Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
by
The Marquis de Nadaillac
Part 2 out of 6
and in it was a cork plug. Then, as now, the oak which yields cork
was foreign to the cold climate of Scotland.
We will quote but one of the discoveries made in England. In
1881 a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, was found at
Bovey-Tracey in Devonshire. It lay in a deposit of brick-earth more
than twenty-nine feet below the highest level reached by the waters
of the Bovey.[79] It was more than thirty-five inches wide, and its
length could not be exactly determined, the workmen having broken it
in getting it out. An eminent archaeologist is of opinion that this
boat dates from the Glacial epoch, perhaps even from a more remote
time. If this hypothesis, the responsibility of which we leave to
him, be correct, this is the most ancient witness in existence of
prehistoric navigation. We must also mention a boat found near Brigg
(Lincolnshire), a few feet from a little river that flows into the
Humber. It is about forty-five feet long by three and a half feet wide,
and is some three feet high. The prow is fluted. There are no traces
of a mast, though the size of the boat must have made it difficult
to manage with oars alone.
One of the pirogues preserved at the Copenhagen Museum is made of one
half of the trunk of a tree, some six feet long, hollowed into the
shape of a trough, and cut straight at both ends.[80] It is curious to
compare this clumsy structure with a boat recently discovered beneath
a tumulus at Gogstadten in Norway (Fig. 14), of which, though it dates
from historic times, we give a drawing, as it is a good illustration
of the progress made. The dead Viking had been laid in his boat,
as the most glorious of tombs; with its prow pointing seawards, for
would not the first thoughts of the chief when he awoke in another
life be of the sea which had witnessed his triumphs? The sides of
the boat, which was more than sixty-six feet long and fifteen across
the widest part, were painted, and around it was ranged a series of
shields lapping over one another like the scales of a fish, and not
unlike the designs seen in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry. A block of
oak intended to receive the mast was placed in the centre of the boat,
and near the skeleton were oars some fifteen feet long and similar
in form to those now in use.
FIGURE 14
Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten.
Inlaying the foundations of the bridge of Les Invalides, Paris, a boat
was taken out of the mud which had lain there for many centuries. Like
most of those already mentioned, it had been made out of a single
trunk roughly squared. Everywhere, we must repeat once again, man's
original ideas were the same; everywhere the tree floating on the top
of the water excited his curiosity, and became the starting-point for
one of his most important discoveries. Traces of similar attempts
at navigation are met with in other parts of France; a canoe was
found in the Loire near Saint Mars, and the Dijon Museum possesses
another from the same river, the latter some sixteen feet long, and
traces have been made out of what are supposed to have been seats,
but may have been mere contrivances for strengthening the boat. A
canoe taken last year from the bed of the Cher is of the shape of a
trough closed at the end by pieces of wood fixed by means of vertical
grooves. The prow had been shaped in the first instance in the trunk
itself, and it was probably owing to an accident, a collision perhaps,
that it had had to be mended in this way (Fig. 15).
FIGURE 15
Ancient boat discovered in the bed of the Cher.
The Lake Dwellers of Switzerland owned boats from the time of their
first settlement in their water homes. One of them found at Robenhausen
is more than ten feet long, and is very shallow, varying from six to
eight inches. Like most of those already mentioned, it was hollowed
out of the trunk of a tree, bulging out towards the centre, and
rounded at the ends. So far none but stone tools have been found at
the station of Robenhausen, so that we must presume that it was with
such tools that the boat was made. The lakes of Bienne and. Geneva,
and the stations of Morges and Estavayer have also yielded boats
which are doubtless less ancient than those of which I have just
spoken. In nearly all of them the prow is curiously pointed. One of
them from the Lake of Neuchatel, large enough to bold twelve people,
has a beak at the stern and a rounded prow; but there is no sign of
any contrivance for keeping the oars in place.
Lastly, a boat bas been found in Switzerland some 3,900 feet above
the valley of the Rhine, but no one can say how it came to be at such
a height.
FIGURE 16
A lake pirogue found in the Lake of Neuchatel. 1. As seen from the
outside. 2 and 3. Longitudinal and transverse sections.
These canoes, whatever their shape or size, can only have been worked
by means of oars, yet oars have seldom been found. The Geneva Museum,
however, has one which came from the muddy bed of an Italian lake,
and others are preserved in the Royal Museum of Dublin, which have
every sign of great antiquity. In de fault of the actual oars, we
have other proofs of their use. Gross[81] mentions a boat (Fig. 16) in
which holes had been made in the upper parts of the sides to hold the
oars. In 1882 a pirogue was taken out of the bed of the Rhone at Cordon
(Ain), which had been half buried in the mud of the river. The wood
was black and the upper portions were charred, but the middle part was
still intact and very hard. The holes, pierced in the sides at regular
intervals, may have served to keep the oars in place. The position of
the rowers at the bottom of the boat was very unsatisfactory. It was
not, however, until later that we find seats so placed as to enable
the rowers to put out all their strength. At a recent meeting of
the Anthropological Society (July 21, 1887) M. Letourneau observed
that the rudder came into use very slowly. It was not known to the
Egyptians or to the Phoenicians, nor, which is still more strange,
to the Greeks and Romans. Their vessels, whatever their size, were
guided by two large oars (GUBERNACULUM) placed in the stern. The
Chinese appear to have been the only people who were acquainted with
the use of the rudder from time immemorial. It is probable that from
them it passed to the Arabs and even perhaps to the people of Europe.
A discovery made near Abbeville is the most ancient example we have of
the use of the mast. Some works being executed at the fortifications of
the town, brought to light a boat which must have been some twenty-one
feet long. Two projections form part of the planking, leaving between
them a rectangular space in which the mast was probably fixed.[82]
Professor Gastaldi speaks of a wooden anchor taken from a peat-bog
near Arona, beneath which was a pile dwelling. He dates it from the
tinge when the use of bronze was already beginning to spread in the
north of Italy. A stone of peculiar shape found at Niddau is, they
say, an ANKERSTEIN (anchor stone). This name is also given by Friedel
to a good-sized round lump of sandstone with a deep groove near the
middle. Lastly, Kerviler, in crossing a basin of the Bay of Penhouet,
near Saint-Nazaire, found several stones which had evidently been
used to keep boats at anchor, and with the aid of which we can get
an idea of the methods employed by ancient navigators (Fig. 17).
FIGURE 17
Stones used as anchors, found in the Bay of Penhouet. 1, 2, 3,
stones weighing about 160 pounds each. 4 and 5, lighter stones,
probably used for canoes.
Such are the only details we have on the important subject of
prehistoric anchors, but we may add that ancient fishermen probably
ventured but a short distance from the land, and would not need
anchors, as they could easily carry their light boats on shore.
We leave now passed in review the conditions of the life of our
remote ancestors, noting the animals that were their contemporaries,
and the fish that peopled the watercourses near which they lived. We
have studied the earliest efforts at navigation, made in the pursuit
of fish, and we must now go back to examine the weapons, tools, and
ornaments of these ancient peoples, and trace in those objects the
dawn of art. This will be the aim of our next chapter.
CHAPTER III
Weapons, Tools, Pottery; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing,
Ornaments; Early Artistic Efforts.
The Vedas show us Indra, armed with a wooden club, seizing a stone with
which to pierce Vritra, the genius of evil.[83] Does not this call up
a picture of the earliest days of man upon the earth? His first weapon
was doubtless a knotty branch torn from a tree as be hurried past,
or a stone picked up from amongst those lying at his feet. These were,
however, but feeble means with which to contend with formidable feline
and pachydermatous enemies. Man bad not their great physical strength;
he was not so fleet a runner as many of them; his nails and teeth
were useless to him, either for attack or defence; his smooth skin
was not enough protection even from the rigor of the climate. Such
inequality must very quickly have led to the defeat of man, had not
God given to him two marvellous instruments: the brain which conceives,
and the hand which executes. To brute force man opposed intelligence,
a glorious struggle in which he was sure to come off victorious, for in
the words of Victor Hugo, "Ceci devait tuer cela." The huge animals of
Quaternary times have disappeared for ever, whilst plan has survived,
victor over Nature herself. Even before his birth, an immutable decree
had ordained that nothing on the earth should check his development.
Man alone amongst the countless creatures around him knew anything
of the past, and he alone was able to predict the future. Even apes,
however great the intelligence that may be attributed to them, have
remained very much what they were from the first. In vain has one
generation succeeded another; they still obey the dictates of their
brutal instincts, as their ancestors did before them; and if apes
continue to propagate their species thousands of years hence they
will remain what we see them to be now. Dogs, too, will remain dogs,
elephants will continue to be elephants; beavers will make their dams
exactly like those of the present day, wasps will never learn to make
honey as bees do, and bees will never be able, like ants, to bring up
plant-lice to be their servants, or to enslave other families. Their
instincts are incapable of progress, and in their earliest efforts they
reach the limit assigned to them by the Eternal Wisdom. To man alone
has it been given to understand what has been done by his predecessors,
to walk more firmly in the path along which they groped, to pronounce
clearly the words they stammered. Without a doubt we descend from the
men who lived in the midst of primeval forests, or amongst stagnant
marshes, dwelling in caves, for the possession of which they often
bad to fight with the wild beasts around them. These men, however,
knew that one result achieved would lead to another, if similar
means were used; they saw that a pointed stone would inflict a deeper
wound than a blunt one on the animal they hunted, and therefore they
learnt to sharpen stones artificially; the skins of beasts, flung over
their shoulders, protected them from cold, and they learned to make
garments; seeds sprouted around them, and they learned to plant them;
they noticed the effect of heat upon metals, and tried to mix them;
wild animals wandered around them, and they learned to reduce them to
slavery. Every bit of knowledge won, and every progress made, became
the starting-point for fresh acquisitions, fresh advances, which
thenceforth remained forever the common heritage of the human race.
It was thus that experience early taught our remote ancestors that
rock chips more easily under the blows of a hammer when fresh from the
quarry; and everywhere men learnt to choose the stone best suited to
their purpose. For hatchets, wedges, and hammers, they used jade and
kindred substances, such as fibrolite, diorite, acrd basalt, which were
at the same time extremely durable, and very impervious to blows. For
spear- and arrow-heads, knives, saws, and all instruments requiring
sharp points and cutting edges, they employed quartz, jaspar, agate,
and obsidian, according to the situation of the worker; all these
materials, though extremely hard, being easily split into thin sharp
flakes. The blocks of stone were very methodically cut up; they were,
in fact, to use a very appropriate expression of M. Dupont's, scaled
(ECAILLES). We give drawings of a few of these implements (Figs. 18,
19, and 20), which illustrate the earliest efforts of lean, efforts
which may be looked upon as the starting-point of all those industries
which in the course of centuries have developed results which it is
impossible to contemplate without astonishment.
FIGURE 18
Scraper from the Delaware Valley.
FIGURE 19
Implement from the Delaware Valley.
The host ancient tools which have come down to us were clumsy and
heavy, cut on both sides and pointed (Fig. 20). They may vary in
material, in size, and in finish, but they can always be easily
recognized.[84] Were they man's only weapons? We hesitate to believe
it, and the careful researches of M. d'Acy add to our incredulity.[85]
He tells us that at Saint-Acheul, which was the very cradle of these
strange discoveries, the almond shape is found mixed with the pointed
amongst the Moustier flints, so that what is true in one place is not
in another, and any general conclusion would certainly be premature.
FIGURE 20
Worked flints from the Lafaye and Plantade shelters (Tarn-et-Garonne).
It would take us a long time to enumerate the countries where tools
of the Chelleen[86] type have been found. They are met with in the
valleys of the rivers of France, now imbedded in the flinty alluvium,
now strewn upon the surface of the soil. Though rare in Germany,
they are found in abundance in the southeast of England, and it is
to this period that must be assigned the discoveries at Hoxne, and in
the basins of the Thames, the Ouse, and the Avon. Similar discoveries
have been frequent in Italy, Spain, Algeria, and Hindostan. Dr. Abbott
speaks of the finding of such implements in the glacial alluvium of
the Delaware (Figs. 18 and 19), Miss Babitt in the alluvial deposits of
the Mississippi, Mr. Haynes in New Hampshire, Mr. Holmes in Colombia,
and other explorers in the basin of the Bridget and at Guanajuato
in Mexico. Everywhere these implements are identical in shape and
in mode of construction, and very often they are associated with the
bones of animals of extinct species.
Sometimes these Chelleen tools (the French call them COUPS DE POING)
have retained at the base a projection to enable the user to grasp
them better; these certainly never had handles, but it will not do
to draw any general conclusions froth that fact; and an examination
of the collection of M. d'Acy, the most complete we have of relics
of the Chelleen period, proves on the contrary that certain tools
could not have been used unless they had been fixed into handles.
In the following epoch, to which has been given the name of
Mousterien, from the Moustier Cave (Dordogne), we already meet with
more varied forms, including scrapers, saws, knife-blades, and spear-
or arrow-heads, with the special characteristic of being cut on one
side only. These implements are found not only in the alluvium as
are the Chelleen COUPS DE POING, but also in the cave or rock-shelter
deposits. Amongst the mammalian remains with which they are associated
are those of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the elk, the
horse, the aurochs, the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the cave-bear,
remarkable for the constancy of their characteristics. The ELEPHAS
ANTIQUUS and the RHINOCEROS MERCKII that belonged to the preceding
period have now completely passed away, and the reindeer, now appearing
for the first time, are still far from numerous.
In the Solutreen period, so named after the celebrated Lake Station
of Solutre, we find stalked arrow-heads with lateral notches,[87]
flint-heads of the form of laurel leaves, which are remarkable for
their regularity of shape and delicacy of finish; as compared with
those of previous periods, the forms are much more delicate and
elegant. Many of the caves of the south of France belong to this
period. It is difficult to mention them all, and even more difficult
to make out a complete list of contemporary mammalia; the deposits
generally actually touch those of another period, and the separation
of the objects in them has not always been made with all the care that
could be wished. At Solutre, remains of the horse predominate; whilst
in other places those of the reindeer are met with in considerable
quantities, and with them are found the bones of the cave-bear, the
wild cat (a creature considerably larger than the tigers of the present
day), and of the mammoth, which lived on in Europe many centuries.
Lastly to the Madeleine period, so named after the Madeleine
Cave (Dordogne), and considered one of the most important of the
cave epochs, belong tools and weapons of all manner of shapes and
materials, including bone, born, and reindeer antlers; from this
time also date barbed arrows and harpoons, batons of office, telling
of social organization; the engravings and carvings on which bear
witness to the development of artistic feeling. On the other hand,
the flint arrow-heads and knife-blades are not so finely cut; we see
that man had learned to use other materials than stone. The reindeer
is the most characteristic animal form of the Madeleine period.
To the times we have just passed in review succeeded others of a
very different kind, to which has been given the general naive of
Neolithic. The fauna, probably lender the influence of climatic and
orographic changes, underwent a complete transformation; the mammoth,
the cave-bear, the megaceros, and the large felidae died out, the
hippopotamus was no longer seen, except in the heart of Africa;
the reindeer and other mammals that love to frequent the regions of
perpetual snow, retired to the extreme north; and in their place
appeared our earliest domestic animals, the ox, the sheep, the
goat, and the dog. Man, who witnessed these changes, continued to
progress; he abandoned his nomad for a sedentary life; he ceased to
be a bunter, and became an agriculturist and a shepherd. Everywhere
we meet with traces of new customs, new ideas, and a new mode of
life. This progress is especially seen in the industrial arts. Metals
it is true are still unknown, but side by side with tools, which are
merely chipped or roughly cut, we find for the first time hatchets,
celts, small knife-blades, and arrow-heads admirably polished by the
long-continued rubbing of one stone on another. Polishers, so much worn
as to bear witness to long service, are numerous in all collections,
and rocks and erratic blocks retain incisions which must have been
used for the same purpose.[88]
It is impossible to enumerate the number of polished hatchets which
have been found; their number is simply incalculable. Of all of them,
however, those of Scandinavia are the most remarkable for delicacy of
workmanship. With the fine hatchets of Brittany, may be compared the
blades found at Volgu, and preserved in the Museum of Copenhagen,
and those in pink, gray, and brown flint, from the Sordes Cave in
the south of France; but we cannot fix the date of the production of
any of them. One of the great difficulties of prehistoric research,
a difficulty not to be got over in the present state of our knowledge,
is to distinguish with any certainty the periods into which an attempt
has been made to divide the life-story of man from his first appearance
upon earth.
Was there any abrupt transition from one period to another? Must we
accept the theory of a long break caused by geological phenomena,
and the temporary depopulation which was one of the consequences of
these phenomena? Did the new era of civilization date from the arrival
of foreign races, stronger and better fitted than those they succeeded
for the struggle for existence? Or are these changes merely the result
of the natural progress which is one of the laws of our being? These
questions cannot now be solved, and if the industries which are at
the present moment the object of our researches, bear witness to
the employment of a new process, that of polishing, we are bound to
add that everywhere Paleolithic forms are still persistent. Flints,
merely chipped, are clumsy tools, but there is no break in their
series till we come to the splendid specimens from Scandinavia or
from Mexico. Of the seven types of the Solutreen period, six are met
with in the time now under consideration.[89] Five types of Solutreen
javelins have also been found in the Durfort Cave, and beneath the
dolmens of Aveyron and of Lozere. Neolithic weapons, such as those
found in the Moustier Cave, are not so numerous, but the type adopted
there is not such a fine one nor so carefully finished, which accounts
for its having been more rarely copied. If we examine the knives, awls,
scrapers, and saws, we come to the same conclusion, although comparison
is not so easy. "A knife is always a knife, an awl is always an awl,"
remarks M. Cartailhac; "they were made at every period, and their
resemblance to each other proves nothing with any certainty."
Rounded stones of granite or sandstone seem however to have been
weapons peculiar to the Neolithic period. Dr. Pommerol recently spoke
at the Anthropological Society of Paris, of two such rounded stones
picked up in the Puy-de-Dome. Similar stones have been discovered
at Viry-Noureuil, and M. Massenat has one in his collection from
Chez-Pourre. Are not these rounded stones of a similar character to
the BOLAS flung by the ancient Gauls, and still in use amongst the
inhabitants of the pampas of South America?
As we have already remarked, plan from the earliest times must often
have held in his hands the stones which served him as weapons or as
tools. The marks of hammering on the smooth surfaces, the rounded
projections and the grooves worked in these stones, were evidently
made to prevent the hand or the thumb from slipping. Soon, however,
reflection led man to understand the increase of force he would gain by
the addition to the stone of a handle of wood or horn, stag or reindeer
antler. This addition of a handle was simple enough: the workman
merely bound it to the hatchet with fibrous roots, leather thongs,
or ligaments taken from the gut of the animals slain in the chase
(Fig. 21). At first sight we are astonished at the results obtained
with such wretched materials, but it is impossible to dispute them,
for we have seen the same thing done in our own day.
FIGURE 21
1. Stone javelin-head with handle. 2. Stone hatchet with handle.
Other hatchets, chiefly those of a small size, were fixed into sheaths
made of stag-horn, and two chief types of them have actually been
made out.[90] The sheaths of the first type are short and end in
quadrangular beads. They are found most frequently in Switzerland,
in the basins of the Rhone and of the Saone, and throughout the south
of France. Those of the second type are pierced with a hole large
enough to pass the handle through. These are found in the northwest
of France, in Belgium, and in England.
Flint arrows of triangular or oval form, notched or stalked, were
everywhere used for a considerable length of time. They are found
in the numerous caves of France, beneath the ANTAS of Portugal, in
the tombs of Mykenae, as well as among the Ainos of Japan and the
Patagonians of South America. Their use necessarily involves that of
a bow, yet we do not know of a single weapon such as that, or of one
that could take its place, dating from Paleolithic times. Probably
the rapid decomposition of the wood of which bows were made has led
to their disappearance. De Mortillet[91] mentions a bow found in a
pile-dwelling in a bog near Robenhausen, which he ascribes to the
Neolithic period. Another is known which was found at Lutz, also
in Switzerland. To all appearance the most ancient bows of historic
times greatly resemble these two prehistoric examples.
Though flint was the material par excellence of Quaternary times for
weapons and tools, it could not long suffice for the ever-growing
needs of man. Our museums contain a complete series of bone or
stag-horn implements such as darts, arrow-heads, barbed arrows,
harpoons, fibulae, and finely cut needles often pierced with eyes
(Fig. 22). The invention of barbs is worthy of special notice; the
series of points made the blow much more dangerous, as the projectile
remained in the flesh of a wounded animal which was not able to
get it out. But this was not the only object of the barbs. Arranged
symmetrically on either side of the arrow they kept it afloat in the
air like the wings of a bird, which may perhaps have suggested their
use and increased the effect and precision of the shot.
FIGURE 22
1. Fine needles.
2. Coarse needles.
3. Amulet.
4 and 6. Ornaments.
5. Cut flint.
7. Fragment of a harpoon.
8. Fragments of a reindeer antler with signs or drawings.
9. Whistle.
10. One end of a bow (?).
11. Arrow-head. (From the Vache, Massat, and Lourdes caves.)
The Marsoulas Cave has yielded one bevelled arrow shaft, made
of reindeer antler, with a deep groove on the surface. A similar
arrow-head was found in the Pacard Cave, and in other places arrows
have been found with one or more grooves on the surface. Were these
grooves or drills intended to hold poison, and was man already
acquainted with this melancholy Diode of destruction? We know that
the use of poison was known at the most remote historic antiquity.[92]
The Greeks and Scythians used the venom of the viper, and other peoples
employed vegetable poisons. There is nothing to prevent our believing
that similar methods were in use in prehistoric times.
FIGURE 23
Amulet made of the penien bone of a bear, and found in the Marsoulas
Cave.
There is no doubt that it is the caves of the south of France which
have yielded the most interesting objects; needles with drilled eyes,
and barbed arrows have been picked up in considerable numbers at
Eyzies, Laugerie-Basse, at Bruniquel, Massat, and in the Madeleine
Cave. Dr. Garrigou mentions some rein deer or roebuck antlers found
in Ariege caves, which had been made into regular stilettos. In the
deposits at Lafaye were fouled stilettos or bodkins, varying in length
from two to six inches; needles measuring from nineteen to one hundred
and five millimetres and provided with eyes; at Marsoulas were found
an amulet made of the penien bone of a bear (Fig. 23), some pendants,
and some pointed pieces of bone which astonish us by the delicacy of
their workmanship, and the drawings with which they were adorned.
FIGURE 24
Various stone and bone objects from California.
At Paviland, Dr. Buckland discovered a wolf bone cut to a point. Kent's
Hole yielded a number of needles resembling those of the Madeleine
Cave; at Aggtelek (Hungary) were found some bones of the cave-bear
pointed to serve as daggers, cut into scrapers or pierced to serve as
amulets or ornaments. In Belgium, objects very similar to these have
been found made of reindeer antler and dating from the most remote
times. The antlers moulted by the reindeer in the spring were in
especial request.
Excavations in the sepulchral mounds near San Francisco (California)
have yielded thousands of bone implements (Fig. 24). Others similar
to them have been found in the layers of cinders at Madisonville
(Ohio) and beneath the numerous kitchen-middings of the coasts of
the Atlantic and Pacific.
The processes employed by the cave-men were very simple. In one of the
excavations superintended by him, M. Dupont[93] picked up the radius
of a horse bearing symmetrically made incisions executed with a view
to getting off splinters of the bone. These splinters were rounded by
rubbing either with chips of flint, or on such polishers as are to
be seen in any of the museums; then one end was sharpened, and the
other, if need were, pierced with a hole. It is astonishing to find
some of them as fine as the steel needles of the present day, and with
perfectly round eyes made with the help of nothing but a rough flint,
and there would still be some doubt on the subject, if M. Lartet[94]
had not obtained exactly similar results by working on fragments
of bone with the flints he had fouled in these excavations. Other
experiments of a similar kind were no less conclusive, for Merk[95]
perforated all ivory plaque with a pointed flint which he used as
a gimlet.
Some objects, which are supposed to date from Neolithic times, bear
witness to an altogether unexpected degree of civilization. In the
heart of Germany, in the peat-bogs of Laybach and Worbzig on the
banks of the Saale, have been found earthenware spoons of the shape
of modern spatulae; at Geraffin on Lake Bienne, a finely shaped
spoon made of the wood of a yew tree; and at Lagozza, another in
shining black earthenware. Lartet had already brought to light a
bone implement covered with ornaments in relief which he ascribed
to the Palaeolithic period, and which he imagined had been used for
extracting marrow; and another archaeologist tells of objects in
reindeer antler found in the Gourdan Cave, which he thinks were used
for a similar purpose. In the Saint-Germain Museum are preserved the
remains of spoons from the bed of the Seine, and in the collections
of England are fragments of bone taken from beneath the West-Kennet
dolmen, which were all probably employed for extracting marrow. But
the most important discovery of all, which leaves no doubt on the
subject, is that made by M. Perrault at the Chassey Camp, near
Chalon-sur-Saone, beneath a hearth dating from Neolithic times. He
collected fourteen earthenware spoons; one of them of a round shape
and remarkable for its size, was unfortunately broken (Fig. 25). It
is of brown earthenware with a rather rough surface mixed with bits
of flint, and is so much worn that it had evidently been in use a
long time. Lastly two spoons, also of earthenware, have recently been
found near Dondas (Lot-et-Garonne). The use of spoons, which certainly
marked considerable progress, must therefore have spread rapidly.
FIGURE 25
Dipper found in the excavations at the Chassey Camp.
Long previously, however, pottery of a great variety of form bore
witness to tire plastic skill of man. Every where we find vessels
of coarse material mixed with grains of sand or mica to give more
consistency to the paste which was baked in the fire, and had often no
further ornamentation than the marks of the fingers of the potter. Does
this pottery date from Palaeolithic times, or were the earthenware
vessels later additions at the time of those disturbances of deposits
which are the despair of archaeologists? A few examples may enable
us better to answer this question.
Fraas tells us that fragments of pottery have been found in all the
caves of Germany in which excavations have been made. He quotes that
of Hohlefels, where he himself picked up such fragments amongst
the bones of the mastodon, the mammoth, the rhinoceros, and the
cave-lion, when the remains of these animals were for the first time
found in Germany. In 1872, the making of the railway from Nuremberg
to Ratisbon brought to light a cave of considerable depth. In its
lower deposits were found nothing but the bones of hyenas, bears,
and lions, of which the cave had been the resort for centuries. Among
the most ancient deposits, relics of a similar kind were found in
abundance, but now mixed with numerous fragments of pottery, worked
flints, and fish bones, including those of the carp and the pike,
with the bones of mammals, amongst which predominated those of the
rhinoceros, most of them intentionally split open. At Argecilla,
twenty leagues from Madrid, Vilanova discovered a regular workshop,
in which were knives and flint arrow-heads, together with some very
primitive pottery made of clay that had evidently been brought from
a distance, as there is none in the district in which the pottery
was found, In an upper deposit Vilanova collected more than two
hundred implements made of diorite, a rock frequently used in Spain,
some very remarkable celts of serpentine dating from the Neolithic
period, and numerous fragments of very delicate pottery. Not far off
he discovered another workshop, containing some very fine hatchets
perfectly polished, and some keramic ware tastily ornamented. The
progress made is as marked in the weapons and tools as in the pottery.
We have also seen some fragments of earthenware from the caves of
Chiampo and Laglio, near Lake Como, and from that known as the Cave
dei Colombi, in tire island of Palmaria, which was occupied shortly
before the Neolithic period. But it is Belgium which yields the
most decisive proof on this subject, and a visit to the Brussels
Museum is enough to convince the most incredulous. The excavations
made under M. Dupont in the caves of the Meuse and the Lesse have
again and again brought to light fragments of pottery, associated
with the bones of Palaeolithic animals. Schmerling, too, had already
found similar fragments in the Engis Cave, mixed with flint weapons
of the rudest description; and his discoveries have been strikingly
confirmed by those recently made at Spy, near Namur,[96] and by
others made by M. Fraipont.[97] In portions of this same Engis Cave
not previously explored the learned professor of Liege found, in 1887,
fragments of a vase of ovoid form, some flints of the Mousterien type,
and some bones of extinct mammals. Most of the pottery in the Brussels
Museum is black and of primitive make; some few fragments, however,
are of finished workmanship. We may mention especially an ovoid vase,
remarkable for its size and for its lateral projections. This vase,
which is hand-modelled, came from the Frontal Cave; the clay is of
blackish hue mixed with little bits of calcareous spar. M. Ordinaire,
Vice-Consul for France at Callao, speaks of the CAYANES or MACAHUAS,
which are earthenware basins of great symmetry of form, made by the
Combos women, without turning wheels or mills of any kind. Though the
elegant shape of the Frontal and other vases at first surprises us,
reflection convinces us that men who could cut stones with such rare
skill would certainly be able to produce equally good pottery.
FIGURE 26
Pottery of a so far unclassified type found in the Argent Cave
(France).
Similar instances may easily be quoted from France. Excavations at
Solutre have yielded several fragments of yellow, hand-made pottery
very insufficiently baked; and other pieces have been found in the
peat-bogs of Bastide de Bearn with the bones of reindeer, and worked
flints similar to those found in Quaternary deposits. We may add
that at Lafaye, Bize, and Pondre (Hainault) discoveries were made of
pottery mixed with human remains and with those of animals now extinct;
and in the Argent Cave (Basses-Alpes) a new type, shown in Fig. 26,
has been found which merits special attention. In the very earliest
days of prehistoric research the Nabrigas Cave (Lozere) was excavated
by M. Joly, who found in it many fragments of pottery. In a volume
published shortly before his death he relates the circumstances of his
discovery, and earnestly maintains its authenticity. Later excavations,
made under the direction of masters in prehistoric science, would have
thrown some doubts on the assertions made by the professor of Toulouse,
if MM. Martel and Launay had not brought forward a fresh proof in
support of it. "On the 30th August, 1885,"[98] they say, "we picked
up at Nabrigas in a deep hole, untouched by previous excavations and
not displaced by water, some human bones and a piece of pottery side
by side with two skeletons of URSUS SPELAEUS. The human bones, of
indeterminate race, included an upper left maxillary, still retaining
three teeth, an incomplete mastoid apophysis, and seven pieces of
crania, belonging to different individuals. The piece of pottery only
measured one and a half by two and a quarter inches; the clay is gray
and friable, bound together with big bits of quartz, mica, and a few
particles of charcoal." There would appear to be no sufficient reason
to question the exactness of a discovery so carefully studied.
Many eminent archaeologists, however, maintain that pottery was
completely unknown in Paleolithic times, and they do not hesitate to
attribute to a later period any deposit in which it occurs where its
presence cannot be accounted for by later displacements. M. Cartailhac
declares that he has never been able to establish either in the south
of France or in the central table-land a single fact which justifies
us in asserting that the men of the Reindeer period, still less those
of earlier epochs, knew how to make pottery. The first explorers, he
adds, did not always distinguish with sufficient care the vestiges
of different epochs, the relics of diverse origins. How often have
bones carried along by water, or brought where they are found by
animals, been mixed with those abandoned by men, or the deposits of
the Neolithic period with those of the earliest Quaternary times! How
often have the contents of a passage giving access to a cave been
confounded with those of the cave itself! Hence deplorable errors,
which it is impossible to rectify now. Evans and Geikie in their
turn assert the absence in England[99] of Palaeolithic pottery,
and Sir J. Lubbock energetically maintains this opinion.
Doubtless these are great authorities, and yet, in view of the facts
now known, it is difficult to believe that man was long a stranger to
the art of making pottery. Its invention required no great effort of
intelligence, and its fabrication presented no great difficulties. Man
had but to knead the soft clay which he trod under his foot, and the
plasticity of which he could not fail to notice. This clay hardened
in the sun, and hollows were formed as it shrunk -- the first vessel
was discovered! Experience soon taught man to replace the heat of
the sun by that of the fire, and to add a few bits of some hard
substance to give the clay greater consistency. These first crude
and clumsy vases have been preserved to our own day as irrefutable
witnesses to the work of our ancestors. Though, therefore, we cannot
be sure that pottery was made in Quaternary times by all the races
that peopled Europe,[100] it is impossible to deny that a great many
of them were in possession of the art. This difference in the degree
of civilization attained to by men living but short distances from
each other need not surprise us, for all travellers report similar
facts amongst contemporary savage races.
The baking of pottery is a proof that the use of fire was known in
the most remote times. The existence in various places of masses
of cinders, fragments of charred wood, and half-calcined bones,
proves it yet more decidedly. At Solutre, at Louverne (Mayenne), at
Saint-Florent (Corsica), to give but a few examples, we find large
slabs of half-calcined stone, laid flat and covered with heaps of
cinders and all sorts of rubbish. These slabs formed the family hearth,
where man prepared his food, with the help of the fire he had learnt
to ignite and to keep burning.
How did man arrive at a discovery so vital to his existence? The Vedas
assign the origin of fire to the rubbing together in a storm of the dry
branches of trees. "The first men," says Vitruvius,[101] "were born,
as were other animals, in the forests, caves, and woods. The thick
trees violently agitated by the storm took fire, through the rubbing
together of their branches; the fury of the flames terrified the men
who found themselves near them and made them take to flight. Soon
reassured, however, they gradually approached again and realized all
the advantages they might gain for their bodies from the gentle warmth
of the fire. They added fuel to the flames, they kept the fire up,
they fetched other men whom they made understand by signs all the
usefulness of this discovery. The men thus assembled articulated a
few sounds, which, repeated every day, accidentally formed certain
words which served to designate objects, and soon they had a language
which enabled them to speak and to understand one another. It was,
then, the discovery of fire which led men to come together to form
a society, to live together, and to inhabit the same places."
Without pausing to consider the somewhat puerile theories of Vitruvius,
or the myths which testify to the importance attached to fire by
primeval man, we are at liberty to suppose that a conflagration caused
by lightning or by the spontaneous combustion of vegetable materials
in a state of fermentation, or other similar phenomena, made known to
man the power of fire, and the use it might be to him. The accidental
striking together of two flints produced a spark; observation taught
men to obtain a similar result by the same process; a great step in
advance was made, and the future of humanity was assured. M. Dupont
picked up in the Chaleux Cave a kidney-shaped piece of iron pyrites,
hollowed out in a peculiar manner, which had evidently been used to
obtain the precious spark. The Christy collection contains a granite
pebble with a hole the shape of a cup, which had evidently been used
to obtain fire, by rubbing round in it a stick of very dry wood. The
two methods employed at the present day were therefore already in
use. Lumholz tells us that the Australians of Herbert River get fire
by rubbing two pieces of wood together. The Indians of the northwest
of Colorado, the Yapais of the Caroline Islands, and the Mincopies of
the Andaman Isles, with many other races, know no other process. We
must, however, still maintain a certain reserve in dealing with the
fire-obtaining implements of so imperfect a nature, and belonging to
times so remote as those called prehistoric.
During bad seasons, or in the bitter cold of winter, primeval man
contented himself with flinging over his shoulders the skins of the
animals he had killed. He prepared these skins with flint scrapers,
and sewed them together with bone needles. In hot weather man probably
roamed about stark naked. Shame is not a natural instinct; education
alone develops it. Writing in 1617, Fynes Morison speaks of having
seen at Cork young girls quite naked, engaged in crushing corn with a
stone. The Tchoutchi women, says Nordenskiold, wear no clothes when in
their tents, however great the cold. In tropical countries men, women,
and children, all completely nude, went to meet the travellers who
landed on their shores. Count Ursel, in a recent journey in Bolivia,
in going through a little town, saw "near the public fountain some
young girls already growing up making their ablutions and playing about
in the garb of the earthly paradise." Travellers who visited Japan
a few years ago reported that the inhabitants, without distinction
of age or sex, came out of the water in a state of complete nudity,
presenting a strange spectacle to European eyes. The sight of what is
actually going on amongst comparatively civilized people in our own
day enables us to understand better what must have been the state of
things when the whole world was in a state of barbarism.
It was not until much later, in the times to which the name of
Neolithic has been given, that men made stuffs, and replaced the skins
of animals by lighter and more flexible garments. The inhabitants of
the Lake Stations of Switzerland and of Italy cultivated hemp. At
Wangen and at Robenhausen have been found shreds of coarsely woven
cloth, and at Lagozza fragments of yet more primitive material. On
some of these pieces it is supposed that traces of fringe and
attempts at ornamentation have been made out. Even in the Perigord
caves Lartet noticed some long slim needles which could not have been
used for sewing skins; and he concluded that they were intended for
more delicate work, perhaps even for embroidery. A new art, and one
which we certainly should not have expected to find is now met with
for the first time.
It is probable that our savage ancestors tatooed themselves, or painted
their bodies, as did the Britons in the time of Caesar, and as do
modern savages, or, not to go so far afield, as do English sailors
and some of the workingmen of France.[102] At Montastruc have been
picked up some fragments of red chalk, and in Mayenne of red iron ore,
whilst in the cave of Spy was found a bone filled with a very fine red
powder, and in that of Saltpetriere some powder of the same kind was
discovered preserved from destruction in a shell. Lartet and Christy
have made similar discoveries in the caves of the Dordogne; M. Dupont
in a shelter at Chaleux, and M. Riviere at Baousse-Rousse. The Abbe
Bourgeois found at Villehonneur not only a piece of red chalk as big
as a nut, but also an oval-shaped pebble, which had been used for
grinding it, the interstices of the surface still retaining traces
of coloring matter.
Red chalk was not the only substance employed. At Chatelperron, were
picked up fragments of manganese; at Cueva de Rocca, near Valentia,
pieces of cinnabar; in the Placard Cave, bits of black lead; and
in the different stations in the Pyrenees, especially in that of
Aurensan, ochre has been found which was doubtless used for the same
purpose. At Solutre, ochre, manganese, and graphite were found;
the last named had been scraped with a flint, and the scratches
made by it are still distinctly visible. From a Westphalian cave,
Schaafhausen took some dark yellow ochre; at Castern (Staffordshire),
a bit of this same calcareous substance, worn with long service,
was picked tip; in Cantire (Argyleshire), a piece of red hematite,
which had evidently been brought from Westmoreland or Lancashire;
and lastly, in Kent's Hole was found some peroxide of manganese.
All these fragments of ochre or manganese, red chalk or black lead,
were reduced to powder with the help of pebbles, artificially hollowed
out. Everywhere we meet with these primitive mortars, and side by
side with them other pebbles in their native condition, which had
evidently been used for crushing the coloring matter.
A recent discovery tends to confirm the hypothesis that these colors
were used for the decoration of the human body. A curious engraving
on a bone represents the head and arm of a man, and on the lower
part of the forearm it is easy to make out a four-sided design which
evidently indicated tatooing.
In every country, and in every climate, we find men as well as women
manifesting a taste for ornament. The progress of civilization has
greatly increased this taste, but it existed as a natural instinct
in the very earliest days of humanity, and the contemporary of the
mammoth and the cave-bear, the cave-man cowering in his miserable den,
sought for ornaments with which to deck himself. In the caves near the
stations occupied by primeval men we find little bits of fossil coral,
beads of hardened clay, the teeth of bears, wolves, and foxes, boars'
tusks, and the jawbones of small mammals, fish-bones, and belemnites
pierced with holes, and intended to be used as amulets or ornaments
to be worn round the neck. At Lafaye, we find the incisors of small
rodents serving the same purpose. The dweller in the Sordes Cave owned
a precious necklace made of forty bears' and three lions' teeth. The
teeth found often have on them ornamental lines, which doubtless
indicated the rank or celebrated the deeds of the chief. The Abbe
Bourgeois describes some stags' teeth found at Villehonneur (Charente),
two of which bore scratches which may have had some signification. At
Cro-Magnon were picked up some ivory plaques pierced with three
holes; at Kent's bole were found some oval disks measuring five by
three inches, which in the delicacy of their workmanship presented a
curious contrast to the other objects taken from the same cave. In the
Belgian caves here picked up some thin slices of jet and some ivory
plaques, and in those of the south of France fragments of steatite,
cut into rectangular and lozenge shapes, whilst in the Thayngen Cave
was found a pendant of lignite (Fig. 27). Men were not content with
natural products; fashion demanded new forms and fresh materials.
FIGURE 27
1. Lignite pendant. 2. Bone pendant (Thayngen Cave).
But what most attracted the attention of the ancient inhabitants
of France were bright-colored shells. The caves of Roquemaure have
yielded nearly a thousand disks and beads made of cockle-shells;
at Cro-Magnon more than three hundred shells were picked up which
formed a collar or necklace, which was not however so valuable
as that of the man of Sordes. M. de Maret discovered at Placard
numerous shells; some belonging to ocean species still extant, and
others fossils of forms now extinct. Many of them are foreign to the
country in which they were found. From the most remote times therefore
the inhabitants of the present department of Charente fished in the
Gulf of Gascony, crossed Aquitania, visited the shell marl deposits
of Anjou and Touraine, and penetrated as far as the present Paris
basin. The finding of the CYPRINA ISLANDICA in one of the French
caves proves that the prehistoric men of France even went as far
away as the north of England. This is by no means an isolated fact;
numerous shells from the department of Champagne had been taken to
tire shores of the Lesse and the Meuse. At Solutre have been found
belemnites, ammonites, and Miocene shells, which were certainly never
native to that district, with pieces of rock-crystal from the Alps,
and beads made of a jadeite of unknown origin.
In Scotland have been found necklaces of nerites and limpets;
at Aurignac, eighteen little plaques of cockle shell pierced with
holes in the centre. At Laugerie-Basse, a man overtaken by a landslip
had been crushed by the stones which had fallen upon him; time has
destroyed his clothes, but the shells with which he had decked himself
are still preserved.[103] He had worn four on his forehead, two on
each shoulder, four on each knee, and two on each foot. All idea of
these shells having formed a necklace must be abandoned; they were
all notched, and had been used either. to adorn or fasten the clothes.
The most interesting discoveries, however, were those made in the caves
of Baousse-Rousse, of which we have so often spoken. M. Riviere picked
up the skeletons of two children, some thousand shells (NASSA NERITEA)
artificially pierced, which had been used to deck their garments: Near
an adult were other shells forming a necklace, a bracelet, an amulet,
and a garter worn on the left leg; whilst on the head was a regular
RESILLE or net, not unlike that of the Spanish national costume, which
net was made of small nerita shells and kept in place by bone pins.
We must also mention amongst favorite ornaments beads made of
jet and of very fine ochreous clay dried in the sun, of calcareous
crystalline rock, and of grayish schist, and in other places of beads
of amber or of hyaline quartz, the brightness of which attracted the
attention. At the station of Menieux (Charente) with flints of a type
to which it is usual to give the names of Mousterien or Solutreen,
excavations have yielded numerous carefully polished balls of calx,
varying in diameter from one to two inches. If there had been any
doubts as to their use, those doubts would have been removed by the
discovery at Laugerie-Basse of a fragment of the shoulder-blade of a
reindeer on which was engraved the figure of a woman wearing round her
neck a necklace of clumsy round balls. Other yet stranger ornaments
have been found, for which what we have said about the cannibalism
of early man should have prepared the reader. Our ancestors of the
Stone age adorned themselves with necklaces of human teeth, and two
skeletons have been dug out wearing round their necks this token of
their victories. M. de Baye possesses in his collection some round
pieces of skull pierced with holes (Fig. 28), and at the meeting
of the American Association in 1886, at Ann Arbor (Michigan) were
presented some ornaments made of human bones from a mound in Ohio.
In taking from the gangue in which it was imbedded a skull from the
megalithic monument of Vaureal, Pruner Bey noticed a fragment of a
human shoulder blade pierced with an incision in which was fixed
a little rounded piece of bone. This style of ornament seems to
have remained in use for many centuries, for M. Nicaise has lately
discovered at Moulin d'Oyes (Marne) a necklace made of calx balls,
shells, and pendants cut out of the scales of unio shells. On this
necklace hung a round piece of human cranium, and in the Gallic
cemetery at Varille, the exterior lamina of a human lumbar vertebra
was fastened to a necklace made of coral beads.
FIGURE 28
Round pieces of skull pierced with holes (Al. de Baye's collection).
We are also acquainted with facts of another order, which may be
mentioned in this connection. The men of Marjevols drank out of human
crania; the Grenoble Museum owns a drinking-vessel of this kind; others
have been discovered at Billancourt, at Chavannes, at the Chassey
Camp, and at Sutz, AEfele, and Loci-as in Switzerland, as well as
at Brookville in the State of Indiana. Dr. Prunieres possesses half
a human radius, probably that of a female, carefully polished and
converted into a stiletto (Fig. 29). Dr. Garrigou has an arrow-head
made of a human bone, Pellegrino a fibula converted into a polisher
found in the lower beds of the celebrated Castione TERREMARE near
Parma. At the meeting of the Prehistoric Congress in Paris in 1869,
Pereira da Costa mentioned a femora converted into a sceptre or staff
of office, and to conclude this melancholy list, Longperier mentions
a human bone pierced with regular openings, which, by a strange irony
of death, served as a flute to delight the ears of the living. .
FIGURE 29
Part of a rounded piece of a human parietal-Stiletto made of the end
of a human radius -- Disk made of the burr of a stag's antler.
One of the earliest necessities of human nature must have been
companionship; for help was absolutely necessary to enable man to
cope with the dangers surrounding him. Tribes, formed at first of
members of the same family, must have existed from the very dawn
of humanity. The reindeer phalanges, pierced to serve as whistles
(Fig. 30), found at Eyzies, Schussenreid, Laugerie-Basse, Bruniquel,
in the Chaffaud Cave and the Belgian shelters, in a peat-marsh of
Scania, in the island of Palmaria, and in many other places, were
doubtless used to summon men to war or to the chase. In the Cottes Cave
were found some reindeer and aurochs' shanks, which may naturally be
supposed to have served the same purpose. The curious objects preserved
in the Christy collections must also have been used in war or in the
chase. They bear, in addition to the mark of their owner, notches of
different shapes commemorating his exploits in battle or in hunting. At
Solutre, MM. Ducrost and Arcelin noticed fragments of elephants'
tusks, calcareous plaques, and some sandstone disks from the Trias,
with notches and equidistant lines evidently having a similar purpose.
FIGURE 30
Whistle from the Massenat Collection.
From whistles to regular musical instruments the transition is
simple. Without describing that mentioned by M. de Longperier, which
we cannot confidently assert to be of great antiquity, M. Piette,
in one of his numerous excavations, discovered a primitive flute made
of two bird bones which, when put together and blown into, produced
modulations similar to those of the pipes used by the people of
Oceania; the monotonous music of which is alluded to by Cook. Some
time afterwards M. Piette noticed similar bones in the Rochebertier
collection. So far we know of no other discovery of a similar kind.
The curious objects known under the name of staves of office would,
if it were needed, afford yet another proof that the men of the Stone
age lived in societies, possessed an organization, and acknowledged
a chief. The staves of office consist of large pieces of reindeer
or stag antler, artistically worked and presenting a pretty uniform
appearance. Their surface is decorated with carvings and engravings
representing animals, plants, and hunting scenes. They are thicker
than they are wide, and the care often taken to reduce the thickness
is a proof that an attempt was made to combine elegance and lightness
with solidity (Figs. 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35). Nearly all of them are
pierced at one end with large holes, of which the number varies. Some
of these holes were later additions. May we perhaps see in them the
signs of a priesthood, in which successive ranks were attained, and in
which every new achievement was rewarded with a new distinction? This
is difficult to prove, but these staves could not have been used as
weapons or as tools; the care taken to cover them with ornaments,
with the long time required for this decoration, shows the value their
owners attached to them. The impossibility of any other hypothesis
is the best proof we have of their use.
FIGURE 31
Staff of office.
Amongst the marvellous objects collected by Dr. Schliemann at
Hissarlik, were two fragments of reindeer antler pierced with holes
presenting a singular resemblance to those we have been describing. We
may also compare with them the POGOMAGAN, the badge of office of Indian
chiefs on the Mackenzie River, the Tartar KEMOUS, the sticks on which
the Australians mark by conventional signs any event of importance to
themselves or their tribe, and the similar objects from Persia, Assam,
the Celebes, and New Zealand. But why seek examples so far away? Is
not the memory of these ancient insignia preserved in our own day,
and may they not have been the original forms of the sceptres of our
kings and the croziers of our bishops?
FIGURE 32
Staff of office made of stag-horn pierced with four holes.
FIGURE 33
Staff of office found at Lafaye.
FIGURE 34
Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it,
found at Thayngen.
These staves, of which hundreds have now been found, were picked up
in many different places, including the Goyet Cave in Belgium, the
caves of Perigord and Charente, and the Veyrier Station in Savoy. At
Thayngen, as many as twenty-three were found, all pierced with one
hole only.[104] We must not omit to mention amongst these relies of
ages gone by, one of the most interesting found in 1887 at Montgaudier
(Charente) (Fig. 35), which bears on one side a representation of two
seals, and on the other of two eels, the former of which especially are
executed with a truth to form, boldness of execution, and delicacy of
touch which are positively astonishing when we remember that the artist
(we cannot refuse him this title) bad no tools at his disposal but
a few miserable flints or roughly pointed bones. The hinder limbs,
so strangely placed in amphibia, are faithfully rendered; each paw
has its five toes, the texture of the skin can be made out, the head
is delicately modelled; the muzzle with its whiskers, the eye, the
orifice of the ear, all testify to real skill. The existence of the
seal in the Quaternary epoch in the south of France was not known
until quite recently, when Mr. Hardy found in a cave near Perigueux
the remains of a seal (PHOCA GROENLANDICA), associated with quite an
arctic fauna. In part at least therefore of the Quaternary period,
very great cold must have prevailed in Perigord.[105]
With this staff of office were picked up some pieces of ivory
covered with geometrical designs, engraved with some sharp implement,
stilettos, bone needles, knives, flint scrapers, and, stranger still,
the remains of the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the RHINOCEROS
TICHORHINUS, all contemporaries of the most ancient Quaternary fauna.
FIGURE 35
Staff of office found at Montgaudier.
It was not only on the staves of office that the men of the Stone age
exercised their talent. Many and varied are the subjects which have
been found engraved on plaques of ivory or on stone, and incised on
bears' teeth or on stag horn. We represent one forming the hilt of
a dagger (Fig. 36), and another representing a bear with the convex
forehead, characteristic of the species, engraved on a piece of schist
(Fig. 37), and a mammoth engraved on an ivory plaque with its long
mane, trunk, and curved tusks (Fig. 38). The artist who depicted
these animals with such faithful exactitude evidently lived amongst
them. The first discovery of this kind was made by Joly-Leterme in
the Chaffaud Cave (Vienna); it was a reindeer bone on which two stags
were represented.[106]
FIGURE 36
Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Basse).
FIGURE 37
The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found in the Massat Cave
(Garrigou collection).
In the Lortet Cave was found the bone of a stag on which could be
made out a representation of fish and reindeer, whilst at Sordes was
discovered a bear's tooth with a seal engraved upon it (Fig. 39), at
Marsoulas a piece of rib on which is depicted an animal said to be a
musk-ox (Fig. 40), and at Feyjat (Dordogne) a bird's bone bearing on
it a drawing of three horses moving rapidly along. I am obliged to
pass over many other most interesting examples, but I must not omit
to mention the magnificent examples which form part of the Peccadeau
collection at Lisle. Cartailhac mentions some chamois, an ox, and an
elephant; some engraved on the bones of deer and others on fragments
of ivory, or on reindeer antlers. The art of the cave-men was now at
its zenith.
FIGURE 38
Mammoth, or elephant, from the Lena Cave.
FIGURE 39
Seal engraved on a bear's tooth found at Sordes.
But for one exception to which I shall refer again, it is curious to
note that we only find these engravings and carvings, which so justly
excite our astonishment in a district of limited extent, bounded on
the north by the Charente, on the south by the Pyrenees and extending
on the east no farther than the department of the Ariege. It is a
pleasant thought that in the midst of their struggle for existence,
and when they had to contend with gigantic pachyderms and formidable
beasts of prey, our most remote ancestors, the contemporaries of the
mammoth and the lion, already developed those artistic tendencies
which are the glory of their descendants.
FIGURE 40
Fragment of a bone with regular designs. Fragment of rib on which is
engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas Cave.
FIGURE 41
Head of a horse from the Thayngen Cave.
FIGURE 42
Bear engraved on a bone from the Thayngen Cave.
I referred above to ail exceptional example of prehistoric art found
beyond the borders of France. In excavations in the Thayngen Cave,
on the borders of Switzerland and Wurtemberg, twenty most remarkable
examples were found, in which it is easy to recognize the horse
(Fig. 41), the bear (Fig. 42), and the reindeer grazing (Fig. 43).[107]
All, especially the last named, are rendered with such perfection,
that it was at first supposed that they were the work of a forger. A
searching inquiry has proved that they are nothing of the sort;
a skilful zoologist would have been needed to represent the OVIBOS
MOSCHATUS (Fig. 44), which retired many centuries ago towards the
extreme north. If we do find a few rare attempts at art in other
districts, they are absolutely rudimentary. The staff of office found
in the Goyet Cave is of very rude workmanship. The Brussels Museum
contains a few other specimens, of which the most important is a
fragment of sandstone from the Frontal Cave, on which a few uncertain
scratches represent what looks like a stag. Some indistinct traces of
engraving have been made out on the bones found in the Altamira Cave,
near Santander, and recently a bone on which a kind of horse was
engraved, was picked up at Cresswell's Crags, Derbyshire, in a cave
known in the district as MOTHER GRUNDY'S PARLOR. This specimen, as were
those of Thayngen, was associated with numerous bones of Quaternary
animals, amongst which those of the hippopotamus were the most curious.
FIGURE 43
Reindeer grazing, from the Thayngen Cave.
The representation of the human figure is extremely rare. I have
already mentioned the young man trying to strike an aurochs which is
running away from him; and the woman wearing a necklace. The former
(Fig. 45), found at Laugerie, is engraved on a piece of reindeer
antler about twenty-five centimetres long. The aurochs with its head
down and quantities of bristling hair, widely open nostrils, arched
and uplifted tail, presents the appearance of a terrified animal
endeavoring to escape the danger threatening it. The man is naked,
and has a round head, his hair is stiff and seems to stand up on the
top of his skull; on the chin a short beard can clearly be made out;
the face expresses the delight and excitement of the chase. The neck
is long, the arm short, and the spine of unusual length. In the other
example of the representation of the human figure, that of the woman
wearing a necklace, drawn on a piece of a shoulder-blade of a reindeer,
she is seen lying by a stag, and would seem to be in an advanced state
of pregnancy. The piece of bone however is broken, and the head of the
woman is lost, which of course greatly lessens the value of the relic.
FIGURE 44
Head of OVIBOS MOSCHATUS engraved on wood, found in the Thayngen Cave.
FIGURE 45
Young man chasing the aurochs, from Laugerie.
On a fragment of a staff of office from the Madeleine Cave is
engraved a man between two horses' heads (Fig. 46). On a reindeer
antler is represented a woman with flat breasts and very high hips,
followed by a serpent; a shell from the crag near Walton-on-the-Naze
had a human face roughly engraved on one side. The Abby, Bourgeois,
in the excavations so fruitful of results at Rochebertier, found a
rough carving of a human face (Fig. 47); M. Piette at Mas d'Azil
found a little bust of a woman, carved on the root of the tooth
of a horse. This statuette had a low forehead, a prominent nose, a
retreating chin, and breasts of the negress type of the present day;
characteristics quite unlike those of the skeletons taken from this
cave or those near it. We wonder whether the artist meant to represent
the features of a race other than his own.[108] M. du Bouchet mentions
a rough sketch engraved on a flint discovered near Dax; the workman,
doubtless daunted by the difficulties of his task, had abandoned it
unfinished. It is, however, easy to tell what it was meant for. The
skull is low and flat, the nose but slightly prominent, the eyes
are oblique, and neither the mouth nor the chin are finished. The
magnificent collection of the Marquis de Vibraye contains a little
figure from Laugerie, representing a nude woman without arms. Thin
and stiff, she is chiefly remarkable for the exaggerated size of the
sexual organs, and for some peculiar protuberances on the loins. We
dwell upon the former peculiarity, because it is so far extremely
rare, whereas certain relics of the Greeks and Romans, in spite of
the comparatively advanced civilization of these two great races,
are such that they can only be exhibited in private museums. Such
depravity as this implies was then quite an exception among the
cave-men, and but for the one example I have just mentioned, I have no
phallic representations to refer to except the few from the Massenat
collection, which were shown at the Exhibition of 1889.
FIGURE 46
Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madeleine Cave.
FIGURE 47
Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the Rochebertier Cave
(Charente).
We must not close this account of the art efforts of the men of the
Stone age without mentioning the remarkable discovery by M. Siette,
of flints covered with lines and geometrical designs colored with red
chalk. These are the very earliest examples of the art of painting
which have hitherto come to our knowledge. They bear witness to a
remarkable progress made by our remote ancestors of the valleys of
the Pyrenees.
We cannot more appropriately close this chapter than by quoting
the magnificent verse of Lucretius, which brings before us, better
than could a long description, the condition of these men, and the
humble starting-point from which humanity has advanced to achieve
its immortal destiny:
Necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti
Pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,
Sed nemora atque caveos monteis sylvasque colebant
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra
Verbera ventorum vitare imbreisque coactei.[109]
CHAPTER IV
Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, "Terremares," Crannoges,
Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti," and "Truddhi."
The earliest races of men lived in a climate less rigorous than ours,
on the shores of wide rivers, in the midst of fertile districts,
where fishing and the chase easily supplied all their needs. These
races were numerous and prolific, and we find traces of them all
over Western Europe, from Norfolk to the middle of Spain. What
were the homes of these men and their families? Did they crouch
in dens, as Tacitus says the German tribes did in his day? In his
"Ancient Wiltshire," Sir R. Coalt Hoare says that the earliest human
habitations were holes dug in the earth and covered over with the
branches of trees. Near Joigny there still remain some circular
holes in the ground, about fifty feet in diameter by sixteen to
twenty deep, known in the country under the name of BUVARDS. The
trunk of a tree was fixed at the bottom and rose above the ground,
and the branches plastered with clay formed the roof. The floor
of these BUVARDS consists of a greasy black earth mixed with bones,
cinders, charcoal, and worked flints. Amongst the last named, polished
hatchets predominate, which proves that these refuges were inhabited
in Neolithic times, but there is nothing to prevent our supposing that
they were also occupied in the Palaeolithic period. Ameghino gives a
still more striking example of an earth-dwelling. Near Mercedes, about
twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres, he picked up numerous human bones,
together with arrow-heads, chisels, flint knives, bone stilettos and
polishers, and bones of animals scratched and cut by man. Later,
Ameghino discovered the actual dwelling of this primeval man, and
his strange home was beneath the carapace of a gigantic armadillo,
the now extinct glyptodon seen in Fig. 48.
FIGURE 48
The glyptodon.
"All around the carapace," says Ameghino, "in the reddish agglomerate
of the original. soil lay charcoal cinders, burnt and split bones,
and flints. Digging beneath this, a flint implement was found, with
some long split llama and stag bones, which had evidently been handled
by man, with some toxodon and mylodon teeth." Fig. 49 represents
the now extinct mylodon. Some time afterwards, the discovery of
another carapace under similar conditions added weight to Ameghino's
supposition.[110] In the midst of the pampas, those vast treeless
plains, where no rock or accident of conformation affords shelter
from heat or cold or a hiding-place from wild beasts, man was not at
a loss; he hollowed out for himself a hole in the earth, roofing it
over with the shell of a glyptodon, and securing a retreat where he
could be safe at least for a time.
FIGURE 49
Mylodon robustus.
It was not until later, driven to do so by the cold, that man learnt
to use the natural caves hollowed out in limestone rocks, either in
geological convulsions or by the quieter action of water. The absence
in the caves which have been excavated in America of implements of
the Chelleen type, the most ancient known as yet, would point to
this conclusion, though it is impossible to fix the earliest date of
their occupation. This date, moreover, varies very much in different
localities. The earth was but gradually peopled, and our ancestors
penetrated into different countries in successive migrations. Some
caves have recently been discovered in Wales, in the midst of Glacial
deposits.[111] The Boulder Clay and marine drift on neighboring heights
are incontrovertible proofs of the submergence of this region, when
Great Britain was almost completely covered with ice. Excavations
made in 1886 have brought to light a series of deposits, one above
the other, the gravel and red earth containing Quaternary bones and
worked flints, whilst the stalagmite and ooze are evidently of more
recent origin. This is the usual state of things in all the English
eaves; but in those of the Clyde, the bone beds had been disturbed and
mixed with striated pebbles and Glacial drift. From this Hicks, who
superintended the excavations, concluded that man and the Quaternary
animals had lived in those caves before the Glacial epoch, and before
the great submergence, which in some places was no less than some 1,300
feet below the present level of the sea. If this were so, it would be
one of the most ancient proofs not only of the presence of man, but
also of the kind of habitation he first dwelt in. These conclusions
have, however, been hotly disputed. M. Arcelin[112] remarks that there
are in England two exceptional geological landmarks, the Forest Bed
representing the last Pliocene formations, and the River Gravels,
which are the most ancient Quaternary deposits. Between the two, we
find the Boulder Clay of Glacial origin. Now the fauna of the caves
of the Clyde, far from resembling that of the Forest Bed, appears
to be more recent than that of the ancient deposits of the River
Gravels. Amongst this fauna we find neither the ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS nor
the RHINOCEROS MERCKII; the worked flints are not like those known as
belonging to the River-Gravel type, but the relics more nearly resemble
those of the Reindeer period of France. It is therefore impossible,
in the present state of our knowledge, to assert that man lived in the
southwest of England in the Glacial epoch, to the phenomena of which,
if he witnessed them, he must eventually have fallen a victim.
Our ancestors must constantly have disputed the possession of
their caves of refuge with animals, but there is often a certain
distinction between those chiefly occupied by man and the mere dens
of wild beasts. The latter are generally more difficult of access,
and are only to be entered by long, low, narrow, dark passages. Those
permanently inhabited by man are wide, not very deep, and they are well
lighted. That at Montgaudier, for instance, has an arched entrance
some forty-five feet wide by eighteen high. The cave-men had already
learnt to appreciate the advantages of air and light.
The caves are often of considerable height; that of Massat is some
560 feet high, that of Lherm is 655, that of Bouicheta nearly 755,
that of Loubens 820, and that of Santhenay is, as much as 1,344
feet high. Those of Eyzies, Moustier, and Aurignac are also very
lofty. As the valleys were hollowed out by the rushing torrents of
the Quaternary floods, men sought a home near the waters which were
indispensable to their existence, and came to dwell on the shores
of rivers. The most ancient of the inhabited caves, therefore, are
those on the highest levels, but the difference in the nature of the
country and the varying force of geological action have led to so many
exceptions, that all we can say with any certainty is that the caves
were inhabited at different epochs. That of Montgaudier, for instance,
was filled with an accumulation of ooze about forty feet thick. Weapons
and tools lay one above the other from the bottom to the top, and it is
easy to distinguish the succession of hearths by the blackened earth,
cinders, charcoal, and crushed bones lying about them.
In the Placard Cave eight different deposits bear witness to the
presence of man; and these are separated by others bare of traces of
human occupation. The lowest deposit, which is some twenty-five feet
below the present level of the soil, contains worked flints of the
Mousterien type, above which, but separated by an accumulation of
DEBRIS which has fallen from the roof, comes a layer in which was
found a number of arrow-heads of the shape of laurel leaves. The
fauna of both these levels includes the reindeer, the horse, and
the aurochs. As we go up we find, above another layer of DEBRIS, the
Solutreen type of tools and weapons represented by bone implements
and numerous arrow-heads, this time stalked and notched. The four
following levels correspond with those belonging to what is known as
the Madeleine type, and the arrow-heads are decorated with geometrical
designs. The traces of human occupation at different times, doubtless
separated by long intervals, are therefore very clearly defined. The
Fontabert Cave, in Dauphine, contained, at a depth of about six feet,
traces of fire and roughly worked flints, and about three feet below
the surface lay the skeleton of a man, who had perhaps been overtaken
by a fall of earth, still holding in his hand a polished dipper of
fine workmanship. Yet a third and evidently more recent period is
characterized by a jade crescent. We might easily multiply instances
of a similar kind, but that we wish to avoid so much repetition.
We soon begin to find evidence of the progress made by man, and though
in Neolithic times he still continued to occupy caves he learned to
adapt them better to his needs. The rock shelters of the Petit-Morin
valley, so well explored by M. de Baye, are the best examples we
can give.
These caves are hollowed out of a very thick belt of cretaceous
limestone. They date from different epochs, and each presents special
characteristics which can easily be recognized. Some were used as
burial-places, others as habitations. In the former the entrance is
of irregular shape, the walls are roughly cut, and the work is of
the most elementary description. The sepulchral eaves were simply
closed by a large stone rolled into place and covered with rubbish,
the better to hide the entrance. The shelters used to live in show
much more careful work, and are divided into two unequal parts by a
wall cut in the living rock. To get into the second partition one has
to go down steps, cut in the limestone, and these steps are worn with
long usage. The entrance was cut out of a massive piece of rock, left
thick on purpose, and on either side of the opening the edges still
show the rabbet which was to receive the door. Two small holes on the
right and left were probably used to fix a bar across the front to
strengthen the entrance. A good many of these eaves are provided with
an opening for ventilation, and some skilful contrivances were resorted
to for keeping out water. Inside we find different floors, shelves,
and crockets cut in the chalk, and on the floors M. de Baye picked up
shells, ornaments, and flints, which were lying just where their owners
had left them. Very different is all this from the Vezere caves, and
everything proves an undeniable improvement in the conditions of life.
The most interesting of all the objects found in these caves
are, however, the carvings; but few date from Neolithic times,
and some archaeologists have argued from their absence in favor
of the displacement everywhere of old races by the incursion of
new-corners. Some of these carvings represent hafted hatchets,
the flint being painted black to make the raised design stand out
better. Others represent human figures. In the Coizard Cave, for
instance, was found a roughly outlined representation of a woman with a
prominent nose, eyes indicated by black dots, highly developed breasts,
but no lower limbs. A necklace adorns her throat, and a pendant hanging
from this necklace is colored yellow. On the passage leading to the
door is engraved another figure which was originally more accurately
drawn than the others, but is not in such good preservation. In the
Courjonnet Cave we see a woman with a bird's bead; she was probably
one of the LARES PENATES, the protectors of the domestic hearth. We
meet with this same goddess at Santorin, and at Troy, and on the
shores of the Vistula, which is a very interesting ethnological fact.
The objects found in the sepulchral caves are important, and included
a number of arrow-heads with transverse cutting edges. There is no
doubt about their use; they have been picked up in black earth, in
contact with human bones, the decomposition of the soft parts of which
caused them to fall out of the mortal wound they had inflicted. With
these arrow-heads were found flint knives, large sloped scrapers,
polishers, and bone stilettos, the femora of a ruminant with a pig's
tooth fixed on to each end, hoes made of stag horn, beads and pendants
made of bone, shell, schist, quartz, and aragonite, with the teeth of
bears, boars, wolves, and foxes, all pierced with holes. Some of the
shell anti schist beads were spread upon the surface of the skull,
and perhaps formed a net or RESILLE, such as that already referred
to as found at Baousse-Rousse.
For centuries this occupation of caves continued, offering as they did
a shelter that was dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer. Homer
tells us that the Cyclops lived on the heights of the mountains
and in the depths of the caves,[113] and Prometheus says that, like
the feeble ant, men dwelt in deep subterranean caves, where the sun
never penetrated.[114]
Whilst the men of the Petit-Morin valley hollowed out caves, or
enlarged those made by nature, others took refuge in buts made of
dried clay and interlaced branches, or in tents of the skins of
the animals they had slain, and, though these fragile dwellings have
disappeared, leaving no trace, there yet remain indelible evidences of
the presence of many successive generations. Everywhere throughout the
world we find heaps of rubbish, consisting chiefly of the shells of
mollusca and crustacea, broken bones, flakes of flint, and fragments
of stone and bone implements, covering vast areas and often rising
to a considerable height.
Not until our own day did these rubbish heaps attract attention,
and it was reserved to our own generation, so interested in all that
relates to the past, to recognize their true significance. Steenstrup
noticed, in the north of Europe, that these mounds consisted nearly
entirely of the shells of edible species, such as the oyster, mussel,
and LITTORINA LITTOREA; that they were all those of adult specimens,
but not all subject to similar conditions of existence or native to
the same waters. The kitchen-middings, or heaps of kitchen refuse --
such was the name given to these shell-mounds -- could not have been
the natural deposits left by the waves after storms, for in that case
they would have been mixed with quantities of sand and pebbles. The
conclusion is inevitable, that man alone could have piled up these
accumulations, which were the refuse flung away day by day after
his meals. The excavation of the kitchen-middings confirmed in
a remarkable manner the opinion of Steenstrup, and everywhere a
number of important objects were discovered. In several places the
old hearths were brought to light. They consisted of flat stones, on
which were piles of cinders, with fragments of wood and charcoal. It
was now finally proved that these mounds occupied the site of ancient
settlements, the inhabitants of which rarely left the coast, and fed
chiefly on the mollusca which abounded in the waters of the North Sea.
These primeval races, however savage they may have been, were not
wanting in intelligence. The earliest inhabitants of Russia placed
their dwellings near rivers above the highest flood-level known
to or foreseen by them. The Scandinavians were most precise in the
orientation of their homes, and M. de Quatrefages points out that the
kitchen-midding of Soelager is set against a hill in the best position
for protecting those who lived near it from the north winds, which are
so trying in these districts on account of their violence. At Havelse,
says Sir John Lubbock, the settlement was on rather higher ground, and,
though close to the shore, was quite beyond the reach of the waves. The
English visitors had an excavation made whilst they were present,
and in two or three hours they obtained about a hundred fragments
of bone, many rude flakes, sling stones, and fragments of flint,
together with some rough axes of the ordinary shell-mound type. The
excavations at Meilgaard a little later by the same explorers were
even more fruitful in results.
Scandinavia does not appear to have been occupied in the Paleolithic
period, and the most ancient facts concerning it only date from the
expeditions of the Romans against the Teutons, and our knowledge even
of them is very incomplete.[115] We are still ignorant of much which
may have been known to the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians. It is
possible that in the remote days under notice the Scandinavians were
ignorant of the art of tilling the ground, for so far no cereal or
agricultural product of any kind has been discovered, nor the bones
of any domestic animal, except indeed those of the dog, which may,
however, have been still in a wild state. Amongst the bones collected
from the kitchen-middings, those of the stag, the kid, and the boar
are much the most numerous. The bear, the urns, the wild cat, the
otter, the porpoise, the seal, and the small mammals, the marten,
the water-rat and the mouse, have also been found. At Havelse were
collected more than 3,500 mammal bones, amongst which do not occur
those of the musk-ox, the reindeer, the elk, or the marmot; their
absence bearing witness to a more temperate climate than that of
the present day in the regions under notice. The stag antlers found
belong to every season of the year, from which we may conclude that
the people of these districts, like the cave-men of the Pyrenees,
had given up a nomad life and remained at home all the year round,
living in the dwellings they had built upon the shores of the sea.
Amongst the birds found, we may mention the large penguin, now extinct,
the moor-fowl, which fed entirely on pine buds, and several species
of clucks and geese; whilst amongst the fish were the herring, the
cod, the dab, and the eel. The numerous relics of chelonia prove the
existence of numbers of the turtle tribe in the North Sea.
A great variety of objects, most of them of a coarse type, have been
found beneath the kitchen-middings; metals are however completely
absent, and it is probable that they were quite unknown to the
Scandinavians for several centuries after their arrival in the country.
It is easy to quote similar facts in other countries. In 1877,
Count Ouvarof mentioned, at the Archaeological Congress at Kazan,
some kitchen-middings near the Oka, a little river flowing into the
Volga near Nijni-Novgorod. In excavating some BOUGRYS, or little
mounds of sand overlooking the valley, he discovered amongst the
layers of alluvium, successive deposits of cinders and fragments of
charcoal, which appear to have been the remains of a fire. A little
lower down in another deposit were fragments of pottery, stone weapons
and implements, and an immense number of shells. Judging from these
relics of their daily life, this numerous population must have fed
exclusively on fish and mollusca, for excavations brought to light but
few mammal bones. The mollusca were all of species that only live in
salt water. From this we know that the waves washed the shores near
this BOUGRY, and that a milder climate probably prevailed in these
regions, making life more supportable.
Virchow has recognized on the shores of Lake Burtneek in Germany, a
kitchen-midding belonging to the earliest Neolithic times, perhaps
even to the close of the Palaeolithic period. He there picked
up some stone and bone implements, and notices on the one hand
the absence of the reindeer, and on the other, as in Scandinavia,
that of domestic animals. But in this case, the home of the living
became the tomb of the dead, and numerous skeletons lay beside the
abandoned hearths. Similar discoveries have been made in Portugal;
shell-heaps having been found thirty-five to forty miles from the
coast, and from sixty-five to eighty feet above the sea-level. Here
also excavations have brought to light several different hearths;
and in many of the most ancient kitchen-middings in the valley of the
Tigris were found crouching skeletons, proving that here too the home
had become the tomb.[116]
Similar deposits are by no means rare in France. M. du Chatellier
mentions one in Brittany, which he estimates as 325 cubic feet in
size. From it be has taken spear- and arrow-heads, knives and scrapers,
some highly finished, others but roughly cut and often with scarcely
any shape at all. The population was evidently ichthyophagous,
to judge by the vast accumulations of shells of scallops, oysters,
limpets, pectens, and other mollusca. The few animal bones are those
of the stag, the bear, and certain wading birds.
At Canche, near Etaples, has been evade out a series of mounds forming
a semicircle some eight hundred and fifty feet in extent. These mounds
are made up of successive layers of shells and charcoal, the relics
of successive occupations. Lastly we must mention a kitchen-midding
situated at the mouth of the Somme, which is eight hundred and
twenty feet long by about one hundred wide. It consists principally
of shells of adult species, with which are mixed fragments of coarse
black pottery and numerous goat and sheep bones, the latter bearing
witness to a more recent date than that of the kitchen-middings of
Scandinavia or of Germany.
Throughout Europe similar facts are coming to light. Evans mentions
heaps of shells on the coasts of England. Chantre speaks of others
near Lake Gotchai in the Caucasus, and Nordenskiold of others at Cape
North, to which he wishes to restore its true name of Jokaipi. He
sass these mounds are exactly like those of Denmark.
It is, however, chiefly in America that these heaps attract attention,
for there huge shell-mounds stretch along the coast in Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, California, and Nicaragua. We
meet with them again near the Orinoco and the Mississippi, in the
Aleutian Islands, and in the Guianas, in Brazil and in Patagonia,
on the coasts of the Pacific as on those of the Atlantic. Owing to
the darker color of the vegetation growing on them, the shell-heaps
of Tierra del Fuego are seen from afar by the navigator. For a long
time the true character of these mounds was not known, and they were
attributed to natural causes, such as the emergence of the ancient
coast-line from the sea, and it was not until lately that it was
discovered that they were the work of men.
Some of these kitchen-middings are of great size. Sir Charles Lyell
describes one on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth of the Altamaha
(Georgia), which covers ten acres of ground and varies in height from
five to ten feet. It consisted almost entirely of oyster shells. In
America, as in Europe, excavations brought to light hatchets,
flints, arrows, and fragments of pottery. Another of these mounds,
near the St. John River, consists, as does that visited by Lyell,
of oyster shells, and is of extraordinary dimensions, being three
hundred feet long, and though the exact width cannot be made out, is
certainly several hundred feet across. Putnam[117] gives an account
of the excavation of one of these mounds formed of shells of the MYA,
VENUS, PECTEN, BUCCINUM, and NATICA genera. It stretched along the
sea-coast for a distance of several hundred feet, it was from four to
five feet thick, and penetrated some distance below the surface of the
ground. The valves had been opened with the aid of heat, and the animal
bones found with the shells had been broken with heavy hammers which
were found in the kitchen-midding. The bones included those of the
stag, the wolf, and the fox. Fishes were also represented by remains
of the cod, the plaice, and chelonia by turtle shells. Some bird bones
were also found, and the knives, arrow- and spear-heads, scrapers,
etc., were all of the rudest workmanship. Mr. Phelps has superintended
yet more important excavations at Damariscotta[118] and all along the
coast to the month of the Penobscot. In the lowest layers he made
out ancient hearths, and found numerous fragments of pottery which
are the most ancient examples of keramic ware found in New England,
and were covered with incised ornamentation of considerable refinement.
The kitchen-middings of Florida and Alabama are even more
remarkable. There is one on Amelia Island which is a quarter of
a mile long with a medium depth of three feet and a breadth of
nearly five. That of Bear's Point covers sixty acres of ground,
that of Anercerty Point one hundred, and that of Santa Rosa five
hundred. Others taper to a great height. Turtle Mound, near Smyrna, is
formed of a mass of oyster shells attaining a height of nearly thirty
feet, and the height of several others is more than forty feet.[119]
In all of them bushels of shells have already been found, although a
great part of the sites they occupy are still unexplored; huge trees,
roots, and tropical creepers having, in the course of many centuries,
covered them with an almost impenetrable thicket.
Whether man did or did not live in the basin of the Delaware at the
most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces
of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At
Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in
California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile
in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations,
excavations have yielded thousands of stone hammers and bone implements
(Fig. 24).
The shell-mounds of which we have so far been speaking are all near
the sea, but there is yet another consisting entirely of marine
shells fifty miles beyond Mobile. This fact seems to point to a
considerable change in the level of the ground since the time of man's
first occupancy, for he is not likely to have taken all the trouble
involved in carrying the mollusca necessary for his daily food so far,
when he might so easily have settled down near the shore.
I cannot close this account of the kitchen-middings, without calling
attention to two very interesting facts. The importance of these
mounds bears witness alike to the number of the inhabitants who
dwelt near them, and the long duration of their sojourn. Worsaae
sets back the initial date of the most ancient of the shell-mounds
of the New World more than three thousand years. This is however a
delicate question, on which in the present state of our knowledge it
is difficult to hazard a serious opinion. It is easier to come to
a conclusion on other points: the close resemblance, for instance,
between the kitchen-middings of America and those of Europe. In both
continents we find the early inhabitants fed almost entirely on fish;
their weapons, tools, and pottery were almost identical in character;
and in both cases the characteristic animals of Quaternary times had
disappeared, and the use of metals still remained unknown. Are these
remarkable coincidences the result of chance, or must we not rather
suppose that people of the same origin occupied at the same epoch
both sides of the Atlantic?
The man of the kitchen-middings evidently had a fixed abode. Long
since, the tent, the temporary shelter of the nomad, had given place
to the but. We have already said what this but may have been like,
but the most certain data we have as to human habitations at this
still but little known epoch, are those supplied by the Lake Stations
of Switzerland, and it is to our own generation that we are indebted
for the first discoveries relating to them.
The memory of these Lake Stations bad completely passed away, and it
was only the long drought which desolated Switzerland in 1853 and 1854,
and the extraordinary sinking of Lake Zurich, revealing the piles
still standing, that attracted the attention of archaeologists. In
the space still enclosed by these piles lay scattered pell-mell
stones, bones, burnt cinders of ancient hearths, pestles, hammers,
pottery, hatchets of various shapes, implements of many kinds, with
innumerable objects of daily use. These relics prove that some of
the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland had dwelt on the lake where
they were found, in a refuge to which they had probably retired to
escape from the attacks of their fellow-men or wild beasts. Though
they bad succeeded in getting away from these enemies, they were to
fall victims to a yet more formidable adversary, and the half-burnt
piles have preserved to our own day the traces of a conflagration
that destroyed the Lake dwelling so laboriously constructed.
The discovery of these piles excited general interest, an interest
that was redoubled when similar discoveries revealed that all the
lakes of Switzerland were dotted with stations that had been built long
centuries before in the midst of the waters. Twenty such stations were
made out on Lake Bienne, twenty-four on the Lake of Geneva, thirty on
Lake Constance, forty-nine on that of Neuchatel, and others, though
not so many, on Lakes Sempach, Morat, Mooseedorf, and Pfeffikon. In
fact more than two hundred Lake Stations are now known in Switzerland;
and how many more may have completely disappeared?
There is really nothing to surprise us in the fact of buildings
rising from the midst of waters. They are known in historic times;
Herodotus relates that the inhabitants of pile dwellings on Lake
Prasias successfully repelled the attacks of the Persians commanded
by Megabasus. Alonzo de Ojeda, the companion of Amerigo Vespucci,
speaks of a village consisting of twenty large houses built on piles
in the midst of a lake, to which he gave the name of Venezuela in
honor of Venice, his native town. We meet with pile dwellings in
our own day in the Celebes, in New Guinea, in Java, at Mindanao,
and in the Caroline Islands. Sir Richard Burton saw pile dwellings
at Dahomey, Captain Cameron on the lakes of Central Africa, and the
Bishop of Labuan tells us that the houses of the Dayaks are built on
lofty platforms on the shores of rivers. The accounts of historians
and travellers help us to understand alike the anode of construction
of the Lake Stations and the kind of life led by their inhabitants.
The Lake dwellings of Switzerland may be assigned to three different
periods. That of Chavannes, on Lake Bienne, belongs to the earliest
type. The hatchets found are small, scarcely polished, and always
of native rock, such as serpentine, diorite, or saussurite; the
pottery is coarse, mixed with grains of sand or bits of quartz; the
bottoms of the vases are thick, and no traces of ornamentation can
be made out. The pile-dwellings of the second period, such as those
of Locras and Latringen, show considerable progress; the hatchets,
some of which are very large, are well made. Several of them are of
nephrite, chloromelanite, and jade; and their number, as compared
with those in minerals native to Switzerland, varies from five to
eight per cent. Here and there in rare instances we find a few copper
or bronze lamellae amongst the piles. The pottery is now of finer
clay, better kneaded; and ornamentation, including chevrons, wolves'
teeth, and mammillated designs, is more common. The handle, however,
is still a mere projection. The third period, which we may date from
the transition from stone to bronze, is largely represented; copper
weapons and tools are already numerous, and bronze is beginning to
occur. The stone hatchets and hammers are skilfully pierced, and wooden
or horn implements are often found. The vases are of various shapes,
all provided with handles, and are covered with ornaments, some made
with the fingers of the potter, others with the help of a twig or some
fine string. On the other hand, there are no hatchets of foreign rock;
commerce and intercourse with people at a distance had ceased, or at
least become rarer. The tools are fixed into handles of stag horn,
which are found in every stage of manufacture. The personal property
of the Lake Dwellers included bead necklaces, pendants, buttons,
needles, and horn combs. The teeth of animals served as amulets,
and the bones that were of denser material than born were used as
javelin- or arrow-heads. The arrows were generally of triangular
shape and not barbed.[120]
The distance from the shore of the most ancient of the Lake dwellings
varies from 131 to 298 feet. Gradually men began to take greater and
greater precautions against danger, and the most recent stations are
656 to 984 feet from the banks of the lake. The piles of the Stone
age are from eleven to twelve inches in diameter; those of the later
epochs are smaller. They are pointed at the ends, and hardened by
fire. When the piles had been driven into the bottom of the lake,
a platform was laid on them solid enough to bear the weight of the
buts. This platform was made of beams laid down horizontally, and
bound together by interlaced branches. Two modes of construction can
easily be distinguished. In one the platforms were upheld by numerous
piles, ten yards long, firmly driven into the mud. This is how the
PFAHLBAUTEN, PALAFITTES, or pile dwellings situated in shallow waters
were generally put together. In other cases it seemed easier to raise
the soil round the piles, than to drive them into the hard rock which
formed the bed of the lake. Care was then taken to consolidate them,
and keep them in position with blocks of stone, clay, and tiers of
piles. Keller gives to these latter the name of PACKWERBAUTEN, and
other German archaeologists call them STEINBERGEN.
The mean depth of the waters in those parts of the lakes formerly
occupied by the pile dwellings is from thirteen to sixteen feet, and
we can still make out the piles when the water is calm and clear. Worn
though they may be, their tops still emerge at a height varying from
one to three feet above the mud at the bottom of the lake. Their number
was originally considerable, and it is estimated that there were forty
thousand at Wangen, and a hundred thousand at Robenhausen. The area
occupied by the stations varies considerably; according to Troyon,
that at Wangen was seven hundred paces long by one hundred and twenty
broad. Baron von Mayenfisch explored seventeen sites in the Lake of
Constance, the area of which varies from three to four acres. At Inkwyl
is a little artificial island about forty-eight feet in diameter. The
Lake dwelling of Morges, which was still inhabited in the Bronze age,
covers an area of twelve hundred feet long by a mean width of one
hundred and fifty. It is, however, useless to enumerate the various
calculations that have been made, as they are founded on nothing but
more or less probable guesswork.
Excavations show that the buts that rose from the platforms were
made of wattle and hurdle-work. In different places calcined and
agglutinated fragments have been picked up, and pieces of clay
which had served as facing. The house to which they had belonged
had been destroyed by fire, and the clay, hardened in the flames,
had resisted the disintegrating action of the water. On one side this
clay is smooth, and on the other it still retains the marks of the
interlaced branches, which had helped to form the inner walls. Some
of these marks are so clear and regular that Troyon, noticing the way
they curve, was able to assert that the buts were circular, and that
they varied in diameter from ten to fifteen feet.
A recent discovery at Schussenreid (Wurtemberg) gives completeness to
our knowledge of the Swiss Lake dwellings. In the midst of a peat-bog
rises a but known as a KNUPPELBAU, which is supposed to date from
the Stone age. It is of rectangular form, and is divided into two
compartments communicating with each other by a foot-bridge consisting
of three beams laid side by side. The floors of this but are made of
rounded wood, and the walls of piles split in half. Excavations have
brought to light several floors, one above the other, and divided by
thick layers of clay. The rising of the level of the peat doubtless
compelled the Lake Dweller to add by degrees to the height of his
house.
The Proto-Helvetian race were well-developed men, and the bones
that have been collected show that they were not at all wanting
in symmetry of form or in cranial capacity. The crania found are
distinctly dolichocephalous, and their owners had evidently attained
to no small degree of culture and of technical skill. Judging from
the length of the femora found, though it must be added that they are
mostly those of women, the ancient Lake Dwellers were not so tall as
the present inhabitants of Europe. The smallness of the handles of
their weapons and tools points to the same conclusion.[121]
Though the importance and number of the discoveries made in Switzerland
render it the classic land of Lake Stations, it is not the only
country in which they have been found. They have been made out in
the Lago Maggiore and in the lakes of Varese, Peschiera, and Garda
in Lombardy; in Lake Salpi in the Capitanata, and in other parts
of Italy. Judging from the objects recovered from these stations,
they belonged partly to the Stone and partly to the Bronze age.
The pile dwelling of Lagozza is one of the most interesting known to
us. It forms a long square, facing due east, and covers an area of two
thousand six hundred yards, now completely overgrown with peat six
and a half feet thick. Amongst the posts still standing can be made
out a number of half-burnt planks, which are probably the remains
of the platform. One of the posts was still covered with bark, and
it was easy to recognize the silver birch (BETULA ALBA). Other posts
consisted of the trunks of resinous trees, such as the PINUS PICEA,
the PINUS SYLVESTRIS, and the larch, which now only grow in the lofty
Alpine valleys. Amongst the industrial objects found in the Lagozza
pile dwelling were polished stone hatchets, hammers, polishers of
hard stone, knife-blades, flint scrapers, and seven or eight arrows
with transverse cutting edges, a form rare in Italy.
Castelfranco,[122] from whom we borrow these details, has also, in
the excavations he superintended, picked up a number of earthenware
spindle-whorls with a hole in the middle, amulets, and numerous pieces
of pottery, some fine and some coarse, according to the purpose for
which they were intended. The first mould had in most cases been
covered over with a layer of very fine clay spread upon it with the
aid of a kind of boasting-chisel. We may also mention a bone comb. The
combs found in Swiss Lake dwellings are of horn9 with the exception
of one from Locras of yew wood.
What chiefly distinguishes the Lagozza pile dwelling, however,
is the absence of the bones, teeth, or horns of animals, and also
of fish-hooks, harpoons, or nets, so that we must conclude that
the inhabitants did not hunt or fish, that they did not breed
domestic animals, and were probably vegetarians. The researches
of Professor Sordelli confirm this hypothesis; from amongst the
objects taken from the peat he recognized two kinds of corn (TRITICUM
VULGARE ANTIQUORUM and TRITICUM VULAGERE HIBERNUM), six-rowed barley
(HORDEUM HEXASTICHUM), mosses, ferns, flax, the Indian poppy (PAPAVER
SOMNIFERUM), acorns, and an immense number of nuts and apples.
The acorns are those of the common oak, and their cups and outer
rind had been removed, so that they had evidently been prepared
to serve as food for, man; the apples were small and coriaceous,
resembling the modern crab-apple; the Indian poppy cannot have grown
without cultivation; but this was perhaps but an example of the same
species already recognized in the Lake dwellings of Switzerland. It
is difficult to say whether it was used for food or whether oil was
extracted from it.
We have already spoken of the discoveries made in Austria and
Hungary. Count Wurmbrand has described the difficulties with
which explorers had to contend. The lakes have in many cases become
inaccessible swamps, and in others, the waters having been artificially
dimmed to regulate their overflow, the sites of the pile dwellings
are so far below the level of the lakes that any excavations are
impossible. Long and arduous researches have, however, been rewarded
with some success, and the numerous objects recovered bear witness,
as in Switzerland, to the gradual progress made by the successive
generations who occupied these pile dwellings.
FIGURE 50
Objects discovered in the peat-bogs of Laybach. A. Earthenware
vase. B. Fragment of ornamented pottery. C. Bone needle. D. Earthenware
weight for fishing-net. E. Fragment of jawbone.
A lake near Laybach had been converted in drying up into an immense
peat-bog, nearly thirty-eight miles in circumference, bounded on the
right and left by lofty mountains.[123] When this bog was under water
it had been the site of several Lake Stations. One, for instance, has
been made out over three hundred and twenty yards from the bank. The
piles, which consisted of the trunks of oaks, beeches, and poplars,
varying from eight to ten inches in diameter, were placed at regular
intervals. The objects taken from the peat-bog are simply innumerable
(Fig. 50), and include hundreds of needles of different sizes,
stilettos, dagger-blades, arrows, and hatchets, with stag-horn
handles. Coarse black earthenware vases are equally numerous and
are of a great variety of form, but their ornamentation. is of the
most primitive description, and was done sometimes with the nail of
the potter, and sometimes with a pointed bone. Little earthenware
figures (Figs. 51 and 52) were also found, some of which were sent
from the Laybach Museum to the French Exhibition of 1878. One of
them is said to represent a woman, probably an idol. This is one of
the first known examples of the representation of the human figure
from a Lake dwelling. At Nimlau, near Olmutz, the drying lip of a
little. lake brought to light a Lake Station surrounded by the trunks
of oak trees of a large size. They were piled up, one above the other,
and strongly bound together with osiers. These trunks were evidently
intended to fortify the station.
FIGURE 51
Small terra-cotta figures, found in the Laybach pile dwellings.
The mode of construction of the Lake Stations of the marshes of
Pomerania is very different from that employed in Switzerland or in
Austria. The foundations rest on horizontal beams, kept in place either
by great blocks of rock or by piles driven in vertically. In many cases
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