
26. Keith, A. _Ancient Types of Man._ New York, 1911.
PRIMITIVE HUMAN MIGRATIONS
30. Keane, A. H. _Ethnology._ Cambridge, 1901.
31. Deniker, J. _Races of Man._ London, 1900.
32. Haddon, A. C. _The Wanderings of Peoples._ Cambridge,
1911.
33. ---- _Races of Man and Their Distribution._ New York, 1910.
MAN'S ARRIVAL IN EUROPE
40. Osborn, H. F. _Men of the Old Stone Age._ New York, 1915.
41. Ranke, J. _Der Mensch._ Leipsic, 1900.
42. Geikie, J. _Antiquity of Man in Europe._ Edinburgh, 1914.
43. ---- _The Great Ice Age._ 3d ed. London, 1894.
44. Reinhardt, L. _Der Mensch zur Eiszeit in Europa._ Munich,
1906.
45. Geikie, J. "Tundras and Steppes of Prehistoric Europe,"
_Smithson. Report_, 1897-98, 321.
46. Nehring, A. _Tundren u. Steppen der Jetzt-und Vor-zeit._
Berlin, 1890.
47. Schöetensack, O. _Der Unterkiefer des "Homo
Heidelbergensis."_ Leipsic, 1908.
48. MacCurdy, G. G. "The Eolith Problem," _Amer. Anth._, N.
S., VII, 1905, 425.
49. Sollas, W. J. _Ancient Hunters._ 2d ed. London, 1915.
60. Hoops, J. _Waldbäume und Kulturpflanzen, im german.
Alterthum._ Strassburg, 1905.
Danish Shell-heaps. See D, 465-476; G, I, 4; L, 226.
61. Steenstrup, J. _Arch. f. Anth._, XIX, 1891, 361.
62. Sarauw, F. C. "Maglemose," _Prähist. Zeits._, III, 1911,
52; VI, 1914, 1.
63. Virchow, R. "Rinnekalns," _Korresp.-blatt. der deutschen
Ges. f. Anthrop._, XXVIII, 1897, 147.
64. Ebert, M. "Die baltischen Provinzen," _Prähist. Zeits._,
V, 1913, 498; Mugem, C, 232.
65. Cartailhac, E. _Ages préhistoriques de l'Espagne et du
Portugal_, p. 48.
66. Munro, R. _Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in
Europe._ New York, 1912.
67. Morlot, A. _Société Vandoise des Sci. Nat._, VI, No. 46.
"Etudes géologico-archéologiques." (Shell-heaps and
Lake-dwellings.) Lausanne, 1860.
CHAPTER III--LAND HABITATIONS
CAVE-DWELLINGS
B, 31; C, 258; E, 120, 139.
75. Dawkins, W. B. _Cave Hunting._ London, 1874.
76. Fraipont, J. _Les Cavernes et leurs Habitants._ Paris,
1896.
HUTS AND VILLAGES
B, 51, 65, 84.
80. Montelius, O. "Zur ältesten Geschichte des Wohnhauses in
Europa," _Arch. f. Anth._, XXIII, 1895, 451. Cf. H, 25, 68; J,
15.
81. Schliz, A. "Der Bau vorgeschichtlicher Wohnanlagen,"
_Mitt. d. Anth. Ges. Wien_, 1903, 301.
82. Castelfranco, P. "Les Fonds des Cabanes," _Rev. d'Anth._,
XVI, 1887, 182. Cf. A, 347, 350; E, 139.
83. Schliz, A. _Das steinzeitliche Dorf Grosgartach._
Stuttgart, 1901. Rev. Virchow, R., _Arch. f. Anth._, XXVII,
1892, 435. Rev. Reinach, S., _L'Anth._, XII, 1901, 704.
84. Possler, W. "Die Abarten des Altsächsischen Bauernhauses,"
_Arch. f. Anth._, XXXVI, 1909, 157.
85. Mielke, R. "Entwickelungsgeschichte der sächsischen
Hausform," _Zts. f. Eth._, XXXV, 1903, 509.
CHAPTER IV--LAKE-DWELLINGS
90. Munro, R. _Lake Dwellings of Europe._ London, 1890. Full
Bibliography until 1890. See also L, 180; A, 363; E, 158; B,
98; C, 234; D, 515.
91. Keller, F. _Lake Dwellings of Switzerland._ 2d ed. London,
1878.
92. Troyon, F. _Habitations lacustres du Lac de Neuchâtel._
Paris, 1865.
93. Gross, V. _Les Protohelvéites._ Paris, 1883.
94. Schuhmacher. _Arch. f. Anth._, N. F., VII, 1903, 254.
95. Heierlei, J. _Urgeschichte der Schweiz._ Zurich, 1901.
96. Schenk, A. _La Suisse Préhistorique._ Lausanne, 1912.
97. Bölsche, W. _Mensch der Pfahlbauzeit._ 8th ed. Stuttgart,
1911.
98. Heer, O. _Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten_, 1886. See 91, I,
518. Cf. 60.
CHAPTER V--A GLANCE EASTWARD
110. Pumpelly, R. _Explorations in Turkestan_, Carnegie Inst.
Pub., Washington, No. 73, 1904, 2 vols., vol. I, p. 50, chaps.
I, III, V.
111. Rev. by Schmidt, H. _Prähist. Zeits._, I, 1909-10, 413.
112. Capitan, L. "L'Histoire d'Élam," _Rev. d'éc. d'Anth._,
XII, 1902, 187.
113. Düssaud, R. "Anciennes Civilisations orientales," _Rev.
d'éc. d'Anth._, XVII, 1907, 97.
114. Schrader, Fr. "Questions d'Orient," _Rev. d'éc. d'Anth._,
XVIII, 1908, 267; XX, 1910, 73.
115. Delitzsch, F. _Rep. Smithson. Inst._, 1900, 535.
116. Morgan, J. de. _Premières Civilisations._ Paris, 1909.
117. _Mémoires de la Delegation en Perse, I_, 1900, 181-190
(Susa).
118. _Mémoires de la Delegation en Perse I_ (Tepeh Moussian),
VIII, 1906. Cf. B, II, 168.
119. Morgan, J. de. "Les Ages de la Pierre dans l'Asie
mineure," _Bull. Soc. d'Anth._ Paris, Ser. V, III, 1902, 708.
121. King, L. W. _History of Babylonia and Assyria_, Part I.
New York, 1910.
122. Sayce, A. H. _Archæology of Cuneiform Inscriptions._
London, 1907, 67-100.
123. Hall, H. R. "Discoveries in Crete, and Their Relations to
Palestine and Egypt," _Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch._, XXXI, 1909,
311.
124. Myres, J. L. _Dawn of History._ New York, 1911, 121, 202.
125. Breasted, J. H. _Ancient Times._ New York, 1914, 100.
ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-RAISING
See B, I, 535-591; M, chaps. XII, XIII.
135. Reinhardt, L. _Die Erde und die Kultur._ Munich, 1912(?).
a. Vol. I, _Die Erde und ihr Wirthschaftsleben._
b. Vol. II, _Kulturgeschichte des Menschen._
c. Vol. III, _Kulturgeschichte der Nutzthiere._
d. Vol. IV, _Kulturgeschichte der Pflanzen._
136. _La Grande Encycl._, Art. "Agriculture."
137. Hehn, V. _Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere._ Berlin, 1911.
138. Mason, O. T. _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture._ New
York, 1907, 146, chap. II.
139. Buschan, G. "Heimat und Alter der europäischen
Kulturpflanzen," _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._, XVIII, 1889, 128.
140. Roth. "Origin of Agriculture," _Journ. Anth. Inst._, XVI,
102.
141. Zaborowski, M. S. "Le Blé en Asie et en Europe," _Rev.
d'éc. d'Anth._, XVI, 1906, 359.
142. Much, M. "Vorgeschichtliche Nähr-und Nutz-Pflanzen in
Europa," _Mitt. Anth. Ges. Wien_, XXXVIII, 1908, 195 ff.
Favors European origins.
CHAPTER VI--MEGALITHS
See A, I, chap. III; B, II, 440; D, 500; G, chap. V; J, 43; L,
chap. V.
150. Peet, T. E. _Rude Stone Monuments and Their Builders._
New York, 1912.
151. Windle, B. C. A. _Remains of Prehistoric Age in England._
London, 1904.
152. Krause, E., und Schötensack, O. "Die megalithischen
Gräber Deutschlands," _Zts. f. Eth._, XXV, 1893, 105.
153. Lienau, M. M. "Megalithgräber u. sonstige Grabformen der
Lüneburger Gegend," _Mannusbib._, XIII, 1914.
154. Montelius, O. _Orient und Europa._ Stockholm, 1899.
155. Wilke, G. "Sudwesteurop. Megalithkultur," _Mannusbib._
VII.
156. Hermet (Abbé), "Statues-Menhirs," _L'Anth._, XII, 1901,
595.
157. Cartailhac, E. _La France Préhistorique._ Paris, 1889.
DISPOSAL OF DEAD
164. Helm, K. _Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte_.
Heidelberg, 1913, 132, Bib.
165. Schliz, A. "Steinzeitliche Bestattungsformen in
Südwestdeutschland," _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._, XXXII, 1901, 60.
166. Andrée, R. "Hockerbestattung und Ethnologie," _A. f. A._,
XXXIV, 1907, 282, 303.
167. Schötensack, O. "Bedeutung der Hockerbestattung," _Zts.
f. Eth._, XXXII, 1901, 522.
168. Götze, A. "Ueber Hockergräber," _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._,
1899, 321.
169. Olshausen, O. "Leichenverbrennung," _Zts. f. Eth._, 1892,
129.
170. Seger, H. "Entstehung der Leichenverbrennung," _Korr.-bl.
d. d. Ges._, XLI, 1910, 115.
CHAPTER VII--NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES
179. Veblen, T. _The Instinct of Workmanship._ New York, 1914.
Clothing. G, I, 268; J, 19; 90, F.
Ornaments. B, II, 328; A, II, 570.
Implements. A, 513; B, II, 168; D, 472, 478; E, 178; F, Art.
"Axt"; G, 22; 46, 133; J, 24.
Salt. B, II, 23, 89; F, Art. "Salz"; N, 114.
Gold. A, 627; B, II, 207; C, 320.
Copper. A, II; B, II, 546; D, 494, 499, 545; E, 278.
180. Much, _M. Die Kupferzeit in Europa._ 2 Auf. Jena, 1893.
181. Hampel, J. "Neue Studien über die Kupferzeit," _Zts. f.
Eth._, XXVIII, 1896, 57.
182. Montelius, O. "Die Chronologie der ältesten Bronzezeit,"
_Arch. f. Anth._, XXV, 443; XXVI.
Ships, rock-carvings of. J, 126; C, 389; G, 466; E, 347.
Nephrite and Jadeite. A, I, 519, 573; B, II, 504; D, 510; 95,
116; 96, Index.
185. Mehlis, C. "Exotische Steinbeile der neol. Zeit," _Arch.
f. Anth._, XXVII, 1902, 519.
186. Peet, T. E. _Stone and Bronze Ages of Italy._ Oxford,
1909.
Amber. A, 623; B, I, 513; II, 345, 353; D, 556; G, I, 52.
Trade. B, II, 466-529; A, I, 619; 228; 154.
Pottery. A, 547; D, 481; 116, 195-207; F, Art. "Gefässe," 95,
184.
190. Hoernes, M. "Die neol. Keramik in Oestreich," _Zts. f.
Eth._, 1903, 438.
191. Smith, R. A. "Development of Neolithic Pottery,"
_Archæologia_, LXII, 340.
192. Meyer, E. _Geschichte des Alterthums_, II, 824. 2d ed.
Stuttgart, 1909.
193. Schuchhardt, C. "Das technische Element in den Anfängen
der Kunst," _Prähist. Zeits._, I, 37.
194. Verworn, M. _Kulturkreis der Bandkeramik._ II, 145.
195. Reche, O. "Zur Anthropologie der jüngeren Steinzeit in
Böhmen," _Arch. f. Anth._, XXXV, 1908, 220.
196. Seger, H. "Steinzeit in Schlesien," _Arch. f. Anth._, N.
F. V., 1906.
197. Götze, A. "Neolithische Kugelamphoren," _Zts. f. Eth._,
XXXII, 154, 1900.
198. ---- "Eintheilung der neol. Periode in Mitteleuropa,"
_Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._, XXXI, 1900, 133.
199. Schuchhardt, C. "Neol. Häuser bei Lissdorf," _Zts. f.
Eth._, XLIII, 1911, 998.
200. Wosinsky, M. _Die inkrustierte Keramik._ Berlin, 1904.
201. Closmadeuc, G. de. "La Céramique dans les Dolmens de
Morbihan," _Rev. Arch._, I, 257.
202. Schmidt, H. "Vorgeschichte Spaniens," _Zts. f. Eth._,
XLV, 238, 1913.
203. Volkow, Th. "L'Industrie prémycénienne des Stations
néolithiques de l'Ukraine," _L'Anth._, XIII, 1902, 57.
204. Zaborowski, M. S. "Industrie Égéenne sur le Dnieper et le
Dniester," _Bull. Soc. Anth._, Paris, 1900, 481.
CHAPTER VIII--NEOLITHIC CHRONOLOGY
214. Menzel, H. "Geologische Entwickelungsgeschichte der
älteren Postglacialzeit," _Zts. f. Eth._, XLVI, 1914, 206-240.
215. Montelius, O. "Chronologie der jüngeren Steinzeit in
Skandinavien," _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._, XXII, 1891, 99-105.
216. ---- "Chronologie der ältesten Bronzezeit," _Arch. f. Anth._,
XXVI, 1899, 905.
217. ---- "Preclassical Chronology of Greece and Italy," _Journ.
Anth. Inst._, 1897.
218. ---- "Chronologie préhistorique," _Cong. Int. d'Anth. et
d'Arch._, XII, 339. Cf. Müller, S. Ibid., X. Paris, 228.
219. Scheitelig, H. "Vorgeschichte Norwegens," _Mannus._, III,
1911, 29.
220. Kossina, G. "Urfinnen und Urgermanen," _Mannus._, I, 17.
221. Worsaae, J. J. A. "Arctic Cultures," _Cong. Int. d'Anth.
et d'Arch._ Stockholm, VII, 1874, 208. Also, J, 63; M, 317 and
_Bib._, 323.
222. Types of Axe, G, I, 48; B, II, 184; A, I, 334; F, Art
"Aexte." Cf. also "Zeitalter."
223. Montelius, O. "Les differents Types des Haches," _Cong.
Int. d'Anth. et d'Arch._ Stockholm, VII, I, 238.
226. Schmidt, R. R. "Die Grundlagen für die Diluviale
Chronologie u. Paläethnologie Westeuropas," _Zts. f. Eth._,
XLIII, 1911, 945. Cf. _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._, XLI, 1910.
227. Holst. "Commencement et Fin de la Période Glacieuse,"
_L'Anth._, XXIV, 1913, 353.
228. Wilke, G. "Kulturbeziehungen zwischen Indien, Orient und
Europa," _Mannusbibliothek_, X, 1913.
229. Schmidt, H. "Troja, Mykene, Ungarn," _Zts. f. Eth._,
XXXVI, 1904, 608, 645.
230. Anthes, E. "Alte und neue steinzeitliche Funde aus
Hessen," _Prähist. Zeits._, II, 1910, 60.
CHAPTER IX--NEOLITHIC PEOPLES AND THEIR MIGRATIONS
ATLASES
240. Bartholemew, J. G. _Advanced Atlas of Physical and
Political Geography._ London, 1917.
241. ---- _International Student's Atlas_. London,----?
242. See 40, 489; 457 and 278, 261, 300, 500; B, I, 241,
268-360; _Bib._ E, 256; J, 57; M, chaps. X-XIV, 211; _Bib._
49, 435.
243. Breuil, L'Abbé, H. "Les Subdivisions du Paléolithique
supérieur et leur Signification," _Cong. Int. d'Anth. et
d'Arch_. Session XIV, Genève, 1912, 165.
244. Sergi, G. _The Mediterranean Race_, London, 1901, chaps.
II, X, 40.
245. Myres, J. L. Essay II, 51-54, in Marvin, F. S. _The Unity
of Western Civilization._
246. Ripley, W. L. _The Races of Europe._ New York, 1899.
247. Deniker, J. "Les Races Européennes," _Journ. Anth.
Inst._, XXIV.
248. ---- "Les six Races composant la Population de l'Europe,"
_ibid._
250. Schliz, A. "Vorgeschichtliche Schädeltypen deutschen
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251. ---- "Beiträge zur prähistorischen Ethnologie," _Prähist.
Zeits._, IV, 1912, 36.
252. ---- "Bedeutung der somatischen Anthropologie," _Korr.-bl. d.
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253. ---- "Vorstufen der Nordisch-europäischen Schädelbildung,"
_Arch. f. Anth._, XLI, 1914, 169.
254. ---- "Der schnurkeramische Kulturkreis," _Zts. f. Eth._,
XXXVIII, 1906, 312.
260. Reche, O. "Zur Anthropologie der jüngeren Steinzeit in
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261. See 351.
262. Klassen, K. _Die Völker, Europas zur jüngeren Steinzeit._
Stuttgart, 1912, Bib.
263. Fleure, H. J. _Human Geography in Western Europe._
London, 1918.
264. Montelius, O. "Die Einwanderung unserer Vorfahrer im
Norden," _Arch. f. Anth._, XVII, 151.
265. ---- "Sur les Tombeaux et la Topographie de la Suède pendant
l'âge de pierre," _Cong. Int. d'Anth. et d'Arch._, Session
VII, Stockholm, I, 74.
266. Virchow, R. "Altnordische Schädel zu Kopenhagen," _Arch.
f. Anth._, 1870.
---- "Die ältesten Einwohner von Nordeuropa," _Arch. f. Anth._,
XXV, 1898, 88.
267. Arbo, C. O. E. "Anthropo-ethnologie des
Südwestnorwegens," _Arch. f. Anth._, XXXI, 1905, 313.
268. Hervé, G. "L'Ethnographie des populations françaises,"
_R. E. A._, VI, 1896, 97.
269. ---- "Les brachycephales néolithiques," _Rev. Ec. An._, IV,
1894, 393; V, 1895, 18.
270. Hamy, E. T. "L'Anthropologie de Nord-France," _L'Anth._,
XIX, 1908, 46.
271. Bloch, A. "Origines des brachycephales en France,"
_L'Anth._, XII, 1901, 541.
272. Luschan, F. von. "Beziehung zwischen der Alpinen
Bevölkerung und den Vorderasiaten," _Korr.-bl. d. d. Ges._,
XLIV, 1915, 118.
272a. A, 482; B, 298-303; 246.
273. Studer, T. H., und Bannwarth, E. _Crania Helvetica
antiqua._ Leipsic, 1894. Reviewed R. E. A., IV, 1894, 410.
274. Hervé, G. "Les populations lacustres," _R. E. A._, V,
1895, 137.
FOR EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT
275. Ratzel. _Anthropogeographie._ 3te Auf. Stuttgart, 1909.
276. Semple, E. _Influences of Geographical Environment._ New
York.
277. Demolins, E. _Les Français d'Aujourd'hui._ Paris, 1898.
278. ---- _Les grandes Routes des Peuples._ Paris, 1901.
CHAPTER X--NEOLITHIC RELIGION
290. Huxley, T. H. _Science and Education_, Essays. New York,
1897, p. 85.
291. ---- _Method and Results_, Essays. New York, 1901. Essay I,
p. 18.
292. Goethe, J. W. _Gedichte, Das Göttliche._
293. Harrison, J. E. _Ancient Art and Ritual._ New York, 1913.
294. Smith, W. R. _Religion of the Semites._ Edinburgh, 1889.
Origin of Religion. See O, 75.
295. Durkeim, E. _Elementary Forms of the Religious Life_.
Trans. J. W. Swain, London, Bib.
296. Tylor, E. B. _Primitive Culture._ 4th ed. New York, 1903.
297. ---- _Anthropology._ New York, 1916.
298. Frazer, J. G. _The Golden Bough._ 3d ed. London, 1914,
Bib.
299. Müller, F. M. _Origin and Growth of Religion._ New York,
1879.
300. Bagehot, W. _Physics and Politics._ New York and London.
301. Montgomery, J. E. (Editor). _Religions of the Past and
Present._ Philadelphia, 1918. Bib.
302. Lang, A. Myth, _Ritual and Religion._ London, 1901.
307. Murray, G. _Four Stages of Greek Religion._ New York,
1912.
308. Harrison, J. E. _Themis._ Cambridge, 1912.
309. ---- _Prolegomena to Greek Religion. Cambridge, 1903._
CULT OF GODDESS AND MOTHER-RIGHT
O, Index "Maternal descent"; B, II, 584.
315. Farnell, L. R. _Greece and Babylon._ Edinburgh, 1911,
chap. V.
316. Dietrich, R. _Muttererde._ Berlin, 1905.
317. Frazer, J. G. _Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Studies in History
of Oriental Religion._ London, 1906. See Index,
"Mother-right."
318. Hartley, C. G. (Mrs. W. M. Gallichan). _The Position of
Woman in Primitive Society._ London, 1914.
319. Bennett, F. M. "Religious Cults Associated with Amazons,"
_Col. Univ. Press._ New York, 1912.
320. Reinach, S. "La Station néolithique," _Le Jablanica
l'Anth._, 1901, 333.
321. Smith, W. R. _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia._
Cambridge, 1885.
322. Mannhard, W. _Wald-und Feld-kulte._ 2d ed. Berlin, 1905.
323. Helms, K. _Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte._
Heidelberg, 1913, I. Cf. 179, 93.
325. Ellis, H. _Man and Woman_. London, 1894. Cf. 4th ed.,
1917.
CHAPTER XI--PROGRESS
335. Marvin, F. S., Editor. _Unity of Western Civilization._
London, 1915.
336. ---- _Progress and History._ London, 1916.
337. ---- _The Living Past._ 2d ed. Oxford, 1915.
338. Murray, G. _Religio Grammatici._ Boston, 1918.
CHAPTER XII--THE COMING OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS
340. Müller, F. Max. _Biographies of Words and Home of
Aryans._ London, 1888.
341. Meillet, A. _Les Langues dans l'Europe nouvelle._ Paris,
1918.
342. ---- _Les Dialectes Indo-européens._ Paris, 1908.
343. ---- _Introduction à l'Étude comparative des Langues
Indo-européennes._ 4th ed. Paris, 1915.
346. Meyer, E. _Geschichte des Alterthums._ 2d ed. Stuttgart,
1909. Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 722.
347. Schrader, O. _Reallexikon der indogermanischen
Alter-thumskunde._ Strassburg, 1902.
348. ---- _Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte._ 3d ed. Jena,
1906.
349. ---- _Die Indogermanen._ Leipsic, 1911, 165 pp.
---- (Trans. Jevons, F. B.) _Prehistoric Antiquities of the
Aryan Peoples._ London, 1890.
350. Feist, S. Kultur. _Ausbreitung und Herkunft der
Indogermanen._ Berlin, 1913.
351. ---- _Europa im Lichte der Vorgeschichte._ Berlin, 1910.
352. Hirt, H. _Die Indogermanen_. 2 vols. Strassburg, 1905-07.
353. Kossina, G. "Die indogermanische Frage archäologisch
beantwortet," _Zts. f. Eth._, XXXIV (1902), 161, N. B. Cf.
220.
354. Much, M. _Heimat der Indogermanen._ 2d ed. Berlin, 1904.
355. Reinach, S. _Origine des Aryens._ Paris, 1892.
356. Wilser, L. _Die Germanen_. Leipsic, 1903.
357. ---- _Herkunft und Urgeschichte der Arier._ Heidelberg, 1899.
358. Zaborowski, Moindron S. "La Patrie originaire des Aryens,"
_R. E. A._ Paris, XIII (1903), 253.
359. ---- _Les Peuples aryens d'Asie et d'Europe._ Paris, 1908.
360. Brunnhofer, G. H. _Arische Urzeit._ Bern, 1909.
361. Laponge, G. V. de. _L'Aryen, Son Rôle social._ Paris, 1899.
362. Hehn, V. _Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere._ 5th ed. Berlin, 1887.
363. Holmes, T. R. _Ancient Britain._ Oxford, 1907. Chap. III and
pp. 424-455.
364. Veblen, T. _Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution._
New York, 1915.
365. Huntington, E. _The Pulse of Asia._ Boston, 1911.
366. ---- _Palestine and Its Transformations_. Boston, 1907.
367. ---- _World Power and Evolution._ New Haven, 1919.
375. Murray, G. _Euripides and His Age._ New York, 1913.
376. Chesterton, G. K. _Charles Dickens._ London, 1917.
377. Lang, A. _Custom and Myth._ New York, 1885.
378. Gummere, F. B. _The Beginnings of Poetry_. New York, 1901.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 16, 17.
[2] 1: 477; 671, chap. XXIX.
[3] 18.
[4] 19.
[5] 5.
[6] 6.
[7] 8: 20
[8] 5: 58-60
[9] M: chap. V.
[10] 1: 671.
[11] 5: 321, 327, 275.
[12] 7, 10.
[13] 24-26.
[14] 5: 373.
[15] 40: 35.
[16] 30: 228.
[17] 40: chap, II. D: I, 17-110.
[18] For maps showing extent of ice at different glacial epochs, see 41:
vol. II, p. 419. 42: end of volume.
[19] See Charts, 40: 41-48. 5. Also 40: 45, 46; 412-427; 386.
[20] 40: 95. 47.
[21] D: I, 380-412. 48.
[22] 40: 130, 244.
[23] D: I, 113.
[24] 40: 290, 316.
[25] E: 110-117.
[26] 40: 475-500.
[27] D: 466, 476; 40: 281.
[28] D: 466, 476; 40: 281.
[29] C:225; 60.
[30] 42: 270.
[31] L: 235.
[32] A: 329.
[33] 63.
[34] 40: 459; A: I, 314; D: 213.
[35] 40: 465.
[36] A: I, 326.
[37] C: 258.
[38] 76.
[39] 40: 283.
[40] B: 53.
[41] E: 139.
[42] G: 198; J: 15.
[43] 83.
[44] B. See Bibliography.
[45] I: 368.
[46] H: 68.
[47] A: I, 351.
[48] 42: 122; 60; 110: I, 6-13.
[49] 97: 11, 19.
[50] 95: 102.
[51] 91: 475.
[52] L: 190.
[53] B: 251.
[54] 91: 8.
[55] 96: 366.
[56] L: 199; 96: 265; D: 452; 97: 45-60.
[57] 97: 47; 96: 289.
[58] 135; C: 65 and 116.
[59] 97.
[60] Quoted in 135: chap. III, 116.
[61] 91: 519; 141.
[62] 91: 521.
[63] 96: 295.
[64] 95: 175.
[65] L: 222; 91: 175-178, 338.
[66] 91: 47.
[67] 95: 135; 96: 189, 219, 191.
[68] For a study of examples grouped according to epoch, see 96: p.
220-264.
[69] 91: II, 432.
[70] D: 527, 549.
[71] 115: 535.
[72] 110.
[73] 110: Plate 5, opposite pp. 50, 67.
[74] 111. Cf. 110: I, 48.
[75] D: I, 545.
[76] B: II, 242; D: 527.
[77] 116-120.
[78] B: II, 168.
[79] 124: 121; 123; D: 526.
[80] 116: 195 _ff._, 197 _Bib._
[81] 40: 281.
[82] 139: chap. II, 146.
[83] M: 217.
[84] 125: 100, map.
[85] O: 291.
[86] L: chap. V.
[87] A: I, 386.
[88] G: cf. J: 43.
[89] A: 421.
[90] D: 503.
[91] 110: I, 40.
[92] B: II, 102.
[93] A: I, 423.
[94] B: 310.
[95] G: I, 268; J: 90.
[96] B: I, 398.
[97] H: 20.
[98] F: Article "Axt."
[99] G: 30; E: 129.
[100] E: Plate 60; A: 506; 96: 330.
[101] B: 177.
[102] Figs. 107a, 108.
[103] A: 355, 629.
[104] M: 347.
[105] A: 627; B: 207.
[106] 110: 50 (chart).
[107] 124: 105.
[108] B: II, 468; D: 511.
[109] G: 60.
[110] G: 16, 24.
[111] B: II, 483.
[112] G: 127.
[113] H: 27.
[114] 186: 168.
[115] B: I, 513.
[116] H: 49.
[117] A: 547; D: 482.
[118] 40: 279.
[119] 40: 281.
[120] D: 465; 49: 540.
[121] 60.
[122] 215-218.
[123] B: II, 242.
[124] E: 563.
[125] D: I, 335.
[126] 40: 281.
[127] 49: 565.
[128] 214.
[129] C: 225.
[130] 219-221.
[131] 222, 223.
[132] J: 65.
[133] See D: 545.
[134] 40: 281, 333, 361; D: 476, 41.
[135] 40: 350, 361.
[136] 110: I, 50.
[137] 40: 281, 449.
[138] See 214. Chart 219., cf. 210.
[139] 240, 241.
[140] 242.
[141] 243.
[142] 244: 39-43.
[143] 245.
[144] 40: 465.
[145] 268-272 _a._
[146] 272.
[147] B: I, 302.
[148] 220.
[149] 220.
[150] 220.
[151] B: I, 334-337, 307.
[152] 246.
[153] 250: 202, 206.
[154] 250: 205.
[155] 290: 85.
[156] 292.
[157] 293.
[158] 294.
[159] 309.
[160] 307.
[161] 315-319.
[162] A: 594-603, 362.
[163] B: II, 563.
[164] 320.
[165] 316.
[166] 322.
[167] 318, 321.
[168] B: II, 585.
[169] O: 173.
[170] 308: 36.
[171] 330.
[172] H: 20.
[173] 179: 122 _n._
[174] 260.
[175] O: 111, 33.
[176] A: 368.
[177] 308.
[178] I have selected for examination Professor Kossina's article, and
that not his latest, because it seems to furnish the strongest and
clearest brief statement of the theory of the Germanic origin of the
Indo-Europeans. Hirt's work and his references should also be consulted.
It is to be regretted that the judgment and work of some of the North
German prehistorians on this question are tinged by national prejudice.
We must make allowance for their omissions and remember that we have our
own pet prejudices.
The dogma of the superiority of the dolichocephalic blond has been made
a cult by Mr. J. H. Chamberlin and other far less brilliant writers. It
has received little support in Scandinavia. The works of this school
should not be taken too seriously.
[179] 375: 14.
[180] O.
[181] 293.
[182] 376: 67; 377: 177; cf. 378.
INDEX
Achæans, 253, 281.
Adaptation, extreme, 228.
Agriculture, origin of, 101, 108;
and religion, 218.
Amber, 148.
Anau, 93, 100, 125.
Ancylus Epoch, 37, 164, 169.
Apes, 4, 12.
Arboreal life, 7, 13.
Aryans, 246.
Asia, 10, 91.
Axe, 43, 136, 173.
Azilian-Tardenoisian, 39, 48, 193.
Babylonia, 92.
Balder, myth of, 222.
Balkans, 61, 100, 267.
Baltic culture, 131, 144, 203, 232, 271.
Baltic Sea, changes of, 36, 41, 161.
Barley, 80, 94.
Boats, 145.
Brachycephals, 44, 51, 181, 195, 262;
in lake-dwellings, 87.
Bread, 82.
Bronze, 141;
age of, 166.
Burial of dead, 31, 123.
Campigny, 50.
Cattle, domestic, 76, 91, 110.
Cave frescoes, 31;
remains, 53.
Celts, 128, 263.
Chronology, 37, 94, 101, 160, 166, 192, 253.
Climatic changes, 4, 26, 32, 102.
Copper, 140; age of, 166.
Crescents of clay, 84.
Crete, 144, 186.
Cro-Magnon race, 29, 181, 231.
Dæmons, 213, 276.
Danube, 200.
Dead, disposal of, 31, 123, 127.
Dog, 42, 75.
Dolichocephals, 44, 87, 198.
Dolmens, 114.
Domestic animals, 91, 110, 112.
Dormant periods and nations, 243.
Dress, 132.
Education, Neolithic 237, 275.
Family, Aryan, 251.
Flax, 83.
Flint, 86, 134, 138.
Folk-lore and fairy-tales, 277.
Forests, 32, 64;
succession of, in Denmark, 38.
Fortifications, 62, 236, 263.
Glacial period, 24.
Goddess, cult of, 220.
Gold, 139.
Greek mysteries, 212.
Grosgartach, 59, 157, 234.
Hamites, 19, 22, 182.
Heidelberg man, 28.
Hoe-culture, 104.
Horse, 74.
Houses and huts, 55, 72.
Incineration, 127.
Indo-Europeans, 247;
homeland, 259;
language, 246;
religion, 251, 268.
Industries, 131.
Iranian plateau, 12.
Lake-dwellings, 69, 202.
Littorina Epoch, 37, 165.
Loess, 27, 65.
Magelmose, 45, 172.
Mattock, 137.
Mediterranean race, 182, 187, 194; culture, 231.
Megaliths, 114.
Menhirs, 122.
Microliths, 49.
Migrations, Indo-European, 253; routes, 18, 20, 52, 183.
Millet, 80.
Mother-right, 223.
Mugem, 44.
Neanderthal race, 29.
Neolithic culture, persistence of, 272, 280.
Nephrite and Jadeite, 146.
Oaks in Denmark, 37, 171.
Oats, 81.
Paleolithic Age, Lower, 29; Upper, 32.
Peace, 85, 235.
Pelasgi, 257.
Piedmont zones, 105.
Pig, 77.
Piltdown skull, 29.
Pines in Denmark, 37, 171.
Pioneer life, 191, 204, 237.
Pithecanthropus, 15.
Plough, 108.
Pottery, 43, 88, 100, 153, 201.
Primates, 6, 20.
Progress, 228.
Races, human, 19; Paleolithic 180; Neolithic 193.
Religion, Paleolithic, 208; Neolithic, 206, 276; of
lake-dwellings, 84; of Indo-Europeans, 268, 276.
Rinnekalns, 47.
Ritual, 210.
River-valleys as trade-routes, 143, 190.
Roman law, 258.
Sahara, once well-watered, 22.
Salt, 139.
"_Schuhleistenbeil_" (mattock), 137.
Semites, 19, 22, 106.
Sheep, 78, 91.
Shell-heaps, 40, 172, 197.
Siwalik strata, 14.
Social development, 85.
Steppe, 27, 32, 65, 189.
Stutzheim, 57, 59.
Susa, 99.
Taboo, 211.
Tertiary period, 9.
Trade, 144; routes, 152.
Tribal education, 275.
Tridachna shells in Europe, 147.
Tumuli, 116.
Tundra, 26, 36.
Weaving, 83.
Wheat, 80, 94.
Women, position in Neolithic time, 224, 249.
Yoldia Epoch, 37, 162.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
In the Bibliography, p. 294, under "CHAPTER I", there was no number 4
in the original.
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