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Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples

by The Marquis de Nadaillac




Translated by

Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers)




Translator's Note

The present volume has been translated, with the author's consent,
from the French of the Marquis de Nadaillac. The author and translator
have carefully brought down to date the original edition, embodying
the discoveries made during the progress of the work. The book will
be found to be an epitome of all that is known on the subject of
which it treats, and covers ground not at present occupied by any
other work in the English language.

Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers).

Southbourne-On-Sea,

1891.



Contents.



Chapter Page
I.	The Stone Age, its Duration, and its Place in Time	1
II.	Food, Cannibalism, Mammals, Fish, Hunting and Fishing,
Navigation	 47
III.	Weapons, Tools, Pottery; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing,
Ornaments; Early Artistic Efforts 79
IV.	Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, "Terremares,"
Crannoges, Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti," and "Truddhi"   127
V.	Megalithic Monuments	174
VI.	Industry, Commerce, Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and
Trepanation 231
VII.	Camps, Fortifications, Vitrified Forts; Santorin; the Towns
upon the Hill of Hissarlik  279
VIII.	Tombs	343
	Index	383





Illustrations.



Figure		Page
	Fossil man from Mentone.	FRONTISPIECE
1.	Stone weapons described by Mahudel in 1734.	8
2.	Copper hatchets found in Hungary and now in national museum
of Budapest.	    20
3.	Copper beads from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size). 21
4.	Stone statues on Easter Island. 37
5.	Fort-hill, Ohio.	39
6.	Group of sepulchral mounds.	40
7.	Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo valley. 41
8.	Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos.	42
9.	House in a rock of the Montezuma canon. 43
10.
	1. Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn from the Martinet
	cave (Lot-et-Garonne).
	2. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn (one third natural
	size).
	3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark.
	5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin.
	6. Bone fish-hooks pointed at each end, from Waugen.	61
11.	Bear's teeth converted into fish-hooks. 62
12.	Fish-hook made out of a boar's tusk.	62
13.
	A. Large barbed arrow from one side of the Plan Lade shelter
	(Tarn-et-Garonne).
	B. Lower part of a barbed harpoon from the Plantade deposit.
	65
14.	Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at
Gogstadten.	   73
15.	Ancient boat discovered in the bed of the Cher. 75



16.	A lake pirogue found in the Lake of Neuchatel.
	1. As seen outside.
	2. and 3. Longitudinal and transverse sections.
	Stones used as anchors, found in the Bay of Penhouet.	76
17.	1, 2, 3. Stones weighing about 160 lbs. each.
	4. and 5. Lighter stones, probably used for canoes.	80
18.	Scraper from the Delaware valley.	82
19.	Implement from the Delaware valley.	82
20.	Worked flints from the Lafaye and Plantade shelters
(Tarn-et-Garonne).  83
21.	1. Stone javelin-head with handle. 2. Stone hatchet with
handle.        89
22.	1. Fine needles. 2. Coarse needles. 3. Amulet. 4 and
6. Ornaments. 5. Cut flints. 7. Fragment of a harpoon. 8. Fragments
of reindeer antlers with signs or drawings. 9. Whistle. 10. One end
of a bow (?). 11. Arrow-head. (From the Vache, Massat, and Lourdes
caves)	91
23.	Amulet made of the penien bone of a bear and found in the
Marsoulas cave.       92
24.	Various stone and bone objects from California. 93
25.	Dipper found in the excavations at the Chassey camp.	95
26.	Pottery of a so far unclassified type found in the Argent cave
(France).	 98
27.	1. Lignite pendant. 2. Bone pendant. (Thayngen cave).	107
28.	Round pieces of skull, pierced with holes (M. de Baye's
collection).	110
29.
	Part of a rounded piece of a human parietal.
	Stiletto made of the end of a human radius.	111
	Disk, made of the burr of a stag's antler.
30.	Whistle from the Massenat collection.	112
31.	Staff of office.	113
32.	Staff of office, made of stag-horn pierced with four holes.
114
33.	Staff of office found at Lafaye.
34.	Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it
(Thayngen).	115



35.	Staff of office found at Montgaudier.	117
36.	Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Basse).	118
37.	The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found in the Massat cave
(Garrigou collection).	118
38.	Mammoth or elephant from the Una cave.	119
39.	Seal engraved on a bear's tooth, found at Sordes.
40.	Fragment of a bone, with regular designs. Fragment of a rib
on which is engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas cave.	    120
41.	Head of a horse from the Thayngen cave. 121
42.	Bear engraved on a bone, from the Thayngen cave.	121
43.	Reindeer grazing, from the Thayngen cave.	122
44.	Head of OVIBOS MOSCHATUS, engraved on wood, found in the
Thayngen cave. 123
45.	Young man chasing the aurochs, from Laugerie.	124
46.	Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madelaine cave. 125
47.	Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the
Rochebertier cave. 125
48.	The glyptodon.	128
49.	MYLODON ROBUSTUS.	129
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 jaw bone. 152
51.	Small terra-cotta figures found in the Laybach pile dwellings.
153
52.	Small terra-cotta figures from the Laybach pile dwellings.
154
53.	Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia).	168
54.	"Talayoti" at Trepuco (Minorca).	170
55.	Dolmen of Castle Wellan (Ireland).	175
56.	The large dolmen of Careoro, near Plouharnel.	176
57.	Dolmen of Arrayolos (Portugal). 177
58.	Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru).	178
59.	The great broken menhir of Locmariaker with Caesar's table.
186



60.	Covered avenue of Dissignac (Loire-Inferieure), view of the
chamber at the end of the north gallery.    189
61.	Covered avenue near Antequera.	190
62.	Ground plan of the Gavr'innis monument. 191
63.	Monoliths at Stennis, in the Orkney Islands.	193
64.	Cromlech near Bone (Algeria).	196
65.	Dolmen at Pallicondah, near Madras (India).	201
66.	Dolmen at Maintenon, with a table about 19 1/2 feet long.
204
67.	Part of the Mane-Lud dolmen.	208
68.	Sculptures on the menhirs of the covered avenue of Gavr'innis.
210
69.	Dolmen with opening (India).	211
70.	Dolmen near Trie (Oise).	212
71.	Bronze objects found at Krasnojarsk (Siberia).	237
72.	Prehistoric polisher near the ford of Beaumoulin, Nemours.
239
73.	Section of a flint mine.	242
74.	Plan of a gallery of flint mine.	243
75.	Picks, hammers, and mattocks made of stag-horn. 245
76.	Cranium of a woman from Cro-Magnon (full face). 249
77.	Skull of a woman found at Sordes, showing a severe wound,
from which she recovered.     250
78.	Fragment of human tibia with exostosis enclosing the end of
a flint arrow.	    252
79.	Fragment of human humerus pierced at the elbow joint (Trou
d'Argent).   253
80.	Mesaticephalic skull, with wound which has been trepanned
259
81.	Trepanned Peruvian skull.	268
82.	Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), seen in profile
273
83.	Trepanned prehistoric skull.	274
84.	Prehistoric spoon and button found in a lake station at Sutz.
287
85.	General view of the station of Fuente-Alamo.	293
86.	Group at Liberty (Ohio).	299
87.	Trenches at Juigalpa (Nicaragua).	300
88.	Vases found at Santorin.	313



89.	Vase ending in the snout of an animal, found on the hill
of Hissarlik.  325
90.	Funeral vase containing human ashes.	326
91.	Large terra-cotta vases found at Troy.	327
92.	Earthenware pitcher found at a depth of 19 1/2 feet.	328
93.	Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy.
94.	Terra-cotta vase found with the treasure of Priam.
95.	Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy.	329
96.	Earthenware pig found at a depth of 13 feet.	330
97.	Vase surmounted by an owl's head, found beneath the ruins
of Troy.      331
98.	Copper vases found at Troy.	333
99.	Vases of gold and electrum, with two ingots (Troy).	334
100.	Gold and silver objects from the treasure of Priam.	335
101.	Gold ear-rings, head-dress, and necklace of golden beads from
the treasure of Priam.	  336
102.	Terra-cotta fusaioles.	339
103. Cover of a vase with the symbol of the swastika.	340
104. Stone hammer from New Jersey bearing an undeciphered inscription.
341
105. Chulpa near Palca. 357
106.	Dolmen at Auvernier near the lake of Neuchatel. 359
107. A stone chest used as a sepulchre. 361
108. Example of burial in a jar.	363
109. Aymara mummy.	365
110. Peruvian mummies.	367
111. Erratic block from Scania, covered with carvings.	379
112. Engraved rock from Massibert (Lozere).	380









CHAPTER I

The Stone Age: its Duration and its Place in Time.

The nineteenth century, now nearing its close, has made an indelible
impression upon the history of the world, and never were greater things
accomplished with more marvellous rapidity. Every branch of science,
without exception, has shared in this progress, and to it the daily
accumulating information respecting different parts of the globe
bas greatly contributed. Regions, previously completely closed, have
been, so to speak, simultaneously opened by the energy of explorers,
who, like Livingstone, Stanley, and Nordenskiold, have won immortal
renown. In Africa, the Soudan, and the equatorial regions, where the
sources of the Nile lie hidden; in Asia, the interior of Arabia, and
the Hindoo Koosh or Pamir mountains, have been visited and explored. In
America whole districts but yesterday inaccessible are now intersected
by railways, whilst in the other hemisphere Australia and the islands
of Polynesia have been colonized; new societies have rapidly sprung
into being, and even the unmelting ice of the polar regions no longer
checks the advance of the intrepid explorer. And all this is but a
small portion of the work on which the present generation may justly
pride itself.

Distant wars too have contributed in no small measure to the progress
of science. To the victorious march of the French army we owe the
discovery of new facts relative to the ancient history of Algeria;
it was the advance of the English and Russian forces that revealed
the secret of the mysterious lands in the heart of Asia, whence many
scholars believe the European races to have first issued, and of this
ever open book the French expedition to Tonquin may be considered at
present one of the last pages.

Geographical knowledge does much to promote the progress of the
kindred sciences. The work of Champollion, so brilliantly supplemented
by the Vicomte de Rouge and Mariette Bey, has led to the accurate
classification of the monuments of Egypt. The deciphering of the
cuneiform inscriptions has given us the dates of the palaces of Nineveh
and Babylon; the interpretation by savants of other inscriptions has
made known to us those Hittites whose formidable power at one time
extended as far as the Mediterranean, but whose name had until quite
recently fallen into complete oblivion. The rock-hewn temples and
the yet more strange dagobas of India now belong to science. Like
the sacred monuments of Burmah and Cambodia they have been brought
down to comparatively recent dates; and though the palaces of Yucatan
and Peru still maintain their reserve, we are able to fix their dates
approximately, and to show that long before their construction North
America was inhabited by races, one of which, known as the Mound
Builders, left behind them gigantic earthworks of many kinds, whilst
another, known as the Cliff Dwellers, built for themselves houses on
the face of all but inaccessible rocks.

Comparative philology has enabled us to trace back the genealogies
of races, to determine their origin, and to follow their
migrations. Burnouf has brought to light the ancient Zend language,
Sir Henry Rawlinson and Oppert have by their magnificent works opened
up new methods of research, Max Muller and Pictet in their turn by
availing themselves of the most diverse materials have done much to
make known to us the Aryan race, the great educator, if I may so speak,
of modern nations.

To one great fact do all the most ancient epochs of history bear
witness: one and all, they prove the existence in a yet more remote
past of an already advanced civilization such as could only have been
gradually attained to after long and arduous groping. Who were the
inaugurators of this civilization? Who ware the earliest inhabitants of
the earth? To what biological conditions were they subject? What were
the physical and climatic conditions of the globe when they lived? By
what flora and fauna were they surrounded? But science pushes her
inquiry yet further. She desires to know the origin of tire human
race, when, how, and why men first appeared upon the earth; for from
whatever point of view he is considered, man must of necessity have
had a beginning.

We are in fact face to face with most formidable problems, involving
alike our past and future; problems it is hopeless to attempt to solve
by human means or by the help of human intelligence alone, yet with
which science can and ought to grapple, for they elevate the soul and
strengthen the reasoning faculties. Whatever may be their final result,
such studies are of enthralling interest. "Man," said a learned member
of the French Institute, "will ever be for man the grandest of all
mysteries, the most absorbing of all objects of contemplation."[1]

Let us work our way back through past centuries and study our remote
ancestors on their first arrival upon earth; let us watch their early
struggles for existence! We will deal with facts alone; we will accept
no theories, and we must, alas, often fail to come to any conclusion,
for the present state of prehistoric knowledge rarely admits of
certainty. We must ever be ready to modify theories by the study
of facts, and never forget that, in a science so little advanced,
theories must of necessity be provisional and variable.

Truly strange is the starting-point of prehistoric science. It is with
the aid. of a few scarcely even rough-hewn flints, a few bones that
it is difficult to classify, and a few rude stone monuments that we
have to build up, it must be for our readers to say with what success,
a past long prior to any written history, which has left no trace in
the memory of man, and during which our globe would appeal to have
been subject to conditions wholly unlike those of the present day.

The stones which will first claim our attention, some of them
very skilfully cut and carefully polished, have been known for
centuries. According to Suetonius, the Emperor Augustus possessed
in his palace on the Palatine Hill a considerable collection of
hatchets of different kinds of rock, nearly all of them found in the
island of Capri, and which were to their royal owner the weapons of
the heroes of mythology. Pliny tells of a thunder-bolt having fallen
into a lake, in which eighty-nine of these wonderful stones were soon
afterwards found.[2] Prudentius represents ancient German warriors
as wearing gleaming CERAUNIA on their helmets; in other countries
similar stones ornamented the statues of the gods, and formed rays
about their heads.[3]

A subject so calculated to fire the imagination has of course not
been neglected by the poets. Claudian's verses are well known:


Pyrenaeisque sub antris
Ignea flumineae legere ceraunia nymphae.


Marbodius, Bishop of Rennes, in the eleventh century, sang of the
thunder-stones in some Latin verses which have come down to us,
and an old poet of the sixteenth century in his turn exclaimed,
on seeing the strange bones around him


Le roc de Tarascon hebergea quelquefois
Les geants qui couroyent les montagnes de Foix,
Dont tant d'os successifs rendent le temoignage.


With these stones, in fact, were found numerous bones of great size,
which had belonged to unknown creatures. Latin authors speak of similar
bones found in Asia Minor, which they took to be those of giants of an
extinct race. This belief was long maintained; in 1547 and again in
1667 fossil remains were found in the cave of San Ciro near Palermo;
and Italian savants decided that they had belonged to men eighteen feet
high. Guicciadunus speaks of the bones of huge elephants carefully
preserved in the Hotel de Ville at Antwerp as the bones of a giant
named Donon, who lived 1300 years before the Christian era.

In days nearer our own the roost cultivated people accepted the remains
of a gigantic batrachian[4] as those of a man who had witnessed the
flood, and it was the same with a tortoise found in Italy scarcely
thirty years ago. Dr. Carl, in a work published at Frankfort[5] in
1709, took up another theory, and, such was the general ignorance
at the time, he used long arguments to prove that the fossil bones
were the result neither of a freak of nature, nor of the action of
a plastic force, and it was not until near the end of his life that
the illustrious Camper could bring himself to admit the extinction
of certain species, so totally against Divine revelation did such a
phenomenon appear to him to be.

Prejudices were not, however, always so obstinate. For more than three
centuries stones worked by the hand of man have been preserved in the
Museum of the Vatican, and as long ago as the time of Clement VIII. his
doctor, Mercati, declared these stones to have been the weapons of
antediluvians who had been still ignorant of the use of metals.

During the early portion of the eighteenth century a pointed black
flint, evidently the head of a spear, was found in London with the
tooth of an elephant. It was described in the newspapers of the day,
and placed in the British Museum.

In 1723 Antoine de Jussieu said, at a meeting of the ACADEMIE DES
SCIENCES, that these worked stones had been made where they were found,
or brought from distant countries. He supported his arguments by an
excellent example of the way in which savage races still polish stones,
by rubbing them continuously together.

A few years later the members of the ACADEMIE DES INSCRIPTIONS in
their turn, took up the question, and Mahudel, one of its members,
in presenting several stones, showed that they bad evidently been
cut by the hand of man. "An examination of them," he said, "affords
a proof of the efforts of our earliest ancestors to provide for their
wants, and to obtain the necessaries of life." He added that after the
re-peopling of the earth after the deluge, men were ignorant of the use
of metals. Mahudel's essay is illustrated by drawings, some of which
we reproduce (Fig. 1), showing wedges, hammers, hatchets, and flint
arrow-beads taken, he tells us, from various private collections.[6]

Bishop Lyttelton, writing in 1736, speaks of such weapons as having
been made at a remote date by savages ignorant of the use of metals,[7]
and Sir W. Dugdale, an eminent antiquary of the seventeenth century,
attributed to the ancient Britons some flint hatchets found in
Warwickshire, and thinks they were made when these weapons alone
were used.[8]


FIGURE 1

Stone weapons described by Mahudel in 1734.


A communication made by Frere to the Royal Society of London deserves
mention here with a few supplementary remarks.[9]

This distinguished man of science found at Hoxne, in Suffolk, about
twelve feet below the surface of the soil, worked flints, which had
evidently been the natural weapons of a people who had no knowledge
of metals. With these flints were found some strange bones with the
gigantic jaw of an animal then unknown. Frere adds that the number
of chips of flint was so great that the workmen, ignorant of their
scientific value, used them in road-making. Every thing pointed to
the conclusion that Hoxne was the place where this primitive people
manufactured the weapons and implements they used, so that as early as
the end of last century a member of the Royal Society formulated the
propositions,[10] now fully accepted, that at a very remote epoch men
used nothing but stone weapons and implements, and that side by side
with these men lived huge animals unknown in historic times. These
facts, strange as they appear to us, attracted no attention at the
time. It would seem that special acumen is needed for every fresh
discovery, and that until the time for that discovery comes, evidence
remains unheeded and science is altogether blind to its significance.

But to resume our narrative. It is interesting to note the various
phases through which the matter passed before the problem was
solved. In 1819, M. Jouannet announced that he had found stone weapons
near Perigord. In 1823, the Rev. Dr. Buckland published the "Reliquiae
Diluvianae," the value of which, though it is a work of undoubted
merit, was greatly lessened by the preconceived ideas of its author. A
few years later, Tournal announced his discoveries in the cave of Bize,
near Narbonne, in which, mixed with human bones, he found the remains
of various animals, some extinct, some still native to the district,
together with worked flints and fragments of pottery. After this,
Tournal maintained that man had been the contemporary of the animals
the bones of which were mixed with the products of human industry.[11]
The results of the celebrated researches of Dr. Schmerling in the
caves near Liege were published in 1833. He states his conclusions
frankly: "The shape of the flints," he says, "is so regular, that
it is impossible to confound them with those found in the Chalk or
in Tertiary strata. Reflection compels us to admit that these flints
were worked by the hand of man, and that they may have been used as
arrows or as knives."[12] Schmerling does not refer, though Lyell does,
and that in terms of high admiration, to the courage required for the
arduous work involved in the exploration of the caves referred to,
or to the yet more serious obstacles the professor had to overcome
in publishing conclusions opposed to the official science of the day.

In 1835, M. Joly, by his excavations in the Nabrigas cave, established
the contemporaneity of man with the cave bear, and a little later
M. Pomel announced his belief that plan had witnessed the last
eruptions of the volcanoes of Auvergne.

In spite of these discoveries, and the eager discussions to which
they led, the question of the antiquity of man and of his presence
amongst the great Quaternary animals made but little progress, and
it was reserved to a Frenchman, M. Boucher de Perthes, to compel the
scientific world to accept the truth.

It was in 1826 that Boucher de Perthes first published his opinion;
but it was not until 1816 and 1847 that he announced his discovery
at Menchecourt, near Abbeville, and at Moulin-Quignon and Saint
Acheul, in the alluvial deposits of the Somme, of flints shaped
into the form of hatchets associated with the remains of extinct
animals such as the mammoth, the cave lion, the RHINOCEROS INCISIVUS,
the hippopotamus, and other animals whose presence in France is not
alluded to either in history or tradition. The uniformity of shape,
the marks of repeated chipping, and the sharp edges so noticeable in
the greater number of these hatchets, cannot be sufficiently accounted
for either by the action of water, or the rubbing against each other
of the stones, still less ply the mechanical work of glaciers. We
must therefore recognize in them the results of some deliberate
action and of an intelligent will, such as is possessed by man, and
by man alone. Professor Ramsay[13] tells us that, after twenty years'
experience in examining stones in their natural condition and others
fashioned by the hand of man, he has no hesitation in pronouncing
the flints and hatchets of Amiens and Abbeville as decidedly works of
art as the knives of Sheffield. The deposits in which they were found
showed no sins of having been disturbed; so that we may confidently
conclude that the men who worked these flints lived where the banks
of the Somme now are, when these deposits were in course of being
laid down, and that he was the contemporary of the animals whose
bones lay side by side with the products of his industry.

This conclusion, which now appears so simple, was not accepted without
difficulty. Boucher de Perthes defended his discoveries in books,
in pamphlets, and in letters addressed to learned societies. He
had the courage of his convictions, and the perseverance which
insures success. For twenty years he contended patiently against
the indifference of some, and the contempt of others. Everywhere the
proofs he brought forward were rejected, without his being allowed
the honor of a discussion or even of a hearing. The earliest converts
to De Perthes' conclusions met with similar attacks and with similar
indifference. There is nothing to surprise us in this; it is human
nature not to take readily to anything new, or to entertain ideas
opposed to old established traditions. The most distinguished men
find it difficult to break with the prejudices of their education
and the yet more firmly established prejudices of the systems they
have themselves built up. The words of the great French fabulist will
never cease to be true:


Man is ice to truth;
But fire to lies.


One of the masters of modern science, Cuvier, has said[14]: "Everything
tends to prove that the human race did not exist in the countries
where the fossil bones were found at the time of the convulsions
which buried those bones; but I will not therefore conclude that man
did not exist at all before that epoch; he may have inherited certain
districts of small extent whence he re-peopled the earth after these
terrible events." Cuvier's disciples went beyond the doctrines of
their master. He made certain reservations; they admitted none, and
one of the most illustrious, Elie de Beaumont, rejected with scorn the
possibility of the co-existence of man and the mammoth.[15] Later,
retracting an assertion of which perhaps he himself recognized the
exaggeration, he contented himself with saying that the district where
the flints and bones had been collected belonged to a recent period,
and to the shifting deposits of the slopes contemporary with the peaty
alluvium. He added -- scientific passions are by no means the least
intense, or the least deeply rooted -- that the worked flints may
have been of Roman origin, and that the deposits of Moulin-Quignon may
have covered a Roman road! This might indeed have been the case in the
DEPARTEMENT DU NORD, where a road laid down by the conquerors of Gaul
has completely disappeared beneath deposits of peat, but it could not
be true at Moulin-Quignon, where gravels form the culminating point
of the ridge. Moreover, the laying down of the most ancient peats
of the French valleys did not begin until the great watercourses had
been replaced by the rivers of the present day; they never contain,
relics of any species but such as are still extant; whereas it was
with the remains of extinct mammals that the flints were found.

It was against powerful adversaries such as this that the modest
savant of Abbeville had to maintain his opinion. "No one," he says,
"cared to verify the facts of the case, merely giving as a reason,
that these facts were impossible." Weight was added to his complaint
by the refusal in England about the same blue to print a communication
from the Society of Natural History of Torquay, which announced the
discovery of flints worked by the hand of man, associated, as were
those of the Somme, with the bones of extinct animals. The fact
appeared altogether too incredible!

But the time when justice would be done was to come at
last. Dr. Falconer visited first Amiens and then Abbeville, to
examine the deposits and the flints and bones found in them. In
January, 1859, and in 1860, other Englishmen of science followed
his example; and excavations were made, under their direction, in
the massive strata which rise, from the chalk forming their base,
to a height of 108 feet above the level of the Somme. Their search
was crowned with success, and they lost no blue in leaking known to
the world the results they had obtained, and the convictions to which
these results lead led.[16] In 1859 Prestwich announced to the Royal
Society of London that the flints found in the bed of the Somme were
undoubtedly the work of the hand of plan, that they had been found in
strata that lead not been disturbed, and that the men who cut these
flints bad lived at a period prior to the time when our earth assumed
its present configuration. Sir Charles Lyell, in his opening address at
a session of the British Association, did not hesitate to support the
conclusions of Prestwich. It was now the turn of Frenchmen of science
to arrive at Abbeville. MM. Gaudry and Pouchet themselves extracted
hatchets from the Quaternary deposits of the Somme.[17] These facts
were vouched for by the well-known authority, M. de Quatrefages,
who had already constituted himself their advocate. All that was now
needed was the test of a public discussion, and the meeting of the
Anthropological Society of Paris supplied a suitable occasion. The
question received long and searching scientific examination. All doubt
was removed, and M. Isidore Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire was the mouth-piece
of an immense majority of his colleagues, when he declared that the
objections to the great antiquity of the human race had all melted
away. The conversion of men so illustrious was followed of course by
that of the general public, and, more fortunate than many another,
Boucher de Perthes bad the satisfaction before his death of seeing a
new branch of knowledge founded on his discoveries, attain to a just
and durable popularity in the scientific world.

It must not, however, be supposed that popular superstition yielded
at once to the decisions of science, and it is curious to meet with
the same ideas in the most different climates, and in districts
widely separated from each other:[18] Everywhere worked flints are
attributed to a supernatural origin; everywhere they are looked upon
as amulets with the power of protecting their owner, his house or his
flocks. Russian peasants believe them to be the arrows of thunder,
and fathers transmit them to their children as precious heirlooms. The
same belief is held in France, Ireland, and Scotland, in Scandinavia,
and Hungary, as well as in Asia Minor, in Japan, China, and Burn lap;
in Java, and amongst the people of the Bahama Islands, as amongst
the negroes of the Soudan or those of the west coast of Africa,[19]
who look upon these stones as bolts launched from Heaven by Sango,
the god of thunder; amongst the ancient inhabitants of Nicaragua as
well as the Malays, who, however, still make similar implements.

The name given to these flints recalls the origin attributed to
them. The Romans call them CERAUNIA from keraun'oc, thunder, and in
the catalogue of the possessions of a noble Veronese published in
1656, we find them mentioned under this name.[20] Every one knows
Cymbeline's funeral chant in Shakespeare's play:


Fear no more the lightning flash
Nor the all dreaded thunder-stone.


In Germany we are shown DONNER-KEILE, in Alsace DORMER-AXT, in Holland
DONNER-BEITELS, in Denmark TORDENSTEEN, in Norway TORDENKEILE,
in Sweden THORSOGGAR, Thor having been the god of thunder amongst
northern nations; while with the Celts[21] the MENGURUN, in Asia Minor
the YLDERIM-TACHI, in Japan the RAI-FU-SEKI-NO-RUI, in Roussillon
the PEDRUS DE LAMP, and in Andalusia the PIEDRAS DE RAYO have the
same signification. The inhabitants of the Mindanao islands call
these stones the teeth of the thunder animal, and the Japanese the
teeth of the thunder.[22] In Cambodia, worked stones, celts, adzes,
and gouges or knives, are known as thunder stones. A Chinese emperor,
who lived in the eighth century of our era, received from a Buddhist
priest some valuable presents which the donors said had been sent
by the Lord of Heaven, amongst which were two flint hatchets called
LOUI-KONG, or stones of the god of thunder. In Brazil we meet with
the same idea in the name of CORSICO, or lightnings, given to worked
flints; whilst in Italy, by all exception almost unique, they are
called LINGUE SAN PAOLO.

May we not also attribute to the worship of stones some of the
religious and funeral rites of antiquity? According to Porphyry,
Pythagoras, on his arrival on the island of Crete, was purified with
thunder-stones by the dactyl priests of Mount Ida. The Etruscans wore
flint arrow-heads on their collars. They were sought after by the Magi,
and the Indians gave them an honored place in their temples. According
to Herodotus, the Arabs sealed their engagements by making an incision
in their hands with a sharp stone; in Egypt the body of a corpse before
being embalmed was opened with a flint knife; a similar implement
was used by the Hebrews for the rite of circumcision; and it was also
with cut stones that the priests of Cybele inflicted self-mutilation
in memory of that of Atys. At Rome the stone hatchet was dedicated to
Jupiter Latialis, and solemn treaties were ratified by the sacrifice
of a pig, the throat of which was cut with a sharp flint. According
to Virgil, this custom was handed down to the ancient Romans by the
uncouth nation of the Equicoles. At the beginning of the Christian
era., the heroes commemorated by Ossian still had in the centre
of their shields a polished stone consecrated by the Druids, and a
saga maintains that the CERAUNIA assured certain victory to their
owners. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Aztecs used obsidian
blades for the sacrifices, in which hundreds of human victims perished
miserably; and similar blades are used by the Guanches of Teneriffe
to open the bodies of their chiefs after death. At the present day,
the Albanian Palikares use pointed flints to cut the flesh off the
shoulder-blade of a sheep with a view to seeking in its fibres the
secrets of the future, and when the god Gimawong visits his temple
of Labode, on the western coast of Africa, his worshippers offer
him a bull slain with a stone knife. Lumholtz,[23] in the second of
his recent explorations in Queensland, tells us that the natives
still use stone weapons, varying in form and in the handles used,
and that the weapons of the Australians living near Darling River,
as well as those of the Tasmanians, are without handles.

During the first centuries of the Christian era, strange rites were
still performed in honor of dolmens and menhirs. The councils of the
Church condemned them, and the emperors and kings supported by their
authority the decrees of the ecclesiastics.[24] Childebert in 554,
Carloman in 742, Charlemagne by an edict issued at Aix-la-Chapelle
in 789,[25] forbid their subjects to practise these rites borrowed
from heathenism. But popes and emperors are alike powerless in
this direction, and one generation transmits its traditions and
superstitions to another. In the seventeenth century a Protestant
missionary called in the aid of the secular arm to destroy a
superstition deeply rooted in the minds of his people; in England,
sorcerers were proceeded against for having used flint arrow-heads
in their pretended witchcraft; in Sweden, a polished hatchet
yeas placed in the bed of women in the pangs of labor; in Burmah,
thunder-stones reduced to powder were looked upon as an infallible
cure for ophthalmia; and the Canaches have a collection of stones with
a special superstition connected with each. But why seek examples
so far away and in a past so remote? In our own day anti in our own
land we find men who think themselves invulnerable and their cattle
safe if they are fortunate enough to possess a polished flint.

Prehistoric times are generally divided into three epochs -- the STONE
AGE, the BRONZE AGE, and the IRON AGE. We owe this classification to
the archaeologists of Northern Europe.[26] It is neither very exact
nor very satisfactory, and fresh discoveries daily tend to unsettle
it.[27] Alsberg maintained that iron was the first metal used,
founding his contention on the scarcity of tin, the difficulty of
obtaining alloys, and on the sixty-one iron foundries of Switzerland
which may date from prehistoric times. The rarity of the discovery of
iron objects, he urged, is accounted for by the ease with which such
objects are destroyed by rust. There has never been a Bronze or an
Iron age in America, so that it would seem very doubtful whether all
races went through the same cycles of development. I myself prefer
the division into the PALAEOLITHIC period, when men only used roughly
chipped stones, and the NEOLITHIC period, when they carefully polished
their stone weapons. "There may," says Alexander Bertrand,[28] "be one
immutable law for the succession of strata throughout the entire crust
of the earth, but there is no corresponding law applicable to human
agglomerations or to the succession of the strata of civilization. It
would be a very grave error to adopt the theory according to which
all human races have passed through the same phases of development
and have gone through the same complete series of social conditions."


FIGURE 2

Copper hatchets found in Hungary, and now in the National Museum
of Budapest.


It may perhaps be convenient to introduce a fourth period when copper
alone was used and our ancestors were still ignorant of the alloys
necessary for the production of bronze. Hesiod speaks of a third
generation of men as possessing copper only, and although it does not
do to attach undue importance to isolated facts, recent discoveries in
the Cevennes, in Spain, in Hungary, and elsewhere, appear to confirm
the existence of an age of copper (Fig. 2). We may add that the mounds
of North America contain none but copper implements and ornaments,
witnesses of a time when that metal alone was known either on the
shores of the Atlantic or of the Pacific[29] (Fig. 3).


FIGURE 3

Copper beads, from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size).


It is impossible to fix the duration of the Stone age. It began with
man, it lasted for countless centuries, and we find it still prevailing
amongst certain races who set their faces against all progress. The
scenes sculptured upon Egyptian monuments dating from the ancient
Empire represent the employment of stone weapons, and their use was
continued throughout the time of the Lagidae and even into that of
the Roman domination. A few years ago, on the shores of the Nile, I
saw some of the common people shave their heads with stone razors, and
the Bedouins of Gournah using spears headed with pointed flints. The
Ethiopians in the suite of Xerxes had none but stone weapons, and
yet their civilization was several centuries older than that of the
Persians. The excavations on the site of Alesia yielded many stone
weapons, the glorious relics of the soldiers of Vercingetorix. At
Mount Beuvray, on the site of Bibracte, flint hatchets and weapons
have been discovered associated with Gallic coins. At Rome, M. de
Rossi collected similar objects mixed with the AES RUDE. Flint
hatchets are mentioned in the life of St. Eloy, written by St. Owen,
and the Merovingian tombs have yielded hundreds of small cut flints,
the last offerings to the dead. William of Poitiers tells us that
the English used stone weapons at the battle of Hastings in 1066, and
the Scots led by Wallace did the same as late as 1288. Not until many
centuries after the beginning of the Christian era did the Sarmatians
know the use of metals; and in the fourteenth century we find a race,
probably of African origin, making their hatchets, knives, and arrows
of stone, and tipping their javelins with horn. The Japanese, moreover,
used stone weapons and implements until the ninth and even the tenth
century A.D.

But there is no need to go back to the past for examples. The Mexicans
of the present day use obsidian hatchets, as their fathers did before
them; the Esquimaux use nephritis and jade weapons with Remington
rifles. Nordenskiold tells us that the Tchoutchis know of no weapons
but those made of stone; that they show their artistic feeling in
engravings on bone, very similar to those found in the caves of the
south of France. In 1854, the Mqhavi, an Indian tribe of the Rio
Colorado (California), possessed no metal objects; and it is the
same with the dwellers on the banks of the Shingle River (Brazil),
the Oyacoulets of French Guiana, and many other wandering and savage
races. Pere Pelitot tells us that the natives living on the banks of
the Mackenzie River are still in the stone age; and Schumacker has
given an interesting example of the manufacture of stone weapons
by the Klamath Indians dwelling on the shores of the Pacific. It
has been justly said: "The Stone age is not a fixed period in time,
but one phase of the development of the human race, the duration of
which varies according to the environment and the race."[30]

In thus limiting our idea of the stone age, we may conclude that alike
in Europe and in America,[31] there has been a period when metal was
entirely unknown, when stones were the sole weapons, the sole tools
of man, when the cave, for which he had to dispute possession with
bears and other beasts of prey, was his sole and precarious refuge,
and when clumsy heaps of stones served alike as temples for the
worship of his gods and sepulchral monuments in honor of his chiefs.

Excavations in every department of France have yielded thousands of
worked flints, and there are few more interesting studies than an
examination of the mural map in the Saint Germain Museum on which
are marked with scrupulous exactitude the dwelling-places of our
most remote ancestors, and the megalithic monuments which are the
indestructible memorials of our forefathers.

In the Crimea were picked up a number of small flints cut into the
shape of a crescent exactly like those found in the Indies and in
Tunis, and the Anthropological Society of Moscow has introduced us
to a Stone age the memory of which is preserved in the tumuli of
Russia. On the shores of Lake Lagoda have been found some implements
of argillaceous schist, in Carelia and in Finland tools made of
slate and schist, often adorned with clumsy figures of men or of
animals. The rigor of the climate did not check the development
of the human race; in the most remote times Lapland, Nordland, the
most northerly districts of Scandinavia, and even the bitterly cold
Iceland, were peopled. The Exhibition of Paris, 1878, contained some
stone weapons found on the shores of the White Sea.

On several parts of the coast of Denmark we meet with mounds of an
elliptical shape and about nine feet high, with a hollow in the centre,
marking the site of a prehistoric dwelling. It was not until about
1850 that the true nature of these mounds was determined. Excavations
in them have brought to light knives, hatchets, all manner of stone,
horn, and bone implements, fragments of pottery, charred wood, with
the bones of mammals and birds, the skeletons of fishes, the shells of
oysters and cockles buried beneath the ashes of ancient hearths. To
these accumulations the characteristic name of KITCHENMIDDINGS,
or kitchen refuse, has been given.

Several caves have recently been examined in Poland, one of which,
situated near Cracow, appears to belong to Palaeolithic times. Count
Zawiska has already given an account of his interesting discoveries
to the Prehistoric Congress at Stockholm. In the Wirzchow cave he
identified seven different hearths, and took out of the accumulations
of cinders various amulets, clumsy representations of fish cut in
ivory, split bones, bears', wolves', and elks' teeth pierced with a
hole for threading, and more than four thousand stone objects of a
similar type to those found in Russia, Scandinavia, and Germany. We
meet with similar traces of successive habitation in a cave near Ojcow;
the valuable contents of which included some beautiful flint tools,
some awls, bone spatulae, and some gold ornaments, mixed, in the lower
of the hearths, with the bones of extinct animals, and in the upper,
with those of species still living.

The discoveries made in the Atter See and in the Salzburg lakes with
those in the Moravian caves prove what had previously been very stoutly
denied, the existence in those districts of ancient races at a very
remote date.

The most ancient inhabitants of Hungary, however, cannot be traced
further back than to Neolithic times. In that country have been found,
with polished stone implements, thousands of objects made of stag-horn,
or bone, almost all without exception finely finished off. The
discovery of copper tools and ornaments of a peculiar form in the
Danubian provinces, bears witness to a distinct civilization in those
districts, and confirms what we have just said about a Copper age.

From the Lake Stations of Austria and Hungary, we pass naturally to
those of Switzerland. We shall have to introduce to our readers whole
villages built in the midst of the waters, and a people long completely
forgotten. In many of these stations, none but stone implements have
been found, and on the half-burnt piles on which the huts had been set
up, it is still easy to make out the notches cut with flint hatchets.

We meet with similar pile dwellings, as these structures are called,
in France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, and England, for from the earliest
times man was constantly engaged in sanguinary contests with his
fellowmen, and sought in the midst of the waters a refuge from the
ever present dangers surrounding him.

The discoveries made in Belgium must be ranked amongst the most
important in Europe, and we shall often have occasion to refer to
them. Holland, on the other hand, having much of it been under the sea
for so long, yields nothing to our researches but a few arrow-heads,
hatchets, and knives made of quartz or diorite, and all of them of
the coarsest workmanship.

No less fruitful in results to prehistoric science are the researches
made in the south of Europe. The congress that met at Bologna, in 1871,
showed us that in the Transalpine provinces man was witness of those
physical phenomena which gave to Italy its present configuration;
and the exhibition in connection with the congress enabled us to get
a good idea of the primitive industry which has left relics behind
it in every district of the peninsula.

Some hatchets of a similar type to the most ancient found in France
were dug out of a gravel pit at San Isidro on the borders of the
Mancanares, associated with the bones of a huge elephant that has long
been extinct; and a cave has recently been discovered near Madrid from
which were dug out nearly five hundred skeletons, the greater number
thickly coated with stalagmite. Near the bodies lay several flint
weapons, and some fragments of pottery.[32] Cartailhac tells us of
similar discoveries in various parts of Portugal.[33] The caves of
Santander have yielded worked bones and barbed harpoons; and those
of Castile, various objects resembling those of the Reindeer period
of France. It is, however, an interesting and important fact that
the reindeer never crossed the Pyrenees. Although so far excavations
have been anything but complete, we are already able to assert that
during Palaeolithic times the ancient Iberia was occupied by races
whose industrial development was similar to that of modern Europe.

It will be well to mention also the excavations made on the slopes
of Mount Hymettus, and in the ever-famous plains of Marathon. Finlay
has brought together in Greece a very interesting collection of stone
weapons and implements which he picked up in great numbers at the base
of the Acropolis of Athens. All these discoveries prove the existence
of man at a time about which but yesterday nothing was known, and
to which it is difficult as yet to give a name, this existence being
proved by the most irrefragable of evidence, the work of his own hands.

Although the proofs of there having been a Stone age in Western
Europe are absolutely convincing, it is difficult to feel equally
sure with regard to the portions of the globe where so many districts
are closed to the explorer. Everywhere, however, where excavations
have been made, they have yielded the most remarkable results. M. de
Ujfalvy has brought diorite and serpentine hatchets and wedges from
the south of Siberia, and Count Ouvaroff tells us of a Quaternary
deposit, the only one known at present at Irkutsk, in Eastern Siberia,
containing cut flints. Near Tobolsk, Poliaskoff found some beautifully
worked stones. Other archaeologists tell us of having found, in the
east of the Ural Mountains and on the shores of the Joswa, hammers,
hatchets, pestles, nuclei the shape of polygonal prisms, and round
or long pieces of flint, all pierced with a central hole, which are
supposed to have been spindle whorls. Lastly, Klementz tells us that
the lofty valleys of the Yenesei and its tributaries were inhabited
in the most remote times by races who developed a special civilization.

At the other extremity of the great Asiatic continent, a deposit of
cinders found at the entrance of a cave near the Nahr el Kelb yielded
some flint knives or scrapers, and more recently a prehistoric station
has been made out at Hanoweh, a little village of Lebanon, east of
Tyre. The flints are of primitive shapes, not unlike the most ancient
forms found in France. They were discovered in a mass of DEBRIS of
all kinds, forming a very hard conglomerate. Some teeth, which had
belonged to animals of the bovidae, cervidae, and equidae groups, were
got out with considerable difficulty, but the bones in the conglomerate
were too touch broken up to be identified. Worked flints and arrow-
or spear-heads were also found in considerable quantities in various
parts of the table-land of Sinai, and at the openings of the caves
in which the ancient inhabitants took refuge. It was with stone tools
that these people worked the mines riddling the sides of the mountains,
and it is still easy to make out traces of their operations.

We have already alluded to Japan; for a long time the barbarian
Ainos, the earliest inhabitants of the country, were acquainted with
nothing but stone. Flint arrows were presented to the Emperor Wu-Wang
eleven hundred years before our era; the annals of one of the ancient
dynasties speak of flint weapons, and an encyclopaedia published in
the reign of the Emperor Kang-Hi speaks of rock hatchets, some black
and some green, and all alike dating from the most remote antiquity.

Agates worked by the hand of man are found in great quantities in the
bone beds of the Godavery. Some javelin heads in sandstone, basalt,
and quartz, with scrapers and knives, most of them flat on one side
and rounded on the other, appear to be even more ancient than the
agate implements. Some of the celts resemble those of European type,
others the flint weapons found in Egypt, and the clumsiest forms may
be compared to those still in use amongst the natives of Australia. We
may also mention a somewhat rare type lately discovered in the island
of Melas, which have been characterized as saw-bladed knives. A
letter from Rivett-Carnac announces the discovery of weapons and
stone implements in Banda, a wild mountain district on the northwest
of India. The scrapers, he says, strangely resemble those of the
Esquimaux, and the arrow-heads those of the most ancient inhabitants
of America.[34]

Many megalithic monuments are met with in places widely removed
from each other in the vast Indian Empire. Captain Congreve, after
describing the cairns with their rows of stones ranged in circles, the
kistvaens or dolmens, the huge rocks placed erect as at Stonehenge,
the barrows hollowed out of the cliffs, declares with undisguised
astonishment that there is not a Druidical monument of which he had
not seen the counterpart in the Neilgherry Mountains.[35]

General Faidherbe divides Africa into two distinct regions -- one
north of the Great Desert, where the inhabitants and the fauna and
flora have all alike certain characteristics in common with those
of Europe; and the other south of the Sahara, which was at one
time separated from that in the north by a vast inland sea. In this
southern region we are in Nigritia, or the Africa of the negroes,
where the inhabitants in their physical characteristics and in their
language, the mammals, and the plants, differ altogether from those
of the north. In one point, however, these two regions resemble each
other: in both we recognize a Stone age, which existed in Algeria
and in Egypt, as well as on the banks of the Senegal and at the
Cape of Good Hope. The valley of the Nile from Cairo to Assouan has
yielded a series of objects in flint, porphyry, and hornblendic rock,
retaining traces of human workmanship, and reminding us of similar
implements of European type. These objects,[36] says M. Arcelin,
are always found either beneath modern deposits or at the surface of
the upper plateaux at the highest point to which the river rises;
nothing has, however, been found in the alluvial deposits of the
Nile, in spite of the most persevering search. At the Prehistoric
Congress held at Stockholm, some worked flints were produced that
had been found in the Libyan Desert. This once inhabited district,
now without water or vegetation, can only be reached at the present
day with the greatest difficulty. Is not this yet another proof of the
great changes which have taken place since the advent of man? Lastly,
the Boulak Museum contains a whole series of stone weapons and
implements, showing in their workmanship a progressive development
similar to that we find in Europe. Many archaeologists are of opinion
that the worked flints found in the plains of Lower Egypt date from
Neolithic times. Those alone are Paleolithic which have been found
in a deposit hard enough for the hollowing out of tombs, which are
certainly earlier than the eighteenth dynasty. We must add, however,
that neither with the Palaeolithic nor with the Neolithic relics have
been found any bones of extinct animals. Some savants go yet further:
they think that these worked stones are but chips split off by the
heat of the sun.[37] A phenomenon of this kind is mentioned by Desor
and Escher de la Linth in the Sahara Desert; Fraas quotes a similar
observation made by Livingstone in the heart of Africa, and one by
Wetzstein, who, not far from Damascus; saw hard basalt rocks split
under the influence of the early morning freshness. I have myself
noticed similar phenomena in the Nile valley, but it must be added
that the fragments of rock broken off by the combined influence of
heat and humidity present very notable differences to those worked
by the hand of man, and cannot really be mistaken for them.

In Algeria have been preserved some most interesting relics of
prehistoric times. If I am not mistaken, Worsaae was the first to
note the worked stones in the French possessions in Africa. They have
been picked up in great numbers, especially near the watercourses at
which the ancient inhabitants of the country slaked their thirst,
as do their descendants at the present day. The exploration of the
Sahara daily yields unexpected discoveries; and already fifteen
different stations formerly inhabited by man have been made out. In
those remote days a large river flowed near Wargla, which was then
an important centre, and a number of tools picked up bear witness to
the former presence of an active and industrious population. At one
place the flint implements, arrow-heads, knives, and scrapers are
all of a very primitive type, and were found sorted into piles. This
was evidently a DEPOT, probably forming the reserve stock of the
tribe. Wargla or perhaps Golea at one time appears to have been the
extreme limit of the Stone age in Algeria, but quite recently traces
of primitive man have been discovered amongst the Tuaregs. These
relics are hatchets made of black rock, and arrow-heads not unlike
those which the Arabs attribute to the Djinn; but as we approach the
south we find the flints picked up more clumsily and unskilfully cut
-- a proof that they were the work of a more barbarous people with
less practical skill. It is the megalithic monuments of Algeria,
of which we shall speak more in detail presently, that are the most
worthy of attention. As in India, we meet with them in thousands,
and in certain parts of the continent they extend for considerable
distances. They consist of long, square, circular, or oval enclosures
-- dolmens similar to those of Western Europe, -- and almost always
surrounded by circles of upright stones. The silence of historians
respecting them need not make us doubt their extreme antiquity, for
did it not take a very long time to induce the scientific men of our
day to turn their attention to Algeria at all?

The exploration of Tunisia has enabled us to study the Stone age
in that district, and a few years ago it was announced that nearly
three thousand objects of different types had been found in thirteen
different localities.[38] My son found near Gabes an immense number
of small worked flints not unlike a human nail, the origin and use of
which no one has been able to determine. The association of weapons
and implements roughly finished off, with chips and stones still in
the natural state, bears witness to the existence at one time of
workshops of some importance. The recent discoveries of Collignon
correspond with those in Algeria, and complete our knowledge of the
basin of the Mediterranean.

In the Cave of Hercules, in Morocco, which Pomponius Mela spoke
of as of great antiquity in his day, have been found a great many
worked flints, such as knives and arrow-heads. We shall refer later
to the important monument of Mzora and the menhirs surrounding it,
the builders of which certainly belonged to a race that lived much
nearer our own day than did the inhabitants of the Cave of Hercules.

The south of Africa is not so well known as the north, and the
difficulty of making explorations is a great obstacle to progress. For
some centuries, however, polished stone hatchets from the extreme
south of the continent have been preserved in the museums of Leyden and
Copenhagen, under the name of THUNDERSTONES, or STONES OF GOD. A great
many are found in British South Africa, especially at Graham's Town
and Table Bay.[39] Gooch, after describing the physical configuration
of the Cape, says that stone implements are found in all the terraces
at whatever level of the Quaternary deposits. With these stone objects
were found a good many fragments of coarse hand-made pottery, that
had been merely baked in the sun, and was strengthened with good-sized
pieces of quartz. Similar peculiarities are noticed in ancient European
pottery. We shall have to refer again to these singular analogies,
one of the chief aims of this book being to bring them into notice.

In the torrid regions between the Vaal and the Zambezi rivers,
we find traces of a race of a civilization different from that of
the savages conquered by the English. At Natal the gradual progress
of these unknown people can be traced step by step. To the earliest
period of all belong nothing but roughly hewn flints, and no traces
of pottery have been found; then follow flint arrow-heads of more
distinct form, and here and there fragments of sun-dried pottery. Of
more recent date still are polished stone weapons and more finely
moulded pottery; whilst to the latest date of all belong weapons of
considerable variety of form, better adapted to the needs of man,
and with these weapons were found huge stone mortars which had been
used for crushing grain, and bear witness to the use of vegetable diet.

We also meet with important ruins in the Transvaal. Some walls are
still standing which are thirty feet high and ten thick, forming
imperishable memorials of the past. They are built of huge blocks of
granite piled up without cement. We know nothing of those who erected
them; their name and history are alike effaced from the memory of man,
and we know nothing either of their ancestors or of their descendants.

In the Antipodes certain curious discoveries point to the existence
of man in those remote and mysterious times, to which, for want
of a better, we give in Europe the name of the Age of the Mammoth
and the Reindeer; and everything points to the conclusion that
man appeared in the different divisions of the earth about the same
time. Probably the first appearance of our race in Australia was prior
to the last convulsions of nature which gave to that continent its
present configuration. "Scientific studies," says M. Blanchard,[40]
"lead us to believe that at one period a vast continent rose from the
Pacific Ocean, which continent was broken up, and to a great extent
submerged, in convulsions of nature. New Zealand and the neighboring
islands are relics of this great land."

In the Corrio Mountains in New Zealand, at a height of nearly 4,921
feet above the sea-level, have been found flints shaped by the hand of
man, associated with a number of bones of the Dinornis, the largest
known bird. Other facts bear witness to an extinct civilization,
which we believe to have been extremely ancient, but to which, in the
present state of our knowledge, it is impossible to assign a date. In
the island of Tonga-Taboo, one of the Friendly group, is a remarkable
megalith, the base of which rests on uprights thirty feet high,
and supports a colossal stone bowl which is no less than thirteen
feet in diameter by one in height. In the same island is a trilithon
consisting of a transverse bar resting on two pillars provided with
mortises for its reception. The pillars weigh sixty-five tons, and a
local tradition affirms that the coralline conglomerate out of which
they were hewn was brought from Wallis Island, more than a thousand
miles off. It is difficult to explain[41] how the makers of this
trilithon managed to transport, to work, and to place such masses
in position. In a neighboring island a circle of uplifted stones,
covering an area of several hundred yards, reminds us of the cromlechs
of Brittany. The so-called Burial-Mound of Oberea at Otaheite, if it
really was constructed with stone tools, is yet more curious. Imagine
a pyramid of which the base is a long square, two hundred and sixty
feet long by eighty-seven wide. It is forty-three feet high. The top
is reached by a flight of steps cut in the coralline rock, all these
steps being of the same size and perfectly squared and polished.[42]


FIGURE 4

Stone statues on Easter Island.


On a rock at the entrance to the port of Sydney a kangaroo is
sculptured. In Easter Island (Rapa-Nui) La Perouse discovered a number
of coarsely executed bust statues (Fig. 4). There are altogether
some four hundred of them, forming groups in different parts of the
island. The excavations conducted by Pinart in 1887 have proved these
figures to be sepulchral monuments. He managed to make a considerable
collection of crania and human bones. Round about the crater of the
Rana-Raraku volcano, forty of these figures have been counted, all
of a similar type, all cut in one piece of solid trachyte rock. In
another place are eighty busts with longer noses and thicker lips,
forming a group by themselves. The largest of them is some thirty-nine
feet high. On the sides of the volcano, scattered about amongst
the statues, have been picked up a considerable number of knives,
scrapers, and pointed pieces of obsidian, which were probably tools
thrown away by the sculptors of the figures.

These monuments and sculptures are certainly the work of a race very
different from the present natives, who are altogether incapable of
producing anything of the kind, and who retain absolutely no traditions
respecting their predecessors. This complete oblivion, which may appear
rather strange, is by no means rare amongst savage races, and Sir John
Lubbock cites a great many very curious examples. "Oral traditions,"
says Broca, "are changed and distorted by each succeeding generation;
and are at last effaced to give place to others as transitory,
and thus the most important events are, sooner or later, relegated
to oblivion."[43]

We have dwelt at considerable length in another volume[44] on the
earliest inhabitants of America. Much still remains unknown in spite of
the considerable and important work done of late years. The very name
of the New World seems to be altogether out of place, America being as
old, if not older, than any continent of the Eastern Hemisphere. Lund
has brought forward weighty reasons for his theory that the central
plateau of Brazil was already a country when the rest of the continent
was still submerged or at least repre. sented merely by a few small
islets. This theory, however, even if it could be absolutely proved,
would not help us to fix the date of the earliest presence of man in
America, still less to say by what route he arrived there.


FIGURE 5

Fort Hill, Ohio.


Certain facts, amongst which I would, in the first place, quote the
discoveries of Dr. Abbott in the alluvial deposits of the Delaware
and those recently announced in Nevada,[45] prove the contemporaneity
of men like ourselves with the great edentate and pachydermatous
mammals, which were the most characteristic creatures of the American
fauna. The prehistoric inhabitants of North America were familiar with
the mastodon, those of South America with the glyptodon, the shell of
which on occasion served as a roof to the dwelling of primeval reran,
which dwelling was often but a den hollowed out of the ground. As in
Europe, the early inhabitants of America had to contend with powerful
mammals and fierce carnivora; and in the West as in the East man made
up in intelligence for his lack of brute force, and however formidable
an animal might be, it was condemned to submit to, or disappear
before, its master. In course of time Sedentary replaced Nomad races;
shell heaps, some of marine, some of riverine and lacustrine species,
but all alike mixed with a great variety of rubbish, were gradually
piled up extending for many miles and covering many acres of ground,
bearing witness to the existence of a population already considerable.


FIGURE 6

Group of sepulchral mounds.


In other parts of America prehistoric races have left behind them huge
earthworks, lofty masses which were probably fortifications (Fig. 5),
temples, and sepulchral monuments (Fig. 6). These earthworks extend
throughout North America from the Alleghany Mountains to the Atlantic,
from the great lakes of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The name of the
people who erected them is lost, and we must be content with that of
Mound Builders, which commemorate their vast undertakings.


FIGURE 7

Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo Valley.


At a period probably nearer our own, Arizona and New Mexico were
occupied by other maces, who built the so-called PUEBLOS, which were
regular phalansteries, or communal dwellings, each member of the
tribe having to be content with one wretched little cell (Fig. 7). At
some distance from the men of the PUEBLOS lived the Cliff Dwellers,
about whom we know next to nothing; a few stone weapons and countless
fragments of pottery being all they have left behind them. These
men established themselves in situations which are now inaccessible,
hewing out a dwelling in the rocks on the mountains (Figs. 8 and 9)
with wonderful perseverance, and closing up the approaches with
adobes or sun-dried bricks, making incredible efforts to obtain
for their families what must have been at the best but a precarious
shelter.[46] These prehistoric races were succeeded in America by
the Toltecs, Aztecs, Chibcas, and Peruvians, all known in history,
though their origin is as much involved in obscurity as that of their
predecessors. Temples, palaces, and magnificent monuments tell of
the wealth which gold gives, a wealth, alas, which also enervated the
vital forces, so that the Spanish and Portuguese met with but little
serious resistance in their rapid conquests.


FIGURE 8

Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos.



FIGURE 9

House in a rock of the Montezuma Canon.


Such are the facts with which we have to deal. In the following
chapters we shall consider more at length the problems they present,
but already we are led to one important conclusion: in every part of
the globe, in every latitude, in every climate, worked flints, whether
but roughly chipped or elaborately polished, present analogies which
must strike the most superficial observer. "We find them," remarks an
American author, "in the tumuli of Siberia, in the tombs of Egypt,
in the soil of Greece, beneath the rude monuments of Scandinavia;
but whether they come front Europe or Asia, from Africa or America,
they are so much alike in form, in material, and in workmanship,
that they might easily be taken for the work of the same men."

At a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
in 1871, Sir John Lubbock showed worked flints from Chili and New
Zealand with others found in England, Germany, Spain, Australia, the
Guianas, and on the banks of the Amazon; which one and all belonged
to the same type. More recently the Anthropological Society of Vienna
compared the stone hatchets found near the Canadian lakes and in the
deserts of Uruguay, with others from Catania in Italy, Angermunde in
Brandenburg, and a tomb in Scandinavia, deciding that they were all
exactly alike. Lastly, those who studied at the French Exhibition of
1878 the hatchets, hammers, and scrapers, the bone implements, pottery,
and weapons brought from different places, the inhabitants of which
had no communication with each other, could not fail to notice in
their turn how impossible it was to distinguish between them. "So
evident is this resemblance," says Vogt,[47] "that we may easily
confound together implements brought from such very different sources."

The same observation applies to megalithic monuments. Everywhere
we find these primitive structures assuming similar forms. It is
difficult enough to believe that the wants of man alone, such as
the craving for food, the need of clothing, and the necessity of
defend. ing himself, have led in every case to the same ideas and the
same amount of progress. Even if this be proved by the worked flints,
we cannot accept a similar conclusion with regard to the megalithic
monuments, which imply reflection and a thought of the future far
beyond the material needs of daily life. Is it not more reasonable
to regard a similitude so striking as a proof of the unity of our race?

The human bones discovered are yet more convincing
testimony. Excavations have yielded some which may date from the very
earliest period of the existence of man upon the earth. They have been
found in caves and in the river drift, beneath the mounds of America
and the megalithic monuments of Europe, in the ice-clad districts of
Scandinavia and of Iceland, and in the burning deserts of Africa,
but not one of them owes its existence to men of a type different
from those of historic times or of our own day.[48] MM. Quatrefages
and Hamy in their magnificent work "Crania Ethnica," have been
able to distinguish prehistoric races and indicate the area they
occupied. These races are still represented, and their descendants
of to-day retain the characteristics of their ancestors.

One final conclusion is no less interesting. These absolutely
countless flints, these monuments of imposing size, these stones
of immense weight often brought from afar, these marvellous mounds
and tumuli, bear witness to the presence of a population which was
already considerable at the time of which we are endeavoring to make
out the traces. A long series of centuries must have been needed
for a people to increase to such an extent as to have spread over
entire continents. And time was not wanting. Whatever antiquity may
be attributed to the human race, whatever the initial date to which
its first appearance may be relegated, this antiquity is but slight,
this date is but modern, if we compare it with the truly incalculable
ages of which geology reveals the existence. At every turn we are
arrested by the immensity of time, the immensity of space, and yet
our knowledge is still confined to the mere outer rind of the earth,
and science cannot as yet even guess at the secrets hidden beneath
that rind.

In concluding these introductory remarks, we must add that very
great difficulties await those who devote themselves to prehistoric
studies -- difficulties such as noise but those who have attempted
to conquer them can realize. The rare traces of prehistoric man must
be sought amongst the effects of the cataclysms that have devastated
the earth, and the ruins piled up in the course of ages. We must show
mall wrestling with the ever-recurrent difficulties of his hard life,
and gradually developing in accordance with a law which appears to
be immutable. Such is the aim of this work, and it is with gratitude
that we assert at the beginning that the PIANTA UOMO, the human
plant, as Alfieri calls our race, was endowed by the Creator from
the first with a very vigorous vitality, to enable it to contend with
the dangers besetting its steps in the early days of its existence,
and with a truly marvellous spirit, to be able to make so humble a
beginning the starting-point for a destiny so glorious.



CHAPTER II

Food, Cannibalism, Mammals Fish, Hunting, and Fishing.

The first care of man on his arrival upon the earth was necessarily
to make sure of food. Wild berries, acorns, and ephemeral grasses
only last for a time, whilst land mollusca and insects, forming but
a miserable diet at the best, disappear during the winter. Meat
must certainly have been the chief food of prehistoric man; the
accumulations of bones of all sorts in the caves and other places
inhabited by him leave no doubt on that point. The horse, which in
Europe was hunted, killed, and eaten for many centuries before it was
domesticated, was an important article of diet, and was supplemented
by the aurochs, the stag, the chamois, the wild goat, the boar, the
bare, and failing them, the wolf, the fox, and above all the reindeer,
which multiplied rapidly in districts suitable to it. The elephant
bones picked up on Mount Dol and elsewhere are nearly all those of
young animals; and it is probable that they had been killed for food by
man. In the Sureau Cave in Belgium,[49] in that of Aurignac in France,
and Brixham in England, have been found complete skeletons of the URSUS
SPELAEUS, which bad evidently been dragged in with the flesh still
on them, for all the bones are in their natural position. In other
caves, the thorax and the vertebrae of the skeletons were missing; the
cave-man, having despatched his victim, bad evidently taken only the
more succulent parts into his retreat. Beasts of prey merely gnaw the
comparatively tender and spongy tops of the bones, leaving the hard,
compact parts untouched. In the caves that were inhabited by man,
however, we find the apophyses neglected, whilst the diaphyses are
split open. We cannot, therefore, make any mistake on this point,
or attribute to the beast of prey what is certainly the work of man.

Whilst he evidently preferred to hunt and eat the larger mammals,
man when pressed by hunger did not despise the small rodents, which
were, of course, more easily captured. Amongst piles of the bones of
horses and stags have been found the remains of martens, hedgehogs,
and mice; and from the Thayngen Cave have been taken the bones of more
than five hundred bares. In Belgium the water-rat seems to have been
considered a dainty, and in the Chaleux Cave alone were found more
than twenty pounds' weight of the bones of this creature, nearly all
bearing traces of having been subjected to the action of fire.

The remains of birds are rarer, and Broca has remarked that the most
ancient hunting implements which have come down to us; those from the
Moustier Cave, for instance, were adapted rather to attack animals that
would show fight than those that would simply fly or run away. The
Gourdan Cave, however, has yielded the bones of the moor-fowl, the
partridge, the wild duck, and even the domesticated cock And hen; the
Frontal Cave, the thrush, the duck, the partridge, and the pigeon;
and in other caves were found the bones of the goose, the swan, and
the grouse. Milne-Edwards enumerates fifty-one species belonging to
different orders found in the caves of France, and M. Riviere picked
up the remains of thousands of birds in those of Baousse-Rousse on
the frontier of Italy.[50]

The skulls of the mammals bad been opened, and the bones
split. Brains and marrow probably figured at feasts as the greatest
delicacies. Travellers, whose tales are a help to us in building up a
picture of the remote past of our race, relate that the Laplanders,
as soon as an animal is killed, break open its skull and devour the
brain whilst it is still warm and bleeding. This was probably also
the custom amongst prehistoric cave-men.

The flesh of animals was not, alas, the only meat eaten, and
excavations in different parts of the globe have led to the discovery
of traces of the practice of cannibalism which it is difficult not
to accept.[51]

Dr. Spring noticed at Chauvaux a great many bones which were nearly
all those of women and children, side by side with which lay others of
ruminants belonging to species still extant. All these bones bad alike
been subjected to great heat, and none but those which bad contained no
marrow were left unbroken. This appears an incontrovertible proof of
cannibalism, and Dr. Spring concludes that it was certainly practised
by the earliest inhabitants of Belgium. We must add, however, that
other excavations in the same cave at Chauvaux prove that it was
used as a burial-place, some skeletons being ranged in regular order
with weapons and stone implements placed beside them.[52] M. Dupont
mentions having found in the caves of the Lesse, which date from the
Reindeer period, human bones mixed with other remains of a meal. He
notes a similar fact in another cave that he considers belongs to
Neolithic times. "But," he adds, "none of these bones bear any trace
of having been struck with a flint or other tool with a view to their
fracture. If any of them are broken it is transversely, and the cause
of the fracture has been merely the weight of the earth above them;
moreover, they show no trace of the action of fire."[53] M. Dupont,
therefore, still retains some doubt of the cannibalism of the cave-men
of the valley of the Lesse, and attributes the presence of the bones of
the dead amongst the rubbish of all kinds accumulated by the living,
to their idleness and indifference. One example at the present day
tends to confirm this opinion, for travellers tell us of the same
revolting carelessness amongst the Esquimaux, who cannot certainly
be classed amongst cannibals.

The Abbe Chierici, speaking at the Brussels Congress[54] of the
excavations in one of the Reggio caves, remarked that human bones
were mixed with those of animals, and that both showed traces of
having been burnt. These bones date from the Neolithic period, and
with them were picked up various objects of remarkable workmanship,
including fragments of pottery, half a grindstone for crushing grain,
and some admirably polished serpentine hatchets.

Other facts leave no doubt of the cannibalism of the earliest
inhabitants of Italy. Moreover, hesitation on this point is
impossible for other reasons, as Roman historians allude to the
practice. Pliny,[55] in saying how little removed was a human sacrifice
from a meal, adds, that it ought not to surprise us to meet with this
monstrous custom amongst barbarian races, as it prevailed in ancient
times in Italy and Sicily.

It is generally admitted that we can tell whether the fracture of long
bones was intentional by the way in which they were broken. This fact,
which is true alike with the bones of men and of animals, is the most
important proof we have of the cannibalism of the men of the Stone
age. To the examples already given, we can easily add others culled
from France. In the Pyrenees and in the caves of Lourdes and Gourdan,
for instance, human bones have been found mixed with the cinders and
ashes of the hearth, and still bearing the marks of the implements
with which they were broken.

At Bruniquel a human skull was found which had been opened in the
same way as the heads of ruminants amongst which it was picked up, and
on its external surface were deep notches, which appear to have been
made with a flint hatchet. Similar traces of revolting feasts on human
flesh are not at all rare; near Paris, at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,
and at Varenne-Saint-Maur, for instance.[56]

The excavations in the Montesquieu-Avantes Cave, about six miles from
Saint-Girons, have brought to light a hearth covered over with a layer
of stalagmite; numerous fragments of human bones, crania, femora,
tibiae, humeri, and radii were found in this layer, and in that of the
subjacent clay. In many cases the medullary orifice had been enlarged
to make it easier to get out the marrow. It is impossible to attribute
this to a rodent, for the bones gnawed by animals of that kind present
a regular series of marks. The conclusion is inevitable: these bones,
alike of men and of animals, were the remains of a meal.[57]

In Kent's Hole, the celebrated cave in Devonshire, amongst many objects
dating from the Stone age, were found some human bones bearing traces
of having been gnawed by man. The eminent anthropologist, Owen, came
to a similar conclusion -- that cannibalism had been practised --
after examining the jaw-bone of a child found in Scotland; and so did
the Rev. F. Porter, after the excavations near Scarborough, where
several skeletons were found under a tumulus, which had apparently
been thrown where they were discovered by accident.

The Cesareda caves in Portugal have yielded some bones split
lengthwise; and beneath the dolmen near the village of Hammer, in
Denmark, human bones and those of stags have been found half gnawed,
and showing only too clearly the origin of the marks upon them. Worsaae
quotes similar facts at Borreby, Chantres refers to the same thing in
the caves of the Caucasus, Captain Burton at Beitsahur, near Jerusalem,
Wiener in the SAMBAQUIS of Brazil, even in deposits which he considers
of recent origin.[58]

Brazil is not the only part of the American continent in which we find
traces of the use of this revolting food. In the kitchen-middings of
Florida Wyman found human bones, which had been intentionally broken,
mixed with those of deer and beavers. The marrow had been taken from
all of them and eaten by man. Yet more recent discoveries of a similar
kind have been made in New England.[59]

We must, however, add that many of these facts are contested. Every
people considers it a point of honor to repudiate the idea that its
ancestors fed on human flesh, and yet everywhere history tells us
of the practice of cannibalism. Herodotus speaks of it amongst the
Androphagae and the Issedones, people of Scythian origin; Aristotle
amongst the races living on the borders of the Pontus Euxinus;
Diodorus Siculus amongst the Galatians; and Strabo, in his turn,
says: "The Irish, more savage than the Bretons, are cannibals and
polyphagous; they consider it an honor to eat their parents soon
after life is extinct."[60]

From the ancient tombs of Georgia have been taken human bones that
have been boiled or charred, which were doubtless those of the victims
eaten by the assistants in the FETES which have ever accompanied
funeral rites.

In the fourth century of our era Jerome speaks of having met in Gaul
with the Attacotes, descended from a savage Scotch tribe, who fed on
human flesh, and that though they possessed great herds of cattle and
flocks of sheep, with numbers of pigs, for whom their vast forests
afforded excellent grazing grounds[61]; and though the Scandinavian
kitchen-middings have not so far yielded any traces of the practice of
cannibalism, Adam of Bremen, who preached Christianity at the court
of King Sweyn Ulfson, represents the Danes of his day as barbarians
clad in the skins of beasts, chasing the aurochs and the eland,
unable to do more than imitate the cries of animals and devouring
the flesh of their fellow-men.[62]

Nothing could exceed the barbarity of the Mexican sacrifices, the
numbers of the victims, and the refinements of torture to which they
were subjected. Prisoners, who had often been fattened for months
previously, perished by thousands on the altars. The palpitating flesh
was distributed amongst the assistants, and a horrible custom compelled
the priests to clothe themselves in the still bleeding skins of the
unfortunate wretches, and to wear them until they rotted to pieces.

Without going back to an antiquity so remote, in how many different
regions of Africa and America, and in how many islands of Polynesia
have not our sailors and missionaries reported the practice
of cannibalism in our own day? It is difficult, therefore, not to
believe, although the fact cannot perhaps be very distinctly proved,
that the first inhabitants of Europe degraded as were the conditions
of their existence, did eat human flesh and acquire a depraved taste
for it; impelled thereto not only by the pangs of hunger, but also
by a revolting superstition.

Animals, however, were very plentiful all around. Stags, elks, aurochs,
horses, and the large pachyderms multiplied very rapidly in the wide
solitudes, the pasture lands of which afforded them a constantly
renewed supply of food, and the beasts of prey in their turn found an
easy prey in the ruminants.[63] The ways of animals do not change, and
the travellers who are exploring the interior of Africa tell us that
now, as in the day we are trying to recall, hundreds of elephants and
rhinoceroses congregate in a limited area, whilst innumerable herds
of giraffes, zebras, and gazelles graze peacefully in the presence
of man, whose destructive powers they have not yet learnt to dread.

Delegorgue speaks of one lake peopled by more than one hundred
hippopotami, and of a region less than three miles in diameter
containing six hundred elephants. Livingstone tells us that he
saw troops of more than four thousand antelopes pass at a time,
and that these animals showed absolutely no fear. We may give a yet
more curious instance. Captain Gordon Cumming, crossing the plains
stretching away on the north of the Cape, saw troops of gazelles and
antelopes, compelled by a long drought to migrate in search of the
water indispensable to them, and be describes with enthusiasm one of
these migrations, telling us that the plain was literally covered
with animals, the hurrying herds defiling before him in an endless
stream. On the evening of the same day, a yet more numerous herd
passed by in the same direction, the numbers of which were absolutely
incalculable, but which, according to Cumming, must have exceeded
several hundred thousand.

Such must have been animal life in Europe in Quaternary times. "Grand
indeed," cries Hugh Miller, "was the fauna of the British Isles in
those days. Tigers, as large again as the biggest Asiatic species,
lurked in the ancient thickets; elephants, of nearly twice the bulk of
the largest individuals that now exist in Africa or Ceylon, roamed in
herds; at least two species of rhinoceros forced their way through the
primeval forest, and the lakes and rivers were tenanted by hippopotami
as bulky and with as great tusks as those of Africa."[64]

Material proofs of the presence of animals are not wanting. The
accumulation of coprolites in the cave of Sentenheim (Alsace) bears
witness to the number of bears which once haunted it. Nordmann took
from a cave near Odessa 4,500 bones of ursidae, associated with
no less numerous relics of the large cave-lion and cave-hyena.[65]
The Kulock Cave, now some six hundred and fifty feet above the river,
contained the remains of no less than 2,500 bears, and similar relics
occur by thousands in the osseous breccia of Santenay and in the
cave of Lherm, where they form a regular ossuary. It would be easy
to quote similar facts from Belgian, German, and Hungarian caves. In
almost every case the position of the skeletons seems to show that the
bears sought a last refuge in the caves, and that death had surprised
them during their winter sleep. Pachyderms were no less numerous than
bears. The remains of mammoths are found from the north of Europe to
Greece and Spain, and we meet with them in Algeria, ,gyp Asia from
the Altai Mountains to the Arctic Ocean, and in America in Mexico
and Kentucky. They seem to have entrenched themselves especially in
Siberia, whence tusks are still exported as an article of commerce. In
the extreme North, those parts of Wrangel's Land which have been
explored are strewn with the bones of mastodons, and in some parts of
Sonora and Columbia these remains form almost inexhaustible deposits.

Animals of the cervine and equine groups were, if possible, yet more
numerous. M. Piette estimates the number of reindeer whose bones he
has picked up in the Gourdan Cave as over. 3,000, and the number of
cervidae found at Hohlefels is positively incalculable.

In 1826, Marcel de Serres called attention to the great number of the
bones of animals of the equine family found in the neighborhood of
Lunel-Viel; at Solutre, the remains of horses cover a great portion
of the slope which stretches from. the eastern side of the mountain
to the bottom of the valley. Here are found those vast accumulations
to which the inhabitants of the valley give the characteristic name
of HORSE-WALLS. The number of horses, the bones of which have gone to
form these walls, may be estimated without exaggeration at 40,000. The
bones are mixed together in the greatest confusion, many of them show
traces of having been burnt, and the flesh of the horse was evidently
the favorite diet of the people of Solutre.[66]

At first man obtained by force, often aided by strategy, the animals
he coveted. He bad not yet learnt to tame them and reduce them to
servitude. Neither the reindeer nor the horse was as yet domesticated,
and neither in the caves nor in the various deposits elsewhere has a
complete skeleton been found, but only -- a very significant fact --
the bones on which had been the greater amount of flesh. The absence
of any remains of the dog, so indispensable an animal in the keeping of
flocks, is yet another proof that domestication was still unpractised.

It was with most miserable weapons, such as a few stones, scarcely
even rough-hewn, and a few flint arrows, that the cave-man did
not hesitate to attack the most formidable animals, and with such
apparently inadequate means he succeeded in wounding and even killing
them. The French Museum possesses mammoth and rhinoceros bones bearing
fine scratches produced by the weapons which had been used to despatch
the animals. The metacarpus of a large beast of prey, found at Eyzies,
retains marks no less clear, and the skull of a bear front Nabrigas
has in it a large wound which must have been made by a missile of
some kind.

In Ireland a stone hammer was found wedged into the head of a CERVUS
MEGACEROS; in Cambridgeshire, the skull of an URSUS SPELAEUS still
containing the fragment of a celt which had given the animal his
deathblow; at Richmond (Yorkshire) the bones of a large deer which
had been sawn with a flint implement. The fine collection in the
University of Lund, contains a vertebra of a urns pierced by an arrow,
and the Copenhagen Museum, the jaw of a stag pierced by a fragment
of flint. Steenstrup mentions two bones of a large stag into which
stone chips had penetrated deeply, and in which the fracture had been
gradually covered over by the bony tissue. A bone of some bovine animal
with an arrow deeply imbedded in it has been taken from a bed of peat
in the island of Moen, celebrated for its tumuli and the number of
objects found in them. At Eyzies, a flint flake has been found firmly
fixed in one of the lumbar vertebrae of a young reindeer, and M. de
Baye mentions an arrow with a tranverse edge stuck in the bone of a
badger.[67] The Abbe Ducrost found a flint arrow-head sticking in a
vertebra of a horse.

Nor were those already mentioned the only animals on which man made
war. We shall speak presently of the contests with each other, which
began amongst men in the very earliest days of humanity. Human bones,
perforated by arrows and broken by stone hatchets, bear ineffaceable
traces to this day of homicidal struggles.

In many places fresh-water and marine fish were utilized as food
by man. In the numerous caves of the Vezere, in those of Madeleine,
Eyzies, and Bruniquel, excavations have brought to light the vertebrae
and other bones of fishes, amongst which predominate chiefly those
of the jack, the carp, the bream, the drub, the trout, and the
tench -- in a word, all the fish which still people our rivers and
lakes. In the Lake Stations of Switzerland, fish of all kinds are
no less abundant. At Gardeole, amongst the bones of mammals have
been found the shells of mollusca, and remains of the turtle. and of
goldfish. Fish was not, however, caught by all these primitive people,
not even by all those who lived by the sea. In researches carefully
carried on for years in the Maritime-Alps, M. Riviere found neither
fishing-tackle nor fish-lines.

Whilst the cave-men of the south of France seem not to have utilized
any but fresh-water fish, the Scandinavians, at a date probably
less remote however, did not hesitate to brave the ocean. The
kitchen-middings contain numerous remains of fish, amongst which those
of the mackerel, the dab, and the herring are the most numerous. There,
too, we meet with relics of the cod, which never approaches the coast,
and must always be sought by the fisherman in the open sea.

Although we are in a position to assert that men were able to catch
fish during every prehistoric period, if not in every locality, we
can speak less positively of their mode of doing so. The earliest
fishing-tackle was doubtless of the most primitive description: the
bone of some animal, a fragment of hard wood, or even a fish-bone
pointed at each end and pierced with a hole, served their purpose
(Fig. 10). The Exhibition of Fishing-Tackle held at Berlin in 1880
contained several such implements, some of wood, others of bone. Others
have also been found in the Madeleine Cave, and in different stations
of the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland. It is interesting to note
their resemblance to those still in use amongst the Esquimaux.


FIGURE 10

Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn from the Martinet Cave
(Lot-et-Garonne). -- 2. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn
(one third natural size). -- 3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark. --
5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin. -- 6. Bone fish-hook; pointed
at each end, from Wangen.


Prehistoric mail also turned to account the teeth of animals. We
may quote in this connection the molars of a bear from which the
enamel and the crown have been removed, and the thickness of which
has been lessened by rubbing (Fig. 11). The small flints picked up
in great numbers in the department of the Gironde also date from a
remote antiquity; they are sixteen millimetres long by four wide,
and though we cannot assert it as a fact, they are supposed to have
been used for catching fish.


FIGURE 11

Bears' teeth converted into fish-hooks.



FIGURE 12

Fish-hook made out of a boar's tusk.


The Museum of Lund possesses two flint fish-books of a curved shape,
one of them, which is four centimetres long by nearly three wide,
was found by the seashore; the other and smaller one came front
the shores of Lake Kranke.[68] Fish-hooks made of bone, which is
more easily worked than flint, very soon replaced those in that
material. They are numerous in the Lake Stations of Wangen, Mooseedorf,
and St. Aubin. Some are cut out of the horns of oxen, others of stags'
antlers; while others again are made of boars' tusks (Fig. 12), but
all alike greatly resemble modern forms. The peat-bogs of Scania have
yielded a bone fish-hook seven centimetres long, which is considered
very ancient, and the Museum of Stettin possesses one, also very
old, found in a gnarly deposit of Pomerania. We must not forget to
mention, although it probably belongs to a much more recent period,
a fish-hook in reindeer horn, now in the Christiania Museum. It was
found in a tomb in the island of Kjelnoe, not far from the Russian
frontier. Numerous skeletons, wrapped up in swathings of birch-bark,
repose in this tomb. All around lay fragments of pottery, lance-
and arrow-heads,[69] and combs of reindeer horn, the date of which
it is impossible to fix exactly.

In America, stone fish-hooks are rare. The most ancient are of
bone, and resemble those now in use. They have been picked up in
Dakota, and in the cinderheaps of Madisonville (Ohio), in Indiana,
in Arkansas, on the shores of Lake Erie, and in a kitchen-midding of
Long Island. The greater number of them are polished, and some of
them have near the top a hole by which they could be fastened to a
line or cord. The fish-hooks of California are remarkable for their
rounded forms and sharply curved points; the top was covered with a
thick layer of asphalt to which the line was probably fastened. They
are numerous in all the islands of the Pacific coast. In that of
Santa Cruz Schumacker excavated a tomb which must have been that of
a fish-hook manufacturer, for care had been taken to place near the
deceased, not only the implements of his craft, but also a number of
fish-hooks in various stages of advancement. The Californians used the
shells of the MYTILUS CALIFORNICUS and HALIOTIS to make fish-hooks, and
these were even more curved than those made of bone. The shape seems
but little suited for fishing, but even in our own day the natives of
the Samoa Islands use similar tackle with great success. The Indians
of the northwest coast make fish-hooks of epicea wood, and those of
Arizona utilize for the same purpose the long spikes of the cactus. It
is very probable that European as well as American races knew how to
use wood in the same manner. During the lapse of centuries, however,
these fragile objects have been reduced to dust, and we are unable
to make any further conjectures on the subject.

The use of bronze, the first metal to be generally employed,
does not seem to have introduced any great modifications in
fishing-tackle. Bronze fish-hooks are, however, thinner and lighter
than those in other materials, and resemble those in use amongst
fishermen at the present day. A certain number have been found in
the Lake Stations of Switzerland, in lakes Peschiera and Bourget,
as well as in Scotland, Ireland, and the island of Funen off the
coast of Denmark. We must not omit to mention the important foundry
of Larnaud, or the CACHE of Saint-Pierre-en-Chatre, both so rich in
bronze objects. In America, where the copper mines of Lake Superior
were worked at a remote antiquity, a few rare copper fish-hooks have
been found, the greater number in the Ancon necropolis.[70] Gold
fish. hooks are comparatively more numerous, and have been discovered
in New Granada and the Cauca State.[71] One of these was found some
forty-nine feet below the surface of the ground, and as there is no
trace of disturbance, we cannot assign to it a recent origin. The
gold fish-hooks are about four inches long, and look like big pins
with the lower end bent back upon the upper.

Other fishing implements were also used by out- prehistoric
ancestors. At Laugerie-Basse a rough drawing shows us a man striking
with a harpoon a fish that is trying to escape. These harpoons were
generally made of reindeer horn (Figs. 10 and 13). Some had but one
barb, others several. One of the largest was found in the Madeleine
Cave; it is eight inches long, and has three barbs on one side and
five on the other. Most of these weapons have a notch in the handle,
with the help of which they could be firmly fastened to a spear or
lance. Different fashions prevailed in different localities, and
sinews, leather thongs, roughly plaited cords, creepers, and resinous
substances were often pressed into the service.


FIGURE 13

A, a large barbed arrow from one side of the Plantade shelter
(Tarn-et-Garonne). B, lower part of a barbed harpoon from the Plantade
deposit.


Many harpoons have been found in the caves of the south of France;
others come from Belgium, from Keyserloch in Germany, Kent's Hole in
England, from Conches, Wauwyl, and Concise in Switzerland. Excavations
in Victoria Cave, near Settle (Yorkshire), yielded amongst other
interesting objects a bone harpoon cut to a point and with two barbs on
either side. On the banks of the Uswiata, a little Polish river flowing
into the Dnieper, two harpoons made out of the horns of some bovine
animal were found, both in perfect preservation, and with several
barbs.[72] Count Ouvaroff, in an excellent work published a little
before his death, mentions a bone spear from the shores of the Oka, and
Madsen and Montelius speak of Scandinavian harpoons. These weapons must
have been especially useful in the North during the severe frosts of
winter. The fisherman made a hole in the ice and struck the fish with
his harpoon when the poor creatures came up to the surface to breathe.

From the most remote times the Americans knew how to make and use
harpoons. As many as twenty. eight different kinds are known.[73] In
some the barbs are bilateral, but most of them have them on one side
only. Some, however, are made of stag or elk horn, and one harpoon
from Maine is made of whalebone. A harpoon-point found near Detroit
(Michigan) is nearly a foot long by one inch thick. Excavations in
a rock shelter in Alaska yielded a harpoon which lay side by side
with some of the most ancient Quaternary mammals of America. A good
many copper harpoon-heads are also mentioned; one of the largest from
Wisconsin is ten inches long. Others have been found in the island of
Santa Barbara (California) and in Tierra del Fuego, where the natives
of the present day still use similar ones. These harpoons with barbs
are by no means simple weapons, the idea of which would naturally
occur to the human mind, so that it is really extremely strange
to find weapons so entirely similar in regions so different and so
widely separated from one another. This constant similitude in the
working of the genius of man is, as We shall never tire of repeating,
one of the most striking facts revealed by prehistoric researches.

Herodotus tells that the Poeni (Carthaginians) plunged baskets into
the water and drew them up full of fish. It is probable that the Lake
Dwellers of Helvetia employed a similar process, but these ancient
Swiss were already more advanced than that. They knew how to cultivate
hemp, to spin it, and to make nets of it; the remains of some of these
nets have often of late years been taken from the beds of the lakes.

It is almost impossible to class with any certainty the numerous Lake
Stations of Switzerland. Some few certainly date from the Stone age,
others from the transition period, between it and that of the early
use of metals, or even from the Bronze age. As therefore they have
been occupied at different times by different people, some of them
having even been still in use in the time of the Romans, it is most
difficult to fix with any precision the date to which belong the
various objects mixed together beneath the deep waters of the lakes. We
can only say that the nets differ very much in the size of the meshes,
and the thickness of the rope used. Those found at Robenhausen are
very like those in use in France at the present day. There has, in
fact, been no advance in the art of making fishing-tackle since the
remote days of the Lake Dwellers.

We are ignorant of the mode of manufacture of prehistoric nets. Did
the Lake Dwellers, as some archaeologists are disposed to think, use
a loom? Did they use shuttles and rollers such as are employed by the
Esquimaux and Californians of the present day? It is impossible to
say, but it is supposed that the bears' teeth sharpened to a point,
found in some stations, were used to tighten the meshes. These meshes
were generally square, and each one was finished of with a knot of
the same size at each intersection.

The lead weights so indispensable to fishermen of the present
day for sinking the nets, were represented in prehistoric times by
stones. These stones, which are drilled or notched, are found in all
the Lake Stations. The fragments of pottery pierced with a hole found
at Schussenried, a Lake Station of the Stone age on the Feder-See
(Wurtemburg), were probably used for the same purpose. In some of
the Swiss Lake Stations have also been found pieces of wood and cork,
pierced with one or more holes, which had certainly served as floats.

Numerous stone implements of the most primitive forms, often of rock
not native to the country, have been found in some of the islands
of Greece, as well as in Corsica, Sardinia, Elba, and Sicily. These
discoveries bear witness to the presence of man in these islands at
a very remote antiquity, though no other traces of the existence of
prehistoric human beings have as yet been found there. These men can
only have reached the islands by way of the sea. Boats were the only
means of communication between the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland and
the mainland, and, as we have seen, the ancient Scandinavians hunted
fish on the deep ocean. We must therefore admit that attempts at
navigation were made in the very earliest days of humanity. Alan,
impelled by necessity, or perhaps only by curiosity, was not afraid
to launch his bark, first upon the rivers, and later upon the more
formidable waves of the sea


Illi robur et aes triplex
Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci
Commisit pelago ratem
Primus.[74]


The Latin poet is right, and we cannot but admire those who were the
first to brave the terrors of the deep and the horrors of the tempest;
for they were gifted alike with the intelligence which conceives,
the courage that dares, and the strength that achieves.

Trees torn up by the roots by the force of the waters, and floating
on the surface of those waters, naturally attracted the attention
of primeval man, and the first boats were doubtless the trunks of
such trees roughly squared and then hollowed out with the help of
fire. Later experience led to the addition of a prow which would
more easily cleave the water, and a stern which would serve as a
pivot. These canoes, if such a name may be already given to them,
were at first guided by branches stripped of their leaves, or with
long poles. Then oars or paddles were introduced, which are better for
beating the water, and in later barks traces have been made out of what
is supposed to have been a mast, indicating the use of a sail. The art
of navigation may now be said to have been inaugurated. In different
parts of Europe have been found boats which certainly belong to
very remote times, though their exact date cannot be fixed. Their
construction greatly resembles that of the pirogues of the Polynesians,
or the kayaks of the Greenlanders. One of the most ancient, now in the
Berlin Provincial Museum, was taken from a peat-bog of Brandenburg.[75]
It is 27 feet long and scarcely 16 inches wide.

Sir W. Wilde describes several boats from the marshes and peat-bogs of
Ireland,[76] many of which have handles cut in the wood at the ends,
by the help of which they could easily be dragged along overland. Sir
W. Wilde adds that the Irish also used CURRAGHS, or CORACLES, which
were mere wicker frames covered with the skins of oxen. These frail
barks introduce us to a new mode of navigation; they are met with
not only in tire different countries of Europe, but also in America,
and were in use there in pre-Columbian times. Even more interesting
examples have been found in Scotland.[77] Towards the close of last
century a pirogue was taken from the ancient bed of the Clyde at
Glasgow. Since then have been discovered, at depths varying from six
to twelve feet, more than twenty similar boats. The deposits in which
they lay had formerly been beneath the sea, but are now some twenty
feet above the level of the ocean. Great changes have therefore taken
place since these barks were launched upon the waves.[78] Their mode
of construction is an excellent indication of the date to which they
belong. Some which are hollowed out of the trunks of oaks by the
help of fire, or with a blunt tool, are supposed by Lyell to date
from the Stone age. Others have clean-cut notches, evidently made
with metal implements. Some are made of planks joined together with
wooden pegs, and one canoe found in County Galway even contained
copper nails. Most of the boats from the bed of the Clyde seem to
have foundered in still waters. Some, however, were discovered in a
vertical position, others had the keel uppermost, and these latter
had evidently sunk in a storm. In one of these boats was a diorite
hatchet of the kind characteristic of Neolithic times; another,
the wood of which was perfectly black, had become as hard as marble,
and in it was a cork plug. Then, as now, the oak which yields cork
was foreign to the cold climate of Scotland.

We will quote but one of the discoveries made in England. In
1881 a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, was found at
Bovey-Tracey in Devonshire. It lay in a deposit of brick-earth more
than twenty-nine feet below the highest level reached by the waters
of the Bovey.[79] It was more than thirty-five inches wide, and its
length could not be exactly determined, the workmen having broken it
in getting it out. An eminent archaeologist is of opinion that this
boat dates from the Glacial epoch, perhaps even from a more remote
time. If this hypothesis, the responsibility of which we leave to
him, be correct, this is the most ancient witness in existence of
prehistoric navigation. We must also mention a boat found near Brigg
(Lincolnshire), a few feet from a little river that flows into the
Humber. It is about forty-five feet long by three and a half feet wide,
and is some three feet high. The prow is fluted. There are no traces
of a mast, though the size of the boat must have made it difficult
to manage with oars alone.

One of the pirogues preserved at the Copenhagen Museum is made of one
half of the trunk of a tree, some six feet long, hollowed into the
shape of a trough, and cut straight at both ends.[80] It is curious to
compare this clumsy structure with a boat recently discovered beneath
a tumulus at Gogstadten in Norway (Fig. 14), of which, though it dates
from historic times, we give a drawing, as it is a good illustration
of the progress made. The dead Viking had been laid in his boat,
as the most glorious of tombs; with its prow pointing seawards, for
would not the first thoughts of the chief when he awoke in another
life be of the sea which had witnessed his triumphs? The sides of
the boat, which was more than sixty-six feet long and fifteen across
the widest part, were painted, and around it was ranged a series of
shields lapping over one another like the scales of a fish, and not
unlike the designs seen in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry. A block of
oak intended to receive the mast was placed in the centre of the boat,
and near the skeleton were oars some fifteen feet long and similar
in form to those now in use.


FIGURE 14

Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten.


Inlaying the foundations of the bridge of Les Invalides, Paris, a boat
was taken out of the mud which had lain there for many centuries. Like
most of those already mentioned, it had been made out of a single
trunk roughly squared. Everywhere, we must repeat once again, man's
original ideas were the same; everywhere the tree floating on the top
of the water excited his curiosity, and became the starting-point for
one of his most important discoveries. Traces of similar attempts
at navigation are met with in other parts of France; a canoe was
found in the Loire near Saint Mars, and the Dijon Museum possesses
another from the same river, the latter some sixteen feet long, and
traces have been made out of what are supposed to have been seats,
but may have been mere contrivances for strengthening the boat. A
canoe taken last year from the bed of the Cher is of the shape of a
trough closed at the end by pieces of wood fixed by means of vertical
grooves. The prow had been shaped in the first instance in the trunk
itself, and it was probably owing to an accident, a collision perhaps,
that it had had to be mended in this way (Fig. 15).


FIGURE 15

Ancient boat discovered in the bed of the Cher.


The Lake Dwellers of Switzerland owned boats from the time of their
first settlement in their water homes. One of them found at Robenhausen
is more than ten feet long, and is very shallow, varying from six to
eight inches. Like most of those already mentioned, it was hollowed
out of the trunk of a tree, bulging out towards the centre, and
rounded at the ends. So far none but stone tools have been found at
the station of Robenhausen, so that we must presume that it was with
such tools that the boat was made. The lakes of Bienne and. Geneva,
and the stations of Morges and Estavayer have also yielded boats
which are doubtless less ancient than those of which I have just
spoken. In nearly all of them the prow is curiously pointed. One of
them from the Lake of Neuchatel, large enough to bold twelve people,
has a beak at the stern and a rounded prow; but there is no sign of
any contrivance for keeping the oars in place.

Lastly, a boat bas been found in Switzerland some 3,900 feet above
the valley of the Rhine, but no one can say how it came to be at such
a height.


FIGURE 16

A lake pirogue found in the Lake of Neuchatel. 1. As seen from the
outside. 2 and 3. Longitudinal and transverse sections.


These canoes, whatever their shape or size, can only have been worked
by means of oars, yet oars have seldom been found. The Geneva Museum,
however, has one which came from the muddy bed of an Italian lake,
and others are preserved in the Royal Museum of Dublin, which have
every sign of great antiquity. In de fault of the actual oars, we
have other proofs of their use. Gross[81] mentions a boat (Fig. 16) in
which holes had been made in the upper parts of the sides to hold the
oars. In 1882 a pirogue was taken out of the bed of the Rhone at Cordon
(Ain), which had been half buried in the mud of the river. The wood
was black and the upper portions were charred, but the middle part was
still intact and very hard. The holes, pierced in the sides at regular
intervals, may have served to keep the oars in place. The position of
the rowers at the bottom of the boat was very unsatisfactory. It was
not, however, until later that we find seats so placed as to enable
the rowers to put out all their strength. At a recent meeting of
the Anthropological Society (July 21, 1887) M. Letourneau observed
that the rudder came into use very slowly. It was not known to the
Egyptians or to the Phoenicians, nor, which is still more strange,
to the Greeks and Romans. Their vessels, whatever their size, were
guided by two large oars (GUBERNACULUM) placed in the stern. The
Chinese appear to have been the only people who were acquainted with
the use of the rudder from time immemorial. It is probable that from
them it passed to the Arabs and even perhaps to the people of Europe.

A discovery made near Abbeville is the most ancient example we have of
the use of the mast. Some works being executed at the fortifications of
the town, brought to light a boat which must have been some twenty-one
feet long. Two projections form part of the planking, leaving between
them a rectangular space in which the mast was probably fixed.[82]

Professor Gastaldi speaks of a wooden anchor taken from a peat-bog
near Arona, beneath which was a pile dwelling. He dates it from the
tinge when the use of bronze was already beginning to spread in the
north of Italy. A stone of peculiar shape found at Niddau is, they
say, an ANKERSTEIN (anchor stone). This name is also given by Friedel
to a good-sized round lump of sandstone with a deep groove near the
middle. Lastly, Kerviler, in crossing a basin of the Bay of Penhouet,
near Saint-Nazaire, found several stones which had evidently been
used to keep boats at anchor, and with the aid of which we can get
an idea of the methods employed by ancient navigators (Fig. 17).


FIGURE 17

Stones used as anchors, found in the Bay of Penhouet. 1, 2, 3,
stones weighing about 160 pounds each. 4 and 5, lighter stones,
probably used for canoes.


Such are the only details we have on the important subject of
prehistoric anchors, but we may add that ancient fishermen probably
ventured but a short distance from the land, and would not need
anchors, as they could easily carry their light boats on shore.

We leave now passed in review the conditions of the life of our
remote ancestors, noting the animals that were their contemporaries,
and the fish that peopled the watercourses near which they lived. We
have studied the earliest efforts at navigation, made in the pursuit
of fish, and we must now go back to examine the weapons, tools, and
ornaments of these ancient peoples, and trace in those objects the
dawn of art. This will be the aim of our next chapter.



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
notches had evidently been made, the better to place the cross-beams;
whilst in others forked branches had been selected, so that a second
branch could be fitted into the fork. Primeval man soon learnt to
appreciate the solidity of such a combination. Do these stations,
however, really date from prehistoric times? Virchow, returning to his
first opinion, now thinks that the pile dwellings of Germany belong to
the same epoch as the intrenchments known as BURGWALLEN, when metals
and even iron were already in general use. They were inhabited until
the thirteenth century, and it is easy to trace in them, as in those
of Switzerland, the signs of the successive occupations, the dwellings
having evidently been abandoned and restored later by fresh comers.


FIGURE 52

Small terra-cotta figures, from the Laybach pile dwellings.


At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle in 1863,
Lord Lovaine described a Lake Station in the south of Scotland,
and Sir J. Lubbock mentions one in the north of England. Others are
known at Holderness (Yorkshire), at Thetford, on Barton Mere, near
Bury St. Edmunds; but judging from the description of them they are
not of earlier date than the Bronze age.

Other stations are more ancient. A few years ago a number of piles were
found a little above Kew, beneath a layer of alluvium, and embedded
in the gravel which formed the ancient bed of the Thames. All around
these piles were scattered the bones of animals, of which those of
the BOS LONGIFRONS were the most remarkable. The long bones had been
split to get out the marrow, an evident proof of the intelligent
action of man. In London two similar examples were found on the site
of the present Mansion House, and beneath the ancient walls of the
city. They are supposed to date from times earlier, not only than
the cutting out of the present course of the Thames, but before that
invasion of the sea which preceded the formation of the Thames valley,
now the home of more than four million men and women.

The Lake Stations of France are less important than those of the
neighboring countries. It is supposed that Vatan, a little town
of Berry, was built on the site of a Lake city. It is situated in
the midst of a dried-up marsh, and at different points piles have
been removed which were driven deep into the mud. We also hear of
pile dwellings in the Jura Mountains, in the Pyrenean valleys of
Haute-Garonne, Ariege, and Aude, as well as in those of the Eastern
Pyrenees. In the department of Landes, which on one side joins the
plateau of Lannemezan, and on the other the lofty plains of Bearn,
are many marshy depressions, where have been found numbers of piles,
with charred wood and fragments of pottery.

Discoveries no less curious have been made in the Bourget Lake,
but the dwellings rising from its surface date from a comparatively
recent epoch. The numerous fragments of pottery found prove that
terra-cotta ware had attained to a beauty of form and color unknown
to primitive times. Indeed some of the vases actually bear the name of
the Roman potter who made them. We must also assign to an epoch later
than the Stone age the buildings, remains of which have beet found in
the peat-bogs of Saint-Dos near Salies (Basses-Pyrenees). At a depth
of about thirty-two inches has been found a regular floor formed of
trunks of trees resting on piles and bound together in a primitive
fashion with the filaments of roots. These piles bear a number of
deep clean-cut notches, such as could only have been made with an
iron implement. in other parts of France there are Lake Stations,
which were occupied until the time of the Carlovingians. To this
time belong the pile dwellings of Lake Paladru (Isere), which were
abandoned, so far as we can tell, by their owners when they were
swamped by the rising of the water.

When the Lake Stations of Europe were inhabited, the characteristic
animals of the Quaternary epoch, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros,
the lion, and the hippopotamus had disappeared from that continent,
and their place was taken by the earliest domestic animals. The
Lake fauna of Switzerland includes about seventy species, thirty
mammals twenty-six birds, ten kinds of fish, and four reptiles.[124]
The mammals were the stag, the dog, the pig, the goat, the sheep, and
two kinds of oxen. These animals were already domesticated, there can
be absolutely no doubt on this point, for in many PFAHLBAUTEN their
very dung has been found, a conclusive proof that they lived side by
side with man.

The remains of the stag and of the ox are more numerous than those of
any other animal, and it is easy to see that every clay the importance
of a pastoral life became more clearly recognized. In the most ancient
Lake Stations, those of Mooseedorf, Wangen, and Meilen, for instance,
the stag predominates; in those of the western lakes, which are
comparatively more recent, relics of the ox are more numerous. In the
Lake village of Nidau, which dates from the Bronze age, a greatly
increased number of bones of domestic animals have been found,
whilst those of wild creatures become rarer and rarer. The progress
of domestication is evident, and it is no less certain that the lapse
of centuries must have been required for the formation of the herds
which evidently existed in certain localities. It is possible that
these animals may have first entered Europe in the wake of foreign
invaders, and before being reduced to servitude, they may have roamed
about in a wild state, and even have been contemporaries with species
now extinct. However that may be, there can be no doubt on one point,
they could not domesticate themselves; one race of creatures after
another must have fallen under the subjection of man, who gradually
became the master of all the animals that are still about us.

We do not meet in the pile dwellings with the common mouse, the rat,
or the cat, and the horse is very rare. It is the same with the
kitchen-middings and the caves occupied in Neolithic times. The
disappearance of the horse, so numerous in earlier epochs, is
general, and this would be inexplicable if history did not solve
the mystery. The Bible, which gives us such complete details of the
pastoral life of the Hebrews, speaks for the first time of the horse
after the exodus from Egypt of the children of Israel, and in Egypt
itself the horse is not represented in any monument of earlier date
than the Seventeenth Dynasty. It is the same in America, animals of
the equine race, that were so numerous in early geological times,
had long since disappeared on the arrival of the Spaniards, and the
horses they brought with them inspired the Mexicans and Peruvians
with unutterable terror.

Domestic animals require regular food through the long winter months;
so that their presence alone is enough to prove that their owners
were tillers of the soil. The discovery in many of the Helvetian
Lake Stations of calcined cereals confirms this hypothesis. Amongst
the cereals found, corn is the most abundant, and several bushels of
it have been collected. In the department of the Gironde, regular
silos or subterranean storing-places for grain have been found in
which the calcined corn was stowed away. In the Lake Stations have
also been found millet, peas, poppy-heads, nuts, plums, raspberries,
and even dried apples and pears, doubtless set aside as a provision
for the winter. From the water at Cortaillod, have been taken, with
a few ears of barley, cherry-stones, acorns, and beechnuts[125];
and at Laybach, some water-chestnuts (TRAPA NATANS) of a kind that
has long since disappeared from Carniola. Sometimes the cereals were
roughly roasted, crushed, and put away in large earthenware vessels;
but in some places, regular flat round loaves of bread have been found
about one or two inches thick, which were baked without leaven. We
may well assert that great changes lead taken place since the first
arrival of man upon the earth.

The so-called TERREMARES of Italy date from the same period as the
Danish kitchen-middings and the Swiss pile dwellings. They are met with
chiefly in Lombardy and in the ancient duchies of Parma and Piacenza,
and consist of low mounds rising from thirteen to sixteen feet above
the surface of the soil. In some cases a number of TERREMARES, close to
one another, form regular villages covering an area of from five to six
miles square. Excavations of the TERREMARE have brought to light rows
of piles from seven to ten feet long, connected by transverse beams,
forming a regular floor, from which rose buts built in a similar way to
those of the Swiss pile dwellings, of interlaced branches or of clay
and straw, for no trace has been made out of the use of bricks or of
stones. The refuse of the kitchen and rubbish of all kinds rapidly
accumulated round about these buts, and formed the first nucleus of
the mound, which soon grew to a considerable height as one occupant
of the house succeeded another. When the refuse became too much of a
nuisance, the owner of the but set up fresh piles at a greater height
on the same site, laid down another platform, and built anew but. In
some places three such platforms have been found one above another.

As in the Lake Stations, excavations of the TERREMARES have brought
to light numerous bones of domestic animals; but those of wild
creatures, such as bears, stags, roedeer, and boars, are even rarer
than in Switzerland. The inhabitants evidently had other resources
than hunting at their command, and though the processes they employed
were but elementary, they cultivated corn, beans, vines, and various
fruits. Though iron was still unknown, some bronze objects have been
found in certain TERREMARES, but these were only roughly melted
pieces of metal, showing no traces of having been either hammered
or soldered. Amongst the pottery found in the TERREMARES, we must
mention a number of small objects not unlike acorns in form, pierced
lengthwise, and decorated with incised lines, some straight, others
curved. Italian archaeologists call them FUSAIOLES, and Swiss savants,
who have found a great many in the lakes of their native country,
give them the name of PESONS DE FUSEAU. Both these names connect them
with the process of spinning; but their number renders this hypothesis
inadmissible, and when we give an account of the excavations carried
on at Hissarlik, under Dr. Schliemann, we shall be able to determine
their character (see Chapter VII.).

At Castione, near the town of Parma, and in several other parts of
the provinces of Parma and Reggio, TERREMARES have been discovered
rising from the midst of vast rectangular basins artificially hollowed
out. Some have concluded from this that the TERREMARECOLLI as the
inhabitants of the TERREMARES have been called, were descended from
the people who built the pile dwellings of Switzerland, and that,
faithful to the traditions of their race, they hollowed out ponds
in default of natural lakes. If this were so, Italy must have been
peopled with a race that came over the Alps.[126] Who or what this
race was can only be matter of conjecture. It cannot, however,
have been the Ligures, a branch of the great Iberian family, who
were totally ignorant of culture, and to whom the builders of the
most ancient of the TERREMARES were certainly superior; nor can
it have been the Etruscans, for all relics of that race, which are
moreover easily recognizable, were found quite apart from the deep
deposits containing the TERREMARES. Many indications point to the
conclusion that when the Celts came down into Italy their knowledge of
metallurgy was already more advanced than that of the builders of the
TERREMARES. We are therefore disposed to think with Heilbig, that the
TERREMARECOLLI were the Itali, of Arian race, who were the ancestors of
the Sabini, Umbri, Osci, and Latins. In the great migrations of races,
the Itali bad separated themselves from their brethren the Pelasgi,
who had remained in Epirus, and, continuing their march, they peopled
Switzerland and crossed the Alps, settling down in the fertile plains
watered by the Po, where it is easy even now to prove their presence.

In superintending the excavation of a TERREMARE at Toszig, in Hungary,
Pigorini,[127] was greatly struck by the resemblance between it and
similar erections in Italy, especially that of Casarolo. This is very
much in favor of the Itali having been the builders. But the objects
collected in some of the TERREMARES, those of Varano and Chierici
for instance, prove that they were inhabited from Neolithic times,
so that the Itali of Italy, if Itali they were, did but follow the
traditions of their predecessors. In spite, however, of zealous study,
all that relates to the origin of tribes and races remains involved
in the greatest obscurity, and we can but look to the future to supply
what the present altogether fails to give.

We have yet other tokens of the presence of the ancient races
who peopled Italy. Dr. Concezio Rosa[128] noticed in the Abruzzi
extensive black patches on the ground, which bore witness to the
former residence of men. The excavation of these FONDI DI CABANE, as
they are called, led to the finding of a great many stone knives and
scrapers with numerous bone stilettos and the bones of various animals,
all of them of species still living. Later, similar FONDI were found
between the Eastern Alps and Mount Gargano. In Reggio, at Rivaltella,
at Castelnuovo de Sotto, and at Calerno, they formed regular groups,
and from one of these stations more than one thousand worked flints
were collected. We mention them especially because they were of
lozenge (SELCI ROMBOIDALI) and half-lozenge (SEMI-ROMBI) shapes,
which are forms unknown in other districts.

With these flints were hand-made vases with handles, the clay unmixed
with sand or quartz and ornamented with lines, grooves, and raised
knobs. These vases differ greatly from those found in the TERREMARES;
are they then, as has been said, of earlier (late? It is impossible
to come to any decision on the point.

Before closing our account of prehistoric buildings surrounded by
water, we must say a few words on crannoges though there is the
greatest difference of opinion as to their date.

Crannoges are artificial islets raised above the level of certain lakes
in Ireland and Scotland[129] by means of a series of layers of earth
and stone, and strengthened by piles, some upright, others laid down
lengthwise. Wylde counted forty-six in Ireland in his time, some of
them of considerable extent. That of Ardkellin Lough (Roscommon) is
surrounded by a wall of dry stones resting on piles. In other places
have been found the remains of stockades very intelligently set up
in such a manner as to break the force of the shock of the water.

To add to the difficulties of dealing with the subject of crannoges,
they were successively occupied for many centuries. They are mentioned
in the most ancient Irish legends, and even in the sixteenth century
they served as refuges for the kings of the country in the constant
rebellions that took place. The objects taken from the lakes belong to
very different epochs, and it is impossible to say anything positive
as to the time of their construction.

A but found in Donegal may, however, date from an extremely remote
age.[130] It rested on a thick layer of sand brought front the
neighboring shore, and was covered over by a bed of peat slot
less than sixteen feet thick. Since the hilt was deserted by man
the peat had gradually accumulated till it had at last invaded the
dwelling itself. The but included a ground-floor, and one story about
twelve feet long by nine wide and four high. The walls consisted of
beams scarcely squared, joined together with wooden mortices and
pegs. The roof, which was probably flat, consisted of oak planks,
the spaces between which had been filled in with mortar made of
sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements,
showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a
stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel,
the discoverers say, corresponded exactly with the notches around the
mortices. A regular paved way, formed of sea-beach pebbles placed on
a foundation of interlaced branches, led up to a hearth made of flat
stones measuring some three feet every way. All about lay fragments
of charcoal and broken nuts, the latter partly burnt. Another but,
with an oak floor resting on four posts, has recently been discovered
in County Fermanagh, beneath a deposit of peat about twenty feet
thick. No trace of metal has been found in either of these Irish buts,
and the thickness of the peat beneath which they lay is another proof
of their great antiquity. One serious objection, however, is this:
Were the Irish sufficiently advanced in prehistoric times to be able
to erect dwellings implying so considerable an amount of civilization?

Crannoges are met with in Scotland as well as in Ireland, and
excavations in Loch Lee have enabled explorers to make out their
mode of construction. The Lake Dwellers began by piling up a number
of trunks of trees in the shallower waters of a lake. They then
strengthened these trunks with branches or beams about which the
mud collected till the whole formed an islet. All about this islet,
beneath the waters of the lake, were found various objects in stone,
wood, and horn, as well as some canoes several feet long. Similar
crannoges are to be seen on the lakes of Kincardine and Forfar,
which Troyon thinks date from the Stone age.[131] If he be right,
and we should not like to make any assertion one way or the other, the
bronze objects and the enamelled glass bowls found near these dwellings
prove that they were occupied by several successive generations.

It is probable that Lake dwellings were also used in Asia and in
Africa from prehistoric times. History tells us that the inhabitants
of Phasis, the Mingrelians of the present day, lived in reed huts
on the water, and that they went from one islet to another in canoes
hollowed out of the trunks of oak-trees. A bas-relief from the palace
of Sennacherib, preserved in the British Museum, represents warriors
fighting on artificial islands made of large reeds. But here w e
enter the domain of history, and we must return to Neolithic times,
and speak of the habitations built of more durable materials and the
ruins of which are still standing.

It is impossible to say with any certainty to what period the most
ancient of these structures belong. It is probable that man early
learned to pile up stones, binding them together at first with clay,
and then with some stronger cements. The BURGHS of Scotland, the
NURHAGS of the island of Sardinia, the TALAYOTI of the Balearic Isles,
the CASTELLIERI of Istria, are all ancient witnesses of the modes of
building employed in the most remote ages.

BURGHS, BROCKS, or BROUGHS are numerous in Scotland,[132] and also in
the islands of the Atlantic. For a long time they were supposed to be
of Scandinavian origin, but Sir J. Lubbock[133] remarks With reason
that no building at all like them exists in Norway or in Denmark, and
it is difficult to admit the idea that the Scandinavians set up in
the islands tributary to them buildings which were unknown to their
own mainland. We are therefore disposed to think that these curious
structures, which were inhabited until the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries of the Christian era, are of much earlier date than the
first invasion by the Northmen, and that the burgh still standing
on the little island of Moussa, one of the Shetlands, is one of the
best examples that we can quote. A tower, forty-one feet high, rises
on the borders of the sea. The walls are of unhewn stones, piled up
without cement, and they form two circles, separated by a passage
four feet wide. In each story are a series of very small openings,
intended to admit air and light to the cell-like rooms inside, and
to a staircase that leads to the top of the tower. The only way into
this burgh is through a door only seven. feet high, and so narrow
that it is impossible for two people to go in abreast.

The regularity of the building of this burgh, and the architectural
knowledge. it implies, prevent our ascribing it either to the
Stone or even to the Bronze age; but we find in Scotland itself
more ancient examples, if we may so express ourselves, of domestic
architecture. These examples are subterranean dwellings, made of
rough-hewn stones of considerable size, laid down in regular courses,
to which the names of EARTH-HOUSES, PICTS' HOUSES, and WEEMS have been
given. The walls converge towards the centre, leaving an opening at
the top, which was covered in with large flat stones. These dwellings
are certainly of earlier date than the burghs, and the discovery of
a PICTS' HOUSE actually beneath the ruins of a burgh enables us to
speak with certainty on this point.

In Ireland similar proofs have been found of the great antiquity of
roan. More than one hundred towers have been found in that country,
all built of large stones, and varying in height from seventy to one
hundred and thirty feet, with a diameter of from eight to fifteen
feet. The most diverse origins have been attributed to these towers,
from prehistoric times to the centuries immediately preceding
the Christian era; from the time of the Druids to that of the
Friars. According to the point of view of different archaeologists,
they have been called temples of the sun, hermitages, phallic
monuments, or signal towers.

We meet with a similar problem in considering the NURHAGS, as in
considering the burghs. They have been justly called a page of
history, written all over the surface of Sardinia by an unknown
people. Count Albert de la Marmora counted three thousand of them a
few years ago, and more recent explorers tell us that this number is
greatly exceeded. Like the burghs, which they strangely resemble, the
NURHAGS are conical towers with very thick walls made of huge stones,
some Hewn, others in their natural state, arranged in regular courses
without mortar. On entering one of them we find ourselves in a vaulted
room, which looks exactly like one half of an egg in shape. In the
upper stories are two, and sometimes three rooms, one above the
other, to which access is gained by steps cut in the walls. The
whole structure is crowned by a terrace (Fig. 53). We must add that
the entrance to the NURHAG is through an opening on a level with the
ground, and so low that one can only go in by crawling on the stomach.

Many conjectures have been made as to the use of these towers. Were
they temples in which to worship, or trophies of victory? Their number
is against either of these hypotheses. Were they then habitations or
towers of observation? Not the former certainly, for no one could live
between walls sixteen or twenty-two feet thick, shut out from air and
light. Some travellers think they were tombs, but excavations have
brought to light no bones or sepulchral relics. We can compare them
to nothing but the Towers of Silence, on which the Parsees expose
their dead to the birds of heaven, which are ever ready rapidly to
acquit themselves of their melancholy functions.


FIGURE 53

Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia).


The origin of the NURHAGS is as uncertain as their use. Diodorus
Siculus considered them very ancient, and one fact has come to
light in our day which enables us to arrive at a somewhat more exact
decision. The island of Sardinia was taken by the Romans from the
Carthaginians in 238 B.C., and an aqueduct, the ruins of which can
still be seen, was built by the conquerors on the foundations of an
ancient NURHAG, so that the latter must belong to an earlier (late
than the third century before our era. Fergusson, who speaks with
authority on everything relating to the monuments of the Stone age,
assigns the NURHAGS to the mystic times of the Trojan War. In all
probability they were built by an invading people. La Marmora thinks
these invaders were the Libyans; M. de Rougemont, in his history of the
Bronze age, says that the curved vault is the characteristic feature
of Pelasgian architecture, which is often confounded with that of
the Phoenicians. Although any final conclusion would be premature,
we ourselves think that the builders of the NURHAGS belonged to
the great stream of emigration from the East, the course of which
is marked by megalithic monuments in so many parts of the world. In
some instances, NURHAGS were surrounded by cromlechs, of which most
of the stones have now been thrown down. Some of these stones bore
prominences resembling the breasts of a woman.

The accumulations of earth and rubbish about the NURHAGS are, some
of them, from six to ten feet high. In the lower deposits have been
found coarse pottery, with no attempt at ornamentation, fragments
of flint, and obsidian hatchets of black basalt, or porphyry of the
Palaeolithic type, arrow-head, flint knives, stones used in slings,
and numerous shells; whilst in the upper deposits were picked up
black pottery and fragments of bronze belonging to the transition
period between the Stone and Metal ages.

All over the island of Sardinia, side by side with the NURHAGS, rise
tombs to which have been given the name of SEPOLTURE DEI GIGANTI. They
are from thirty-two to thirty-nine feet long by a nearly equal width,
and are built,. some of huge slabs of stone, some of stones of smaller
size. They are in every case surmounted by a pediment, formed of a
single block, and often covered with sculptures dating from different
epochs. These sepulchres are certainly of later date than the NURHAGS,
and in them have been found numerous implements of bronze, but none
of stone.


FIGURE 54

"Talayoti" at Trepuco (Minorca).


The TALAYOTI, of which one hundred and fifty are still standing in
the island of Minorca, are circular or elliptical truncated cones,
built of huge unhewn stones, laid one on the other without cement
(Fig. 54). The most remarkable of all of them, that at Torello, near
Mahon, is thirty-three feet high. In many cases there are two stone,
one placed upright, the other across it, in front of the TALAYOTI. The
meaning of these biliths is unknown.

Yet another series of cyclopean monuments are known under the name
of NANETAS, and are not unlike overturned boats. Seven such NANETAS
are still to be seen in the Balearic Isles. The one which is best
preserved consists of large unhewn stones of rectangular shape,
enclosing an inner chamber about six feet in width. The roof having
fallen in, its height cannot be exactly determined; we only know that
the lateral walls are some forty-five feet high.

In Algeria also have been preserved some towers built of stones
without cement. Some of them are square (BASINA) and surmounted by
a small dolmen, others are round (CHOUCHET) and closed at the top by
a large slab of stone, as in the NURHAGS we have just described.

It is difficult to bring this account to a close without mentioning
the TRUDDHI and the SPECCHIE of Otranto.[134] A TRUDDHI is a massive
conical tower consisting of a heap of scarcely hewn stones piled up
without cement and with an exterior facing. Inside is a round room,
the roof of which is formed by a series of circular courses of stone
projecting one beyond the other. Sometimes a second chamber rises
above the first, which IS reached by steps cut in the facing, which
steps also lead to the platform on the top of the tower. Thousands of
TRUDDHI are to be seen in Italy; they date from every epoch, and the
people of Lecce and Bari continue to erect them as did their fathers
before them. Side by side with the TRUDDHI rise the SPECCHIE, which
are conical masses of stone, of greater height and probably of more
ancient date than the towers. Lenormant thinks they were used to live
in; but his opinion has been much questioned, and it is necessary to
speak on this point with great reserve.

The CASTELLIERI of Istria, which the Slavonian peasants call STARIGRAD,
are as yet but little known. Doubtless an examination of them will
bring out their resemblance to the NURHAGS and TALAYOTI. They are,
however, more than mere towers, forming regular ENCEINTES between walls
formed of two facings of dry stones, the space between which is filled
in with smaller stones. There are fifteen of these CASTELLIERI in the
district of Albona, a little town on the southeast of Trieste. They
were at first attributed to the Roman epoch, but later researches
relegate them rather to prehistoric times, and the discovery near
them of numerous stone implements rather tends to support this latter
opinion, but it must not be considered conclusive.

Perhaps we ought also to connect with the earliest ages of humanity
the stations recently discovered in Spain by MM. Siret.[135] These
were evidently centres of population, surrounded by walls of a
very primitive description. We shall have to refer again to these
discoveries; we will only add now that in the black earth forming
the soil were found worked flints, polished diorite hatchets, pierced
shells, with various pieces of pottery, and mills for grinding corn. So
far, however though many of the stations have been explored, no trace
has been found of the use of metals.

A vast period of time, countless centuries, indeed, have passed
away since the close of the Paleolithic epoch. The burghs, NURHAGS,
and CASTELLIERI show the progress of civilization, and at the same
time prove that this progress extended throughout Europe, and that
at a time not so very far removed from our own. The close resemblance
between buildings of different dates enables us to speak with certainty
of the connection between the races which succeeded each other in
Europe. The importance of these conclusions is very great, and will
be brought out still more in our study of megalithic monuments.



CHAPTER V

Megalithic Monuments.

Megalithic monuments are perhaps the most interesting of all the
witnesses of the remote past, into the history of which we are now
inquiring, and of which so little is known. From the shores of the
Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, from the frontiers of Russia to the
Pacific Ocean, from the steppes of Siberia to the plains of Hindustan,
we see rising before us monuments of the same characteristic form,
built in the same manner. This is a very important fact in the history
of humanity, and of which it is difficult to exaggerate the importance.

What is the age of all these monuments? Were they all erected by one
race, which has thus carried on its traditions front one generation to
another? Were they the temples of the gods of this race, or the tombs
of their ancestors? Did the people who set them up come from the East,
or did they come from the North, on their way to the warmer regions
of the South? These and many other questions are eagerly discussed,
but in the present state of our knowledge not one of them call be
answered in a perfectly satisfactory manner. SCIRE IGNORARE MAGNA
SCIENTIA, said an ancient philosopher, and this is a truth which we
must often repeat when we are dealing with prehistoric times.



FIGURE 55

Dolmen of Castle Wellan (Ireland).


Under the name of megalithic monuments we include TUMULI, DOLMENS,
CROMLECHS, MENHIRS, and COVERED AVENUES. It may at first sight appear
strange to include tumuli amongst stone monuments, but they almost
always enclose a dolmen, a cist, or a crypt communicating with the
outside by a covered passage. The excavation of more than four hundred
tumuli in England has brought to light now, a stone coffer made of a
number of stones set edgeways and called a KISTVAEN: now of a, tomb
hollowed out beneath the surface of the ground, and enclosed by huge
blocks of stone.[136] Mounds are as numerous in Portugal as tumuli in
England, and the fact that they are of low height has led to their
being called MAMOAS or MAMINHAS, which signifies little mounds. In
Poland, tumuli consist of piles of massive stones; beneath each is
a cist made of four large slabs, and containing as many as eight
or ten urns full of calcined bones. The excavation of a tumulus in
the plain of Tarbes brought to light an enormous block of granite
resting on blocks of quartz. The spaces between these blocks were
filled in with rubble made of small stones cemented into one mass
with clay. Edwin-Harness Mound, near Liberty (Ohio), is 160 feet
long by eighty or ninety wide, and thirteen to eighteen high in the
middle. It contained a dozen sepulchral chambers.


FIGURE 56

The large dolmen of Coreoro, near Plouharnel.


More rarely tumuli are merely artificial mounds of earth, sometimes
rising to a great height. Those of North America are the most
remarkable known. That of Cahokia is now ninety-one feet high,[137]
and was formerly surmounted by a low pyramid, now destroyed. Its base
measures 560 feet by 720, the platform at the top is 146 feet by 310
feet wide, and it has been estimated that twenty-five million cubic
feet of earth were used in its construction. Major Pearse mentions a
tumulus near Nagpore, which is 3,900 feet in circumference, and 174
feet high. Another between Tyre and Sarepta, is 130 feet high by 650
in diameter. It has never been excavated.[138]


FIGURE 57

Dolmen of Arrayolos (Portugal).


The dolmen type of monument is a rectangle of u hewn upright stones
covered over with a slab laid across them; this slab being the largest
block of stone that could be found in the neighborhood or obtained
by the builders.

Dolmens are generally found either on the top of a natural or an
artificial mound, in the middle of a plain, or on the banks of
a watercourse. We must mention, amongst others, those in Persia,
which are some 7,000 feet high and from twenty-one to twenty-six feet
long by six wide; that near Mykenae, that of Aumede-Bas, excavated
by Dr. Prunieres; that of New Grange, in Ireland, surmounted by a
cromlech of stones of considerable size, many of them brought from
a distance; that of Hellstone, near Dorchester, consisting of nine
upright stones supporting a table more than twenty-seven and a half
feet in circumference, seven feet wide and two and a half thick. The
dolmens near Saturnia, one of the most ancient Etruscan towns, include
a quadrangular room, sunk some feet into the earth, and having walls
made of blocks of stone and a roof of a couple of large slabs, sloped
slightly to let the rain run off. We give illustrations of the dolmens
of Castle Wellan in Ireland (Fig. 55), of Coreoro near Plouharnel
(Morbihan) (Fig. 56), of Arrayolos in Portugal (Fig. 57), and Acora in
Peru (Fig. 58), which will enable the reader to judge of the different
modes of construction employed in building these megalithic monuments.


FIGURE 58

Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru).


In some cases the dolmen, which alone is visible from without, is
placed upon a mound, covering a hidden sepulchral chamber, whilst in
others the crypt is replaced by a simple stone cist, generally of
rectangular shape. We may mention in this connection the dolmen of
Bekour-Noz at St. Pierre Quiberon, which is remarkable for its great
size, and rises from the midst of a cemetery in which a great many
coffins have been found. The bones they contained were unfortunately
dispersed at the time of their discovery.

Dolmens are scattered about in great numbers in the Kouban
basin and all along the coasts of the Black Sea occupied by the
Tcherkesses. These curious vestiges of an unknown civilization are
still an unsolved enigma to us, as are those of Western Europe; they
are generally formed of four upright slabs surmounted by a fifth laid
horizontally, and one of the supporting slabs is nearly always pierced
with a small round or oval opening. Excavations have brought to light
arrow-heads, rings, and bronze spirals, but Chantre, an authority
of considerable weight, and who has moreover had the advantage of
actually seeing these megalithic monuments of the south of Russia,
attributes the objects found beneath them to secondary interments, and
does not hesitate in assigning the more ancient monuments themselves
to the Stone age. We must not omit to mention the dolmens found in
the southern portion of the island of Yezo (Japan),[139] nor that
described by Darwin at Puerto Deseado (Patagonia). They are both very
similar to those of Europe.

To resume, dolmens, called HUNENGRABER in Germany, STAZZONA in Corsica,
ANTAS in Portugal, and STENDOS in Sweden, have all alike one large flat
horizontal slab placed on two or more upright unhewn stones. This is
the one fixed rule; local circumstances, perhaps even the caprice of
the builders, decided the position and the mode of erection. Often,
as I have already remarked, dolmens are buried beneath tumuli, but
exceptions to this are numerous. General Faidherbe, after having
examined more than six thousand dolmens in Algeria, affirms that the
greater number have never been covered with earth.[140] In the Orkney
Islands there are more than one hundred dolmens without tumuli, and
Martinet failed to find any trace of mounds in Berry. In Scotland
and Brittany we find dolmens buried, not beneath mounds of earth,
but under accumulations of pebbles, called CAIRNS in Scotland and
GALGALS in Brittany. However minor details may vary, and they do vary
infinitely, one main idea everywhere dominated the builders, and that
was the desire to protect from all profanation the resting-place of
what had once been a human being.

Cromlechs are circles of upright stones often surrounding dolmens or
tumuli. Sometimes they form single circles, and at others two, three,
or even seven separate enclosures. They are common in Algeria, Sweden,
and Denmark, and in the last-named country two kinds are distinguished:
the LANGDYSSERS, which form an ellipse, and the RUNDYSSERS which
form a perfect circle. In other countries cromlechs are slot so
numerous; there are but few in France, of which we may name those of
Kergoman (Morbihan), Lestridion in Plomeur, and Landaondec in Crozon
(Finistere). The last-named, known its LE TEMPLE DES FAUX DIEUX,
is closed by a double row of small menhirs. In Italy, the only
cromlechs known are those of Sesto-Calende and those of the plateau
of Mallevalle near Ticino. One of the latter still retains in their
original position fifty-nine huge granite blocks, forming a circular
enceinte, a semicircle, and an entrance avenue. A few leagues from the
ancient Tyre can still be seen a circle of upright stones. Ouseley
describes another at Darab, in Persia; a missionary speaks of three
large circles at Khabb, in Arabia, which circles he compares with
those at Stonehenge; and Dr. Barth tells us of a cromlech between
Mourzouk and Ghat.

A kurgan, or tumulus, leaving been opened in the Kherson district,
three or four concentric circles were discovered beneath it,
surrounding a structure of considerable size.[141] The cromlech
of Anajapoura in Ceylon, probably, however, erected comparatively
recently, consists of fifty-two granite pillars, about thirteen feet
high, encircling a Buddhist temple. At Peshawur is another circle,
fourteen of the stones of which are still upright, whilst traces can
be made out of an outer enceinte of smaller stones; in Peru there
are several cromlechs, whilst others have been found at the foot of
Elephant Mount, in the desert plains of Australia. The last-named vary
from ten to one thousand feet in diameter, but excavations beneath
them have brought to light only a few human bones.

At Mzora, in Morocco, the traveller will notice a mound of elliptical
shape, some 21 or 22 1/2 feet high, flanked on the west by a group
of menhirs, and surrounded by an enceinte of upright stones which
now number about forty. In 1831, there were still ninety, and on
the south side were noticed two round pillars parallel with each
other, which probably formed an entrance.[142] This group evidently
originally formed the centre of a series of megalithic monuments, for
on the north and southwest some fifty monoliths can still be made out,
some still erect, others fallen.[143]

It was in Great Britain, however, that cromlechs appear to have
reached their highest development. That of Salkeld in Cumberland
includes sixty-seven menhirs; that near Loch Stemster in Caithness,
thirty-three, whilst in Westmoreland, LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS are
still the objects of superstitious reverence. The remains at Avebury
are among the most remarkable prehistoric monuments still extant,
and evidently originally formed part of a most important group. This
group had an outer rampart of earth, with a ditch on the inner side,
within which was a circle of upright stones, probably numbering as many
as one hundred. Within this circle were two others of smaller size,
each in its turn enclosing yet another circle of upright stones. In
the middle of one of these inner circles, that on the north, was a
dolmen, whilst that on the south enclosed in the centre but a single
upright menhir. The stones used in constructing these various groups
were all such as are still to be found on the Wiltshire downs. From
the southeastern portion of the extensive earthen rampart, a stone
avenue extended for a considerable distance in a perfectly straight
line, and is still known as Kennet's Avenue, on account of its leading
to the village of Kennet. The remains on Hakpen Hill and on Silbury
Hill are all supposed to have been originally connected with those
at Avebury. The remains at Hakpen consist of relics of two circles,
one about 140 feet in diameter, the other not more than forty. About
eighty yards from the inner circle was found a double row of skeletons,
all with the feet pointing towards the centre. Silbury Hill is itself
an artificial conical mound, the largest in England, 170 feet high,
on which were originally no less than 650 upright stones, of which
only twenty are still standing, surrounded by a trench. In the centre
of the circle of stones a single menhir of great height still remains
with three others sloped so as to form a kind of crypt.

The megalithic monuments of Stonehenge, which are probably better known
than any others in the world, are perhaps also the most curious. The
group is supposed to have originally consisted of an outer stone
concentric circle some one hundred feet in diameter, formed by thirty
piers of solid masonry, of which about twenty can still be made out,
some few standing, others lying broken upon the ground. This outer
circle enclosed a second of similar shape but lesser diameter, within
which again were taro elliptic circles, the outer consisting of ten or
twelve sandstone blocks some twenty-two feet high, standing in pairs,
each pair united by a slab laid horizontally across, so as to form
a trilithon. The inner ellipse was formed by nineteen upright masses
of granite, within which was the famous slab of blue marble, by many
supposed to have been an altar. The pillars and lintels of the outer
portico, and those of the trilithons, are fitted together with the
greatest skill, with tenons and mortices, a remarkable exception
to the general rule with megalithic monuments. Everywhere in the
neighborhood of Stonehenge, as far as the eye can reach, are tumuli,
all nearly equidistant from the principal group of monuments, a fact
which has led many archaeologists, including Henry Martin, to look
upon. Stonehenge as a temple surrounded by a necropolis. Excavations
at Stonehenge have yielded a few human bones which have escaped the
flames, with some stone and bronze weapons.

The megalithic monuments of Ireland are not less important, and
a recent survey has reported no less than 276 still standing.[144]
The cromlechs of Moytura[145] are supposed to commemorate the fearful
combats which took place between the FIRBOLGS, or Belgae as they are
called by Irish antiquaries, and the Tuatha de Dananns, when the
plains of Sligo and Meath were dyed with blood, before the former
were vanquished and retired to Arran. There are still no less than
fourteen dolmens and thirty-nine cromlechs. The bones picked up beneath
the stone circles, which keep alive the memory of these sanguinary
conflicts, are those of the warriors who fell on the battlefield,
but the story of how they met their fate belongs rather to history
than to the subject we are considering. It is the same with the two
huge monoliths of Cornwall. which commemorate a battle between the
Welsh King Howel Dha and the Saxon Athelstane, as well as with the
cromlechs of Ostrogothland, where, in 736, took place the battle in
which the old King Harold Hildebrand was overcome and killed by his
nephew, Sigurd-Ring. A group of forty-four circles also marks the site
of the celebrated combat of 1030, in which Knut the Great defied Olaf
the patron saint of Norway. We may also name in this connection the
twenty circles of stone erected at Upland in memory of the massacre
of the Danish prince, Magnus Henricksson, in 1161. Yet another group
of circles marks the spot where, about 1150, the Swedish heroine,
Blenda, overcame King Sweyne Grate. We might easily multiply instances
of the erection in historic times of similar monuments, but we have
said enough to show that the megalithic form was by no means confined
to prehistoric days.

Menhirs properly so called, also known as LECHS in Brittany, are
in reality isolated monoliths or single upright stones, often of
considerable size. One of the best known is that of Locmariaker
(Fig. 59) which was nearly seventy feet high.[146] It was still
standing in 1659, but is now overturned and broken into four
pieces. The flat stone resting on one portion of it is known
as Caesar's table. On some menhirs, notably on Sweno's pillar in
Scotland, a cross has been cut on one side, showing either that this
form of monument was early adopted by Christians, or more probably,
that it was adapted to their use after having long previously been
a relic of prehistoric times. On the other side of Sweno's pillar is
a bas-relief of fairly good execution.

In some cases menhirs mark the site of a tomb, and sometimes, as is
the case with the obelisks of Egypt, they commemorate some happy
event. A standing stone in Scotland preserves the memory of the
battle of Largs, which took place in the thirteenth century, and a
piously preserved legend tells how the menhir of Aberlemmo was set
up in honor of a victory over the Danes in the tenth century.


FIGURE 59

The great broken menhir of Locmariaker, with Caesar's table.


Some archaeologists in view of the shape of certain menhirs and
the superstitions connected with then, think they must be phallic
monuments. Menhirs in France are quoted in this connection, cut into
the form of the phallus; and the same form occurs in some menhirs near
Saphos, in the island of Cyprus,[147] and in others found amongst the
ruins of Uxmal, in Yucatan. Herodotus relates that Sesostris caused
toy be set up, in countries he conquered, monoliths bearing in relief
representations of the female sexual organs. These are, however,
but exceptions, isolated facts, and it would certainly never do to
argue from them that menhirs were connected with the worship of the
generative flowers of nature.

It is extremely difficult to get at the statistics of menhirs. A
great many have been overthrown, and yet more have disappeared
altogether. Probably, besides the alignments or stone avenues, there
are not more than twenty still standing.[148] One thing is certain,
the monolithic form of monument has always had a great attraction
for the human race, and we meet with it in Egypt, Assyria, Persia,
and Mexico, as well as in England and Brittany. The historian speaks
of such monuments in the earliest of existing records; Homer refers
to them in the Iliad,[149] and in the Bible we find it related that
the Lord ordered Joshua to set up twelve stones in memory of the
crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites.[150]

Alignments are groups of menhirs set up in one or wore rows. Sometimes
large slabs are laid across them, when they arc, called covered
avenues. One such alignment at Saint Pantaleon (Saone et Loire)
consists of twenty menhirs. The menhirs of El Wad, in Algeria, form
long avenues, running front west to east. The Arabs call them ESSENAM,
and according to tradition they were erected in fulfillment of a vow
made in the hope of arresting the march of an enemy. The tumulus of
Run-Aour (Finistere) has two avenues running at right angles to one
another.[151] This disposition, which is very rare, also occurs at
Karleby, in Sweden, and by a remarkable coincidence the length of the
avenues (about thirty-nine and fifty-five feet), is the same in both
cases. Sometimes such avenues form communications between several
dolmens, leading us to suppose that near the chief slept the members
of his family or his favorite companions.

The covered avenues are often built beneath masses of earth, and the
inner rooms became regular hypogea, These hypogea, or subterranean
chambers, are very common near Paris, and we may mention amongst
many others those of Meudon, Argenteuil, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine,
Marly, Chamant, La Justice, and Compans. The tombs of Denmark,
the GANG GRABEN of Nilsson, show an arrangement somewhat similar,
a vast subterranean chamber being reached by a passage ending in
a small stone cist. The tumulus of Dissignac, near Saint-Nazaire
(Fig. 60), shows this strange arrangement of two galleries running
parallel with each other at a distance of about eighteen feet. The
walls and ceilings are made of slab, anti the interstices are filled
in with flints. These galleries are some thirty feet long, and their
height insensibly increases from about three to nine feet.


FIGURE 60

Covered avenue of Dissignac (Loire-Inferieur); view of the chamber
at the end of the north gallery.


We must also mention the Cueva de Mengal, near the village of
Antequera, in the province of Malaga (Fig. 61) Twenty stones form
the walls of the crypt, five blocks of remarkable size serve as a
roof, and to ensure solidity three pillars are set upright inside
of the junction of the roof blocks. The crypt is some seventy-nine
feet long, its greatest width is about nineteen feet, and its height
varies from about eight to nine feet. The length of the Pastora room,
near Seville is about eighty-seven feet, but its height is not to
be compared with that of the one at Antequera. The square crypt at
Pastora is very interesting. One of the roof stones having been broken,
it has been strengthened by the addition of an inside pillar.[152]


FIGURE 61

Covered avenue near Antequera.


At Gavr'innis, the length of the passage leading to the crypt exceeds
forty-two feet (Fig. 62), and the Long Barrow of West Kennet is
more than seventy-three feet long by a width in some parts exceeding
thirty-two feet. In the Long Barrows of Littleton, Nempnitt, and Uley,
the crypt is reached by an avenue, the entrance of which is closed by
a trilithon, and a similar arrangement is met with in many megalithic
monuments of Scania. The sepulchral chambers of oval shape, such as
that met with in the island of Moen, were surmounted by a tumulus some
100 yds. in circumference; twelve unhewn stones formed the walls, and
five large blocks the roof. In removing the earth from the Moen tomb,
the bones of several human individuals were found; and a skeleton,
doubtless that of the chief, lay stretched out in the middle of the
chamber, whilst the bones of the others had evidently been ranged
against the walls either in a sitting or crouching position. With
the bones were found a flint hatchet, which appeared never to have
been used, a number of balls of amber, and several vases of different
shapes.


FIGURE 62

Ground plan of the Gavr'innis monument.


The megalithic monuments of Mecklenburg are supposed to date from
Neolithic times, and are constructed in two very different ways. The
HUNENGRABER, formed of huge blocks of granite set up at right angles
to each other, resemble the covered avenues of France and elsewhere;
in the so-called RIESENBETTEN, or giant's beds, on the contrary,
the sepulchral chamber is merely sunk in the ground.

We must also mention the so-called GROTTE DES FEES, or fairy grotto,
forming part of so many of the megalithic monuments of Provence. This
fairy grotto includes an open-air gallery cut in the mountain limestone
and roofed in with huge flat stones. This gallery leads to a sepulchral
chamber not less than seventy-nine feet long.

The stones used for the covered avenue of Mureaux (Seine et Oise)
carne from the other side of the Seine, so that the builders must have
crossed the river in a raft. Excavations have brought to light several
skeletons that had been buried without any attempt at orientation,
the bores of which were still in their natural position. The objects
found in this tomb were very numerous mid belonged to the Neolithic
period.[153]

We have now specified the chief forms and modes of arrangement of
megalithic monuments, and must add that they are often found in
juxtaposition. At Mane-Lud, for instance, on a rocky platform which
had been artificially smoothed, and which is some 246 feet long by
162 in area, we find at the eastern extremity an avenue of upright
stones, on the west a dolmen, and in the centre a crypt surmounted by a
conical pile of stones. Between the cone and the avenue the ground is
covered with an artificial paving of small stones cemented together,
and known in France as a NAPPE PIERREUSE, and amongst the stones
forming this paving were found quantities of charcoal and bones of
animals. The megalith was completely buried beneath a mound of earth,
or rather of dried mud, the amount of which was estimated at more than
37,986 cubic feet. At Lestridiou (Finistere), a cromlech forms the
starting-point of an alignment formed of seven rows of small menhirs,
the mean height of which above the ground does not exceed three feet;
and these alignments lead up to two covered avenues and a central
dolmen. In other cases, in England and the land of Moab for instance,
alignments simply lead to cromlechs; whilst in some few cases, as
at Stennis (Fig. 63), the menhirs are scattered about a plain in
great numbers, with nothing either in their form or their position,
or in the traditions relating to them, to throw the slightest light
on their origin.


FIGURE 63

Monoliths at Stennis, in the Orkney, Islands.


One of the most important monuments that have come down to us is that
of Carnac. The alignments of Menec, Kermario, and Kerlescant include
1,771 menhirs, of which 675 are still standing. The alignments of
Erdeven, which succeed those of Carnac, extend for a length of more
than a mile and a half. They originally included 1,030 menhirs,
of which 288 are still extant.

The archaeologists of Brittany, carried away perhaps by their
patriotic enthusiasm, claim that when these monuments were intact
they included two thousand menhirs. What is really certain, however,
is that a definite plan was evidently followed, the distances
between the alignments tallying exactly; the menhirs being set up
in straight parallel lines gradually decreasing in size towards
the east. Excavations near them have brought to light fragments of
charcoal, masses of cinders, chips of silicate of flint, with numerous
fragments of pottery, and tools made of quartzite, granite, schist,
and diorite, similar to those met with under all the other megaliths
of Morbihan. This is yet another proof, if such were needed, that
they were all the work of the same race and all probably date from
the same period.

The number of megalithic monuments in the world is simply
incalculable. M. A. Bertrand estimates the total number in France
as 2,582, distributed in 66 departments and 1,200 communes. They are
most numerous of all in Brittany; there are 491 in the Cotes-du-Nord,
530 in Ille-et-Vilaine. I am not sure of the number in Morbihan,
but I know it is very considerable. The commission appointed at
the instigation of Henry Martin decided that there were as many
as 6,310 megaliths in France, but then amongst these were included
polishing stones and cup-shaped stones, with other similar relics of
the remote past. Lastly, a report recently presented to the Chamber
of Deputies by M. A. Proust estimates at 419 the number of groups
classed by government. In other countries these numbers are greatly
exceeded. There are 2,000 megaliths in the Orkney Islands and a
great many in the extreme north of Scania, and in Otranto in the
southern extremity of Europe, where they resemble the PEDRAS FITTAS
of Sardinia. Pallas, and after him, Haxthausen, tells us that there
are thousands of kurganes in the steppes of Central and Southern
Russia.[154] These kurganes are cromlechs, tombs surmounted by upright
stones, square or conical hypogea, all scattered about without any
apparent system, surmounted by roughly sculptured female busts, known
amongst the common people as KAMENA BABA, or stone women. Tumuli,
too, abound on the shores of the Irtisch and of the Yenisei, mute
witnesses to the former presence of a vanished race of which we
know neither the ancestors nor the descendants. These monuments are,
however, by some attributed to the Tchoudes, a people who came from
the Altai Mountains. The Esthonians, the Ogris or Ulgres, the Finns,
and perhaps even the Celts, are supposed to be branches of the same
ethnological tree. This is however quite a recent idea, and at best
but a mere hypothesis.[155]

Algeria presents a vast field for research, and it is easy to find
dolmens and cromlechs, such as that shown in Fig. 64, which are
sepulchres with a central dolmen surrounded by a double or triple
enceinte of monoliths driven into the ground. These monuments, much
as they differ in form and arrangement, are undoubtedly the work of
one strong and powerful race that dominated the whole of the north
of Africa; and are represented in historic times by the Berbers,
and at the present clay by the Kabyles.


FIGURE 64

Cromlech near Bone (Algeria).


Although a very great many of them have been destroyed, the French
possessions in Algeria are still as rich in monuments of this kind
as any of the countries of Europe. On Mount Redgel-Safia six hundred
dolmens have been made out, with stone tables resting on walls of
dry stones and frequently surrounded by cromlechs. Dr. Weisgerber
has recently announced the discovery in the valley of Ain-Massin,
on the vest of Mzab,) of a cromlech consisting of a number of
concentric circles of large stones set upon an elliptical tumulus,
more than fifty-four square yards in area. Quite close is a workshop
of flint weapons, probably in use at the time of the erection of the
megaliths.[156] In Midjana, the number of megaliths exceeds 10,000,
and General Faidherbe counted more than 2,000 in the necropolis of
Mazela, and a yet larger number in that of Roknia. "At Bou-Merzoug,"
says M. Feraud,[157] "in a radius of three leagues, on the mountain as
well as on the plain, the whole country about the springs is covered
with monuments of the Celtic form, such as dolmens, demi-dolmens,
menhirs, avenues, and tumuli. In a word, there are to be found examples
of nearly every type known in Europe. For fear of being taxed with
exaggeration, I will not fix the number, but I can certify that I saw
and examined more than a thousand in the three days of exploration, on
the mountain itself, and on the declivities wherever it was possible
to place them. All the monuments are surrounded with a more or less
complete enceinte of large stones. sometimes set up in a circle,
sometimes in a square, In some cases the living rock forms hart of
the enceinte, which has been completed with the help of other blocks
frolic elsewhere. It is often difficult to decide where the monument
end, and the rock begins. When the escarpment was too abrupt, it
was levelled with the aid of a kind of retaining wall, which forms a
terrace round the dolmen. The dolmens in the plain seem to have been
constructed with even greater care. The enceintes are wider and the
slabs of the tables larger." Megalithic monuments are met with even
in the desert. A pyramid built of stones without mortar rises up in
the districts inhabited by the Touaregs; and quite near to it are
four or five tombs surrounded by standing stones.

In Algeria, we also meet with quadrangular pyramids called DJEDAS,
which measure as much as ninety feet on each face, but do not rise
more than three feet above the ground. The (lead were buried beneath
them in a crouching position. We know nothing either of the origin
of these djedas or of the date to which they belong.

The monuments of Tunisia were probably as numerous as those of
Algeria. We may note especially the vast area in Enfida, completely
covered with dolmens, one hundred of which are still standing, and in
excellent preservation, whilst the ruins of others strew the soil,
bringing up their original number to at least three thousand. Those
described by M. Girard de Rialle[158] are yet more interesting. Near
the village of Ellez, on the road from Kef to Kerouan, are some fifteen
covered avenues distributed without apparent order, and rising from
the midst of Roman ruins. The upright stones vary from about ten to
thirteen feet, and are surmounted by huge slabs. The chief dolmen
has within it as many as ten chambers.

There are also numerous tumuli in Syria. We have already alluded
to that of Sarepta; and there are others near Antioch and in the
plain of Beka, between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. Major Conder, who as
captain conducted the interesting campaign organized by the Palestine
Exploration Society in 1881 and 1882, speaks of the exploration of
the rude stone monuments as one of the most interesting features of
the surveys, and says: "The distribution of the centres where these
monuments occur in Syria, is a matter of no little importance ... no
dolmens, menhirs, or ancient circles have been discovered in Judaea,
and only one doubtful circle in Samaria. In Lower Galilee a single
dolmen has been found; in Upper Galilee four of moderate dimensions
are known. West of Tiberias is a circle, and between Tyre and Sidon
an enclosure of menhirs. At Tell el Kady, one of the Jordan sources,
a centre of basalt dolmens exists, and at Kefr Wal ... there is
another large centre. At Amman several fine dolmens and large menhirs
are known to exist ... it is doubtful, however, if all these examples
added together would equal the great fields of rude stone monuments to
be found in Moab, for it is calculated that seven hundred examples
were found by the surveyors in 1881.[159] There is one group of
dolmens at Ali Safat, in Palestine, in which the supports of the
table are pierced with an opening. This is a very interesting fact,
to which I have already alluded, and to which I shall have to refer
again. Another group of some twenty dolmens was discovered by M. de
Saulcy on the plateau of El Azemieh, one of which rises in the centre
of a belt of roughly sculptured upright stones; and yet a third group
is to be seen near Mount Nebo, which Major Conder thus describes:
"Here a well-defined dolmen was found northwest of the flat, ruined
cairn, which harks the summit of the ride. The cap-stone was very
thick, and its top is some five feet from the ground. The side-stones
were rudely piled, and none of the blocks were cut or shaped ... In
subsequent visits it was ascertained that on the south slope of the
mountain there is a circle about 250 feet in diameter, with a wall
of twelve feet thick, consisting of small stones piled up in a sort
of vellum."[160]

With regard to the megalithic monuments of India, we can only repeat
what we have already said. Colonel Meadows Taylor has counted 2,129
in the district of Bellary (Deccan) alone. Many legends are connected
with them which remind us of those of Europe, some attributing their
erection to dwarfs or rants, to fairies or to genii, whilst others
think they were the work of the Kauranas and Pandaves, the celebrated
families whose long struggle is described in the Mahabharata, and were
probably aboriginal races of the continent. The plain of Jellalabad and
of Nagpore, stud the valley of Cabul are literally strewn with these
monuments. They are not less numerous in the Presidency of Madras,
where they chiefly consist of subterranean chambers made of huge unhewn
stones or of dolmens above ground surrounded by one or more circles
of upright stones, such as are shorn in Fig. 65. Major Biddulph, when
he ascended the valleys of the Hindoo Koosh Mountains, was astonished
to see on every side megalithic monuments resembling those of his
own country, and, like them, the work of an unknown race.[161]



FIGURE 65

Dolmen at Pallicondah, near Madras (India).


This is, of course, but a very rapid survey of the megalithic monuments
of our globe. They are most of them either tombs intended to hold
the bodies of the dead, or memorials set up in their honor. New
facts are constantly coming to light in this connection, and we may
add to what we have already said, that beneath the tumulus of Mugen,
as in the Cabeco d'Aruda ( Portugal), there are numerous skeletons;
sixty-two repose in the sepulchral chamber of Monastier (Lozere);
the dolmen known as the Mas de l'Aveugle (Gard) covers a circular
cavity in which fifteen corpses had been placed; that of La Mouline
(Charente) also enclosed a number of skeletons, all in a crouching
position, whilst above them were placed two clumsy vases, a pious
offering to the unknown dead. The prehistoric cemetery of Maupas
contains several crypts of irregular form, built of rubble stone, and
surmounted by a huge stone which had become corroded by age. In these
crypts, too, the dead were piled up on each other, and the relics found
with them justify us in assigning them to the Neolithic age. Beneath
the dolmens of Port-Blanc (Morbihan) were two upper layers of dead,
stretched out horizontally and separated by flat stones. In the Isle
de Thinie (Morbihan) excavations have brought to light twenty-seven
stone cists or coffins of different sizes, all intended to be used for
burial. Beneath the menhirs of Finistere, cinders and stones charred
by fire bear eloquent witness to the cremation of the dead. "Whenever
a dolmen has been opened in Finistere," says Dr. Floquet, "cinders
or bones have been picked up; why, then, should we not admit that all
dolmens are tombs?" This is really a conclusion to which we are almost
compelled to come, and the names handed down by popular tradition
are, if need be, yet another proof of the same thing. One dolmen
at Locmariaker, for instance, is known as LE TOMBEAU DU VIEILLARD,
a covered avenue at Saint Gildas is LE CHAMP DU TOMBEAU, and farther
on a pathway leading to a ruined megalith is known as the CHEMIN DU
TOMBEAU. The Abbe Harvard speaks of a remarkable monolith known as
LA PIERRE DU CHAMP DOLENT, and another CHAMP DOLENT is met with near
Rheims, whilst a group of monuments near Trehontereuc is called the
JARDIN DES TOMBES, and the upright stones of Auvergne are known by
the characteristic name of the PLOUROUSES.

Whether we examine the megaliths of Germany or of Poland, the mounds
of Ohio or of Kentucky, of Missouri or of Arkansas, it is ever the same
thing; excavations bring to light striking proofs of their destination,
and everywhere we are led to the same conclusions.

Archaeologists would certainly appear to have been justified in hoping
that the tombs thus scattered about all over the world would yield such
useful information as to lead to some final conclusions. Unfortunately,
however, this has not been the case. Often all trace of burial has
disappeared in successive displacements, and more often still, the
home of the dead has been violated in the hope, which turned out to be
imaginary, of finding treasures; whilst in other cases the earliest
inhabitants of the tombs have been removed to make way for their
successors, who in their turn were soon afterwards expelled. Victory
and defeat were not over with life, but were met with yet again in
the grave.


FIGURE 66

Dolmen at Maintenon, with a table about 19 1/2 feet long.


It has been well pointed out by Fergusson, in his "Rude Stone
Monuments," that the megalithic architecture of the remote past
is a thing altogether apart; its special form indicating now the
tendencies of a race or group of races of mankind, now the particular
degree of civilization attained by a race at a certain period of
its development. A cursory view of these monuments as a whole would
lead us to class them all together as masses of rough, scarcely
hewn stones piled up without cement, and almost always without
ornamentation. In studying them one by one, however, we find, in
spite of their undeniable family likeness, if we may use such a term,
that it is quite easy to snake out certain differences, the result of
the peculiar genius of the race by whom they were erected, or of the
nature of the materials the builders had at their disposal. To take
a case in point: Cromlechs are most numerous in England, and dolmens
in France, and in both these countries we meet with a form of dolmen
(Fig. 66) such as is rarely set up in other districts; one of the
extremities of the table resting on the ground, and the other opt two
supporting stones. In Scandinavia the supports are erratic blocks, in
India fragments of the rocks in the neighborhood, in Algeria and the
south of France buildings in courses are often met with; in Brittany
the monuments of Mane-er-H'roek and Mane-Lud are paved with large
stones. The ground from which rises the dolmen of Caranda, near Fere
in Tardenois (Aisne), is covered with slabs, and the opening is closed
with a flat stone resting on two lintels. We cannot speak of Caranda
without referring to the discoveries and magnificent publications of
M. F. Moreau, thanks to whom the daily life of the Gauls, Gallo-Romans,
and Merovingians is brought vividly before us. To return, however to
our monuments: As we have seen, the crypt was in many cases divided
into two or more sepulchral chambers by walls made of stones. We
find this arrangement at Gavr'innis, at Gamat (Lot), at Alt-Sammit in
Mecklenburg, in Wayland Smith's cave in Berkshire, and in a great many
monuments in Scandinavia. M. du Chatellier speaks of several megalithic
monuments in Finistere, including a central dolmen and several lateral
chambers. The chambered graves at Park Cwn in Wales, and at Uley in
Gloucestershire, contain side chambers, those of the former with a
covered passage between them, whilst in the latter the side chambers
are grouped round a central apartment. At New Grange, in Ireland, a
passage more than ninety-two feet long leads to a double chamber of
cruciform shape, with a roof of converging stones. Yet another fine
example of a similar kind is that of Maeshow in the Orkney Islands. The
tomb of Vaureal (Seine-et-Oise) contains three crypts of different
sizes. The long barrow of Moustoir-Carnac contained four separate
chambers, the western one of which is a dolmen of the kind known as
GROTTES DES FEES, and is supposed to be much older than the rest of
the group. A central circular chamber, with walls of upright stones,
has a roof in which an attempt has been made to form a kind of dome,
the stones of which project and overlap each other, marking, clumsy
as is the construction, a considerable advance on anything previously
accomplished, and adding considerably to the solidity of the monument.

An examination of the megalithic monuments still standing enables
us to judge of the difficulties with which their builders had to
contend, bearing in mind the primitive nature of their tools. We have
already given the dimensions of the stones forming the alignments
at Carnac. Those at Avebury vary in height from about fourteen to
sixteen feet, and in the Deccan is a tumulus surrounded by fifty-six
blocks of granite of an even greater size. One of the slabs of the
Pedra-dos-Muros (Portugal) is remarkable for its size; and the length
of the table of a dolmen on the road from Loudun to Fontevrault is more
than seventy-two feet long; that of the dolmen of Tiaret (Algeria) is
some seventy-five feet long by a width of nearly twenty-six feet and
a thickness of nine and a half feet. This extremely heavy block rests
on supports rising more than thirty-nine feet from the ground.[162]

Stone as well as wood can be much more easily cut in one direction
than in any other. Men early learnt to recognize this peculiarity, and
to take advantage of it in attacking rock. With their stone hammers
they struck in straight lines, always aiming at the same points,
and then, probably with the help of a fierce file, they succeeded
in breaking off fragments. They also employed wedges of wood, which
they drove into natural or artificial fissures, pouring water on to
this wedge again and again. The wood became swollen with the damp,
and in course of time a block of stone would be detached. Neither
time nor sinewy arms were wanting, and Fergusson has remarked that
any one who has seen the ease with which Chinese coolies transport the
largest monoliths for considerable distances, will not look upon the
difficulties of transport as insurmountable. A more serious difficulty
would be the placing of the table of the dolmen on the supports,
which are often raised to a great height above the ground. It is
supposed that earth was piled up against the jambs so as to form an
inclined plane, up which the table was slid into place with levers
and rollers of the most primitive form, such as were in use in the
most remote antiquity. Sometimes the way in which these stones are
balanced is perfectly marvellous. The Martine stone, near Livernon
(Lot), for instance, is the shape of a boat, and the slightest touch
is enough to make it rock on its two supports. That of Castle Wellan
(Fig. 55) rests on three stones pointed at the top, and some of the
trilithons of India are of even more remarkable construction.

Although, as a general rule, megalithic monuments are without
ornamentation, there are a good many exceptions in the case of
dolmens made of very hard granite, on which numerous carvings and
engravings have been made. It is, however, impossible to decipher
any but a very few of these signs, whether circles, disks, dots,
tooth or leaf mouldings, spirals, serpentine lines, lozenges, or strip.

M. du Chatellier describes at Commana (Finistere) an entrance gallery
loaded with carvings, and the walls of one of the Deux-Sevres monuments
have on them some very rough representations of the human figure cut
in INTAGLIO, whilst various megaliths of Ireland are adorned with
circles, spirals, stars, etc. One of the supports of the dolmen of
Petit-Mont-en-Arzon has on it a representation of two human feet in
relief; that of Couedic in Lockmikel-Baden is paired with flat stones
covered with engravings. On the granite ceiling of the crypt beneath
the dolmen of the Merchants, or as it is called in Brittany the DOL
VARCHANT, is engraved the figure of a large animal supposed to have
been a horse, but the head of which was unfortunately broken off at
some remote date.[163] We often meet with representations of hammers,
sometimes with and sometimes without handle. We give an illustration of
one of the walls of the Mane-Lud monument (Fig. 67), which will enable
the reader to judge of the general character of these engravings.


FIGURE 67

Part of the Mane-Lud dolmen.


The monument of the Isle of Gavr'innis, of which we have already
spoken, is the most remarkable of any for the richness of its
decoration. It includes a gallery, consisting of forty-nine blocks
of granite and two of quartz, leading to a spacious apartment. These
blocks were brought from a distance, and the fact that the little
arm of the sea separating the island from the mainland was crossed,
proves that the men who built the monument owned boats strong enough
to carry heavy loads. Excavations carried on in 1884 brought to light
a pavement consisting of ten large slabs of granite, and beneath
this pavement was found a kind of crypt at least three feet deep,
the lower part of the lateral menhirs forming the walls. We must add,
however, that Dr. de Closmadeuc, and his opinion should carry weight,
thinks that when the Gavr'innis monument was erected the island was
connected with the mainland. Three of the supports, forming the walls
of the crypt, and all those of the gallery are covered with chevrons
or zig-zag ornaments, circles, lozenges, and scrolls of which Fig. 68
will give some idea, and which Merimee compares to the tatooing of
the inhabitants of New Zealand. Megalithic monuments of Ireland and
certain stones in Northumberland are ornamented in a manner resembling
the Gavr'innis engraving, similar designs being produced by similar
means, and although the engravings of Morbihan are generally more
clearly cut and distinct, Ave note in all alike the same absence of
regularity, the same roughness of execution, the same strange types,
the same disorder in the arrangement of the signs, and the same care
to preserve the surface of the block in its natural condition.


FIGURE 68

Sculptures on the menhirs of the covered avenue of Gavr'innis.


There has been a good deal of discussion about the orientation of
megalithic monuments, and the truth on that point once ascertained,
some light might be thrown on the aim of the builders. It is evident,
however, that there never was any general system of orientation. The
dolmens of Morbihan, it is true, nearly all face the east, doubtless
in homage to the sun rising in its splendor; but this is not the
case in Finistere, and the dolmens of Kervinion and Kervardel, for
instance, are set due north and south. Leaving Brittany, we are told
by the Rev. W. Lukis that the position of the megalithic monuments
of England varies considerably: most of the dolmens of Berry, Poitou,
Aveyron, and the island of Bornholm, face west; and those of Algeria
are set southwest, and northeast, so that it is really impossible to
come to any final conclusion.

Some of the megalithic monuments already noticed have a peculiarity
to which we must refer here on account of its importance. One of
the supports, in nearly every case that which closes the entrance,
is pierced with a circular opening. Sometimes, however, the opening
is elliptical or square.


FIGURE 69

Dolmen with opening (India).


We meet with dolmens thus distinguished in India (Fig. 69), in
Sweden, in Algeria, in France, and in Palestine, where they are
often associated with sepulchral niches hewn out of the rock and also
pierced with an opening corresponding with that of the entrance. In
Alemtejo (Spain), square openings occur. West of Karleby in Sweden,
is a sepulchral chamber about twenty-nine feet long, made of slabs
set upright, all those facing south being pierced with a nearly
circular opening; and on the shores of the Black Sea dolmens made
of four upright stones surmounted by a slab, have, in every case,
one of the uprights pierced with an artificial opening about six
inches in diameter. These dolmens are said by the country people to
have been set up by a race of giants who built them as shelters for
a dwarf people on whom they had compassion.


FIGURE 70

Dolmen near Trie (Oise).


In France, dolmens with openings are so numerous that it is difficult
to make a selection. That known as La Justice, near Beaumont-sur-Oise,
consists of a small vestibule and a very long mortuary chamber,
separated by a slab pierced with a round opening. We must also mention
the megalithic monument of Villers-Saint-Sepulchre at Trie (Oise)
(Fig. 70), that of Grand-Mont, with many of those of Morbihan, of
which that of Kerlescant has an oval opening; the covered avenue of
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, originally erected at the confluence of
the Seine and Oise, and now set up exactly as it was found at Saint
Germain, has an oval opening, and presents the exceptional feature,
of which I know no other instance, of having a stone for closing the
opening if necessary; the covered avenue of Bellehaye in Normandy,
reproduced with precision at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, which was
closed by a transverse stone with an opening some inches in diameter.

Of English examples we may mention the dolmens of Rodmarten and
Avening; Merimee quotes several megalithic monuments in Wiltshire;
and Sir J. Simpson, the well-known and oft-described KIT'S COTTY
HOUSE, which is nothing more than a dolmen with an opening. HOLED
STONES, as they are called, are numerous in Cornwall, the size of the
opening varying considerably; that at Men-an-Tol, for instance, is more
than a foot in diameter, whilst others are but a few inches long. At
Orry's Grave, in the Isle of Man, two large stones are so placed as
to leave a circular space between them, which was evidently intended
to serve the same purpose, or at least was in accordance with the
same superstition, as were similar characteristics elsewhere. Setting
aside the interminable legends connected with dolmens having openings,
there is no doubt that this peculiarity of structure, which we meet
with in India as in Scandinavia, in the Caucasus as in France, shows
that the builders of all of them were impelled by a similar idea. These
openings are too small to allow of the introduction of other corpses,
or to afford to the living a refuge in the home of the dead; they
could but have served for the passing in of food, of which a supply
was so often left for the departed; or yet another interpretation is
possible: they may have been left for the soul or the spirit to leave
its earthly prison and take flight for those happy regions in which
all races more or less believe, and to which belief these openings
may be witnessed to the present day. M. Cartailhac, however, hazards
yet another explanation, and suggests that the megalithic monuments
were intended for the interment of whole families, and that the bodies
were not introduced into the tombs until all the flesh was gone, when
the skeletons might have been slipped through the openings left for
that purpose. The repeated disturbances of the remains in the graves
have unfortunately often entirely dispersed all the human bones.

It was in Brittany that the art of erecting dolmens reached its fullest
development, and it is there that the relics found in the tombs are
of the most important character. Nowhere do we find weapons more
carefully preserved, more delicately finished ornaments of a more
remarkable kind. The Museum of Vannes, where most of the valuable
objects found in the excavations are preserved, possesses quartzite,
fibrolite, diorite, and even nephrite and jadeite hatchets, some
of which materials are not native to Europe; as well as amber beads
and a necklace of calaite, that precious stone described by Pliny,
and which long remained unknown after his time.

Hatchets or celts are more numerous than any other objects found
beneath dolmens of Brittany. A report, read by M. R. Galles to the
Societe Polymathique of Morbihan, enumerates the objects found
with the dead beneath the dolmen of Saint-Michel. This report
is a regular inventory, in which figure eleven jade celts of
great elegance of form and varying from about three and a half to
sixteen inches, two larger celts of coarse workmanship both broken,
twenty-six small fibrolite celts with sharp edges, nine pendants,
more than one hundred jasper beads which had been part of a necklace,
and lastly an ivory ring. Other megalithic monuments were not less
rich in relics. Thirty hatchets were picked up at Tumiac; more than
a hundred, nearly all of tremolite, at Mane-er-H'roek; which were
remarkable for their regularity of form, their polish, and the variety
of their colors. They seldom bear any traces of having been used, and
in many cases they appear to have been intentionally broken, probably
in conformity with some funereal rite. Finistere, though not so rich
as Morbihan, furnished an important contingent. The excavations of
the Kerhue-Bras tumulus brought to light a sepulchral chamber which
contained thirty-three arrow-beads. Beneath other dolmens were picked
up a number of little plaques of slate, all pierced with holes;
one of these pieces of slate, which was oblong in form, bore on it
a representation of a sun with rays surrounded by ornaments not easy
to make out. The Breton megalithic monuments also contained numerous
fragments of pottery, some of which had formed part of vases without
stands, such as those found at Santorin and at Troy.

In other parts of France, similar discoveries have been made; shells
often brought from distant shores, glass beads, amber bowls, hatchets
and celts made of stone foreign to the country. Dr. Prunieres presented
to the French Association, when it met at Bordeaux, a collection
of weapons and ornaments which came from the megalithic monuments
of Lozere. M. Cartailhac described at the Prehistoric Congress of
Copenhagen the dolmen of Grailhe (Gard). A skeleton was found beneath
it crouching in a corner; whilst round about it lay a knife, a flint
arrow-head, a vase of coarse pottery, and in the earth forming the
tumulus were picked up twenty arrow-heads, a hatchet of chloromelanite,
with numerous beads and fragments of pottery. Were these offerings to
the dead, or to the infernal deities, given to them in the hope of
propitiating them in favor of the deceased? Beneath the megalith of
Saint Jean d'Alcas were found beads of blue glass and of enamel which
Dr. Prunieres, having compared with those in the Campana collection
in the Louvre, thinks are of Phoenician origin. The tumuli of the
Pyrenees have yielded calaite beads of the shape of small cylinders
pierced with holes; and the dolmen of Breton (Tarn-et-Garonne)
eight hundred and thirty-two necklace beads, some of the shape of a
heart. Beneath the Vaureal dolmen were found five skulls in a row,
and near one of them, that of a woman, lay a necklace made of round
bits of bone and slate, on which hung a little jadeite hatchet as an
amulet. These human relics were also accompanied by a fibrolite celt,
numerous little worked flints, and some fragments of pottery. This
arrangement of skulls in a tomb is very rare, and the only thing I
can compare it to is the row of five horses' heads placed at the end
of the entrance gallery of Mane-Lud.

At Alt-Sammit (Mecklenburg), were round stone hatchets, flint knives,
fragments of pottery covered with strive and ornaments; at Tenarlo
(Holland), urns and amber beads. At Ancress in the island of Jersey,
we find a regular necropolis dating from Neolithic times, and one
hundred vases or urns of different forms were collected. In the Long
Barrow of West Kennet, too, were found numerous fragments of pottery,
and with these fragments boars' tusks longer than those of the boar
of the present clay, the bones of sheep, goats, roedeer, pigs, and of
a large species of ox, all of which are probably relics of a funeral
feast. At a little distance from West Kennet the Rev. Doyen Merewether
found several flint implements. Here too, then, as elsewhere, the home
of the living was side by side with the resting-place of the (lead.

Beneath the dolmens of West Gothland have been found polished stone
weapons and tools associated with the bones of domestic animals,
in many cases bearing traces of the work of the hand of man. At
Olleria, in the kingdom of Valencia, at Xeres de la Frontera, we find
diorite hatchets, and in Algeria vases filled with the shells of land
mollusca. In every clime we meet with tokens of the respect in which
the dead were held.

This respect is really very remarkable. The builders of the dolmens
did not hesitate to sacrifice their most precious objects, their
richest ornaments, their hatchets and precious stones brought from
a distance by their tribe in their long migrations. No one would
dream of robbing the sacred collection. Our own contemporaries,
however civilized we may flatter ourselves by considering them,
would not prove themselves as disinterested.

Hatchets, pottery, and personal ornaments of stone bone, etc.,
are not the only artificial objects found beneath the megalithic
monuments. Metals, too, have been discovered, and M. Piette in one
of his excavations, came across a plate formed of very thin layers
of gold leaf welded together by hammering; and in several parts of
the south of France have been found olives made of gold and pierced
lengthwise. The dolmen of Carnouet in Brittany, insignificant as it
appears and containing but one small sepulchral chamber with no gallery
of access or lateral crypts, beneath a tumulus about thirteen feet
high by some eighty-five in diameter, and which was left untouched
until our own day, actually contained a golden necklace weighing
over seven ounces; in the crypt of the Castellet monument was found
a golden plaque and a golden bead; whilst the Ors dolmen in the isle
of Oleron concealed a nugget which had been rolled into the shape
of a bead probably after having been beaten thin with a hammer. At
Plouharnel, two golden amulets were found beneath a triple dolmen,
and M. du Chatellier, in excavating beneath a megalithic monument
in Finistere, found a magnificent chain of gold. A somewhat similar
chain was taken from the Leys dolmen near Inverness, and in 1842 Lord
Albert Cunningham picked up at New Grange (Ireland) two necklaces,
a brooch, and a ring, all of gold.

More than a hundred megalithic monuments of France have been found
to contain bronze, and this number would be more than doubled if we
counted the finds in tombs not connected with megaliths, such as those
of Aveyron and Lozere, where a few bits of bronze were found mixed
with numerous stone objects. One fifth of the weapons, especially the
swords and daggers found beneath the dolmens, are of bronze. At Kerhue
in Finistere, a number of bronze swords were arranged in a circle round
a little heap of cinders and black earth, relics, probably, of the
cremation of the dead, in honor of whom the tumulus had been erected.

Beneath the dolmens of Roknia (Algeria) were found thirteen bronze
ornaments, and two in silver gilt of very superior workmanship,
and under those of the Caucasus were picked up blue-glass beads,
arrow-heads, and bronze rings; but M. Chantre, who is an authority
in the matter, thinks these objects date from interments subsequent
to the erection of the dolmens.

Iron was much more rarely used than bronze in the greater part of
Europe. It was not even known in Scandinavia before the Christian
era. In Germany, Pannonia, and Noricum its use dates from the sixth
or seventh century B.C. Beneath the mounds of Central America we find
but a few fragments of meteoric iron, the rarity of which made them
extremely valuable; on the other hand iron was known to the Hellenes
as long ago as the fourteenth century B.C., and it had been employed
in Egypt for many centuries prior to that time. The most ancient
sepulchres of Malabar contain iron tridents, and Genesius dates their
use from before the deluge. It is therefore surprising to find that
some races remained for an illimitable time ignorant of the way to
procure a metal of such great utility.

Iron was not used in Brittany until towards the close of the period
during which megalithic monuments were erected. Stone, bronze, and
iron were found together in the Nignol tomb at Carnac, which dates
from the time when cremation was already practised. We find the same
association of different materials in the Rocher dolmen.

In the British Isles, especially in Scotland and in Ireland, bronze
and iron objects are more numerous than in France. At Aspatria,
near St. Bees in Cumberland, a cist was discovered containing the
skeleton of a man measuring seven feet from the crown of the head
to the feet. Near the giant lay numerous valuable objects, including
an iron sword inlaid with silver, a gold buckle, the fragments of a
shield and of a battle-axe, and the iron bit of a snaffle bridle. The
great cairn of Dowth, in Ireland, contained iron knives and rings
mixed with bone needles, copper pins, and glass and amber beads,
all showing rapid progress in the industrial arts. The remarkable
cairns near Lough Crew (Ireland), which were untouched and indeed
unknown to archaeologists until 1863, were found to contain, amongst
many other interesting objects, numerous human bones, fragments of
pottery, shells of marine mollusca, 4,884 bone implements, and seven
pieces of iron very much oxidized. The tumuli of the Grand Duchy of
Posen and those of Prussia cover kistvaens containing funeral vases,
weapons, and silver and gold ornaments.

We are altogether in the dark as to the date or the use of the various
objects found in these tombs, and the coins bearing dates which are
often associated with them, do not seem to help us much, belonging
as they doubtless do to a much later period than the erection of the
monuments. We may, however, mention that near the surface of the mound
of Mane-er-H'roek eleven medals of Roman emperors from Tiberius to
Trajan were found; whilst under the tumulus of Rosmeur, on the Penmarch
Point (Finistere), were various Roman coins; at Bergous in Locmariaker,
at Mane-Rutual, and at other places in Brittany, coins of the earliest
Christian emperors; at Uley, in Gloucestershire, some coins of the
time of the sons of Constantine; at Mining-Low (Derbyshire), beneath
a kistvaen surrounded by a cromlech, some medals of Valentinianus;
at Galley-Low, with a magnificent gold necklace set with garnets,
a coin of Honorius, but as these last were found at the outer edge
of the mound there are doubts as to the time of their deposition;
these doubts were, however, to some extent set at rest by the finding
of a coin of Geta beneath the monument itself. We might multiply
instances of similar finds, but I will only mention one more, the
discovery under some Scotch barrows of silver necklaces and coins of
the Caliphs of Bagdad, bearing date from 88 887 to 945 A.D.

This last discovery confirms what I have already said, that the
introduction of the coins was of much later date than the erection
of the monument. Another fact adds weight to this decision. The most
ancient Gallic coins date from about three centuries before our era,
and the earliest British from a century earlier than that. How is it
that excavations have brought to light no specimens of either? The
Romans successively occupied all the countries of which we have just
spoken; the tombs themselves bear witness to their conquests; and it
is to the violation of the tombs, the displacements, and secondary
interments that we owe the introduction of coins, pottery, and bricks
that undoubtedly date from the Roman period, and were probably placed
beside their dead by the Roman legionaries.

Whatever may be the difficulties, however, we are already able to come
to certain definite conclusions. We cannot connect the megalithic
monuments with any one of the ancient religions known. They were
certainly not set up in honor of Odin or of Osiris, of Astarte or of
Athene, the Phoenician or the Egyptian, the Greek or the Roman gods;
their erection seems to have had but one end in view, to do honor to
the dead. Beneath none of them do we find the remains either of the
cave-bear or of the reindeer, still less of the mammoth or of the
rhinoceros; whereas we do constantly meet with the bones of animals
characteristic of Neolithic times. It is therefore to that period that
we must attribute the more ancient of these mysterious monuments. And
the setting up of such memorials continued throughout the intermediate
time between the Stone and Bronze ages, and through the Bronze and Iron
periods. It was, indeed, still practised now and then in the earlier
centuries of the Christian era. More than that, such monuments are
even now occasionally erected. The Khassias of India make cromlechs
of large, flat unhewn stones, some six to seven feet high, and the
Angami-Nagas of the extreme north of British India set up extensive
alignments of menhirs, similar to those of France. Inscriptions in
the old Irish cipher writing, known as ogham, prove that megalithic
monuments were erected in Ireland after the time of St. Patrick; and,
as we have already remarked, some of the Breton menhirs are surrounded
by crosses. In India, too, we find the symbol of the Christian faith,
and in 1867, were discovered on the shores of the Godavery between
Hyderabad and Nagpore, a few dolmens made of four upright stones
surmounted by one or two slabs of sandstone, and encircling a cross
which is said to date from the same age as the dolmens themselves. We
must add, however, that the most competent archaeologists are of
opinion that this form of the cross was not introduced into India
until about the sixth or seventh century of our era. Probably the
erection of megalithic monuments was not discontinued in England or in
France until towards the eighth or ninth century after Christ; and the
menhirs set up later in Scotland and in Scandinavia prove how fondly
the people of those countries clung to ancient traditions. These
rude stone monuments were handed down from one race to another,
from invaders to invaded, from conquered to conquerors.

We must not, however, omit to mention one serious objection. Roman
historians, exact as is their description of Gaul, Britannia,
and Germania, are silent as to stone monuments. Tacitus does not
refer to Stonehenge or to Avebury. Caesar was present at the naval
battle between his own fleet and that of the Veneti, in the Gulf of
Morbihan, and if the megalithic monuments of Carnac were then there,
would they not have arrested the attention of the great captain? This
silence is the more inexplicable as one of the earliest geographers
mentions the stone of Iapygia; Ptolemy speaks of a similar stone on
the shores of the ocean; Strabo, of a group of dolmens near Cape
Cuneus; Quintus Curtius, of an important alignment in Bactriana;
Pliny, who mentions a leaning pillar in Asia Minor, says nothing of the
megalithic monuments of Gaul, which he crossed several times. Moreover,
Ausonius, Sidonius, Appollinaris, and Fortunatus, who are so eager
to glorify their own land, maintain a similar silence with regard
to these structures. Sulpicius, Severus, and Gregory of Tours,
old chroniclers of French history, also pass them over without a
word. More than that, Madame de Sevigne, who was stopping at Auray
in 1689, and visited its environs, writes to her daughter of all she
has seen and done, without alluding to the alignments of Carnac, or
of Erdeven, which were, of course, much more complete in her day than
in ours. In fact, they are mentioned for the first time by Sauvagere,
in his "Recueil des Antiquites de la Gaule," in which he attributes
them to the Romans. We may therefore, perhaps, conclude that these
decayed and clumsy-looking monuments were despised for generations,
no one realizing their importance or caring to penetrate their secrets.

If need were, we have yet other proofs of their extreme antiquity. In
excavating an alignment in the district occupied by the Kermario group,
a Roman encampment was discovered. The enceinte is represented by
a long wall about six feet thick, and propped up against this wall
were found a number of flat stones blackened with smoke, on which
the legionaries doubtless cooked their food. In some instances these
hearths were made on an overturned menhir, and other menhirs, which
had belonged to the alignment, were fitted into the walls. A Roman
road passes near Avebury, and, contrary to their general custom, the
haughty conquerors had turned aside to avoid the tumulus. These are
decisive proofs that in France and England at least the megalithic
monuments were erected before the advent of the Romans.

Difficult as it is to come to any definite conclusion as to the age of
the monuments, it is yet more difficult to ascertain to what race their
builders belonged. In the first place we ask: Are they all the work of
one race? The contrary, earnestly maintained by M. de Mortillet, has
long been the general opinion. M. Worsaae declared, at the Brussels
Congress,[164] that the dolmens were erected by different peoples;
M. Cazalis de Fondouce,[165] M. Broca,[166] and M. Cartailhac,[167]
share this belief. "Are not the monuments of huge stones," says
M. Fondouce, "the product of a progressive civilization growing by
degrees, rather than the work of a single people maintaining their
own manners and customs in the midst of the old primitive populations
they visited, without borrowing anything from their hosts?" To Broca,
the resemblance between the dolmens of Europe, Africa, and even of
America proves but one thing

the similarity of the aspirations and powers of all men. Everywhere,
and at every time, men have aimed, in their monuments, not only
at durability, but at the expression of force and of power. It was
with this end in view that they erected menhirs and selected enormous
stones for their megalithic monuments. The dolmen, which looks like an
architectural building, is but a modification of primitive tombs. The
cave-man first turned to account natural or artificial rock shelters,
and when they were not to be had, he imitated them in such materials as
he had at his disposal. Hence we have crypts, kistvaens, and dolmens;
and the resemblance between them proves nothing as to the parentage
of their builders.

We may add that the distances between what we may call megalithic zones
is considerable. We meet, for instance, with dolmens in Circassia and
in the Crimea, but there are no others nearer than the Baltic. There
are none in the districts peopled by the Belgae, from the Drenthe
to the borders of Normandy, nor are there any in the valleys of the
Rhine or of the Scheldt. There are but a few in Italy or in Greece,
where Pelasgic buildings were early erected, and bore witness to
a more advanced civilization. We meet with them again, however,
in Palestine, but we must traverse many miles before we find other
examples at Peshawur and in the valley of Cabul. It is difficult to
overrate the importance of these facts, or to explain these gaps. Are
they, however, so complete as has been supposed? The few travellers who
have crossed Afghanistan and Daghestan have seen tumuli which may have
served as points of union between the monuments of India and those of
the Caucasus. The megalithic monuments of Palestine and of Arabia may
yet be found to be linked with those of Algeria, by examples in the
little known regions between the Nile and the Regency of Tripoli. If
our ignorance forbids us to assert anything on this point, it equally
forbids our denying anything with any confidence. We may also add
one general remark: the countries where megalithic monuments are
found, abound in granite, in sandstone, and in flint, whilst other
districts have only very friable limestones; and, their monuments,
if they were ever erected, would have been more easily destroyed,
the very ruins disappearing and leaving no trace.

It has been said, moreover, that the mode of construction of the
dolmens, and we hate ourselves made the same remark, is far from being
the same everywhere. The dolmens of Brittany have sepulchral chambers
with long passages leading to them; those of the neighborhood of
Paris have wide covered avenues with a very short entrance lobby. In
the south of France we see nothing but rectangular compartments
formed of four or five colossal stones. All this is true enough;
but if we examine our old cathedrals of comparatively modern date,
the common origin of which is never disputed, we note differences
no less remarkable. On the other hand it is urged that if megalithic
monuments were all erected by one race, the objects they contain would
certainly resemble each other to a great extent. But even this is not
the case. The hatchets so numerous in the west of France are rare in
the south; those from the Algerian monuments are always of coarse
workmanship, whilst those of Denmark are highly finished. We might
multiply instances, but as a matter of fact do we not see the same
kind of thing in the present day, in spite of our railways and other
modes of rapid communication, and the perpetual intermarrying of modern
peoples? Compare the ornaments of Normandy with those of the Basque
provinces, those of Brittany with those of Burgundy, and surely the
differences between them will be found to be as great as we note in
the weapons and ornaments of the builders of the megalithic monuments.

To sum up: according to the opinion of many eminent savants, numerous
races have been in the habit of raising megalithic monuments, the
form of which varies AD INFINITUM according to the genius or the
circumstances of each race, and according to the nature of the soil or
of the material at the disposal of the builders. All, however, belong
to one general type, and bear witness to one general influence, which
extended throughout the whole world at a certain epoch. M. Cazalis de
Fondouce, from whom I borrow these last observations, would probably
find it as difficult to say how a general influence was extended to
races of which he denies the common parentage, and the relations and
contemporaneity he can but guess at, as I myself should -- granting
the contrary hypothesis -- to explain how a people could wander about
the world in incessant migrations without modifying its own habits or
communicating to others its rites and its mode of erecting monuments.

We cannot, however, fail to recognize the evidence of facts. We can
understand how men were everywhere impelled to raise mounds above
the bodies of their ancestors, to perpetuate their memory or to
enclose their mortal remains between flat stones to save them from
being crushed by the weight of earth above them. We may even, by
straining a point, admit the idea that a large cist developed into a
dolmen, but when in districts separated by enormous distances we see
monuments with the wall pierced with a circular opening or combining
an interior crypt with an external mound and dolmen, it is impossible
to look upon these close resemblances as the result of an accidental
coincidence, and equally impossible to fail to conclude that the men
whose funeral rites were remarkable for such close similarity belonged
to the same race.

What then was this race? Are these monuments witnesses of the great
Aryan immigration which was for so long supposed to have spread
from India over the continents of Asia and Europe, and of which
the Indo-European languages were said to preserve the memory? Or is
it really the fact that a relationship of language does not imply
a relationship of race? Were the builders of the dolmens Celts or
Gauls, Ligures or Cymri? was Henry Martin right in ascribing to
the Cimerii of Scandinavia the erection in the Bronze age of the
megaliths of Ireland? Was it the Turanians, with their worship of
ancestor's, their respect for the tombs of their forefather's, and
their desire to perpetuate their memory to eternity, who set up the
dolmens of Brittany? Was it not perhaps rather the Iberians, whose
descendants still people Spain and the north of Africa? According
to Maury, the distribution of the megalithic monuments of Europe
marks the last refuge of vanquished Neolithic races, fleeing before
their conquerors. All these hypotheses are plausible, all can be
defended by arguments, the weight of which it is impossible to deny,
but none are capable of conclusive proof, none can finally convince
the student.[168]

An old Welsh poet, referring to the long barrows of his native land,
says that they are altogether inexplicable, and that it is impossible
to decide who set them up or who is buried beneath them. And surely
this ancient bard[169] is right even now. Vainly do we question these
silent witnesses of the remote past. They give us no answer, and we
can but repeat here what we said at the beginning of this inquiry:
Human science is powerless to lift the veil biding the early history
of humanity. Will it ever be so? Or will the day yet dawn when the
veil will be rent asunder at last? Time alone can solve this question,
which is one of those secrets of the future as difficult to fathom
as those of the past.



CHAPTER VI

Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and
Trepanation.

When we consider the discoveries connected with the Stone age as a
whole, we are struck with the immense numbers of weapons of every
kind and of every variety of form found in different regions of the
globe. The Roman domination extended over a great part of the Old
World, and it lasted for many centuries. Everywhere this people,
illustrious amongst the nations, has left tokens of its power and of
its industry. Roman weapons, jewelry, and coins occupy considerable
spaces in our museums; but numerous as are these relics of the Romans,
they are far inferior in number to the objects dating from prehistoric
times, and flints worked by the hand of man have been picked up by
thousands in the last few years, forming incontestable witnesses of
the rapid growth of a large population.

One important point remains obscure. Schmerling has excavated fifty
caves in Belgium, and only found human relics in two or three of them;
and of six hundred explored by Lund in Brazil, only six contained human
bones. Similar results were obtained in the excavations of the mounds
of North America, as well as in the caves of France. M. Hamy, in a
book published a few years ago, only mentions twelve finds of human
bones, which could, without any doubt, be dated from Palaeolithic
times. True, this number has been added to by recent discoveries,
but it is still quite insignificant. It is the same thing with the
kitchen-middings and the Lake settlements. This paucity of actual
human remains forms a gap in the evidence relating to prehistoric man,
which disturbances and displacements do not sufficiently account for,
and to which we shall refer again when speaking of prehistoric tombs.

Worked flints are generally found in numbers in one place, probably
formerly a station or centre of human habitation. Men were beginning to
form themselves into societies, and the dwellings, first of the family
and then of the tribe, rapidly gathered together near some river rich
in fish, or some forest stocked with game affording plenty of food
easily obtained. The caves also afford proofs of the number of men
who inhabited them. In one alone, near Cracow, Ossowski discovered
876 bone implements, more than 3,000 flint objects, and thousands
of fragments of pottery. From the Veyrier cave, near Mount Saleve,
were taken nearly 1,000 stone implements; from those of Petit Morin,
2,000 arrow-heads; from that of Cottes, on the banks of the Gartampe,
more than 264 pounds' weight of flints, some of the Mousterien and
others of the Madeleine type, mixed with the bones of the rhinoceros,
and of several large beasts of prey of indeterminate. species. The
Abbe Ducrost picked up 4,000 flints in one dwelling alone at Solutre,
where the soil is calcareous and flint is not native, so that it must
have been brought from a distance. More than 8,000 different objects
were taken from the fine Neolithic station of Ors in the isle of
Oleron; 12,000 chips of stone, bearing marks of human workmanship,
were picked up in the Thayngen Cave, and more than 80,000 in the
different caves of Belgium. The shelter of Chaleux alone yielded 30,000
pieces of stone, at every stage of workmanship, from the waste of the
manufactory to the highly finished implement. Other explorers have
been no less fortunate. The Marquis of Wavrin found in the environs
of Grez no less than 60,000 worked stones belonging to no less than
thirty different types, chiefly arrow-heads, some triangular, others
almond-shaped, others again cutting transversely, some with and some
without feathers, some stalked, others not; in a word, arrows of every
known type. Nothing but an actual visit to the Royal Museum of Brussels
can give any idea of the importance of the discoveries made in Belgium.

The environs of Paris are, however, no less rich. As early as
Palaeolithic times the valleys of the Seine and its tributaries were
evidently inhabited by a numerous population. M. Riviere mentions a
station near Clamart, where, in a limited space, he picked up more
than 900 flints, some worked, others mere chips, many of which bad
been subjected to heat. A sand-pit of Levallois-Perret yielded 4,000
stone objects, and on the plateau of Champigny, full of such terrible
memories for the people of France, were found nearly 1,200 flints,
knives, polished hatchets, lance heads and scrapers, mixed with
numerous fragments of hand-made pottery without ornamentation.

Are yet other examples needed? At. de Mortillet estimates at more than
25,000 the number of specimens found on the plateau of Saint Acheul,
the scene of the earliest discoveries that revealed the existence of
man in Quaternary times; and the station of Concise, on Lake Neuchatel,
which is one of the most ancient in Switzerland, yielded a yet more
considerable number. Many have, however, been lost or destroyed; the
ballast of the railway skirting the lake contains thousands of worked
stones and of pieces of the waste left in making them, all of which
were taken from the bed of the lake. It must not be forgotten that
it is only of late years that the importance of these relics of the
past has been recognized and that any one has dreamt of preserving
or of studying them.

The excavation of a gravel pit at Dundrum (County Down, Ireland)
yielded 1,100 flint implements, and M. Belluci himself picked up
in the province of Perouse more than 17,000 pieces, chiefly spear-,
lance-, or arrow-heads, belonging to six different types. The Broholm
Museum contains 72,409 weapons and implements, all found in Denmark.

We can quote similar facts in other countries. Prehistoric stations are
numerous in the Sahara and throughout the Wady el Mya, in Algeria,
and we have already spoken of the numerous specimens found near
Wargla. The workshops in this district are generally surrounded by
immense numbers of ostrich eggs, which seem to indicate that that
bird was already domesticated.[170]

In America, Dr. Abbott has sent to the Peabody Museum more than
20,000 stones, which were collected by him at Trenton, on the banks
of the Delaware, and quite recently I was told that in sinking a
well in Illinois the workmen came upon a deposit of more than 1,000
worked flints, all of oval form. Every one knows the importance of
the recent discoveries at Washington, and we might multiply examples
AD INFINITUM, for everywhere explorers come upon undoubted traces of
the active work and intelligence of comparatively dense populations,
all of whom had attained to about the same degree of development.

These numerous deposits often mark the, site of regular workshops,
tokens of the earliest attempt at social organization. In no other
way can we explain the piles of flints in every stage of workmanship
lying beside the lumps from which they were detached. One of the most
celebrated of these workshops is that of Grand-Pressigny, chief town
of the canton of the department of Indre-et-Loire, which is admirably
situated between two picturesque rivers, the Claise and the Creuse.

The flint implements of Grand-Pressigny, of which specimens can be
seen in all the museums of Europe, are some sixteen inches long, of
light color, pointed at one end and square at the other. One face is
rough, the other chipped into three oblong pieces, whilst the sides
are roughly hewn into saw-like teeth. If we examine these flints
closely we can easily make out the exact point, the EYE, as workmen
call it, where the stone was struck. At Charbonniere, on the banks of
the Saone, to quote other examples, in a radius of less than a mile,
were found weapons, tools, and nuclei, which may be compared with
those of Grand-Pressigny. In some places the collections of flints
still remaining look as if they had been used for road-making. In
some cases hatchets, knives, and scrapers seem to have been buried
in pits. Were these the reserve stores of the tribe, or the so-called
CACHES of the merchants?

It is difficult merely to name the different workshops or manufactories
discovered in the last few years. We must, however, endeavor to
mention the most important, for these workshops, we must repeat,
are an important proof of the existence of a society of organized
working communities. We meet with them on the shores of the bay
of Kiel, in the island of Anholt, in the midst of the Kattegat,
and on the borders of the Petchoura, and of the Soula, among
the Samoieds. Virchow discovered an arrow-head manufactory on the
shores of Lake Burtneek, and in 1884 the Moscow Society of Natural
Sciences made known the existence of important workshops near the
Vetluga River, in the province of Kostroma, so that we know that in
remote prehistoric times men lived and fought in a rigorous climate
in districts but sparsely populated in our own day.

There is nothing to surprise us in all these facts. Recently near the
Yenesei River, in the heart of Siberia, were found bronze daggers,
hatchets and bridle bits (Fig. 71), all bearing witness in the beauty
of their workmanship to a more advanced state of civilization than the
Lake Dwellings or megalithic monuments farther south. Many of them are
ornamented with figures of animals, so that at an epoch less remote,
it is true, than the one we have been considering, but still far
removed from our own, we find that there was an intelligent race,
with artistic tastes, living in a country now so intensely cold as
to be uninhabitable to all but a few miserable nomad Tartars.

At Spiennes, near Mons, a field was discovered, known as the CAMP
DES CAYAUX, strewn with flints, some uncut, others hewn, together
with knives and hatchets innumerable. There were also centres
of manufacture at Hoxne and Brandon, in England, at Bellaria in
Bologna, and at Rome on the Tiburtine Way. At Ponte-Molle, where
worked flints were discovered for the first time in Italy a few years
ago, a workshop was found, remarkable for the great number of stags'
antlers, from which the middle part had been removed, doubtless to be
used as handles for tools. M. de Rossi, who gives us these details,
thinks that this station was inhabited in the Paleolithic period. In
the settlement of Concise have been found not only stone implements,
but a great many articles made of bone, so that this place was
evidently an important manufacturing centre. Knives, stilettos, and
arrow heads were turned out here, and in the hands of skilful workmen
the tusks of the boars, which abounded at this time in Switzerland,
were converted into excellent chisels.


FIGURE 71

Bronze objects found at Krasnojarsk (Siberia).


To name the districts where tools were manufactured in prehistoric
times in France would be to give a list of all the departments. In
the commune of Saint-Julien du Saut we find a large manufactory where
every division of the Stone age is fully represented, from the time
of the simply chipped hatchet to that of the polished implement of
rare perfection. Everything bears witness to the prolonged residence
of man in a neighborhood which offered the attraction of vast
deposits of chalk with bands of flint that supplied alike weapons
and tools. Amongst others, we must name the so-called ATELIER DE LA
TREICHE, near Toul, which extends for an area of about a hundred acres,
that of Bonaruc, near Dax; surrounded by waste lands covered with a
scanty vegetation; that of Rochebertier (Charente), which probably
dates from the Madeleine period; and that of Ecorche-Boeuf, near
Perigueux. The Abbe Cochet tells us of an atelier in the Aulne valley,
and Maurice Sand of another near La Chatre, where we meet with the
most ancient traces of man in Berry. In the fields, near an alignment
not far from Autun, were picked up numbers of hatchets of bard rock,
barbed arrows, flakes of flint worked into scrapers or chisels, whilst
near them were the very polishers on which they had been pointed.

We have just spoken of polishers, and we said some time ago that it was
by prolonged rubbing that the remarkable weapons of Neolithic times
were produced. We must add now that a whole series of the polishers
used are to be seen on the right bank of the Loing, near Nemours;
one of which is a regular table (Fig. 72), on which can be made out
no less than fifty grooves and twenty-five cup-like depressions.


FIGURE 72

Prehistoric polisher, near the ford of Beaumoulin, Nemours.


One would have expected to find the ground near these polishers
covered with flakes of flint and pieces of tools of all kinds, but
nothing of the kind has been discovered; a fact which leads its to
suppose that the workmen only came down into the valley to finish
off their weapons by polishing them.

At the period we are considering all the continents were peopled,
and we must repeat, for it is the most important point of our
present study, that the civilization attained to by the inhabitants
was everywhere almost identical. Thus we find centres of manufacture
similar to those of Europe at the foot of the mountains of Tunis and of
Algeria. In one of the latter, at Hassi al Rhatmaia, the knives were
piled up in one place, the scrapers in another, and the arrow-heads
in a third. In this disposition M. Rabourdin thinks he sees a sign of
the division of labor, one of the most important features of modern
progress. M. Arcelin mentions a similar deposit on the summit of the
Jebel Kalabshee, near Esneh in Egypt, and a few years ago another was
found in Palestine, near the ancient Berytus, containing great numbers
of hatchets, saws, scrapers, and all the implements characteristic of
the Stone age; whilst amongst them lay the blocks from which they had
been cut. Asia Minor was evidently an important manufacturing centre
during the Stone age, and, as a matter of course, it must have had a
considerable population; and even in America discoveries of similar
extent have been made. At Kinosha, in Wisconsin, Lapham made out
a manufactory of flint and quartzite arrow-heads, which dates from
prehistoric times, and quite recently a yet more important centre of
industry has been discovered at St. Andrew (Winnipeg).

The manufactories of Spiennes and Brandon deserve special notice,
as they show us how our ancestors got the flint they used instead
of metal. At Spiennes,[171] the excavations were begun in the open
air, then the chalk containing the flint was reached by the sinking
of vertical shafts, many of which were as much as forty feet in
depth. These shafts were connected with each other by galleries running
in every direction, but always following the belts of flints. Cuttings
have brought to light the very implements of the ancient miners. They
were of the simplest description, such as picks made of stag-horn
and heavy stone hammers, all alike bearing marks of long service.[172]

Similar results were obtained in England. Canon Greenwell explored
near Brandon, in Suffolk, a series of 254 shafts, known in the
neighborhood as Grime's Graves. As at Spiennes, the shafts were
connected by galleries from three to five feet high, and one of
theta was twenty-seven feet long. The shafts and galleries had been
hollowed out with the help of picks exactly like those found in
Belgium; seventy-nine were picked up that had been thrown away by
the workmen.[173]

Some few years ago MM. Cartailhac and Boule discovered one of these
primitive quarries at Mur de Barrez, the chief town of the department
of Aveyron.[174]

They made out eight shafts in the face of a layer of limestone some
eighty-one feet long, and at every turn of their excavations they
came to fresh shafts. These shafts opened out towards the top like
funnels, and the), were not more than three feet three inches below the
surface, the flint having been struck at that depth (Fig. 73). These
shafts were, in many cases, continued by galleries, as seen in our
illustration (Fig. 74), or by trenches, where the light is, however,
more or less shut out by small landslips. It is still easy, in spite
of this, to make out the floor of the mine, for it is trodden hard by
the feet of the ancient miners. Traces of charcoal, too, reveal the
path they took, and we learn at the same time that they used fire to
help them in their work.


FIGURE 73

Section of a flint mine; T vegetable earth, C pure limestone, C M
Marly limestone, S flint.


M. Boule,[175] from whom we borrow these details, cannot restrain his
astonishment at the practical knowledge shown by these prehistoric
miners. He tells us that they sometimes left the flint standing
as pillars at pretty short intervals, or they propped up the
galleries with even more resistant material, cementing them with
clay or with calcareous earth taken from the detritus. In spite of
these precautions, landslips frequently occurred, and implements of
stag-horn (Fig. 75) have often been flattened by the fall of the roof
of the gallery. It is really curious to find implements of an exactly
similar kind used for exactly similar purposes at Spiennes, Brandon,
Mur de Barrez, and at Cissbury, to which, however, we shall have to
refer again. In the shafts of Aveyron, as in those of England, the
marks of blows of the picks are still to be seen, and in many cases a
flint or horn-pick point is still imbedded in the rock or limestone,
as if the miner had but just left his work.


FIGURE 74

Plan of a gallery, half destroyed in making the excavation which
revealed its existence. U gallery still visible; G' gallery destroyed
by the excavation.


In this last example of what has been done in France, we must also
add that of the shafts of Nointel (Oise) and those discovered in
Maine by M. de Baye, in both of which were found nodules of flint
in different stages of preparation, together with some stag-horn
picks. In none of these excavations was any metal implement found,
or any trace of the use of metal, so that we must conclude that the
mines date from Neolithic times.

We have seen how man gradually brought to perfection the tools and
weapons which were at first so clumsy. The growth of industry led
to the birth of commerce, or, to speak more accurately, to that
of barter. From the time of the earliest migrations intercourse was
begun, or rather was carried on, between the tribes, as they gradually
dispersed, often travelling considerable distances from each other,
and fresh proofs of these relations are continually brought to light as
we become better acquainted with prehistoric times. The flints worked
by the cave-men of Belgium, the fossil shells so numerous at Chaleux,
in the Frontal and Nuton caves, at Thayngen on the frontier between
Switzerland and Germany, in Italy, in the stations of anterior date to
the TERREMARE beds, have been found the shells of the pearl oyster of
the Indian Ocean, whilst in the caves of the south of France, such as
the Madeleine, that of Cro-Magnon, Bize in Herault, and Solutre on the
banks of the Saone have been picked up the shells of Arctic marine
mollusca. The cave-man of Gourdan was decked with shells from the
Mediterranean, and the man of Mentone in his turn wore a head-dress
made of Atlantic shells. Fossil shells were also much sought after;
we have alluded to those from Champagne found in Belgium; others from
the shell-marl of Touraine and Anjou had been taken into the caves of
Perigord, whilst sea-urchins from the cretaceous strata of the south of
France were found in a prehistoric station of Auvergne, and M. Massenat
picked up at Laugerie-Basse two specimens of a species not met with
anywhere but in the Eocene deposits of the isle of Wight. The Neolithic
station of Champigny, near Paris, has yielded some objects from the
Alps, and from Belgium, from the Vosges Mountains, and the Puy de Dome.


FIGURE 75

Picks, hammers, and mattocks made of stag-horn.


In the caves of Perigord were also found fragments of hyaline quartz,
which must have been brought from the Alps or the Pyrenees. In Brittany
and in Marne flints foreign to these granite districts are numerous;
and Dr. Prunieres tells us that similar discoveries were made under
the megalithic monuments of France, and that neither in the eroded
limestone districts of Lozere, known locally as LES CAUSSES, nor under
the dolmens of Haute-Vienne, were found any but implements made of
rock not native to the country.

Hatchets, daggers, and nuclei, or as they are characteristically
called by the country people LIVRES DE BEURRE, from Grand-Pressigny,
have been picked up in the bed of the Seine, at Limagne in Auvergne,
in Brittany, at Saint Medard near Bordeaux, on the banks of the Meuse,
and even as far north as the Shetland Islands. At Concise was found
red coral from the Mediterranean, whilst the yellow amber of the
Baltic was picked up in the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, beneath
the dolmens of Brittany, in sepulchral caves, such as those of Oyes
(Marne) or Lombrives (Ariege), beneath the megalithic tomb of La
Roquette, at Saint Pargoue (Herault) beneath the dolmen of Grailhe
(Gard), at Malpas, and at Baume (Ardeche).[176] These are nearly all
Neolithic tombs, though some few of them may date from the beginning
of the Bronze age; but the cave-men of France owned amber even
earlier than this, for five fragments have been found in the Aurensan
Cave near Bagneres-de-Bigorre, which was inhabited in Palaeolithic
times. Jadeite and nephrite[177] are met with in the Lake Dwellings
of Switzerland and Bavaria, as in the caves of Liguria and Sardinia;
chloromelanite[178] in France, and obsidian[179] in Lorraine, in the
island of Pianosa and in the Cyclades. We have already spoken of the
calaite[180] found beneath the dolmens of Brittany, and we may add
now that it has also been found in the caves of Portugal and beneath
the megalithic monuments of the south of France.

Commerce developed rapidly during Neolithic times, and, as far as we
can make out from traces left, its course was from the southeast to
the northwest. Streams and rivers were followed by merchants as by
emigrants, and at an extremely remote date the sea no longer arrested
the journeys of men. At a recent meeting of the British Anthropological
Institute, Miss Buckland dwelt on the resemblance in the material,
shape, and ornamentation of a golden cup found in , Cornwall, to other
cups found at Mykenae and at Tarquinii, and maintained that the Cornish
cup must have been the work of the same artisans, and have been brought
by commerce from what was then the extremity of the known world.

It is not only in Europe that we can trace the relations established
between men separated by vast distances, by oceans, and by apparently
impassable deserts. The shells of the Atlantic and those of the
Pacific, the copper of Lake Superior, the mica of the Alleghanies,
and the obsidian of Mexico lie together beneath the tumuli of Ohio,
and quite recently Mr. Putnam exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries
a collection of jade celts and ornaments, some from Nicaragua,
others from Costa Rica, and a hatchet with both edges sharpened
from Michigan. No deposit of jade has so far been discovered on the
American continent, so that we can only suppose these objects to have
been brought from Asia at an unknown date. The marks they retain of
having been rubbed up, and the holes made in them to hang them. up,
show what store was set by them.

Monuments of many kinds scattered over different countries, weapons
and implements, relics as they are of a remote past, enable us to gain
a closer insight into the manners, customs, and mode of life of our
ancestors of the Stone age. We can picture their daily life, which we
know to have been one long struggle, without break or truce, for they
had to contend, not only with wild animals but with each other, to
fight for the use of their caves of refuge, for their hunting fields,
and for their watercourses; and later, the first shepherds had to
do battle for the pasturage necessary for their flocks. It is only
too certain that, from the earliest dawn of humanity, men gave way,
without any effort at self-control, to their brutal passions. The
right of the strongest was the only law, and wherever man penetrated
his course was marked by violence and by death. One of the femora of
an old man was found in the celebrated Cro-Magnon Cave, bearing a deep
depression caused by a blow of a projectile, and on the forehead of
the woman that lay beside him is a large wound made by a small flint
hatchet (Fig. 76). This gash on the frontal bone penetrated the skull,
and was probably the cause of death, but not of sudden death, for
round about the wound are marks of an attempt at healing it.[181]
According to Dr. Hamy, many of the bones found in the Sordes Cave
have very curious wounds. A gaping hole on the right parietal of a
woman must have been a terrible wound (Fig. 77). The woman of Sordes,
like that of Cro-Magnon, must have survived for some time; the marks
of the removal of splinters of bone, which can quite easily be made
out, leave no doubt on that point.[182]


FIGURE 76

Cranium of a woman, from Cro-Magnon, seen full face.


In the Baumes-Chaudes caves, situated in that part of the valley of
the Tarn which belongs to the department of Lozere, Dr. Prunieres
picked up numerous bones bearing scars, characteristic of wounds
produced by stone weapons.[183] Some fifteen of these bones, such as
the right and left hip bones, tibiae, and vertebrae, still contain
flint points flung with sufficient force to penetrate deeply the
bony tissue. Always indefatigable in his researches, Dr. Prunieres
also mentions having found in the cave known as that of L'HOMME MORT
bones bearing traces of cicatrized wounds, and he presented to the
Scientific Congress at Clermont a human vertebra found beneath the
Aumede dolmen pierced with an arrow-head, which is, so to speak,
encased in the wound by the formation of bony tissue.


FIGURE 77

Skull of a woman found at Sordes, showing a severe wound from which
she recovered.


Of the nineteen crania found in the Neolithic sepulchre of Vaureal
two show traces of old wounds. One of them, that of a woman, has
three different scars, two of which were of wounds that had healed,
whilst the third in the occiput was a gaping hole, which had evidently
caused death.

A sepulchral cave at Nogent-les-Vierges (Oise) contains the skeleton
of a man with a wound on the forehead, no less than four and a half
inches long by three broad. This man, who was dune young, the sutures
being still very apparent, survived this serious wound for some time.

The Gourdan Cave has yielded crania and jaws broken by blunt weapons,
whilst on other crania have been made out scratches and stripes
which could only have been produced after the hair and skin had been
removed. In the caves of the Petit-Morin valley, M. de Baye picked
up some human vertebra pierced with flints, the points of which were
still imbedded in the bones. In the Villevenard Cave one skull was
found containing three arrow-beads with transverse points imbedded in
the skull, the bone of which had closed upon them. Another arrow was
lodged between the dorsal vertebrae. It is probable that these arrows
had remained in the wounds; certainly that is the simplest way to
account for their position. About two miles from the caves of which
we have been speaking, M. de Baye discovered a sepulchre containing
thirty skeletons, all of adult and strongly built individuals. The
bodies were laid one above the other, and separated by large flat
stones and a thin layer of earth. This sepulchral cave contained
seventy-three flint points. As in the case of Villevenard, their
position leads us to suppose that these points had been sticking in
the flesh of the bodies when they were interred, and had fallen out
when decomposition set in. Probably the bodies were those of men who
had fallen victims in a bloody conflict that had taken place in the
valley. In a cave at the station of Oyes, was found stretched upon a
bed of stones a skeleton with a piece of flint, which had been flung
with great force, imbedded in the upper part of the humerus. Round
about the wound are the marks of many attempts at healing it.

Many of the human bones found in the Vivarais Cave bear traces
of having been violently fractured by stone weapons with tapering
points. In the Challes Cave (Savoy) lies the skeleton of a woman
whose skull was fractured by a flint weapon, but in this case death
was evidently immediate, at least if we may judge from the fact that
there are no signs of the wound having received any treatment. In the
Castellet Cave, a human vertebra contained the weapon which had pierced
it, but when the bone was touched the arrow-head broke off. It had,
however, been flung with such a sure hand that it had been driven
ten inches deep into the bony tissue. Here, too, the absence of any
exostosis proves that death quickly followed the wound.


FIGURE 78

Fragment of human tibia with exostosis enclosing the end of a flint
arrow.


In other cases the victims seem to have lived for some time. We
have already spoken of wounds in crania that had healed, and we
may add that a few years ago a, human bone was presented to the
Archaeological Society of Bordeaux which still retained a flint
arrow-head in the wound it had made. Traces could clearly be made
out of the inflammation caused by the presence of the foreign body,
and the bony tissue secreted by the periosteum had, so to speak,
taken the mould of the arrow (Fig. 78).

In the cave known as the Trou d'Argent (Basses-Alpes) amongst the
bones of ruminants and carnivora, fragments of pottery and rubbish
of all kinds, was found a piece of humerus (Fig. 79) pierced at
the elbow joint and very neatly cut at the lower end, no doubt with
the help of some of the implements of hard rock scattered about the
cave. The position of this human bone amongst the remains of animals
and fragments of a meal, points to its being a relic of a scene of
cannibalism; adding yet another proof to what I said at the beginning
of this work.


FIGURE 79

Fragment of human humerus pierced at the elbow joint, found in the
Trou d'Argent.


Similar facts are reported front England and Germany. Dr. Wankel
mentions an interesting prehistoric deposit at Prerau, near Olmutz,
amongst the bones of animals belonging to the most ancient Quaternary
fauna, such as the mammoth, the cave-bear, the cave-lion, the glutton,
and the arctic fox; and amongst clumsy bone and ivory weapons and
ornaments he found a human jaw and a femur covered with strip produced
by flint hatchets. In 1801 Mr. Cunnington took several skeletons from
a barrow near Heytesbury, the skull of one of which had been broken
with a blunt implement; and Sir R. Hoare speaks of a skull from the
neighborhood of Stonehenge split open by a blow from one of these
formidable weapons. Several crania taken from a long barrow at West
Kennet have similar wounds.

Similar facts were noticed at Littleton-Drew, at Uley, at Cotswold,
and at Rodmarten, and from this Dr. Thurmam concluded that nearly
all those who were buried in long barrows had met with a violent
death.[184] He speaks, however, of one skull pierced with a large hole,
the edges of which had become rounded smooth, showing the action of
a recuperative process, and proving that the injured man had long
survived his serious wound. In 1809, a farmer of Kirkcudbrightshire
set to work to demolish a large cairn that interfered with his tilling
of the soil, and which, according to popular tradition, was the tomb
of a Scotch king. In taking away the earth the workmen found a large
stone coffin, in which lay the skeleton of a man of great stature. The
arm had been almost separated from the trunk by the blow of a diorite
hatchet, a broken bit of which remained imbedded in the bone.[185]

One of the few crania that can with certainty be said to have belonged
to Lake Dwellers of Switzerland was found at Sutz, near Zurich;
this skull was fractured at the back. The roundness of the wound,
which had been serious enough to cause death, has led authorities to
conclude that it was made with one of the formidable pick-hammers, so
many of which were found in the lake of Bienne.[186] Nilsson speaks of
a human cranium pierced with a flint arrow, and of another, both found
at Tygelso (Scandinavia), containing a dart made out of the antler of
an eland.[187] At Chauvaux, at Cesareda, and Gibraltar other crania
have been found bearing the marks of mortal wounds, and if we cross
the Atlantic we meet with similar instances. Lund tells us that at
Lagoa do Sumidouro crania were found pierced with circular tools,
whilst near them lay the implements that had caused death.[188] At
Comox, in Vancouver Island, a skeleton was found with a flint knife
imbedded in one of the bones, and at Madisonville (Ohio) another,
one of the bones of which was pierced by a triangular stone arrow;
whilst beneath a mound in Indiana was picked up a skull pierced by a
flint arrow more than six inches long. Excavations at Copiapo (Chili)
brought to light the skeleton of a man who had sustained no less than
eight wounds from arrows. The force with which they must have been
shot is really astonishing; one had broken the upper jaw and knocked
out several teeth, penetrating to the brain; and others were still
sticking in the vertebrae and ribs.[189]

In the New as in the Old World man survived many of these horrible
wounds, and a skull found under a mound near Devil's River shows
a serious wound inflicted many years before death, and one of the
Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum bears a long frontal fracture,
doubtless produced by the violent blow of a club; the five or six
fragments still to be made out are, so to speak, solidified, and the
wounded man had evidently lived on for many years, thanks apparently to
his good constitution alone, for there are no signs of the performing
of any surgical operation, such as the removal of the splinters of
bone, for instance.[190]

In 1884 a human vertebra, with an arrow-head imbedded in it, was
picked up on the island of Santa Cruz. The apophysis was broken,
and the extent of the fracture shows the great force of the blow. The
victim evidently died of the wound, for there is no sign of its having
been healed.

I have dwelt upon these deaths and wounds in spite of the inevitable
monotony of such a list, not because I wish to bring into prominence
the fact that from the earliest times the struggle for existence was
fierce and bloody, but because I am anxious to prove that in these
remote days an organized and intelligent society had grown up. No
one could have survived such wounds as we have described, but for the
care and nursing of those around him, such as the other members of his
family or of his tribe. The wounded one must have been fed by others
for months; nay more, he must have been carried in migrations, and
his food and resting-place must have been prepared for him. Moreover,
and this is of even yet more importance to our argument, they must
have been men able to treat wounds and to set bones.

This last fact has been proved beyond a doubt by the discovery
of numerous bones with the old wounds completely cicatrized. "In
several examples," says Dr. Prunieres, speaking in this connection,
"we can make out the fractures set with a neatness which gives us
a very high opinion of the skill of the Neolithic bone setters. The
setting of one fracture at the lower end of the tibia and of another
at the neck of the femur, are not inferior to what we should expect
from the most skilful surgeons of the globe."[191] A remarkable fact
truly, but one often met with in the most widely separated regions of
the earth, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and justifies
the giving of a few more details.

In 1873 Dr. Prunieres, to whom science has reason to be very grateful
for his singular discovery, presented to the members of the French
Association, in session at Lyons, a human parietal with a rounded
piece of bone let into it. This piece of bone was rather larger than
a five-franc piece, and the skull into which it had been fixed was
found beneath the Lozere dolmen. A large opening, some three inches
in diameter, the edges of which were worn smooth, had been made in
this skull, and the piece of bone let into it was thicker than the
skull itself, as well as different in color, the cranium being dark
and the foreign piece of bone pale yellow. It was evident therefore
that the two pieces did not belong in life to one person, and that
the rounded piece had been cut out of some other skull. The following
year Dr. Prunieres added fresh details about other rounded pieces of
skull that be had discovered let into crania, some of which pieces
had evidently been introduced during the life of the patient, who had
died under the operation of trepanation, whilst others had been put
in after death. Dr. Prunieres in every case speaks of RONDELLES or
rounded pieces of skulls, and we prefer to quote him exactly, but as
a matter of fact the trepanation was sometimes done with elliptical,
triangular, or even pyramidal pieces of bone.

Later no less than sixty fresh examples, corroborating Dr. Prunieres'
discoveries, were found in the Baumes-Chaudes caves, and Broca in his
turn reported the finding of three crania in the cave of L'HOMME MORT,
from which great pieces had been taken which had evidently not been
lost by accident.

From this time excavations and discoveries made under Dr. Prunieres
succeeded each other rapidly. In 1887 his collection contained 167
crania or fragments of crania, all perforated, 115 of which were picked
up in the caves of Lozere, which are probably of more recent date,
beneath the dolmens of the DEVEZES, as those vast plains given lip to
pasturage are called. These dolmens, which were doubtless reserved for
the burial of chiefs, often contain many valuable objects. Beneath one,
for instance, were found fifteen beautiful darts of variegated flint,
four polished boars' tusks, some schist pendants, some shells cut into
the shape of teeth, some bone and stone necklace beads, and, lastly,
two small bronze beads. These last-named objects justify us in dating
the dolmen from the Bronze epoch, when the use of bronze began to
spread over the district, though it was still not generally employed.

Attention once awakened, similar facts began to be announced from
many different quarters. In the Neolithic caves of Marne were found
skulls with rounded holes in them, pieces of skull such as are shown
in Fig. 28, which were probably worn as amulets. M. de Baye has in
his fine collection more than twenty examples of trepanation, one
of. which is shown in Fig. 80. In nearly every case the operation had
been performed after death; three examples alone show it to have been
done during life, and that the patient certainly survived, for the
wound shows very evident signs of having healed, and the edges of the
openings no longer bear the marks of the tool of the operator. On one
of the three crania there were two wounds near each other, but they
were quite separate, and were evidently not treated at the same time.


FIGURE 80

Mesaticephalic skull, with wound which has been trepanned.


A tumulus in the Guisseny commune (Finistere), excavated about
two years ago, covered over a sepulchral crypt. At the southeastern
extremity was picked up a badly baked hand-made earthenware vase with
four handles. Beside the vase lay a skull, on which could be made out
traces of oxidation, which had probably been caused by the wearing of
a metal band, which has not been found. This skull bears on the right
side a little oval hole with cicatrized edges about an inch long by
two fifths of an inch broad. The discovery of a bronze dagger and two
bronze plaques leaves no doubt as to the age of this tumulus. This
example of trepanation is the only well authenticated one of which
I know in Brittany. It is true one skull has been mentioned as found
beneath the megalithic monument of Saint-Picoux de Quiberon (Morbihan),
which is even said to bear marks of sawing and scraping made in
attempting trepanation, but this fact has been very much questioned,
and the date at which the trepanation was performed, if performed it
were, is very doubtful.[192] The proof we are seeking of the antiquity
of the operation of trepanation is not therefore to be found here.

On a plain amongst the hills of the right bank of the Seine, above
Paris, rises a mound resembling a promontory which is known as
the Guerin mound, and consists of a vast deposit of chalk which
was excavated long ago. Successive operations have brought to
light eight caves, most of which contained a number of human
remains, which were unfortunately dispersed without having been
scientifically examined. One alone, opened in 1874, contained
numerous bones belonging to individuals of every age and of both
sexes, with polished flints, fragments of pottery, and implements
of stag-horn. Amongst these relics was found the skull of an old man
showing a very curious example of trepanation. It was unfortunately
broken by the workmen in the very moment of discovery, and could only
be very insufficiently examined. Other examples, however, which could
be properly authenticated, are not wanting from the banks of the Seine
and Marne; two fragments of skull were found in the canton of Moret,
one of which had been trepanned during the life of its owner, and the
other after death. We must also mention the crania presented to the
learned societies at the Sorbonne, one of which came from the plateau
of Avrigny, near Mousseaux-les-Bray (Seine-et-Marne). Side by side
with the skeleton lay polished hatchets, scrapers, and arrow-heads,
fragments of pottery blackened by smoke, and lastly a solitary bone
of an ox, pierced with three holes at regular distances, which had
probably been used as a flute. Of nine crania found in this excavation
three were pierced, two after death and one during life, the edges
of the last named bearing very evident traces of treatment.

A trepanned skull was also discovered in a Neolithic sepulchre near
Crecy-sur-Morin, where lay no less than thirty skeletons, remarkable
for the strongly defined section of the tibiae, whilst around were
strewn hatchets, flint knives, bones, stilettos and picks of siliceous
limestone with handles made of pieces of stag-horn. The tomb, built of
stones without mortar, contained two contiguous chambers separated by
a wall, and covered over by a stone weighing more than 1,200 tons. It
seems likely that this huge stone had not been moved -- it must
have been beyond the strength of the makers of the tomb to lift it,
-- but that the spaces beneath, in which the dead had been placed,
had been merely hollowed out. In the covered AVENUE DES MUREAUX,
of which I have already spoken, were picked up several trepanned
crania. The tools, scrapers, and piercers, which had probably been
used for the operation, lay near the crania.

A Neolithic sepulchre containing three trepanned crania was opened at
Dampont, near Dieppe. The operation had been as neatly executed as if
it had been performed by one of our most distinguished surgeons. As
at Crecy, the sepulchral crypt was divided into two chambers, and the
slab between them was pierced with a square opening,[193] -- a fresh
example of the curious practice of making openings, of which we have
spoken in treating of so many different regions, often apparently
completely cut off from communication with each other.

Beneath the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), in the west of France, was
found a skull, and at Lizieres in the same department, the skeleton
of a tall old man with a dolichocephalic skull and platycnemic tibiae
bearing traces of old wounds badly healed. The bony tissue of the
skull was in an unhealthy state and the trepanation had evidently
been part of medical treatment. At Saint-Martin-la-Riviere (Vienna),
a tomb dating from Neolithic times contained five trepanned crania,
on one of which the perforation had been made by scraping. In this
tomb was also found a round piece of skull with a hole in it, which
had doubtless been used as a pendant. The other objects found in
this sepulchre were of a remarkable character, and included hatchets
made of coralline limestone, jade, fibrolite, and serpentine, the
blades of flint knives, arrows, some feathered, others stalked, some
necklace beads, and a number of vases, some apodal, others with flat
stands, and nearly all without any attempt at ornamentation. Beneath
a dolmen near St. Affrique, M. Cartailhac discovered a skull with two
holes in it; one near the bregma, which had been made during life,
and the other on a level with the lambda, which had not been made
until after death.[194] We cannot now note the important conclusions
founded on these two perforations, we must be content with adding
here that the tomb contained four other skeletons with crania
showing no trace of trepanation; the tibiae were platycnemic and
the humeri had the so-called perforation of the olecranon farces,
which certain anthropologists, as I think without sufficient reason,
consider characteristic of inferior races. We must mention yet one
more discovery which it will not do to omit. A human parietal with a
piece missing that had evidently been taken out, was found beneath
the rock-shelter of Entre-Roches near Angouleme. The skull bore
very evident traces of the performance of an operation which may or
may not have been executed during life. Was it done to remove the
diseased bone -- for it was diseased -- in the hope of prolonging
life? Did the patient die under the hands of the surgeon, or was
the piece of bone taken out after death to be used as an ornament or
an amulet? Any one of these hypotheses is possible, and all we can
say for certain is that there is no sign of the wound having been
healed in any way. This is a common thing enough, and the interest
of the discovery arises from a different cause. The rock-shelter
of Entre-Roches is supposed to date from Paleolithic times, and if
it were certain that there has been no displacement of the soil on
which the parietal was found, it is to be concluded that trepanation
was practised in the Quaternary period when man was living amongst
the large extinct pachydermata and felidae. But it will be difficult
to admit this unless other discoveries confirming it are made. If,
however, we cannot prove that trepanation was practised in France
in Palaeolithic times, we can assert that it was continued down to
the earliest centuries of the Christian era. One remarkable case
of trepanation was found, for instance, in the Merovingian cemetery
near St. Quentin; and a trepanned skull was recently exhibited at a
meeting of the Anthropological Society in Paris, which had been found
beneath a Merovingian tomb at Jeuilly. The patient had long survived
his wound. The skeleton was found in a stone trough, narrower at the
foot than at the head. The skeleton of a man between forty and fifty
years of age was found in a Frank cemetery at Limet, near Liege. On
the left parietal of the skull was an oval hole as big as a pigeon's
egg, bearing traces of having been medically treated. The patient,
like the man of Jeuilly, certainly survived the operation. His tomb,
as were the resting-places of his neighbors in death, was covered over
with a huge unhewn stone, and beside him lay another skeleton. A few
nails and bits of wood were the only things found in the tomb. We
may also mention the skeleton of a Frank of between fifty-five and
sixty-five years of age with a trepanned skull, found by M. Pilloy,
in a cemetery of the St. Quentin ARRONDISSEMENT, which also contained
numerous objects dating from the sixth century A.D.

So far we have only spoken of France, but similar facts are reported
all over Europe, and the difficulty really is to make a selection. Some
round pieces of skull, like those of Lozere, have been picked up in
Umbria[195]; and a skull, bearing traces of an operation, the aim
of which was to remove a portion of the left parietal, was found in
the Casa da Mouva (Portugal), which dates, as do so many in France,
from Neolithic times.

Goss mentions a discovery in one of the pile-dwellings of Lake Bienne,
of a skull with a large hole in it with bevelled edges. There is no
trace of this wound having healed, and the patient had evidently died
soon after the operation.

The Prague Museum possesses two crania found at Bilin in Bohemia;
one, of a pronounced dolichocephalic type, has near the middle of the
right parietal an opening measuring one and a half by two and a third
inches; the cicatrization is complete, and trepanation was evidently
performed long before death. The other is mesaticephalic, and bears a
round opening about one and a half inches in diameter. Dr. Wankel, to
whom we owe these details, is well known through other discoveries; his
excavations in the Bytchiskala Cave brought to light the skeleton of a
young girl of ten or twelve years old, who bad undergone the operation
of trepanation. The wound, which was on the right side of the forehead,
was half healed. The child still wore the ornaments she had been fond
of in life -- bronze bracelets and a necklace of large glass beads.

Discoveries of a similar character succeeded each other in Bohemia, and
in nearly every case the operation of trepanation had been performed
on the upper part of the forehead. Not very long ago it was reported
to the Anthropological Society of Berlin that in excavating two tombs
containing the remains of burnt bodies at Trupschutz, on the west
of Brux, some fragments of skull were picked up, showing traces of
trepanation. The edges of the wound in this case bad been healed,
and the patient had lived on after the operation. Professor Virchow
came to the same conclusion with regard to a skull from a Neolithic
tomb which bore on the right parietal traces of an ancient cicatrized
wound. He also tells us of the finding in Poland of a round piece of
skull which had evidently been worn as an amulet.[196]

In the north of Europe similar discoveries have been made. At Borreby,
in Denmark, a skull was found from which large pieces had been taken;
and another from beneath a dolmen at Noes, in the island of Falster,
had a hole in it no less than two and a quarter by one and three
quarter inches in size. In the one case the holes were parts of a
wound to which the victim had succumbed; in the other the edges were
too regular to have been caused by traumatism. A Russian skull, a cast
of which has recently been presented to the Italian Anthropological
Society, bears traces of two trepanations; one performed during life,
the other after death. The former had evidently been caused neither
by illness nor by a wound.

General Faidherbe discovered at Roknia, in Algeria, two trepanned
skulls, dating from a remote antiquity, in one of which the wound is
half an inch in diameter, and shows no sign of cicatrization; and
travellers speak of evident traces of similar operations on skulls
dating from the time of the Ainos;, the ancestors or predecessors
of the Japanese at the present day; and if we cross the Atlantic,
we shall meet with instances of trepanations executed in a similar
manner, and probably for similar reasons.

We meet with numerous examples of trepanation in America, and fresh
discoveries are daily made by the energetic men of science in that
country. Dr. Mantegazza[197] mentions three examples of trepanation
from Peru, which are of very great interest. One skull, still bound
up in many cloths, was found in the Sanja-Huara Cave (province of
Anta), which had been twice trepanned, and on which yet two more
attempts at trepanation bad been made. The latter seem to have taken
place at different times, and death seems to have succeeded the last
operation. Another skull which had belonged to an adult of Huarocondo
has two frontal openings close to each other; the upper, of elliptical
shape, is of large size and was evidently made after death. Yet another
skull from the province of Ollantay-tambo bears a double trepanation,
evidently made during life. The healing of the parietal opening proves
that it was made before the wound in the forehead, in which the edges
have remained rough. Dr. Mantegazza thinks that in the two first
cases the operations took place after the patient had been wounded,
but that in the third, the patient operated upon bad been epileptic
or perhaps even insane. We find it difficult to follow the learned
professor here, as w e are ignorant of the grounds for his conclusions.

We give an illustration (Fig. 81) of a trepanned skull found in a
cemetery in the Yucay valley. A square piece has been cut out by
making four regular incisions. The bone shows traces of an ancient
inflammation, and many eminent surgeons, including Nelaton and Broca,
have not hesitated to attribute the opening, large as it is (seven by
six inches), to a surgical operation. If the incisions are carefully
examined it is easy to see that they were made with the help of a
pointed instrument, such as a clumsily made drill, for instance. Each
incision must have taken a long time to make, and we note with ever
increasing astonishment that the ancient Peruvians were not acquainted
with the use of iron or steel, and that the hardest metal they employed
was bronze.


FIGURE 81

Trepanned Peruvian skull.


A few years ago a sepulchre was opened at Chaclacayo, at the foot
of Mount Chosica, not far from Lima. In this tomb lay three mummies,
of a man, a woman, and a child. Near them lay a human skull, having
about the middle of the forehead an opening, measuring some two and
a half by two inches. It is of polygonal form, and eight different
incisions can easily be made out, which appear to have been made
with some notched stone implement. On raising a strip of skin, still
adhering to the skull, there was seen on the front part of the sagittal
suture a very small perforation, the result either of a wound or of
an operation which bad taken place during life. It has been suggested
that the piece of bone taken from the skull had been used to make
a lance or arrow-head, which was superstitiously supposed by the
owner to ensure his victory. This is, however, a mere suggestion,
of which no proof can be given.

In other party of America discoveries have been made of trepanned
skulls, supposed to date from even more remote times than those
we have just been considering. A few years ago Professor Putnam
found, in the State of Ohio, some old wells idled with cinders and
rubbish of all kinds. From one of them, which was deeper than the
others, he took several crania, some of which bore evident traces
of trepanation. From a mound near Dallas (Illinois) were taken more
than one hundred skeletons, all of adults, placed side by side in
a crouching attitude. Every one of them had a round opening on the
left temple, and in some of these wounds the flint implement which
had produced them was still imbedded. It is very evident that we have
here tokens of some funereal rite, the meaning of which is uncertain,
though it was evidently practised also in districts very remote
from Illinois. To mention yet other examples, the excavation of a
tumulus of irregular form near Devil's River (Michigan) has brought
to light five skeletons buried u right, whilst a sixth lay in the
centre of the tumulus, which was evidently, if w e may so express it,
the place of honor. On each of the six crania a perforation had been
made after death.

A number of crania and parts of crania on which trepanation had
been performed have also been taken from several mounds on Chamber's
Island, from beneath the mound in the neighborhood of the Sable River,
near Lake Huron, and near the Red River[198] Gillman thinks that the
Michigan trepanations, which bad been made with clumsy tools, were
simply holes for hanging up skulls as trophies, as is still customary
amongst the Dyaks of Borneo; but this seems scarcely a tenable
hypothesis, for as a rule the skeletons lying in their last home are
complete. Quite recently were discovered, beneath a tumulus near Rock
River, eight skeletons, the skull of one of which bore a circular
perforation made during life, which rather upsets Gillman's theory.

But to resume our narrative. The trepanations reported from North
America are generally posthumous, and we can prove nothing as to their
origin. Were they marks of honor made in some religious rite? Were
they openings to allow the spirit of the departed to revisit the body
it had abandoned? or, to suggest a far more worldly and revolting
motive, were they merely holes through which to pick out the brains
of the dead. A missionary, in a letter dated from Fort Pitt (Canada)
in 1880, describes the mode of scalping practised by the Redskins,
and says that they often take a round piece of skull as well as the
scalp. May not this be a case of atavism, or the transmission of a
custom from one generation to another, for the origin of which we must
go back to the most remote ages? In the present state of our knowledge,
insufficient as it is, this explanation is the most. plausible.

It is even more difficult to come to a satisfactory conclusion
with regard to European examples of the practice we have been
describing. Trepanation was certainly practised in the treatment of
certain diseases of the bone, such as osteitis or caries. Professor
Parrot mentions a case worth quoting.[199] A few years ago several
skeletons were found at Bray-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) with numerous
objects, such as polished stone hatchets, bone stilettos, shell
necklaces and ornaments, all undoubtedly Neolithic. One of the crania
had been trepanned, the position of the operation showing that its
object had been to treat an osteitis. The operation had succeeded,
and the cicatrization of the bones, both about the wound and in the
parts originally affected, shows that recovery was complete. This
is the only example we have of an operation executed with a view
to curing a disease that can actually be seen, and it enables us to
conclude that these men, of whom we know so little, had some notion
of surgery. Were trepanations also practised to cure epilepsy or to
heal mental affections? From the earliest times the seat of these
troubles was always supposed to be the brain, and an ancient book of
medicine recommends as a remedy the scraping of the outside of the
skull.[200] In a recent book ("De la Trepanation dans l'Epilepsie par
le Traumatisme du Crane"), Echeverria mentions several cases of cure by
trepanation when epilepsy had been the result of an injury. Observation
may have led our prehistoric ancestors to discover this. May we date
this custom then from prehistoric times? It is very difficult to
decide with certainty either for or against it.

Of one thing, however, we may be quite certain. The cranial
perforations so much like one another reported from districts so remote
and different in character, cannot be accidental. It is impossible
to attribute to chance the occurrence of injuries of exactly the
same size in crania of totally different origins. Setting aside
the Entre-Roches skull, the antiquity of which does not seem to us
sufficiently established, we find this custom maintained throughout
the period characterized by the use of polished stone weapons and
implements, the erection of megalithic monuments, and the domestication
of animals. It was practised by the men of the cave of L'HOMME MORT
at the beginning of the Neolithic period, and was still in use at
Moret when metals began to be known. The discoveries of Dr. Wankel,
the excavations of the tumulus of Guisseny, prove that trepanation
was continued throughout the Bronze age, whilst the Jeuilly and Limet
tombs show that it was not discontinued even in Merovingian times.

The long continuance of such a practice is a very interesting fact,
and we may mention a yet more curious one. How are we to explain
trepanations that had no apparent motive on crania showing no symptoms
of disease? How account for the repetition at different tunes of this
operation, first on the living subject and then on the corpse, as at
St. Affrique, Bougon (Fig. 82), at Feigneux (Oise), where Dr. Topinard
has recently made excavations in a Neolithic cave and reports that a
dolichocephalic skull of the same type as the crania of the cave of
L'HOMME MORT, belonging to a man of about thirty years of age, bore
two perforations, one made during life, the other after death? The
first measured two and a third by two and a half inches, and was
surrounded by scratches, showing how clumsy the operator had been.[201]


FIGURE 82

Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), seen in profile.


In nearly every case the subjects operated on were young, and long
survived the operation. The knowledge of this fact was from the first
a very useful guide in the study of the subject of trepanation,
and eagerly pursued researches constantly confirm it. One skull,
for instance, from the cave of L'HOMME MORT (Fig. 83), had a
large opening produced partly by an old operation and partly by two
posthumous trepanations. The subject had been trepanned in childhood
or early youth. There could be no doubt on that point; cicatrization
had been complete, the bony tissue having returned to its original
condition. Then after death, at an adult age, the relations or friends
of the deceased had cut out further round portions of the skull as
near as possible to the old wound, probably with a view to keeping
these pieces as amulets.


FIGURE 83

Trepanned prehistoric skull.


This was to Broca a flash of illuminating light, and according to
him was in some cases a religious rite, a ceremony of initiation,
perhaps even a custom inculcated by an established religion. The
child who had been subjected to it and had survived -- as probably
most of the victims did survive, -- attained to a certain position and
celebrity in his life, and after his death the fragments of his skull,
especially those portions near the old wound, became treasured relics,
and were in the end buried with their fortunate possessor on his death.

This superstition appears to have long survived even in historic times,
and a Gallic chain is quoted[202] on which hung a round piece of skull
with three holes in it. In. deed, these ornaments were so much sought
after that counterfeits of them were made; at least, we cannot in any
other way account for the occurrence of objects exactly resembling
round pieces of human crania, but in reality made out of pieces of
a stag's antler found in the Baumes-Chaudes Cave.

Yet another point deserves mention. It was evidently considered
undesirable that the crania from which pieces had been taken should
be left in a mutilated condition, and therefore pieces front other
crania were taken to fill up the gap, so that, says Broca,[203]
a new life was evidently supposed to await the dead, for otherwise
what object can the restitution have served?

Dr. Prunieres is also of opinion[204] that the introduction into the
crania of certain deceased persons of round pieces from other skulls
implies the belief in another life. This explanation, hypothetical
as it is, is really very plausible, and it is a pleasant thought that
our remote ancestors had faith in a future life; which faith is alike
the greatest honor and the greatest comfort of humanity. Is not yet
another more striking proof of the belief in a second existence to
be found in the number of objects placed in tombs at all periods of
time and in every part of the world? It is this belief, raising man
as it does above the material needs of his daily life, which forms
the true grandeur of the human race, and if a nation once loses it
it is sure to relapse into barbarism.

When trepanning was the fashion there is no doubt that the operation
was performed in many different ways. Posthumous trepanations were
accomplished with the aid of a flint implement used as a chisel or
a saw. There was greater difficulty about an operation on a living
subject. Broca is of opinion that it was done with a drill turned
round and round in the skull in the way the French shepherds still
treat diseases of the crania in their sheep. The elliptical form
of the wound seemed to him to prove this, and he was further of
opinion that when an opening had been drilled in the skull at the
point chosen, the trepanation was completed by scraping the bone
with a small flint blade.[205] Discoveries made since the death of
the great French anthropologist, however, compel us to modify this
opinion. The inflammation of the bone noticed along the edges of the
trepanation proves that a notched implement was used to saw out the
piece of skull.[206]

However the operation may have been performed, it is not one
of great danger to the patient or of great difficulty to the
operator. Experiments on animals with Quaternary flint implements
have always been successful, and have had no tragic results, which
is the best proof we can possibly give.

The size of the perforations made varies ad infinitum. One, the
largest known, is described which is no less than sixteen inches in
diameter.[207] Examples are known of the trepanation of every part of
the skull, even of the forehead, which at one time was supposed to have
escaped. We have ourselves given instances of frontal trepanation,
and Dr. Prunieres mentions eleven cases in which the forehead had
been operated on.

To conclude, we must repeat that trepanation is not really a dangerous
operation, and the reason it is nearly always followed by the death of
the subject in our own time is because it is never attempted except in
desperate cases, and the fatal result is really caused by the cerebral
disease, on account of which the operation was performed. History
tells us of its practice in very ancient times; Hippocrates speaks of
it as often resorted to by Greek physicians. It is performed in the
present day by the Negritos of Papua and the natives of Australia and
of some of the South Sea Islands, where it is considered efficacious
in many maladies. We also find it practised by the rough miners of
Cornwall and the wild mountaineers of Montenegro.[208] An army doctor
who travelled in Montenegro a few years ago said that it was no rare
thing to meet men who had been subjected to trepanation seven, eight,
or even nine times. It is an interesting question, though we must not
enter into it here, whether many races could stand such a number of
operations as this.

The only instance we know in the present day of trepanation practised
as a religious rite, is met with among the Kabyles, who are established
at the foot of Mount Aures on the south of the Atlas. The operation
is performed among them by the THEBIBE, one of their priests, by
the aid of a simple gimlet which he turns rapidly round between his
fingers. Among the Kabyles are men who have submitted to an operation
of this kind several times.

We have now passed in review the weapons of prehistoric peoples,
the wounds they caused, and the modes of healing them known to our
ancestors; we have still to study the modes of defence resorted to
by them in face of the many dangers by which they were surrounded;
but the importance of this subject is such as to deserve separate
consideration.



CHAPTER VII

Camps, Fortifications, Vitrified Forts; Santorin; The Towns upon the
Hill of Hissarlik.

Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most
lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle
between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever
since the days of primeval man. History is but one long account of
wars and conquests, victories or defeats, and progress is chiefly
marked in inventions which made battles more sanguinary and added
to the number of victims slaughtered. At the very dawn of humanity
man learned to make weapons; very soon, however, weapons ceased to
appear sufficient. The first fortification was doubtless the cave,
which its owner strengthened by closing the entrance with blocks of
stone and piles of broken rock, or by digging deep trenches about it.

Population rapidly increased and war was declared between tribe and
tribe, nation and nation, race and race. Terrible must have been
the struggles between invaders and the original possessors of the
soil. Means of defence were multiplied to keep pace with new modes of
attack, and our ancestors of the Stone age were intelligent enough to
make places of refuge in which on necessity they could shelter their
wives and children, and later, when they became sedentary, their flocks
and their stores of grain. In many different localities we find the
remains of camps and fortifications, which, to avoid using a more
ambitious term, we may characterize generally as enclosures.[209]

These primitive enclosures, says Bertrand in his "Archeologie Celtiquc
et Gauloise," may have been very much more numerous than is supposed,
if we include amongst them, as it appears we ought, many ruins long
thought to date from the Roman era.

There is no doubt as to the purpose served by the camps, but we are not
prepared to speak as positively as does Bertrand as to their origin,
and the difficulty of deciding is very greatly increased on account
of these camps having been successively occupied at different epochs
by different peoples. Bearing in mind this reservation, we will now
sum up to the best of our ability all that is so far known about the
most important remains hitherto examined.

The residence of prehistoric man in the rich districts between
the Sambre and the Meuse is proved by worked flints, fragments of
pottery, and human bones dating from most remote times. The stations
successively occupied were situated near watercourses or copious
springs, and, where possible, on isolated escarped plateaux surrounded
by ravines. Hastedon, about a mile and a quarter from Namur, is one
of the best examples we can quote.[210] The camp, first made out in
1865, formed a long square, covering some thirteen hectares, or about
thirty-two acres. It is situated on an isolated mound connected with
the main plateau by an isthmus 227 feet long, and is protected on the
south and west by a deep ravine: To these natural defences men had
added important works to those parts that were accessible. The cutting
of trenches a few years ago brought to light walls of a mean thickness
of more than nine feet, formed of masses of rock and sand and round
pieces of wood parallel with a REVETEMENT of dry stones surmounted
by a palisade consisting of three pieces of wood parallel with the
walls, and seven perpendicular traverses. All the wood was charred;
the besieged had evidently been driven out by fire. Excavations led to
the finding of Roman coins; this and the resemblance of the palisades
to those described by Caesar,[211] the very name of Hastedon, and
the tradition everywhere prevalent in the district, that this bad
been the site of a Gallic Roman camp, led to the general adoption of
that opinion. In fact, Napoleon III. actually ordered excavations
to be made in the hope of finding traces of the Atuatuques, one of
the roost warlike of the tribes of northern Gaul; but side by side
with historic relics were no less than ten thousand flints. These are
chiefly merely chips or nuclei which had served as hammers, or long
thin slices, with some few arrow- and lance-beads often skilfully
cut, some polished hatchets, and saws with fine teeth. Nearly all
are notched and worn with use, which does away with the idea that
the place where they were found was the site of a workshop such as
I have already described. With these worked flints were found some
fragments of coarse pottery, which could not possibly be confounded
with Roman or Gallic work. The flints and pottery, and the walls put
together without cement, point to the conclusion that if the camp of
Hastedon was occupied by the Roman legions, it was long previous to
their day inhabited by some Neolithic race, ignorant of the use of
any but stone weapons and implements.

The camp of Pont-de-Bonn in the commune of Modave (Namur) very
much resembles in its arrangement that of Hastedon.[212] A mound
stands out upon the plain protected on the north and west by rocks
difficult of access and connected with the main plateau by a very
narrow tongue of land. Outside we can make out regular trenches
parallel with each other, and connected by a wall of masonry, at the
foot of which wall were picked up a good many iron nails. Inside the
ENCEINTE itself worked flints were associated with Roman coins. Are
not these proofs in the first place of a long Neolithic occupation,
then of the residence of Gallic Romans, and yet later of even more
modern people of whom the masonry walls and iron nails are relics?

Limburg also contains some defensive works, many centuries old,
which are as yet but little known. We may mention amongst them the
so-called dyke of Zeedyck, near Tongres, a formidable intrenchment
some 2,186 yards long by more than 325 feet wide at the base, and of
a height varying from 49 to 65 feet; the earthen ramparts of Willem
on the Geule, the not less important ones of Houlem, with many others
far away from the great highways of communication, but within the
limits of the two provinces of Liege and Limburg.[213]

A few years ago Bertrand said that there are in France some
four hundred earthen ENCEINTES, only sixty of which contain
relics connecting them with the Gallic Romans. Since Bertrand's
announcement this number has been greatly increased, thanks to eagerly
prosecuted local researches. De Pulligny mentions a hundred in Upper
Normandy[214]; Martinet says they are very numerous in Berry; one
of the most remarkable, the quadrilateral of Haute-Brenne, covered
an area of nearly three thousand acres.[215] Amongst the forests on
the Vosges Mountains were discovered long single and double walls,
the course of which follows the crest of the ramparts overlooking the
valley of the Zorn, between Lutzelbourg and Saverne.[216] At Rosmeur,
on Penmarch Point (Finistere), Du Chatellier excavated two tumuli
which appear to have been connected with a series of defensive works
encircling the whole promontory.[217] It would be merely fastidious
to multiply instances, we will content ourselves with describing a
few of the most interesting of these antique fortifications.[218]

The camp of Chassey (Saone-et-Loire) may be compared with those
of Belgium. It is situated on a plateau 2,440 feet long by a width
varying from 360 to 672 feet. A huge natural rocky barrier rises on
the south and east, whilst on the northeast and southwest we find
two important intrenchments made of huge blocks of stone with a
REVETEMENT of earth. One of these intrenchments is 45, the other
only 29 feet high. There is no trace inside of springs, and the
inhabitants must always have had to obtain their water-supply by
artificial means. The cisterns now in this camp appear to have been
dug out with iron implements, and are certainly of later date than
the first occupation of the plateau. Numerous objects picked up in
the Chassey Camp belong to Neolithic times, but the people who have
occupied it since those remote days, the men of the Bronze and Iron
ages, the Gauls, the Romans, and the Merovingians, have so turned over
the ground that products of industries, completely strange to each
other, are everywhere mixed together in inextricable confusion.[219]

There were originally a good many hearths about the camp, and it was
near to one of them that the spoon was found, figured in an earlier
chapter of this book (Fig. 25). With it were picked up polished
fibrolite, basalt, chloromelanite, serpentine, and diorite hatchets;
evidently made in the neighborhood, as is proved beyond a doubt by the
numerous chips and partly worked pieces lying about, as well as the
discovery of no less than thirty polishers, many of them showing signs
of long service. Bone implements of all kinds and whistles made of
the phalanges of oxen are also constantly found. Even if the presence
of these objects does not enable us to come to any final conclusion,
they are at least most useful and interesting in enabling us to put
together little by little a picture of the life of the most ancient
inhabitants of France.

The camp of Catenoy, Dear Liancourt (Oise) is arranged very much in the
same manner as that of Chassey.[220] CAESAR'S CAMP, as it is called
by the people of the neighborhood, forms a long triangle, the apex
of which rests on the eastern extremity of the plateau. Excavations
have yielded a number of Gallic-Roman objects, with some polished
hatchets, some broken, others intact, with stone and bone weapons,
resembling but for a few slight differences those we have described
so often. Numerous fragments of pottery were also picked up, which
pottery, hand-made and mixed with crushed shells, seldom has either
handles or any attempt at ornamentation. Weapons, implements, and
pottery are all alike totally different from any Roman or Gallic
work known. It is impossible to study the relics at Catenoy without
coming to the conclusion that the camp was occupied at periods prior
to Gallic and Roman times, and that there, as in many other districts,
the Latin conquerors had succeeded an unknown vanquished race.

De Quatrefages has accurately made out a series of works extending
along the left bank of the Nive, as far as Itsassou, and of which the
Pas-de-Roland marks the extreme limit. A merely superficial examination
is enough to show that these defences existed only on the side to which
access would otherwise have been easy, while the height overlooking
the river on the other side, which is impregnable by nature, has
been left untouched. Here too we find the name Caesar's Camp given
to the relics, a fact of common occurrence all over France, where
the great captain was long held in honor. Quatrefages is, however,
of opinion that the works are neither Roman, Gallic nor Celtic,
and he even arrives by a process of elimination at the conclusion
that they were erected by the Iberians, who preceded the Aryans, and
have left so deep an impress on all the countries they successively
occupied. We do not feel able to accept entirely this hypothesis;
but no suggestion of the eminent professor must be overlooked by
those who earnestly seek with unbiassed minds to ascertain the truth.

Gregory of Tours relates that at the time of the invasion of the
Vandals, the Gabali took refuge with their families in the CASTRUM
GREDONENSE, and there, for two years, energetically resisted the
invaders.[221] Greze, now a little market town of the department of
Lozere, is the CASTRUM of which the old French chronicler speaks,
and Dr. Prunieres there collected forty stone hatchets, differing
in no material respect from others found in such numbers elsewhere,
with flint knives and scrapers, bone stilettos, and millstones,
doubtless used for grinding grain, all of which are to the learned
French professor proofs of the existence there of a Neolithic station
before the historic period.

In the department of Alpes-Maritimes a series of defensive works
crown the circle of mountains which rise from the shores of the
Mediterranean. These intrenchments certainly date from a remote period,
though we cannot assign them to any definite time, and the fact that
they have been repaired at different epochs proves that they were
successively occupied.[222] They consist principally of circular or
elliptical ENCEINTES surrounded by walls of stones without mortar,
and they vary in diameter from some 39 to 328 feet. One of the largest
is that on the Colline des Mulets, above Monte Carlo.


FIGURE 84

Prehistoric spoon and button found in a lake station at Sutz
(Switzerland).


Although the pile-dwellings of Switzerland and of the TERREMARES of
Italy would appear to have been in themselves protection enough,
their inhabitants did not neglect other means of defence, from
which we may gather that they were engaged in constant and terrible
struggles. The TERREMARES were generally surrounded by a talus
or rampart of earth, with an external fosse which protected the
approaches to the dwellings. The rampart of Castione (Parma), which
dates from the Bronze age, was even strengthened inside with large
timber caissons.[223] In Switzerland, some works recently undertaken
to deflect the course of the Aar, on its exit from Lake Bienne, have
led to the discovery of a village of the Stone age, with the bridges
leading to it and the little forts intended to protect it.[224] As
have the neighboring settlements, this station has yielded a great
many arrows, hatchets, scrapers, and harpoons. We give an illustration
of a curious marrow spoon, and of a round object which seems to have
been a button (Fig. 84), as they mark the progress made.

Great Britain is intersected by lines of fortifications of unknown
origin, but certainly of extreme antiquity. We may mention Dane's
Dyke, Wandyke, the Devil's Dyke at Newmarket, and Offa's Dyke,
running from the Bristol Channel to the Dee, and dividing England from
Wales. Ancient camps and intrenchments, Sir John Lubbock tells us,
crown the greater number of the hills of England. General Pitt-Rivers
explored several of these camps in the county of Sussex. Many extend
over considerable areas, and all contain numerous worked flints and
other relics of prehistoric industry. These relics are met with in
great numbers at the base of the intrenchments, so that we may justly
conclude that they date from the same epoch.

The most celebrated of these camps is that of Cissbury, three miles
north of Worthing. We may also mention that of Hod-Hill in Dorsetshire,
which greatly resembles the one at Cissbury, but we will describe the
latter in some detail.[225] It is situated on a somewhat lofty plateau
of irregular form, its site having been chosen with great skill as
one offering great facilities for defence. The earthen ramparts and
the fosses protecting them cover an area of sixty acres, and their
importance varies according to the relief of the ground; thus the
thickness of the walls is very much greater on the eastern side where
an attack would have been most fraught with danger; four doors give
access to the interior, and on each side of these doors are ruins of
rectangular structures strengthening their defence. Archaeologists,
however, are of opinion that these redoubts, though their construction
is exactly similar to the rest of the fortifications, are of more
recent date. In fact Roman tiles have been found amongst the ruins,
but these really prove nothing, as every one is agreed that Cissbury
was occupied by the Romans after the subjugation of England by them;
and the only point at issue is really whether the walls of which
the ruins still remain date from the Roman period, or from times
prior to their arrival. We ourselves lean to the latter opinion,
as drinking-water is absolutely wanting; a very important point, as
the Roman generals always made it their first care to pitch their
camps near a good water-supply. On the western slope at Cissbury
on each side of the ramparts are fifty funnel-shaped depressions,
some of which are as much as seventy feet in diameter and twelve feet
deep. These holes may have served as refuges, and the larger ones were
certainly lived in, as is proved by the charred stones of the hearths
and the pieces of charcoal found near them; moreover, Tacitus[226]
tells us that the Germans lived in similar habitations. Whatever,
however, may have been their ultimate use, these hollows were in the
first place dug out with a view to obtaining flints in the marly chalk
forming the bill; and recent excavations have revealed the existence
of galleries connecting the depressions. When they became later human
habitations some of the inside openings were blocked up with lumps of
chalk, carefully piled up so as to make entrance extremely difficult,
greatly adding to the security of the inmates.

Thirty of these shafts were excavated in succession; and amongst the
rubbish of all kinds with which they were filled were found some well
cut celts, showing no trace of polish, and some weapons or tools of
the Mousterien type. The number of half-finished implements, and the
even greater quantity of chips, points to these shafts having formed a
centre of manufacture. Many of the implements were made of stag-horn,
and amongst them we must mention some picks which, curiously enough,
exactly resemble those of Belgium and the south of France.[227]
Similar wooden picks are found in the copper mines of the Asturias,
in the salt mines of Salzburg, and in a petroleum well recently opened
on the frontier between the United States and Canada. In all these
localities traces can be made out of ancient mining operations. But
to return to Cissbury: from amongst the prehistoric ruins there were
also taken, numerous fragments of pottery, not at all like Roman
ware, with the bones of the horse, goat, boar, and ox, all still
represented in the fauna of England; with oyster-shells, and the
shells of both land and sea mollusca, of species still to be found
in Great Britain. But no trace has so far been discovered of metals,
and neither the flint implements nor the bones of animals have any of
the marks of rust so characteristic of the Bronze and Iron ages. Must
we not then conclude that these shafts were sunk at a time long prior
to the earliest historic period?

The walls of the subterranean galleries of Cissbury bore not only
cup-shaped ornaments, strive, and curved or broken lines, recalling
those on the megalithic monuments of Scotland and Ireland; but Park
Harrison has made out some regular RUNES, or written characters, of
which a reproduction was shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1878. This
last fact is the more curious, as Sayce discovered in a passage giving
access to a cave near Syracuse some characters somewhat similar
in form, to which he assigns a proto-Phoenician origin. We may add
that certain characters made out at Cissbury, differing but little
from the modern letter B or the figure 6, are also found in the
most ancient Palmyrian, Copt, and Syrian alphabets. Were this fact
completely established, still more, if it were corroborated by other
analogous facts, we should in it have a very valuable indication of
the relations of England with the most ancient known navigators.

Germany also contains some ancient fortifications, of which the most
remarkable are the HEIDENMAUER of Saint Odila, near Hermeskiel,
between the Moselle and the Rhine. Huge stones, piled up without
cement, form a triple ENCEINTE, but there is nothing to connect these
remains with prehistoric times. It is the same with the intrenchments
in the Grand Duchy of Posen, the existence of which was announced
at a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Berlin.[228] Many
of these defensive works, notably those of Potzrow and of Zabnow,
bad been erected on piles. In the district between Thorn and the
Baltic are numerous mounds of the shape of a truncated cone, the
platform of which is surrounded by an embankment some 590 feet in
diameter.[229] Near many of these were picked up many broken human
bones, mixed together in the greatest confusion with weapon, hatchets,
and hammers, resembling Neolithic types. Everything bears witness to
the struggles of which these mounds were the scene.

Similar relies of a past still obscure are met with in the south
of Europe. Cartailhac has brought into notice the CITANIAS,
which are strange fortified towns in Portugal. On the plateau of
Mouinho-da-Moura, southwest of Lisbon, were found numerous polished
hatchets, associated with shells of marine mollusca and the bones
of mammals belonging to species still extant.[230] This station was
protected by intrenchments of so great an extent that it has been
impossible to examine the whole of them. There are also near the same
place several caves, now nearly choked up. One of them was originally a
regular tunnel; the cutting leading to the entrance was made of earth
and small stones; it contained the bones of animals, some cinders,
and four large vases of coarse workmanship. It is difficult to make
out what this cave was used for, the great confusion in which the
bones lay excluding all idea of its having been a tomb. Ribeiro had
already made out at Lycea an intrenched camp protected by clumsily
constructed walls. Inside the ENCEINTE he picked up numerous fragments
of ornamented pottery, with polished hatchets, shells, and a good
many bones of animals. He also made out several sepulchres.[231]


FIGURE 85

General view of the station of Fuente-Alamo.


The prehistoric station of LA MUELA DE CHERT in Maeztrago reminds us
of those of Portugal. It is situated on a little eminence, protected
on the north and east by the natural escarpment of the plateau,
and on other sides by a wall of some height made of stones without
mortar. Some foundations of an oval shape, on which doubtless were
built the homes of the inhabitants, can be made out in the middle of
the ENCEINTE. We can, however, but repeat here what we have said so
often elsewhere, that it is impossible to fix the exact date at which
these intrenchments were made. The discovery, however, of polished
flint hatchets, diorite lance-heads, and a few bones of ruminants
and cerviae unknown in Spain in prehistoric times, would appear to
point to a very considerable antiquity. Lastly, two young Belgian
engineers[232] have lately made out between Almeria and Carthagena a
considerable number of prehistoric stations in which can be traced
successively the different Stone ages and those of Copper and of
Bronze. Several of these stations (Fig. 85) are regular fortified
camps, protected by thick stone walls cemented with a thin layer
of clay. The fire which destroyed the habitations has left behind,
beneath the ashes and cinders, numerous objects, with the aid of which
we are able to form a picture of the life led by the men who built
the fortifications, and we know that they were agriculturists, for
the very stores of grain have been found charred and agglutinated by
fire. In the more recent stations flint, which was in the earliest time
the one material used, has disappeared and is replaced by the copper,
of which a plentiful supply was found in the rich mines riddling the
mountains. Excavations have even brought to light the workshop of
the metallurgist, with its moulds and vases converted into crucibles,
its essays at new forms, its scoriae, and lastly its finished weapons,
showing real skill in their production.

Although it is impossible to assign to them a definite date,
we must, to make this part of our work complete, say a few words
on the earthworks met with in Roumania. A former minister of that
principality, M. Odobesco,[233] classes them as VALLA, TUMULI, and
CETATI DE PAMENTU or citadels.

The VALLA include important works. One of them cuts across Valachie
parallel with the Danube and loses itself in Southern Russia. Another
crosses the north of Moldavia and Bessarabia, following a direction
convergent with the former. These VALLA, although they are known in
the country in which they occur as FOSSES DE TRAJAN, are certainly of
earlier date than the Roman occupation, and in fact Roman roads cut
across the intrenchments or fosses which have been levelled or covered
over to make way for them. Excavations of the large tumuli are not
yet sufficiently advanced for us to hazard an opinion about them. The
smaller ones, however, are seldom of Roman origin. The funeral vases
of calcareous stone which they contain bear witness clearly enough to
their destination, and also to the rite with which they were connected.

The CETATI DE PAMENTU are regular earthen fortifications set up
within short distances of each other on all the heights overlooking
the torrential rivers of Roumania. These intrenchments, generally
of round or oval form, are protected by deep fosses, parapets, and
palisades. Masses of cinders and burnt earth bear unmistakable evidence
to the cause of their destruction. All about, excavations have brought
to light coarse pottery, grindstones for crushing grain, stores of
millet which had been damaged by the flames, and a few primitively
constructed bronze idols. When the vanquished Roumanians were driven
from their intrenchments, they had evidently learned to use bronze,
but were still, as we have already remarked, unacquainted with iron,
as no object in that material has been found, nor does anything bear
any trace of rust.

Thus, throughout Europe, man, in the presence of the many dangers
surrounding him, endeavored in the very earliest times to protect by
similar means his family, his flocks, and his wealth. In America we
are able to quote facts of even more importance. The vast territory
comprised between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, between
the great lakes of Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, is intersected
with truly colossal fortifications, almost all of them made entirely
of earth. The ancient Americans knew how to protect every height and
every delta formed by the junction of two rivers with redoubts, walls,
parapets, fosses, and circumvallations. Not without astonishment we
make out a regular system of fortresses connected with each other by
deep trenches and secret passages, some of them hewn out beneath the
beds of rivers, observatories on the heights, and concentric walls,
some actually strengthened with casemates protecting the entrances. All
these works were constructed by the so-called Mound-Builders, of
whose ancestors or of whose descendants absolutely nothing is known.

All the strongholds of the Mound-Builders rise near abundant
watercourses, and the best proof that can be given of the intelligence
which guided their constructors in their choice of sites, is the
fact of the number of flourishing cities such as Newark, Portsmouth,
Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Frankfort, and New-Madrid, etc., which were
built upon the ruins of various earthworks.

It would take us too long merely to enumerate all the ancient
fortifications still existing in North America. Moreover they all
resemble each other so much that the description of a few of them is
really all that is needed to prove their importance.

Fort Hill (Fig. 5, p. 39) rises from an eminence overlooking a little
river called Paint Creek; the walls vary in height from eight to
fifteen feet, and exceed thirty feet in thickness.[234] Several doors
facilitate entrance, and one of them leads to a square ENCIENTE, the
walls of which have been almost entirely destroyed. This enclosure
probably contained the homes of the people, which may have been mere
cabins of adobes or sun-burnt bricks, or buts covered with rushes,
interlaced branches, or the skins of animals; on this point we are
reduced to guesswork. In the centre of the principal enclosure can
be made out, in almost every case, several much smaller enclosures,
each containing in their turn one or more mounds. Some think these
were consecrated to religious rites, but this is a mere conjecture,
for nothing is really known of the form of government or of the
religion of the Mound-Builders.

Forest trees have grown up on these abandoned ruins, succeeding other
vegetable growths; the huge girth of the decaying trunks proving their
longevity. Man, impelled by motives we cannot fathom, had abandoned the
districts where everything bears witness to his power and intelligence,
and the vigorous vegetation of nature once more has it all its own way.

The most remarkable group of prehistoric fortifications in North
America is perhaps that near Newark, in the valley of the Scioto. It
includes an octagonal ENCEINTE eighty acres in area, a square ENCEINTE
of twenty acres, with two others, one twenty the other thirty acres in
extent. The walls of the great circle are still twelve feet high by
fifty feet wide at the base. They are protected by an interior fosse
seven feet deep by thirty-five feet wide. According to measurements
carefully made by Colonel Whittlesey,[235] the total area covered
by these intrenchments is no less than twelve square miles, and the
length of the mounds exceeds two miles. The large entrances protected
by mounds thirty-five feet high, the avenues leading to them which are
regular labyrinths, the quaintly shaped mounds -- one, for instance,
represents the foot of a gigantic bird -- all combine to strike the
visitor with astonishment. We give a representation (Fig. 86) of a
group, not unlike that we have just described, which is situated at
Liberty (Ohio), and includes two circles and one square. The diameter
of the great circle is 1,700 feet, and it encloses an area of forty
acres, whilst that of the smaller ENCEINTE IS 500 feet; the area of
the square, each side of which measures 1,080 feet, is twenty-seven
acres. The walls are not strengthened by any ditch, and, contrary to
general usage, the earth of which they are made was dug out from the
inside of the ENCIENTE itself. We may also mention Old Fort (Greenup
County, Kentucky, successively described by Caleb Atwater, Squier, and
J. H. Lewis. It is situated forty feet above the river, and the total
length of the walls exceeds 3,175 feet. Six entrances give access
to it, and in the centre rises a mound representing some animal,
a bear probably, measuring more than 105 feet. Several small mounds,
beneath which were found human bones, cluster about the larger one.


FIGURE 86

Group at Liberty (Ohio).




FIGURE 87

Trenches at Juigalpa (Nicaragua).


We must not omit to name an extraordinary system of intrenchments at
Juigalpa, in Nicaragua, which so far as I know is quite unique. This
is a series of trenches extending for several miles (Fig. 87),
varying in width from nine and a half to thirteen feet; at equal
distances are oval reservoirs, the longest axis of which measures
as much as seventy-eight feet. In each reservoir are two or four
mounds, probably serving as watch-towers. We know nothing either of
the people who erected these singular structures or of the enemy from
whom they formed a protection. Nor can anything be guessed as to the
way in which the defence was conducted. All is involved in obscurity,
and at every turn we are compelled to repeat that prehistoric studies
are weighted with uncertainty, long and arduous study being necessary
to bring ever so little order into the chaos in which everything
connected with them is involved.

We must cursorily refer to some other fortifications which really
scarcely belong to our subject, though certain archaeologists claim
for them a prehistoric origin. We refer to the vitrified forts, which
are strange structures in which stones, such as granite and gneiss,
quartzite and basalt, have been subjected to a heat so intense as to
produce vitrification.

These vitrified forts are ENCEINTES, generally of round or elliptical
form, carefully erected where they were most needed for defence, and
protected by one or more ramparts.[236] The ramparts all bear traces of
vitrification, more or less complete, which has, so to speak, cemented
them together. The vitrification is very unequal, being complete in
some parts and scarcely noticeable in others. It is evident that the
builders did not know how to direct their fire uniformly.

Ever since 1777 vitrified forts have been known in Scotland, and
until 1837 they were supposed to exist nowhere else. About that time,
however, Professor Zippe called attention to similar ruins in Bohemia,
and later it was announced that discoveries of the same kind had
been made in various parts of France, Denmark, and Norway. Virchow
speaks of the SCHLAKEN WALLE, or ramparts of vitrified scoria, near
Kern[237] and Schaafhausen, and gave an account of them at a meeting
of German naturalists at Ratisbon. It would be easy to multiply
instances. Vitrified walls are known in the Puy-de-Dome, in which
the facing is of clay, and draught flues, for regulating and fanning
the flames, have been made out. At Castel-Sarrazin is a camp refuge
with similar dispositions,[238] and recently Daubree presented to the
Academie des Sciences a piece of porphyry artificially vitrified from
the prehistoric ENCEINTE of Hartmannswiller Kopf in Upper Alsace.[239]

It is in Scotland, however, that are situated the most remarkable
vitrified forts. A few years ago no less than forty-four were
counted. The most celebrated are those of Barry Hill and Castle Spynie
in Invernesshire, Top-O-Noth in Aberdeen, and a small fort which
rises from a lofty rock in the midst of the Strait of Bute. Vitrified
cairns also occur in the Orkney Islands, notably on the little isle
of Sanday, but the most interesting structures of the kind are Craig
Phoedrick and Ord Hill of Kissock, which rise up like huge pillars
on the hills at the entrance of Moray Firth, at a distance of three
miles from each other.[240]

Craig Phoedrick is now covered with a luxuriant vegetation of broom,
furze, and fern, with groves of firs and larches, amongst which the
explorer makes his way with difficulty to the fortifications, or rather
to the piles of massive blocks to which that name has been given. These
blocks form an acropolis of oval form, the upper part of which is a
flat terrace encircling a central basin some six and a half to nine and
a half feet deep, which may be compared to the craters of the extinct
volcanoes of Auvergne. The sides of the mound are strewn with cyclopean
blocks of vitrified granite, which evidently originally formed part
of the fortifications. It is on the eastern side, overlooking the
valley of the Ness, that the buildings are of the greatest importance;
two terraces can be made out, the lower projecting beyond the upper,
forming a double series of almost perpendicular fortifications,
constructed of vitrified blocks cemented together with thin layers of
mortar, spread without any attempt at regularity. The blocks form,
with the mortar, a conglomerate so compact that when struck with
a hammer they break without separating. Examination of fragments
under the microscope prove that they have gone through important
mineralogical transformations, under the influence of what must have
been an extremely high temperature. The heat must have been indeed
intense which could cause mica to disappear entirely, and feldspar
to melt almost completely.

The hill known as Ord Hill of Kissock is crowned, as is Craig
Phoedrick, with ruins still standing, but the vegetation about them is
so dense and thorny that it is difficult to make out the condition of
the remains. The ruins, which can only be seen from one side, appear
however to have formed part of fortifications, dating from the same
time and serving the same purpose as those of Craig Phoedrick. Were
they forts? There is certainly no sign of their having been used as
habitations. Or were they, as some archaeologists are disposed to
think, beacon houses used for warning the people of the approach of
the Norman pirates or Scandinavian Vikings, whose depredations were not
discontinued until the eighth century of the Christian era? Hypotheses
are always easy, but proofs of these hypotheses are difficult to find,
and we confess we have none to bring forward.[241]

Passing to France, we find the greater number of vitrified forts in
the Departement de la Creuse. At Chateauvieux is an ENCEINTE of oval
form, 416 feet wide at its broadest part.[242] An earthwork, 22 feet
wide at the base, serves as foundation to a wall, the outer and inner
portions of which consist of small granite stones, arranged in regular
layers. The space between the two series of small stones is filled
in with a sheet of melted granite, some twenty-four inches wide,
resting on calcareous tufa. The whole mass is completely vitrified,
and regular geodes or nodules lined with crystals and draped with
pendent drops of melted rock have been produced.

The ancient fortress of Ribandelle, of circular form, rises above the
Creuse, opposite Chateauvieux. It was successively occupied by the
Celts, the Romans, and the Visigoths, but we are unable to fix the date
of its erection or the name of the people who built it. There remain
but a few ruins at the present day, but we can make out in them the
same mode of construction as that followed at Chateauvieux. The walls
are faced with unhewn stones, the outer side of which still retains a
natural appearance, while the inner is corroded and disintegrated. In
the wall itself, separated from the facings by beds of peat mould,
are great blocks of vitrified granite. The traces of the action
of fire are specially noticeable in the upper part of the walls,
so that they were evidently finished when the fusion took place.

The site of the furnace in these forts is difficult to determine. It
was evidently not situated under any of the blocks, for the earthworks
on which they rest retain no traces of the action of fire. Nor was
it situated at the side, for the outer facings have retained alike
their original form and consistency. Nor can the furnace have been
lit on the blocks, as heat exercises its action by radiating in every
direction. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the fire was
spread with the aid of spaces left in the inside of the construction
at various points, for the vitrified mass is divided into blocks,
about nine and three fourths feet long, at very short distances from
each other.

These few examples will be enough to give some idea of the strange
vitrified forts. Many of them retain traces of Roman. occupation. The
Gueret Museum possesses a fragment from the Ribandelle walls in
which a Roman tile is completely imbedded; and M. Thuot picked up
other tiles in a similar condition amongst the ruins. This is a very
decided proof that the vitrification took place after the arrival
of the conquerors of Gaul. The weapons and tools discovered would
appear to confirm this idea, and to suggest similar explanations of
vitrification elsewhere. If so, we shall have. to admit that vitrified
forts date from the earliest centuries of the Christian era, and are
not prehistoric at all. We have, however, noticed them here on account
of the grave doubts in the matter, and because they furnish a striking
and valuable illustration of the relations existing from the most
remote tunes between widely separated races, and maintained until the
present time. In no other way can we account for the practice of the
extremely difficult and complicated operation of the vitrification
of bard rocks in districts so far apart as Norway and Scotland,
Germany and the midlands of France.

The more we think of the difficulties vitrification presents, the
greater is our astonishment. How was the fusion achieved of elements
so refractory alike in their structure and in the resistance offered
by accumulated masses of material? By what processes was heat brought
up to the 1300 degrees necessary for the fusion of granite? The
incineration and fusion of the materials of which the vitrified forts
are made, especially the granite ones of La Creuse and the Cotes du
Nord, bear witness, says Daubree, to a surprising skill and knowledge
of the management of fire in those who burned them, but these qualities
were manifested also in extremely ancient metallurgical operations. It
is quite impossible to suppose the vitrification to have been the
result of a conflagration. No fire, whether accidental or the work of
an incendiary, could be powerful enough to produce such results. The
use of petroleum in the most terrible conflagrations of our own time
-- those of the Commune in 1871, for instance -- did calcine and
disintegrate stone, but I know of no case of vitrification.

The Keramic Museum of Sevres contains several specimens which present
very notable differences to each other. Those from Chateau-Gontier
are formed of very close-grained quartzite granite of a greenish
color streaked with black. The conglomerate welding there together
is a vitrified scoria full of very small bubbles made by the escape
of gas which had not had sufficient strength to get out. The block
from Sainte-Suzanne (Mayenne) consists of quartz mixed with half
calcined grains of feldspar, bleached by the action of fused glass,
which once introduced filled up as it congealed all the vacant spaces
with a vitreous substance of light greenish-white color. The fractures
are green and bright, and are dotted with white points, which are all
that is left of the stones after their disintegration in the grip of
a heat that was alike intense and rapid in its action. The fragments
brought from Scotland differ from those just described. They consist
of small pieces of granite completely merged in a thick paste with
which they form the mass, the whole breaking together when it does
break; and the melted matter seldom has any bubbles in it.[243]

The process employed in cementing the materials of the vitrified
forts was then perfectly unique. The processes employed to obtain
the necessary heat varied according to circumstances and according
to the nature of the materials used. At Sainte-Suzanne and at La
Courbe marine salt was used as a flux. Captain Prevot[244] thinks
that the walls were smeared with a coating of clay, and that as in
the baking of bricks spaces were left between so as to produce more
intense heat. M. de Montaiglon is of opinion that the buildings were
in the first instance erected without the use of any calcareous or
argillaceous material, and that glass in a state of fusion was poured
over them afterwards, this glass consolidating them and forming with
them one indestructible mass. M. Thuot seems much disposed to share
this last opinion, but he thinks that some chemical materials such as
soda or potash were also used. Yet one other possible solution may
be mentioned, a solution which is becoming more and more generally
accepted, namely that the granite was not after all really melted,
but that the vitrification should either be attributed to the fusion
of the argillaceous mass, which has been subjected to an igneous
transformation, such as that which often takes place in furnaces for
baking bricks and in lime-kilns.[245]

Whatever explanation we may accept, however, the processes employed
certainly bear witness to a much more advanced state of civilization
than was acquired in the earliest ages of humanity. We have been
led by the great interest and mystery of the subject to dwell longer
on it than we intended, and we must hasten to return to prehistoric
times with a determination not to transgress again.

Fortifications are a proof of combined action leading to a common
end; they imply social organization, chiefs to command, workmen to
obey. A recent discovery enables us to form a very accurate picture of
prehistoric men gathered together not only for purposes of defence,
but in a society already rich, industrious, and, if we may so speak,
learning to cultivate the arts of peace.

The AEgean Sea has ever been the theatre of igneous phenomena,
and the three little islands of Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi,
which shut in the Bay of Santorin, are built up chiefly of volcanic
materials.[246] In 1573 an eruptive cone suddenly appeared; in
1707 the inhabitants of Santorin saw rise up a short distance from
their shores a rock that increased in size for several days and
then suddenly split up. This splitting up was succeeded by a great
eruption of incandescent materials; an eruption which lasted for
no less than five years, forming at the end of that time an island
some 400 feet high by 3,279 feet in circumference. In 1866, after
many violent shocks of earthquake, the ground was rent asunder on
this island and masses of volcanic matter were belched forth, whilst
on the other side of the island the soil sank to such a degree that
canoes were used to get to houses which but the day before were nine
feet above the sea-level. This eruption went on until 1870, and the
quantity of scoriae vomited forth during its continuance welded three
islets, which had hitherto been separate, to the principal island,
of which they now form part. On entering the Bay of Santorin we see on
every side banks of lava, beds of scoriae, and piles of cinders of a
purplish-gray color rising in cliffs to a height of more than 1,312
feet. All these materials are the result of innumerable eruptions,
and the central crater of the volcano is probably situated about
the middle of the bay. It is supposed that at one time a conical
mountain, from 1,958 to 2,600 feet high, rose where soundings now
give a depth of water of over 1,300 feet. A sudden break up of the
mountain probably produced this abyss, and formidable eruptions have
led to the pouring forth of immense quantities of pumice-stone. The
three islets mentioned above would be the remains of the old central
cone, and a bed of pumice-stone from 98 to 131 feet thick is spread
over the whole of their surface, telling of a violent cataclysm of
which neither history nor tradition has preserved the memory.

The letters of Pliny the Younger[247] say that the eruption of
Vesuvius which caused the destruction of Portici lasted five days,
and we know that the houses are covered with a uniformly distributed
bed of pumice-stone some thirteen feet thick, and of cinders about
three feet thick. Everything points to the conclusion that a very
similar catastrophe overtook Santorin; there too whole villages were
buried beneath cinders, stones, and molten lava, belched forth by a
volcano in action; there too men were the witnesses and the victims
of the eruption, as is proved by an accidental circumstance which
took place some twenty-three years after.[248]

The removal of the POUZZOLANA, so called after the volcanic ashes of
Pozzuoli in Italy for the works on the Isthmus of Suez, necessitated
important excavations, and the cuttings revealed the existence of
dwellings which had been bidden away from the light of day for many
centuries. The masses of rubbish hiding these prehistoric ruins
were some sixty-five feet high, and consisted chiefly of volcanic
ashes piled up, for some accidental reason, in comparatively modern
times. Beneath the POUZZOLANA a thin layer of humus contains fragments
of pottery of Hellenic origin; which marks the close of the historic
period, and covers over the mass of pumiceous tufa vomited out by
the volcano. It was in this tufa, which is eight feet thick, that the
first signs of buildings were discovered. Further excavation brought
to light two houses with doors, windows, and bearing walls. In one of
these houses there were five different rooms. Other discoveries rapidly
succeeded each other, alike in the island of Therasia and at Acrotiri,
the principal island, which has given its name to the group. The plan
of these houses is an irregular parallelogram, the angles of which are
rounded and the sides more or less curved. This arrangement differs
greatly from that adopted in Greece as well as from that in use at
Therasia after the time of the volcanic eruptions. The houses too are
quite different in their mode of construction. The walls consist of
great blocks of lava placed one above the other, without any trace
of cement or of lime, and are merely kept in place by a reddish
earth mixed with chopped straw or marine algae. Large branches of
olive or cypress trees, still with the bark on, are imbedded in the
masonry. These pieces of wood, the size of which varies considerably,
were probably added to give the necessary solidity to the walls in the
numerous earthquakes, the disastrous effects of which were only too
well known to the ancient inhabitants of Santorin. It is curious and
interesting to note the use of the same expedient among the inhabitants
of the islands of the Archipelago who are still exposed to the same
danger. The doors and windows are clumsily arched, and the roof seems
to have been a low vault. It was made of stones and coated with clay
and supported by the trunks of olive trees, the charred remains of
which lay upon the floors of the crushed homes. These trunks show
no sign of having been touched with metal tools; not a metal nail
or clamp has been found, and we cannot but conclude that the remains
belong to the age when stone alone was employed.

The inside walls were not glazed or decorated in any way, except in
one instance, that of a house at Acrotiri, from which the rubbish has
been cleared away, revealing on the walls a layer of lime on which
was some colored ornamentation which still retained an extraordinary
brilliancy when it was discovered.

In all the houses and in every room of each were found beneath the
tufa burying them masses of lava and volcanic scoriae, forming a
most eloquent witness of the cause of their destruction. Near one
of the houses of Therasia is a little cylindrical structure, about
three feet high; which cannot have been a well, as it rests directly
on impermeable lava, and was certainly not a cistern, as it is too
small for that. May it, as some think, have been an altar? We cannot
tell, and though the religious sentiment was probably no more absent
among these primitive races than it is among the barbarous peoples
of our own day, it does not do to express an opinion in the absence
of positive proof.

Successive excavations have yielded a number of objects which throw a
new light upon the manners and customs of the inhabitants. Terra-cotta
vases are more numerous than anything else (Fig. 88), and among
them preponderate large yellow vessels capable of holding about one
hundred quarts. Most of them have a clumsy brim, and a rough attempt
has been made at ornamentation by the potter with his fingers on
the damp clay. Other vases of finer clay, colored red or yellow,
are covered with ornaments and graceful arabesques; the garlands of
fruit and flowers are often of remarkably beautiful workmanship. Cups
with well-shaped rounded handles, made of some kind of red ferruginous
earth, others of gray material, were picked up in all the houses. These
various vessels were used for many different purposes; some to cook
food, the marks of the hearth being still on them, whilst others
retained some of the chopped straw with which the domestic animals
had evidently been fed. The most curious of all are those which are
supposed to represent a woman; the front part projecting and surmounted
by a narrow neck bent backwards, with two brown prominences supposed
to stand for breasts, and dots round the upper part representing
a necklace, while ear-rings are indicated by elliptical bands of
different colors. We shall have to refer again to these curious vases
when we speak of the discoveries made at Troy; we need only add now
that the pottery found at Santorin differs completely, alike in form
and ornamentation, from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan specimens,
of which the museums of Europe contain so many. They are evidently
therefore not of foreign origin, but of native manufacture. The
absence of clay in the island of Santorin has thrown some doubt
on this, however, but the researches of M. Fouque have revealed the
former existence of a large valley, at the base of the principal cone,
which valley ran down to the sea-shore near the island of Aspronisi;
and in which probably was found the clay which the potters of the
district soon learned to turn to account.


FIGURE 88

Vases found at Santorin.


With these vases were found some troughs for holding crushed grain, and
lava discs very much like those still in use among the weavers of the
Archipelago to stretch the woof of their tissues; skilfully graduated
lava weights, the correlation of which is very evident, as they weigh
8, 24, and 96 ounces; a flint arrow-head and a saw of the same material
with regular teeth; together with a great variety of other objects,
including many obsidian arrows and knives, reminding us in their
shape of those characteristic of the Stone age in North Europe.

Two rings of gold beaten very thin, and a little copper saw with no
trace of any alloy, are, so far, the only metal objects found in the
excavations. The origin of the former, moreover, is very uncertain,
and there has been much discussion as to where the rings came from. In
spite, however, of all the gaps in the evidence about them, there
remains no doubt that the inhabitants of Santorin were farther advanced
in civilization than the Lake dwellers of Switzerland, the builders
of the TERREMARE of Italy, or the Iberians of the south of Spain,
who were very probably their contemporaries; and we cannot refrain
from expressing our admiration of the wonderful progress made by the
inhabitants of the little group of volcanic islands under notice.

Before the catastrophe which overwhelmed them, Santorin was covered
with comfortable and solidly built houses. Men knew how to till the
ground, and gathered in crops of cereals, among which barley was
the most abundant, then millet, lentils, peas, coriander, and anise;
they had learned to domesticate animals, as is proved beyond a doubt
by the number of bones of sheep and goats; they kept dogs to guard
their flocks, and horses to aid in agricultural work; they knew how
to weave stuffs, to grind grain, to extract the oil from olives, and
even to make cheese, if we may give that name to the pasty white stuff
found at the bottom of a vase by Dr. Nomicos. They were acquainted
with the arch, and they used durable and brilliant colors. The copper
saw is an example of the first efforts of the natives at metallurgy;
the gold and obsidian which were foreign to the island bear witness
to commercial relations with people at a distance. They loved art,
as proved by the shape of their vases and the ornamentation on many
of them, which is really often worthy of the best days of Greece. All
around we see signs appearing as it were suddenly of a civilization,
the origin and tendencies of which are alike still unknown.

But one human skeleton has so far been found in Santorin, and that
is of an inhabitant who had evidently been overtaken in his flight
and crushed beneath the burning scoriae from the volcano. This man
was of medium height, and is supposed to have been between forty and
forty-eight years old. The bones of the pelvis are firmly consolidated,
and the teeth are worn with mastication.

Let us endeavor to guess at the period when the people of Santorin
lived. De Longperier tells us that vases similar to those left by
them are represented on the tomb of Rekmara amongst the presents
offered to Thothmes III., who lived in the eighth century B.C.,
but if so the people of Santorin appear to have borrowed nothing in
their intercourse with Egypt. The first invasion of Greece by the
Phoenicians is supposed to have been in the fifteenth century B.C.,
but the buildings, the pottery, and the various implements of Therasia
and Acrotiri differ essentially from those of the Phoenicians, who,
moreover, from the earliest times, used metals. Must we not therefore
conclude that the catastrophe which overwhelmed Santorin took place
before the fifteenth century B.C.? Conjectures as to the date of the
fatal eruption, however plausible, are of no use in anything relating
to the origin of the people, or the time of their first occupation
of the island. On these points all is still hopeless confusion, and
we must wait for further discoveries before we can hope to come to
any conclusions in the matter.

We have gone back to the very earliest days of man upon the earth;
we have shown that he was the contemporary of the mammoth and
the rhinoceros, of the cave-lion and the cave-bear; we have seen
him crouching in the deep recesses of his cave and fighting the
battle of life with no weapon but a few scarcely sharpened flints,
leading an existence infinitely more wretched than the animals about
him. Not without emotion have we watched our remote ancestors in their
ceaseless struggle for existence; not without emotion have we seen them
gradually growing in intelligence and energy, and attaining by slow
degrees to a certain amount of civilization. Santorin is a striking
and brilliant proof of their progress, and we shall appreciate this
progress yet more when we have examined the ruins piled up on the hill
of Hissarlik. There we shall close this portion of our work, for from
the time when the buildings of which these remains were the relics
met their doom, the use of metals, copper, bronze, gold, silver, and
iron became general. History began to be written, and it is her task
to tell us of the migrations of races, the early efforts of historic,
races, the foundation of empires. In a word, the prehistoric age was
over; that of self-conscious portraiture was now to begin.

A few years ago I was on the ancient Hellespont and my
fellow-travellers, grouped about the deck of our vessel, were trying
to make out on the receding coast of Asia the sites of Troy and of
the tumuli which were then still supposed to have been the tombs of
Achilles, Patrokles, and Hector, but which are now, thanks to the
able researches of Dr. Schliemann, known to belong to a comparatively
modern epoch. The streams, bearing the ever memorable names of Simois
and Scamander, were also eagerly pointed out by the watchers, recalling
the words of Lamartine:



Le nautonnier voguant sur les flots du Bosphore
Des yeux cherchait encore
Le palais de Priam et les tours d'Ilium.


Great indeed is the privilege of genius, immortalizing all that it
touches; for it must be pointed out that Troy was never an important
town, and the war in which it disappeared was in reality but one of
the incessant struggles between the petty princes of Greece and Asia.

When I visited the East, scholars were not at all agreed as to the
site of the town which was so long besieged by the Greeks; and certain
sceptical spirits even went so far as to deny that there ever was
such a person as Homer at all, or that if there were, he wrote the
epic poem which has borne his . name so long. Tradition, however, was
pretty constant in pointing to the hill of Hissarlik as the site on
which Troy was built. Strabo was quite an exception in relegating the
town to the lower end of the bay; where the miserable little village
of Akshi-koi now stands. In 1788 a new idea was started; Lechevalier in
his account of his journey in Troas claims to have recognized the site
of Troy at Bunarbashi. At that time erudition was not very profound,
and Lechevalier's site was accepted; indeed it was long maintained,
and quite recently it has been defended by Perrot. But the nineteenth
century is more exacting; the most plausible hypotheses are not enough
without facts to support them, and excavations at Akshi-koi and at
Bunarbashi show that there never was a town on either of these sites.

Excavations on the hill of Hissarlik, begun by Dr. Schliemann in 1871,
and carried on under his superintendence for more than ten years, have,
on the contrary, yielded most definite, satisfactory, and conclusive
results. At a depth of fifty-two feet the diggers came to the virgin
soil, a very hard conchiferous limestone. The immense masses of DEBRIS
of which the embankment is made up date front different epochs; we have
before us, if we may use such an expression, a perpendicular Pentapolis
or series of five ancient cities one above the other. One town was
destroyed by assault and by fire; another rapidly rose from its ruins,
built with stones taken front the midst of those very remains. The
study of the piled-up rubbish enables us to build up again a picture
of the remote past with all its vicissitudes, and Virchow may well
say that the hill of Hissarlik will for ever be considered one of
the best authenticated witnesses of the progress of civilization.[249]

The first layer of rubbish rests on the rock itself, and may very
well have belonged to the town built by Dardanus, of which Tlepolemus
relates the destruction by his grandfather Hercules.[250] According to
the Homeric story six generations, and according to generally accepted
modern calculations two centuries, separate Dardanus from Priam. If
therefore we accept 1200 B.C. as the date of the Trojan war, the town
built by Dardanus would date from 1400 B.C., and we should. possess
data, if not absolutely certain, at least approximately so.[251]

There remain but a few relics of the buildings erected by the first
inhabitants of the bill of Hissarlik, which relics consist of great
blocks of irregular size, with remains of bearing walls composed of
small stones cemented together with clay and faced with a glaze which
has withstood the wear and tear of centuries.

The second town, which would appear to have been that described in the
Iliad, was probably built by a race foreign to those who erected the
first. The hill, which was to become the Acropolis of the new town,
was surrounded by the new-comers with a wall several feet thick, of
which the foundations consisted of unhewn stones; whilst the upper
part was made of artificially baked bricks, the baking having been
done after they were put in place, by large fires lit in vacant places
left at regular intervals; an arrangement recalling what we have said
in speaking of vitrified forts.[252] It is also interesting to note
a similar mode of construction at Aztalan in Wisconsin in structures
which probably date from the time of the Mound Builders. The walls
at Hissarlik were protected by re-entering angles and projecting
forts. The interior of the ENCEINTE was reached by three doors, and
it is still easy to make out the ruins of the different buildings. A
room sixty-five feet long by thirty-two wide is surrounded by very
thick walls, and towards the southeast is a square vestibule, opening
into the room by a large door.[253] These, Dr. Schliemann thinks,
were the NAOS and PRONAOS of a temple dedicated to the tutelary gods
of the town. Quite close to them is another building with similar
dispositions; a square vestibule giving access to a large room,
which in its turn leads to a smaller apartment. These two buildings,
which are reached through a PROPYLAEUM, are the only ones of which
the explorers have been able to make out the measurements with any
exactitude.

Other ruins are evidently remains of the royal residence. The homes
of the people were clustered on the sides and at the foot of the
hill. After the destruction of the town by the Greeks, the Acropolis
formed one vast mass of ruins, from which bits of walls stood out here
and there as mute witnesses of the catastrophe. The thin layer of black
earth covering the ruins seems to point to the speedy rebuilding of the
town. The houses of the third settlement are very irregularly grouped,
and consisted mostly of one story only, containing a number of very
small rooms. Some of the walls are of bricks with glazed facings,
others of very small stones cemented together with clay. In one
house of rather larger size than the others was found some cement
made of cinders, mixed with fragments of charcoal, broken bones,
and the remains of shells and pottery. On the northwest the new
colonists erected walls in place of those which had fallen down, but
they were of very inferior masonry, coarse bricks baked on the spot,
in the way customary among the Trojans, having formed the material.

The destruction of the third town was more complete than that of
Troy. The walls of the houses can still be made out rising to a
certain height, and it was upon them as foundations that the fourth
colony set up their abodes. These dwellings are smaller still, with
flat roofs formed of beams on which was laid a coating of rushes and
clay. Every generation appears to have been poorer than the last,
alike in material wealth and in fertility of resource.

The fifth colony spread northwards and eastwards. Their homes were
built very much in the same style as those of their predecessors. The
resemblance does not end there, and Dr. Schliemann notes that among
the ruins of the three towns, which successively rose from the site
of Troy, are found similar strange-looking idols, hatchets in jade,
porphyry, diorite, and bronze, goblets with two handles, clumsy
stone hammers, trachyte grindstones, and fusaioles or perforated
whorls bearing symbolic signs of a similar form. Evidently the men
who succeeded each other after the great siege of Troy on the now
celebrated hill of Hissarlik belonged to the same race, perhaps even
to the same tribe. There are, however, certain notable differences
which must not be passed over. The later pottery is not of such
fine clay or so well moulded as the earlier specimens, nor are the
stone hammers, which appear to have been the chief implements used,
of such good workmanship. The piles of shells left to accumulate
about the houses of the fourth and fifth towns can only be compared
to the kitchen-middings so often referred to, and there is no doubt
that those who left such heaps of rubbish about their dwellings could
not have been so civilized as were the celebrated Trojans.

Beneath the ruins of the Greek town, which strictly speaking belongs
to history, Schliemann found a quantity of pottery of curious shapes
and very different to anything he had previously discovered. He
ascribes them to a Lydian colony which dwelt for a short time upon the
hill. This pottery resembles that known as proto-Etruscan, of which
so many specimens have been found in Italy. Probably the makers of
both were contemporaries.

By numerous and careful measurements Dr. Schliemann has been able to
determine exactly the thickness of the layers, which correspond with
the different periods during which Hissarlik was inhabited. The remains
of the Greek and Lydian towns extend to a depth of 7 1/2 feet beneath
the actual level of the soil; the fourth layer, from 7 1/2 to 15 feet;
the third, from 15 to 22 1/2 feet; Troy itself, from 22 1/2 to 32 feet;
and lastly Dardania, from 32 to 52 feet. The last layer carries us
back to the golden age of Greek art, where all doubt is finally at
an end. The bas-reliefs of remarkable workmanship bear witness to
the Ilium, founded in memory of Troy. This is the town visited by
Xerxes, Alexander the Great, and Julian the Apostate.[254] That the
town still existed about the middle of the fourth century is proved
by medals taken from the ruins, but it evidently fell into decadence
soon after that time, for its very .name was forgotten by history,
and it was reserved for our own time to resuscitate the ancient city
of Priam and its successors from the ruins which lead been piled up
by the destructive hand of man and by the lapse of tinge. But this
task has been nobly achieved by the enthusiasm, scientific acumen,
and we may perhaps add good-fortune of an archaeologist who cherished
a positive passion for everything relating to Homeric times.

The number of objects picked up at different stages of the excavations
was very considerable. Dr. Schliemann neglected absolutely nothing that
appeared to him at all worthy of his collection, which now belongs to
the Royal Museum of Berlin and contains some twenty thousand objects,
including weapons and implements, some of stone, others of bronze,
and thousands of vases and fusaioles, gazing upon which we see rise
before our eyes a picture of a civilization unknown before but through
the Iliad and a few meagre historical allusions.

Before we note in detail the most remarkable of the objects in
Dr. Schliemann's collection, we must add that recent researches
have also brought to light the remains of a little temple dedicated
to Pallas Athene and referred to in history, as well as those of a
large Doric temple erected by Lysimachus, and of a magnificent theatre
capable of holding six thousand spectators, and which probably dates
from the end of the Roman Republic. The human bones picked lip among
the ruins of the different towns play be attributed to the practice,
already general, of cremation. Virchow has examined the skull of a
woman found at Troy, which is of a pronounced brachycephalic type
(82.5). The crania from the third town, on the other hand, are
dolichocephalic, the mean cranial capacity being sixty-seven. If we
could reason with any certainty from cranial capacity, this would
appear to point to a different race, but it would not do to come to
any positive conclusion with only one Trojan cranium to judge by.



FIGURE 89

Vase ending in the snout of an animal. Found on the hill of Hissarlik
at a depth of 45 1/2 feet.


But to return to Dr. Schliemann's fine collection. The pottery from
the first town, found at a depth of from thirty-two to fifty-two feet
(Fig. 89), is superior alike in color, form, and construction, to the
keramic ware of the following periods. The potter's wheel was unknown,
or at least very rarely used,[255] and pottery was hand made and
polished with bone or wood polishers, the marks of which can still
be made out. The forms are varied and often graceful, many of them,
as do those found in the mounds of North America imitating those of
the animals among which the potters lived. The usual color of the
keramic ware is black, some times decorated with white lozenge-shaped
ornaments. Some vases have also been found colored red, yellow,
and brown, and even decked with garlands of flower and fruit, as are
some of those of Santorin. We must also mention some apodal vases,
and others with three feet, used for funeral purposes, containing
human ashes (Fig. 90). The terra-cotta fusaioles, found in such
numbers among the ruins of the towns that rose successively from
the hill of Hissarlik, are, on the other hand, rare at Dardania,
if we may retain that name.[256]


FIGURE 90

Funeral vase containing human ashes. Found at a depth of 50 feet.


Excavations have brought to light more than six hundred celts or
knives, generally of smaller size than those found in Denmark or
France. Rock of many kinds, including serpentine, schist, felsite,
jadeite, diorite, and nephrite, were used; and saws of flint or
chalcedony, some toothed on one side only, others on both, are of
frequent occurrence. They were fixed into handles of wood or horn,
and kept in place with some agglutinative substance, such as pitch,
several of them still retaining traces of this primitive glue. We must
also mention awls, pins of bone and ivory, and ossicles or knuckle
bones, in every stage of manufacture, confirming the accounts of
Greek historians, who tell us of the great antiquity of the game
played with them. The Dardanians used wooden and bone implements and
weapons almost exclusively. It is impossible to say whether they were
acquainted with the use of metals, but we might assert that they were
if we could quite certainly attribute to them a certain mould of mica
schist, found at a depth of 45 1/2 feet, which bad been used in the
process of casting spits and pins, which are. supposed to be of more
ancient date than the fibulae.


FIGURE 91

Large terra-cotta vases found at Troy.



FIGURE 92

Earthenware pitcher found at a depth of 19 1/2 feet.



FIGURE 93

Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy.


The most valuable objects of the collection come from the deposits
representing the town of Troy; they are all twisted, broken, and
charred, bearing witness to the fierceness of the flames in which the
town perished. These discoveries reveal to us the daily life of the
people of Troy. Judging from the number of boars' tusks found, hunting
must have been a favorite pastime with them. The bones of oxen, sheep,
and goats, of smaller species than those of the present day, have also
been found. Horses and dogs were rare, and cats unknown. The domestic
poultry of the present day was also wanting, no remains of birds
having been found except a few bones of the wild swan and the wild
goose. Fish and mollusca, as proved by the immense numbers of bones
and shells, formed an important part of the diet of the Trojans. They
also fed largely on cereals, which they cultivated with success; and
wheat, the grains of which were very small, was known to them. The
preservation of these vegetable relics was due to carbonization.


FIGURE 94

Terra-cotta vase found with the treasure of Priam.



FIGURE 95

Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy.


The pottery discovered is of an infinite variety, and includes jars
from 4 3/4 feet to 7 3/4 feet high (Fig. 91), of Which Schliemann
found more than six hundred, nearly all of them empty. Their size
need not surprise us, for Ciampini[257] speaks of a pottery DOLIUM
of such vast size and height that a ladder of ten or twelve rungs was
needed to reach the opening.[258] With these jars were found some large
goblets, some long-necked vessels (Fig. 92), some amphorae, and vases
with three feet (Fig. 93). Some of the vases had lids the shape of a
bell (Fig. 94), others were provided with flaps or horns by which to
lift them (Fig. 95). The potter gave free vent to his imagination,
but the decorations representing fish-bones, palm branches, zigzags,
circles, and dots, are all of very inferior execution.


FIGURE 96

Earthenware pig found at a depth of 13 feet.



FIGURE 97

Vase surmounted by an owl's head. Found beneath the ruins of Troy.


Two series of terra-cotta objects deserve special mention, one
representing animals, generally pigs (Fig. 96), though an example
has been found of a hippopotamus; a fact of very great interest,
as this animal does not live at the present day anywhere but in the
heart of Africa. We know from this terra-cotta representation that
it lived in Greece in the days of Troy. Pliny speaks of it in Upper
Egypt in his day, and according to Mariette it lived thirty-five
centuries before the Christian era in the delta formed by the mouth
of the Nile. The second series of objects referred to above as of
special interest are vases representing the heads of owls with the
busts of women (Fig. 97). It is easy to make out the beak, eyes,
and ears of the bird, and the breasts and navel of the woman. In
some instances the face, breasts, and sexual organs of a woman are
represented by a series of dots forming a triangle with the point
downwards.[259] Other dots represent a necklace, and very similar
designs are to be seen on the Chaldean cylinders. Can we then connect
them in any way with the relics of Troy, and is it possible that
the Trojans and Chaldeans were of common origin? However that may
be, the constant repetition of these signs proves that they were of
hieratic character. Terra-cotta was also used for a very great number
of other purposes, as was the case everywhere before the introduction
of metals. Some deep and some flat plates made of very common clay have
been found, together with buttons, funnels, bells, children's toys,
and seals on which, some authorities think, Hittite characters can
be made out. No lamps, or anything that could serve their purpose,
have been found. The Trojans probably used torches of resinous wood
or braziers, when they required artificial light.

It would be impossible to give a list of the objects of every variety
found among the ruins of Troy, with the aid of which we can form a very
definite idea of the private life of its people. Some fragments of an
ivory lyre, and some pipes pierced with three holes at equal distances,
bear witness to their taste for music; a distaff, still full of charred
wool, deserted by the spinner when she fled before the conflagration,
tells of domestic industry and manual dexterity, while marble and stone
phalli prove that the generative forces of nature were worshipped.[260]


FIGURE 98

Copper vases found at Troy.


The weapons and implements found included haematite and diorite
projectiles used in slings, stone hatchets, and hammers pierced to
receive handles, flint saws and obsidian knives. Metallurgy began to
play an important part, and stone with its minor resisting power was
quickly superseded by bronze. In fact, Virchow was certainly justified
in saying that the whole town belonged to the Bronze age. Iron was
still unknown, at least so far no trace of it has been found, either
among the ruins of Troy or of the towns which succeeded it. Several
crucibles and moulds of mica, schist, or clay have been found with one
of granite of rectangular shape bearing on each face the hollows in
tended to receive the fused- metal. The Schliemann museum possesses
numerous battle-axes[261] of bronze, some double-bladed daggers
with crooked ends, lances similar to those discovered at Koban,[262]
and thousands of spits, some with spherically shaped heads, others
of spiral form. Some of these spits are made of copper, as are some
large nails weighing thirty ounces, so that this metal was evidently
still often used in a pure state.


FIGURE 99

Vases of gold and electrum, with two ingots, found beneath the ruins
of Troy.



FIGURE 100

Gold and silver objects from the treasure of Priam.



FIGURE 101

Gold ear-rings, head-dress, and necklace of golden beads from the
treasure of Priam.


At the foot of the palace, the ruins of which rise from the Acropolis
at a depth of 27 1/2 feet, the pick-axes of the explorers brought to
light metal shields, vases (Fig. 98), and dishes mixed together in
the greatest confusion, often soldered together by the intense heat
to which they had been subjected. They had probably been enclosed in
a wooden chest that was destroyed in the conflagration.[263] We are
astonished at the wealth revealed to us. Cups, goblets, and bottles of
gold (Figs. 99 and 100) lay side by side with golden necklaces[264]
and ear-rings of electrum.[265] The ornaments that had belonged to
women are especially curious. At one place alone several diadems
(Fig. 101) were picked up, with fifty-six ear-rings, six bracelets,
and nine thousand minor objects, such as rings, buckles, buttons, dice,
pins, beads, and ornaments of a great variety.[266] All these treasures
were piled up in a great silver vase, into which they had doubtless
been hastily thrown in the confusion of a precipitate flight. They
are all of characteristic forms, quite unlike anything in Assyrian or
Egyptian art. Were they made in Troy itself? Dr. Schliemann doubts
it; he thinks that the makers of such clumsy pottery are not likely
to have been able to produce jewelry of such delicate and remarkable
workmanship. I should not like to be so positive, for even amongst
the most advanced peoples we find very common objects mixed with
others showing artistic skill. Why should it not have been the same
at Troy? I think that in future Trojan art must take its place in the
history of the progress of humanity. The nineteenth century has brought
that art to light, and by a strange caprice of chance the treasures
of Priam adorn the museum of Berlin, and we have seen the diadem of
fair Helen exhibited in the South Kensington Museum of London.[267]

Treasures nearly as valuable as those we have been describing
were found in earthenware vases in several other parts of the
ruins. Unfortunately, many of the objects found were stolen and melted
down by the workmen, whilst others were taken to the Imperial Palace
at Constantinople, whence they are doomed to be dispersed. In 1873,
however, Dr. Schliemann was fortunate enough to hit upon a deposit
containing twenty gold ear-rings, and four golden ornaments which
had formed part of a necklace.[268] Similar ornaments were found at
Mykenae, near Bologna, in the Caucasus, in the Lake dwellings, and,
stranger still, on the banks of the Rio Suarez in Colombia.[269]

I will not add more to what I have already said about the towns which
succeeded each other on the ruins of Troy, and of which the successive
stages of rubbish on the hill of Hissarlik are the only witnesses
left. The flames spared none who settled on that doomed spot, and
new arrivals disappeared as rapidly as they came. The Ilium of the
Greeks and Romans alone enjoyed any prosperity, but it too was in its
turn swept away; and at the present day a few wandering shepherds and
their flocks are the sole dwellers upon the hill immortalized by Homer.

Before concluding this chapter I must refer once more to a, fact of
considerable interest. In that part of the deposits of Hissarlik which
represents Troy, Dr. Schliemann picked up the perforated whorls to
which the name of fusaioles has been given (Fig. 102), and of which
we spoke in our account of the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland. These
fusaioles are generally of common clay mixed with bits of mica,
quartz, or silica, though some few have been found at Mykenae and
Tiryns of steatite. The clay whorls before being baked were plunged
into a bath of a very fine clay of gray, yellow, or black color,
and then carefully polished. They nearly all bear ornaments of very
primitive execution, such as stars, the sun, flowers, or animals,
and more rarely representations of the human figure.


FIGURE 102

Terra-cotta fusaioles.


We ourselves think these fusaioles are amulets which were taken to
Troy by the Trojans, and piously preserved by their successors. One
important fact tends to confirm this hypothesis. A great number of them
bear the sign of the SWASTIKA[270] (Fig. 103), the cross with the four
arms, the sacred symbol of the great Aryan race so long supposed to be
the source of all the Indo-European races. The SWASTIKA is engraved,
not only on the fusaioles, but also on the diadems of the daughters of
Priam, on the idols the Trojans worshipped, and on numerous objects
from the Lydian and Greco-Roman towns. We meet with the double cross
among the prehistoric races of the basin of the Danube, who colonized
the shores of the Troad and the north of Italy, and it was introduced
with the products of that antique civilization on the one side to the
Greeks, the Etruscans, the Latins, the Gauls, the Germanic races,
the Scandinavians, and the Bretons; and on the other to the people
of Asia Minor, Persia, India, China, and Japan.[271]


FIGURE 103

Cover of a vase with the symbol of the SWASTIKA. Found at Troy.


This sign of the SWASTIKA meets us at every turn; we find it on many
ancient Persian books, on the temples of India, on Celtic funeral
stones, and on a Hittite cylinder. It is seen on vases of elegant
form from Athens and Melos; on others from Ceres, Chiusi, and Cumae,
as well as on the clumsy pottery recently discovered at Konigswald
on the Oder and on the borders of Hungary; on bronze objects from
the Caucasus, and the celebrated Albano urn; on a medal from Gaza
in Palestine and on an Iberian medal from Asido. We see it on the
Gallo-Roman rings of the Museum of Namur, and on the plaques of the
belt, dating from the same epoch, which form part of the magnificent
collection of M. Moreau. Schliemann tells us of it at Mykenae and
at Tiryns. Chantre found it on the necropoles of the Caucasus. It
is engraved on the walls of the catacombs of Rome, on the chair of
Saint Ambrose at Milan, on the crumbling walls of Portici, and on the
most ancient monuments of Ireland, where it is often associated with
inscriptions in the ogham character.[272]

The SWASTIKA occurs twice on a large piece of copper found at Corneto,
which now belongs to the Museum of Berlin. Cartailhac noticed it in
the CITANIA of Portugal, some of which date from Neolithic times.[273]
The English in the Ashantee war noticed it on the bronzes they took
at Coomassie on the coast of Guinea, and it has also been found on
objects discovered in the English county of Norfolk.


FIGURE 104

Stone hammer from New Jersey bearing an undeciphered inscription.


Moreover, if we cross the Atlantic we find the same symbol engraved
on the temples of Yucatan, the origin of which is unknown, on a
hatchet found at Pemberton, in New Jersey (Fig. 104), on vases from
a Peruvian sepulchre near Lima, and on vessels from the PUEBLOS of
New Mexico. Dr. Hamy, in his "American Decades," represents it on a
flattened gourd belonging to the Wolpi Indians, and the sacred tambours
of the Esquimaux of the present day bear the same symbol, which was
probably transmitted to them by their ancestors. The universality of
this one sign amongst the Hindoos, Persians, Hittites, Pelasgians,
Celts, and Germanic races, the Chinese, Japanese, and the primitive
inhabitants of America is infinitely strange, and seems to prove the
identity of races so different to each other, alike in appearance
and in customs, and is a very important factor in dealing with the
great problem of the origin of the human species.

We have dwelt much on the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann, but we must
add that, like all great discoveries, they have been very vigorously
contested.[274] Boetticher, for instance, considers the ruins
of Hissarlik to be nothing more than the remains of a necropolis
where cremation was practised according to the Assyrio-Babylonian
custom.[275] A distinguished and very honest savant, S. Reinach,
constituted himself the champion of this theory at the meeting of the
Congress in Paris in 1889. Schliemann replied very forcibly, and the
meeting appeared to be with him in the matter, as were also a number
of men of science who visited Hissarlik in 1888, and we think that in
the end history will adopt the opinion of the great Danish antiquarian.

We have now passed in review the chief of the works left behind him by
man from the earliest (lays of his existence to the dawn of historic
times. We must still show prehistoric man in the presence of death,
the universal destroyer, and learn from the evidence of the tombs of
the remote past how our ancestors met the common doom.



CHAPTER VIII

Tombs.

The true history of man will be found in his tombs, says Thucydides;
and as a matter of fact the sepulchre has ever occupied much of the
thoughts of man, the result of a religious sentiment, a conviction
that all does not end with the life which so quickly passes by.

From the very earliest times we meet with tokens of the hopes and
fears connected with a future existence; but, as I have already
stated, the human bones that can with certainty be said to date
from Palaeolithic times are very rare. We know but very few facts
justifying us in asserting that the contemporary of the mammoth and
of the cave bear had already learnt to respect the remains of what
had once been a man like himself. One of these few facts deserves,
I think, to be noticed with some detail.

In 1886, excavations in the cave of Spy[276] (Namur), or rather in a
terrace some thirty-six feet long by nineteen and a half wide giving
access to it, brought to light two human skeletons. One was that of
an individual already advanced in life, probably of the feminine sex,
the other of a man in the prime of life. These skeletons were imbedded
in a very hard breccia containing also fragments of ivory and numerous
flints of very small size. Some of them had very fine scratches on both
sides. From what I could learn on the spot, the skeletons when found
were in a recumbent position. The bones, few of which were missing,
were still in their natural position, and near to one of them were
picked up several arrow- or lance-heads, one of which, of phtanite,
some two and a half inches long, was of the purest Mousterien type. The
bones were those of short, squat individuals, and the skulls were of
the type of the Canstadt race, the most ancient of which anything is
known; the thickness of the crania was about one third of an inch. The
forehead, is low and retreating, the eyebrows are prominent, and the
lower jaws strong and well developed.

At the same level and in that immediately above it were picked up
the remains of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the cave
bear, and the large cave hyena, the reindeer, and numerous other
mammals belonging to the Quaternary fauna. Everything points to the
conclusion that the man and woman whose remains have so opportunely
come to light were contemporary with these animals, and that their
bodies were placed after death in the cave in which they were found.

Belgium has furnished numerous examples of sepulchral caves, of a
date, however, less ancient than that we have been considering. Recent
excavations in the Chauvaux Cave revealed two skeletons leaning against
the walls in a crouching position, the legs tucked under the body. In
the Gendron Cave M. Dupont discovered seventeen skeletons lying in a
low, narrow passage, stretched out at full length with the feet toward
the wall, and arranged in twos and threes, one above the other. In the
middle of all these dead was the skeleton of one man placed upright,
as if to watch over the other bodies.

The Duruthy Cave at Sordes opens near the point of junction of the
waters of the Pan and Oloron, whence their united waters flow into
the Adour. At the northern extremity of this cave is a natural niche
in which lay more than thirty skeletons, some of men, some of women,
and some of children, mixed together in the greatest confusion. Worked
flints, bone stilettos, and ornaments lay around, all. of the forms
characteristic of Palaeolithic times.

It would seem that we have here evidence of the practice of a funeral
rite, which consisted in first stripping the bodies of flesh, and
then laying the bones in caves, where they were often left unnoticed
by the living occupants of the same refuge.[277]

The caves of Baousse-Rousse, near Mentone, give fresh proof of the
extension of this rite, if we may so call it. The skeletons lay upon
a bed of powdered iron ore, in some cases as much as two fifths of an
inch thick, and this accumulation could not have taken place if the
skeleton had not been deprived of its flesh before inhumation. The
flesh must have been taken off by some rapid process, for the bones
remain, as a general rule, in their natural positions, united by
their tendons and ligaments. In Italy, says Issel, the cave men
buried their dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth
alone separating them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini,[278]
generally lay on the left side, the head rested on the left hand, and
the knees were bent. Beside the skeleton was placed a vase containing
red chalk, to be used for painting the body in the new world it was
supposed to be about to enter.

We could quote similar discoveries in Sicily, Belgium, and the southern
Pyrenees. Beneath the tumulus of Plouhennec, in Brittany, bones were
strewn about in the greatest disorder. Some archaeologists are of
opinion that the openings in certain dolmens were used for throwing in
the bones of the dead who successively went to join their ancestors. In
many of the Long Barrows of England the bones appear to have been
flung in pell-mell; the space was too narrow to hold the complete body,
so that before inhumation the flesh must have been separated from the
bones. In no other way can we explain the confusion in which the human
remains lay when they were discovered.[279] Pigorini thinks this is
a proof that primitive races worshipped their dead, and held their
bodies in veneration.[280] Perhaps they even carried them about in
their migrations. However that may be, the custom of separating the
flesh from the bones was continued until cremation became general. This
would explain the huge ossuaries found in regions so widely separated.

Although, however, the mode of sepulture we have just described was
practised for a long time in certain places, we cannot admit it to have
been general. In certain megalithic tombs we find dispositions similar
to those described in speaking of the Gendron Cave. Excavations beneath
the Port-Blanc dolmen (Morbihan) brought to light a rough pavement on
which lay numbers of skeletons, closely packed one against another,
which skeletons were probably those of men who had been held in honor,
and to commemorate whom the dolmen was set up. Separated from them
by a layer of stones and earth rested another series of skeletons,
not so closely packed as the first. The new-comers had respected
their predecessors, and no one had violated the sanctuary of the
dead. Similar facts were noted at Grand Compans, near Luzarches,[281]
and it is evident that successive inhumations beneath dolmens often
took place, and instances might, if necessary, be multiplied.

Another singular funeral rite was practised in remote antiquity. Many
of the bones found in the various caves of Mentone were colored with
red hematite.[282] As this was only the case with the bones of adults,
those of children retaining their natural whiteness, it evidently
had some special significance. In 1880, the opening of a cave of
the Stone age in the district of Anagni, a short distance from Rome,
brought to light the facial portion of a human cranium, colored bright
red with cinnabar. Nor are these by any means exceptional cases, for
similar coloration was noticed on bones picked up at Finalmarina and
several other places in Liguria and Sicily. The custom had therefore
become general in the Neolithic period in the whole of the Italian
peninsula.[283] We also meet with it in other countries; at the
Prehistoric Congress, when in session at Lisbon, Dolgado added to
what was said about the discoveries in Italy the fact that the cave
men of Furninha practised a similar rite. In the KURGANES of the
department of Kiev crania were found colored with a mineral substance,
fragments of which were strewn about near the skeletons. The most
ancient of the KURGANES appear to date from the Stone age, for in
them were found implements made of flint and reindeer-horn, mixed
with the bones of rodents[284] long since extinct in that district. A
similar practice is met with in the tombs of Poland, many bones being
covered with a coating of red color, in some instances one fifth of
an inch thick. Excavations in the Kitor valley (province of Irkutsk,
Siberia have brought to light several tombs which appear to date
from the sauce period as the KURGANES of Kiew. The dead were buried
with the weapons and ornaments they would like to use in the new life
which had begun for them. The tomb was then filled in with sand, with
which care was taken to mix plenty of red ochre. It is difficult not
to conclude that this was a relic of a rite fallen into desuetude.

At the present day certain tribes of North America expose their dead on
the tops of trees, and before burying the bones, when stripped of their
flesh, cover them with a coating of a bright red color. In the island
of Espiritu Santo many human bones have also been picked up painted
with an oxide of argillaceous iron. These customs, strange as they
may appear, were evidently practised in honor of ancestors; atavism
is as clearly shown in customs and traditions as in physical structure.

At Solutre is a sepulchre formed of unhewn slabs of stone. The body
of the dead rested on a thick bed of the broken and crushed bones of
horses. The remains of reindeer were mixed with the human bones. Were
these too relics of funeral rites, and were the animal bones those
of the horses and reindeer that had belonged to their hunter? It
is impossible to say. Solutre, situated as it was on an admirable
site on a hill overlooking the valley of the Seine, protected from
the north winds and close to a plentiful stream, has also been a
favorite resort of man. In the tombs all ages are mixed together,
and if some do indeed date from Neolithic times, others are Roman,
Burgundian, Merovingian. There may be among them a certain number
dating from the Reindeer period; that is about all we can assert
with any certainty in the present state of our knowledge. The Abbe
Ducrost, however, in an important essay[285] asserts that he has found
incontrovertible proofs of the interment of Solutreens on the hearths
of their homes in Palaeolithic times. If this be so, the custom is
one of frequent occurrence, and has been continued for centuries;
for De Colanges, in his fine work on ancient cities, shows that at
Rome the earliest tombs were on the hearth itself of the dwelling. De
Mortillet, on the other hand, dwells very earnestly on the mode of
inhumation at Solutre, and sees in the juxtaposition of human remains
and the DEBRIS of hearths but the result of displacement, and of the
regular turning upside down of which the hill of Solutre has been
the scene. To this Reinach replied, to the effect that, whereas a few
years ago De Mortillet's authority led many archaeologists to suppose
that the men of the Reindeer period did not bury their dead, facts,
ever more important than theories, have now proved beyond a doubt
that this very decided opinion is a mistake. Not only did the men
of remote antiquity bury their dead; they laid them, as at Solutre,
on the hearths near which they had lived.[286]

The dead were often buried seated or bent forward, and it is
interesting to note the same custom beneath the mounds of America and
the tumuli of Europe. It is touching to see how in death men wished to
recall their life on earth; the cradle was, so to speak, reproduced
in the tomb, and man lay on the bosom of earth, the common mother
of humanity, like the child on the bosom of his own mother. Perhaps,
too, the seated position was meant to indicate that man, who had never
known rest during his hard struggle for existence, had found it at
last in his new life. The men of the rough and barbarous times of the
remote past were unable to conceive the idea of a future different
to the present, or of a life which was not in every respect the same
as that on earth had been.

Whatever may have been the motive, this mode of burial was practised
from the Madeleine period.[287] At Bruniquel, in Aveyron, the
dead were found crouching in their last home. This position is,
however, peculiarly characteristic of Neolithic times, and is met
with throughout Europe. Eight skeletons were recently discovered
bending forward in the sepulchral cave of Schwann (Mecklenburg). In
Scandinavia there are so many similar cases that it is difficult to
make a selection. Tit the sepulchral cave of Oxevalla (East Gothland)
the dead are all in crouching attitudes, and tumuli dating from the
most remote antiquity cover over a passage, formed of immense blocks
of stone, leading to a central chamber, in which are numerous seated
skeletons resting against the walls.

On the shores of the Mediterranean, excavations of the Vence Cave
(Alpes-Maritimes) brought to light a number of dead arranged in a
circle as if about to take a meal in common. The bodies were crouching
in the position of men sitting on their heels; the spinal column was
bent forward and the head nearly touched the knees. In the centre
of this strange group were noticed some fragments of pottery and the
remains of a large bird, a buzzard probably. Perhaps its death among
the corpses was a mere accident.[288] The dolmens of Aveyron yielded
some flint-flakes and arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, pendants,
and bone, stone, shell, and slate-colored schist beads. Beneath
one of these dolmens was found one small bronze object, quite an
exceptional instance of the occurrence of that metal. The skeletons
rested against the walls. In one of the tombs some human bones,
which bad been originally placed at the entrance to the cave, had
been moved to the back; the vanquished had here, as in life, to give
way before the conquerors. Excavations in the Mane-Lud tomb have
led explorers to suppose that here too the corpses were buried in a
crouching position. It is the same at Luzarches and in the Varennes
cemetery near Dormans.[289] In the last named were found traces of a
fire that had been lit above the tomb, and some pottery was picked
up ornamented with hollow lines, filled with some white matter not
unlike barbotine. M. de Baye says this mode of interment is confined
to the district of Marne; but for all that he himself gives an example
of its practice elsewhere.[290]

In the prehistoric tombs discovered at Cape Blanc-Nez, near Escalles
(Pas-de-Calais), the position in which the body had been interred
could be made out in four instances. The ends of the tibiae, humeri,
and .radii were united, the bones of the hands were found near the
clavicles, so that the bodies had evidently been bending forward with
the arms crossed and the fingers pointing toward the shoulders.[291]
Similar facts are quoted from a cave at Equehen on the plateau which
stretches along the seashore on the east of Boulogne. The bodies,
to the number of nine, were crouching with the face turned toward
the entrance of the cave, which was closed with great blocks of
sandstone. Two polished stone hatchets, broken doubtless in accordance
with some sepulchral rite, had been placed near the skeletons.

Numerous human bones were found in the Cravanche Cave near Belfort,
which probably dates from the close of the Neolithic period,
judging from the total absence of metal and the shape of the flint
and bone implements picked up. Here too the bodies were bent almost
double, the head drooping forward and the knees drawn up nearly
to the chin. Several of these skeletons were completely imbedded
in the stalagmite which had formed in the cave, the head and knees
alone emerging from the solid mass. The position in which they were
originally placed had thus of necessity been maintained.[292]

A similar rite, for rite we must call this mode of burial, was
practised in Italy, and the Chevalier de Rossi speaks of a tomb
of the Neolithic period at Cantalupo, near Rome, in which one of
the bodies wag placed in the crouching attitude, which he says is
familiar to all who have studied ancient tombs.[293] This practice
was still continued in protohistoric times; Schliemann noticed it
in the excavations he superintended at Mykenae, and Homer says that
amongst the Lybians the dead were buried seated.

The necropolis near Constantine contains numerous megalithic
monuments. These are either round or square cromlechs surrounding
sarcophagi, or circular ENCEINTES, in which the dead were laid in a
trench. In the former there are always a great many funeral objects
in the tomb, and the body of the dead is in a crouching posture;
in the latter there are few things beside the corpse itself, and
that is in a recumbent position. Do these peculiarities denote
different races? Do the tombs all date from the same period, or are
these arrangements but fresh indications of the difference everywhere
maintained between social classes? It is difficult to decide, and we
must be content with enumerating facts. We may add, however, that the
crouching position of corpses is constantly met with in Africa[294]
and in North and South America, from Canada to Patagonia.[295]

The funeral rites of which we have spoken necessarily imply burial;
man did not abandon to wild beasts or birds of prey the bodies of
those who had once been like himself. At Aurignac, at Bruniquel,
and in the Frontal Cave, the cave man bad taken the precaution of
closing with the largest stones he could find the entrances to the
last resting-places of those belonging to him. The caves of L'HOMME
MORT, and of Petit-Morin which date from Neolithic times, retain
traces of similar blocking up. There were five entrances to the cave
of Garenne de Verneuil (Marne) in which was a regular ossuary; the
floor was paved and the roof kept up with eleven upright stones. The
objects in the tomb with the dead were a clumsy earthenware vase,
a few flint knives, and some shell necklace beads.

The sides of the almost inaccessible mountains of Peru are pierced, at
a height of several hundred feet, with numerous caves which have nearly
all been artificially enlarged. It was in them that the Peruvians
placed their dead, and the people of the country still call them
TANTAMA MARCA or abodes of desolation. The entrances were concealed
with extreme care, but this care did not save the tombs from violation;
the greed for the treasures supposed to be concealed in the tombs was
too great for respect to the unknown dead to hold curiosity in check.

In other cases, the dead was laid near the hearth which had been
that of his home when living, and his abode during life became his
tomb. The dolmens, CELLA, and GANGRABEN in Germany, and the barrows in
England, appear to bear witness to the prevalence of a similar custom
in those countries; and we find the same idea perpetuated even when
cremation became general. At Alba, in Latium, at Marino, near Albano,
at Vetulonia and Corneto-Tarquinia were discovered urns with doors,
windows, and a roof imitating human dwellings.[296]

Later, other modes of sepulture came into use. In Marne M. Nicaise
made out seven funeral pits[297] resembling in shape, he tells
us, long-necked bottles with flat bottoms. One of these pits at
Tours-sur-Marne contained at least forty skeletons, and among the
bones were found thirty-four polished stone hatchets, fifty knives,
two flint lance-heads and a great many arrows with transverse edges,
a necklace of little round bits of limestone, several fragments of
coarse pottery which had been mixed with grains of silica and baked
in the fire, and lastly three little flasks made of stag-horn hollowed
out in a curious manner and with stoppers of the same material. These
quaint little flasks doubtless contained the coloring matter with which
the dead had painted their bodies when alive. All the objects of which
we have spoken belonged to the Neolithic period; but a flat bronze
necklace bead made by folding a thin slice of metal, a radius, and a
bit of rib bearing green marks resulting from long contact with metal,
appear to fix the date of this pit at the transition period between
the Stone and Bronze ages. If this be so it is quite an exceptional
case of a sepulchral pit dating from this time, for most of those known
are of much later origin. Those for instance of Mont-Beuvray, Bernard
(La Vendee), and Beaugency are not older than Gallo-Roman times.[298]
According to Count Gozzadini, those of Manzabotto in Italy, which
are twenty-seven in number, date from the IVth century after the
foundation of Rome, and are of Etruscan origin. They are constructed
with small pointed pebbles, with no trace of cement, and resemble
in shape a long amphora vase, or perhaps, to be more accurate, the
clapper of a bell. They are from six and a half to thirty-two and a
half feet deep, with an opening varying in diameter from one foot to
nearly two and a half feet.[299]

We have said so much in preceding chapters on monuments erected in
memory of the dead, that but little remains to be added here. Doubtless
there are many distinctions to be noted at different times and in
different countries, but everywhere the aim remains the same, and the
means used for attaining that end are radically the same all the world
over. Take for example the Aymaras, the most ancient race of Bolivia
and Callao; they laid their dead sometimes beneath megalithic monuments
(Fig. 58, p. 178) resembling the dolmens of Europe, sometimes beneath
towers or CHULPAS, which are however probably of more recent date.


FIGURE 105

Chulpa near Palca.


CHULPAS, generally of square or rectangular form, consist of a mass
of unhewn stones faced outside with blocks of trachyte or basalt,
painted red, yellow, or white. A very low door, always facing east,
as if in honor of the rising sun, gives access to a cist in which the
dead was laid. The CHULPA of our illustration (Fig. 105) is situated
near the village of Palca; it rises from an excavation four feet deep;
its height is about sixteen feet, and the cornice consists of ICHU, a
coarse grass which grows in abundance on the mountains, and which after
being firmly compressed was cut with the help of sharp instruments. The
human bones, which were mixed together in the greatest confusion,
made a heap in the sepulchral chamber more than a foot high.

The mounds of Ohio also cover over sepulchral chambers of a peculiar
construction, being often formed of round pieces of wood, five to
seven feet long by five to six inches in diameter; near the bodies
were placed a few ornaments, chiefly copper ear-rings, shell beads,
and large flint knives. Most of the skeletons lay on the bare earth;
but one exception is mentioned in which the ground was paved with
mussel shells. A remarkable discovery has quite recently been made
at Floyd (Iowa), the account of which in Nature for January 1, 1891,
we will give in the words of Clement Webster: "In making a thorough
exploration of the larger mound ... the remains of five human bodies
were found, the bones even those of the fingers, toes, etc., being,
for the most part in a good state of preservation. First, a saucer
or bowl-shaped excavation has been made, extending down three and
three-quarter feet below the surface of the ground around the mound,
and the bottom of this macadamized with gravel and fragments of
limestone. In the centre of this floor five bodies were placed in a
sitting posture with the feet drawn under them, and apparently facing
the north. First above the bodies was a thin layer of earth and ashes,
among which were found two or three small pieces of fine-grained
charcoal. Nearly all the remaining four feet of earth had been changed
to a red color by the long-continued action of fire." Mr. Webster
goes on to describe the various skeletons and says of one of them,
that of a woman: "The bones in their detail of structure indicated a
person of low grade, the evidence of unusual muscular development being
strongly marked. The skull of this personage was a wonder to behold,
it equalling if not rivalling in some respects and in inferiority
of grade, the famous Neanderthal skull. The forehead, if forehead it
could be called, is very low, lower and more animal-like than in the
Neanderthal specimen.... The question has been raised how was it that
these five bodies were all buried here at the same time, their bodies
being still in the flesh." ... Webster adds that the probability is
that all but one of them had been sacrificed at the death of that one,
who had most likely been a chief.


FIGURE 106

Dolmen at Auvernier near the Lake of Neuchatel.


We have seen that men began by placing the bodies of their dead in
caves, and only later took to burying them underground when caves were
not to be had. Very often the corpse was placed between large unhewn
stones to keep off from it the weight of the tumulus above. Such were
the last resting-places alike of the men of Solutre and of those of
Merovingian times. In the necropolis of Vilanova, which is supposed to
date from times prior to the foundation of Rome, the tombs enclosed a
chest, the walls of which consisted of slabs of sandstone set on edge
and connected by a conglomerate of small stones. At Marzabotto, the
chests are made of bricks, and placed beneath a heap of pebbles. We
reproduce a chest discovered near the Lake Dwellings of Auvernier in
Switzerland (Fig. 106)[300] and another (Fig. 107) brought to light
by MM. Siret in the south of Spain. These drawings will help us better
than long descriptions to form an idea of this mode of burial.


FIGURE 107

A stone chest used as a sepulchre.


In other cases the dead body was enclosed in earthenware jars. At
Biskra in Algeria, two of these jars were found together; the one
containing the head, the other the feet of the departed. In some
instances the jar was replaced by a large clumsy earthenware basin,
some six and a half feet long by three feet wide. Such basins are
mentioned as having been found near Athens, but there is nothing
to help us to determine their date. The ancient Iberians used one
large jar only (Fig. 108) in which the dead was placed in a crouching
position, still wearing his favorite ornaments. The vase was closed
with a stone cover and placed in the tomb. We meet with the practice
of a similar mode of interment in historic times. The Chaldeans
placed their dead in earthenware vases; two jars connected at the
neck serving as a coffin. Excavations in Nebuchadnezzar's palace
brought to light bodies bent nearly double and enclosed in urns
not more than three feet in height by about two feet in width. On
the western coast of Malabar, as far as Cape Comorin, we find near
megalithic tombs large jars four feet high by three feet in diameter
filled with human bones. This mode of sepulture was practised at Sfax,
in the Chersonesus of Thracia, and at the foot of the hill on which
Troy was built. The tumulus of Hanai-Tepeh covered over a huge amphora
in which crouched a skeleton, and the wealthy Japanese loved to know
they would rest in huge artistically decorated vases, masterpieces
of native pottery. If we cross the Atlantic, we meet with the same
custom in Peru, Mexico, and on the shores of the Mississippi. At
Teotihuacan, the bodies of children were placed head downwards in
funeral urns,[301] and excavations in the alluvial deposits of the
Mississippi yielded, among immense quantities of pottery, two huge
rectangular basins glued together with clay and containing the body
of a young child. It is indeed interesting to meet with the same
practice in so many different places and to find the genius of many
races expressing itself in the same way in so many diverse inventions,
produced at times so widely separated.


FIGURE 108

Example of burial in a jar.


It is probable that early man also turned to account the trees he
saw growing around him, using them as coffins for his dead. But the
rapid decay of this fragile case led to its total disappearance. A
few exceptions must, however, be mentioned. In 1840 some dredgers took
from the bed of the Saone, at Apremont, from beneath a bed of gravel
five feet thick, the trunk of a tree which still contained the bones
that had been placed in it. Similar discoveries were made in the Cher,
and in the celebrated cemetery of Hallstadt, near Salzburg. The cairns
of Scania covered over split trunks of oak and birch trees, which had
been hollowed out to receive the dead. At Gristhorpe, near Scarborough,
in England, a coffin was found made of scarcely squared planks roughly
put together; and another very like it was discovered at Hove, in
Sussex, the latter containing a splendid amber cup, evidence of the
wealth of the man who had been buried in this primitive coffin.[302]

The ancient Caledonians sewed up their dead in the skins of oxen before
burying them. The Egyptians also embalmed the ibis, the ox, the cat,
the crocodile, and other animals deified by them, and the bodies of
these creatures were then placed in vast subterranean chambers, where
they have been discovered in the present day in great numbers. The
Guanches of Teneriffe, the last representatives of the Iberians, and
probably the most ancient race of Europe, took out the intestines of
the corpse, dried the body in the air, painted it with a thick varnish,
and finally wrapped it in the skin of a goat. This last custom was
evidently a relic of the original idea of embalming, with a view to
rendering the mummy as nearly as possible indestructible and, to use a
happy expression of Michelet, to compel death to endure (FORCER LA MORT
DE DURER). Our own contemporaries are thus able to look upon the very
features of those who preceded them on the earth some forty centuries
ago; and but yesterday photography reproduced in every detail what
was once Ramses the Great, one of the most glorious kings of history.


FIGURE 109

Aymara mummy.


Embalming was also practised in America. Recent travellers report[303]
having seen in Upper Peru tombs of the shape of beehives, made of
stones cemented with clay, each tomb containing one mummy or more
in a crouching position (Figs. 109 and 110). This custom was still
practised for many centuries; Garcilasso de la Vega tells us that
the dead Incas were seated in a temple at Cuzco, wearing their royal
ornaments as if they were still alive; their hands were crossed upon
their breasts, and their heads were bending slightly forward.[304]

The facts enumerated above prove that burial was long practised, though
it is impossible to say when it first cattle into use. About the time
of the beginning of the Bronze age, or perhaps even earlier, however, a
remarkable change took place in the ideas of man, and the dead instead
of being buried intact were consumed by fire on the funeral pile.

What can have been the origin of this custom? What race first
practised it? It has long been supposed by many archaeologists that
it was the Aryans from the lofty Hindoo Koosh Mountains who first
introduced into Europe a civilization more advanced than that which
had hitherto obtained there, and taught the people to cremate instead
of bury their dead. This theory was accepted for a considerable time
without question, but of late years a new school, headed by Penka,
has arisen who claim that the reformers came not from the East but
from the North. The Marquis de Saporta had indeed before suggested
that the primitive races who were the contemporaries of the mammoth
and the rhinoceros came originally from the polar regions, where the
remains of a luxuriant vegetation prove that climatic conditions
prevailed in remote times of a very different character to those
of the present day. The lignites of Iceland are made up of tulip,
plantain, and nut-trees, even the vine sometimes occurring. In the
ferruginous sandstones, associated with the carboniferous deposits of
Spitzberg, the beech, the poplar, the magnolia, the plum tree, the
sequoia, and numerous coniferous trees can be made out. The sturdy
sailors who dare the regions of perpetual ice come across masses of
fossilized wood in Banks, Grinnell, and Francis Joseph's Lands, at
88[degree] N. Lat. Among this fossil wood Heer made out the cypress,
the silver pine, the poplar, the birch, and some dicotyledons with
caducous leaves. These were not relics of wood which had drifted where
it was found on floating ice, but of an actual local vegetation,
as proved by trunks still erect in their original positions, buds,
leaves, and flowers in every stage of growth, fruits in every stage of
ripening. The very insects that had lived on honey from the flowers or
on the leaves themselves could be identified. In those remote days,
life, abundant life, similar to that now only found in the temperate
countries farther south, flourished in those polar regions, so long
supposed to have never been anything but lifeless deserts.


FIGURE 110

Peruvian mummies.


All this, plausible as it is, does not, however, appear to be
conclusive on the point under discussion; and though ,we may have to
abandon the idea of the Aryans having introduced cremation, we are
scarcely, I think, in a position to say that races from the North were
the first to practise it. I have dwelt more fully on the question of
the origin of races and the evidence which language seems to give
of a common source in two papers called "Les Premiers Populations
de l'Europe," which appeared in the CORRESPONDENT for October 1 and
November 25, 1889. Whatever may be the final decision on the much
contested points involved in this controversy, one thing is certain
that cremation, involving though it does a complete revolution in
manners and customs, spread with very great rapidity. We meet with
it from Greece to Scotland and Scandinavia, from Etruria to Poland
and the south of Russia, in China as in Yucatan and certain parts of
Central America.

In the early days of history, cremation was practised all over
Europe. The Greeks attribute its inauguration to Hercules, and the
funeral pile of Patrokles is described in the Iliad. The Pelasgians
and the Proto-Etruscans burned their dead,[305] and we are told of
the incineration of contemporaries of Jair, the third judge of Israel.

On the other hand, the earliest inhabitants of Latium buried their
dead. Visitors, who probably came by way of the valley of the Danube,
introduced the new custom, and for a long tune the two rites were
practised side by side. At Felsina and at Marzabotto we find instances
alike of inhumation and cremation, and at Vilanova only half the
tombs are those of corpses that had been cremated. In 365 of the
tombs excavated in the Certosa, near Bologna, only 115 show signs of
cremation having been practised. At Rome, the two rites were long
both performed, probably, however, by the two distinct peoples who
formed the primitive population of the town of Romulus. We know that
Numa Pompilius forbade the burning of his corpse; Cicero relates that
Marius was buried, and that Sulla, his fortunate rival, was the first
of the Cornelia GENS whose body was committed to the flames. We do
not know how early cremation was introduced in Gaul; we can only say
that Caesar found it generally practised when be made his triumphal
march across the country.[306] The celebrated excavations of Moreau
prove that inhumation and incineration were both practised among
the Gallo-Romans established in the eastern provinces of France. We
may even assert that the two rites were practised long before the
introduction of the use of metals. One thing is certain, the custom
of cremation was but slowly abandoned as Christianity spread, for
Charlemagne, in an edict dated 789, ordered the punishment of death
for those who dared to burn dead bodies.

What we have just said about historic times applies equally to more
remote epochs. Thanks to the learned researches of Dr. Prunieres[307]
we are able to trace for a great length of time the modes of sepulture
adopted in Lozere. The cave men of the eroded limestone districts of
Les Causses took their dead to the caves in which their ancestors
had been laid, and the invaders, who were probably more civilized
than those they dispossessed, placed theirs beneath the dolmens which
they erected in their honor. In the sepulchral caves of Rouquet and
of L'HOMME MORT we find inhumation; beneath the megalithic monuments
dating from the end of the Neolithic period, we meet with the first
traces of cremation, but so far of a very incomplete cremation;
the action of the funeral fire had not been intense, and the bones
were hard and resisted the heat. Noting beneath certain dolmens a
few bones blackened by fire mixed with large quantities unaffected
by it, one is inclined to think with the learned Doctor, that after
practising cremation men had reverted to the old mode of burial. In
the tumuli of the Bronze age, on the other hand, where the date can
be determined with the aid of the ornaments and trinkets scatered
about, the ustion was more complete; the bones are friable and porous,
crumbling into dust when touched, and there is nothing to indicate
that inhumation and cremation were both practised.

It is strange indeed to find that incineration was practised from
Neolithic times in the wild mountains of Lozere. There can be no
doubt on the point, however, and excavations beneath the dolmen
of Marconnieres strikingly confirm the earlier discoveries of
Dr. Prunieres. Beneath a layer of broken stones and a very thin
pavement, was found a mass of human bones in the greatest confusion;
some still retaining their natural color, others blackened and charred
by. fire. Among these bones was picked up an arrow of rock foreign to
the country, three admirably polished lance-heads, and some finely
cut flint-darts. The dolmen contained no metal objects, and there
was no trace of metal on any of the bones.

At the same period the two rites appear to have been practised
simultaneously in Armorica, but there incineration was the dominant
custom. In one hundred and forty-five megalithic monuments supposed to
date from the Neolithic period, seventy-two give proof of incineration
and twenty of inhumation only. The others yielded a few cinders, but
it was impossible to come to any definite conclusion. In many cases,
as we have seen, the megalithic monument was surrounded by a double
or triple ENCEINTE of stones without mortar. Inside these ENCEINTES
were some small circular structures made of stones reddened by the
action of heat. In the lower part of these structures were openings to
admit a current of air to fan the flames. These strange structures,
full of cinders and black greasy earth, bear the significant name of
RUCHES DE CREMATION.[308] Of thirty-nine sepulchres of the Bronze
age twenty-seven gave evidence of incineration, two of inhumation,
whilst ten decided nothing one way or the other.[309] The dolmen of
Mont St.-Michel and that of Tumiac are separated by a short distance
only; they were erected by the same race and probably about the same
period, yet at Mont St.-Michel we find incineration, while inhumation
was practised at Tumiac. How explain this difference in funeral
customs? Does it imply a diversity of race, of caste, of religion,
or of social position, or may it not rather be explained as being
merely the result of those later displacements which upset the most
careful reasoning?

Whatever may have been the cause of the different modes of burial,
we meet with them in every country.

In Scandinavia, during the Bronze age, cremation and burial were
practised in about equal proportions. Similar facts are noticed in
Germany, but in the North incineration predominates, while in the
West it is inhumation. Beneath the cairns of Caithness in Scotland,
we find some bodies lying at full length, while others are in a bent
position, and large jars of coarse pottery filled with cinders and
calcined bones which had belonged to men of medium height. One of the
largest of these jars is fifteen or sixteen inches high by forty-nine
wide at its largest part.[310] In excavating the barrows of the Orkney
Islands, Petrie noted the practice of both modes of burial[311];
but were those buried in manners so different contemporaries? This
is what we are not told, and what we have to find out.

At Blendowo in Poland, beneath a cromlech was found an urn filled
with calcined bones, and thirty centimetres lower down a skeleton
was discovered buried in the sand. Near this body was found a coin
of Theodosius, and we wonder in vain whether both the individuals,
whose remains are thus within a common tomb, lived at the same
time. Throughout Prussia and in tire Grand Duchy of Posen skeletons
and jars containing human ashes. are met with in the same tombs.[312]
We must not forget to note, especially, the necropolis of Hallstadt,
which was situated in the heart of the district of Bohemia occupied by
the Boii. The most ancient of the tombs in these vast burial-places
date from about two thousand years before the Christian era, and the
Hallstadtian period, as it is sometimes called, culminated during
the first half of the millennium immediately before the coming of
Christ.[313] Nine hundred and ninety-three tombs have been excavated;
all, to judge by the objects found with the human remains, belonging
to the Bronze age; of these five hundred and twenty-seven contained
buried bodies, and four hundred and fifty-three cremated relics.[314]
This is a larger proportion than in the primitive necropoles of Italy.

In the tombs in which burial was practised, the bodies were laid in
the trench without covering, and the remains of anything in the way
of slabs or coffins or protecting planks are very rare; in those
tombs in which cremation had been the rule, ustion had often been
very incomplete, sometimes the head and. sometimes the feet having
escaped the flames.

Similar facts are noted at Watsch, at San Margarethen, and at Vermo
in Styria, at Rovesche in Southern Carniola, and at Rosegg in the
valley of the Drave. At Watsch, but ten skeletons were found, among
two hundred examples of incineration. In the cremation sepulchres, if
we may so call them, the cinerary urn was protected by large slabs;
while in those where burial was practised, the bodies were simply
confided to the earth as at Hallstadt; but by a singular contrast, the
latter tombs contained much more important relics, the objects with
the dead being more valuable and of finer workmanship. At Rovesche,
the urn was placed in a square chest made of unhewn stones. The buried
bodies lay with the head turned toward the east, an urn was placed at
their feet, and their shrouds were kept in place by bronze fibulae,
while on the fingers were many rings of the same metal.

Lastly, to conclude this gloomy catalogue, excavations in the mounds
of Ohio and Illinois[315] have shown that there too cremation and
inhumation are met with in sepulchres which everything tends to
assign to the same race and the same period.[316] The sepulchral
crypts of Missouri contain several skeletons which had been subjected
to intense heat. The human bones were mixed with the remains of
animals, fragments of charcoal, and pieces of pottery, with sortie
flint weapons. In a neighboring mound excavations revealed no trace
of cremation; the bodies were stretched out upon the ground, and
those who discovered them picked up near them a valuable collection
of flints and of carefully made pottery. There is however nothing to
show whether those who buried and those who burnt their dead belonged
to the same race or lived at the same time. Cremation long survived
among the most savage tribes of Alaska and California, where it is
still practised, and the Indians of Florida preserve the ashes of
their fathers in human skulls. In California, the relations of the
deceased covered their faces with a thick paste of a kind of loam
mixed with the ashes of the dead, and were compelled to wear this
sign of their grief until it fell off naturally.

Although we meet with the burial of the dead either in a recumbent
or a crouching position, everywhere the minor ceremonies connected
with death are innumerable; each people, each race, indeed, having
its own custom, handed down from one generation to another, and
piously preserved intact by each successive family. Feasting was from
the earliest times a feature of the funeral ceremonies. An edict of
Charlemagne forbids eating and drinking on the tombs of the deceased,
and Saint Boniface, the apostle of Germany, complains bitterly that
the priests encouraged by their presence these feasts of death. We meet
with the same kind of thing among the lower classes at the present day,
and the cemeteries of Paris are surrounded with cafes and wine shops,
where too often grief is drowned in wine. The custom of holding these
feasts really comes down from the earliest inhabitants of Europe,
and the savage cave man gorged himself with food upon the tombs of
those belonging to him. At Aurignac, in the cave of L'HOMME MORT,
in the Trou du Frontal, broken bones and fragments of charcoal bear
witness to the repast. Similar traces of feasts are met with beneath
the dolmens and the tumuli. From the Long Barrows have been taken
the skulls and feet of bovidae, and it is probable that the other
parts of the body had been devoured by the assistants, and that
the head and feet were placed in the tomb as an offering either to
the dead or to the divinities who are supposed to have presided at
the death. In the ancient sepulchres of Wiltshire Sir R. Colt Hoare
picked up the bones of boars, stags, sheep, horses, and dogs; which
he too considered were the remains of funeral feasts.

Were feasts the only ceremonies connected with interments? We think
not. The body was often placed in the centre of the sepulchral
chamber, and around it were ranged the wives, servants, and slaves
of the deceased, condemned to follow their chief into the unknown
world to which he had gone. Beneath a dolmen of Algeria was found a
crouching skeleton with two crania lying at his feet, which crania had
doubtless belonged to victims immolated in his honor. The barrows
of Great Britain preserve traces of human sacrifices, and Caesar
says in speaking of the Gauls: "Their funerals are magnificent
and sumptuous. Everything supposed to have been dear to the defunct
during his life was flung upon the funeral pile; even his animals were
sacrificed, and until quite recently his slaves and the dependants
he had loved were burnt with him."[317]

The facts we have been noticing prove that early man cherished
hopes of immortality. All was not ended for him with death; a new
life commences beyond the tomb, marked -- for his ideas could go no
farther -- by joys similar to those he had known on earth, and events
such as had occurred during his life. What else could be the meaning
of the weapons, the tools of his craft, the vases filled with food
placed near the defunct, the ornaments and colors intended for his
adornment, the wives, slaves, and horses flung into the same tomb
or consumed upon the same pile? It is pleasing to find this supreme
hope among our remote ancestors; and clumsily as it was expressed,
it implies a belief in a being superior to man, a protecting divinity
according to some, but according to some few others a malignant
and tyrannical spirit. The proofs so far to hand are not enough to
justify us in seriously asserting that ancestors were worshipped by
prehistoric man. But the subject is too important for us to refrain
from putting before the reader such indications of this worship as
have been collected, and which are necessarily connected with the
moral and material condition of our remote ancestors.

The radius of a mammoth was discovered at Chaleux, occupying a place
of honor on a large sandstone slab near the hearth. The Chaleux Cave
dates from the Reindeer period; at which time the mammoth had long
since been extinct in Belgium, so that there can be no doubt that
the cave man had taken this bone from the alluvial deposits of the
preceding epoch, and this huge relic of an unknown creature had been
the object of his veneration, a lar or protective divinity of his
home. A somewhat similar fact was discovered at Laugerie-Basse and,
by a strange coincidence, certain tribes of North America of the
present clay preserve the bone of a mastodon or of a cetacean in
their buts as a protection to their homes.

From Paleolithic times men were in the habit of cutting celts or
hatchets in chalk, bitumen, and other fragile substances, which were
certainly of no practical use. Thousands of similar objects in harder
rock, but showing no sign of wear or tear, have also been found,
and there is little doubt that they all alike served as amulets. This
superstitious respect for certain objects lasted for many centuries,
and was handed down from one generation to another. The tombs of
the Bronze and Iron ages are often found to contain flint hatchets,
some of them broken intentionally, a proof, as I have already said,
that they were connected with funeral rites of the nature of which
we are ignorant.

We also find votive hatchets beneath dolmens. By the side of some
skeletons at Cissbury lay flint celts. A hatchet one and a quarter
feet long was found in a Lake Station of Switzerland. It was of such
friable rock that it can have been of no use but as a symbol; perhaps,
indeed, it may have been a badge of office. Lastly, Merovingian tombs
contain hundreds of small flint celts, the last pious offerings to
the departed.[318]

We find hatchets engraved on the megalithic monuments of Brittany,
on the walls of the caves of Marne, and we meet with them again on the
other side of the Atlantic, evidently bearing the same signification,
implying respect for them as. means of protection. De Longperier
has published a description of a Chaldean cylinder, on which was
represented a priest presenting his offering to a hatchet lying on a
throne, and a ring was picked up at Mykenae, on the stone of which
was engraved a double-bladed celt. We find the same idea in many
different mythologies. The word NOUTER (God) is translated in Egyptian
hieroglyphics by a sign resembling a celt, and the hatchet of Odin is
engraved on the rocks of Kivrik. On a number of Gallo-Roman CIPPI, we
find a hatchet beneath which we read the words, DIS MANIBUS, and lower
down the dedication, SUB ASCIA DEDICAVIT. At all times and everywhere
the hatchet appears as the emblem of force, and is the object of the
respect of the people. The tradition of its value and importance is
handed down from ancestors to descendants throughout many generations.


FIGURE 111

Erratic block from Scania, covered with carvings.


May we give a religious interpretation to the basins and cups hollowed
out on rocks and erratic blocks and on the so-called Roches Moutonnees,
with other monuments that have endured for many centuries (Figs. 111
and 112)? Or must we attribute them merely to passing caprice? Their
number and importance we think forbid the latter idea. We find
such blocks in Switzerland, in England, France, Italy, Portugal,
and on the frozen shores of the Baltic. They are no less numerous
in India, and they figure in the curious pictographs of the two
Americas. There is no doubt that we have here a common idea, and
one it is impossible not to recognize. How. else can we account for
the similarity of arrangement in the cup-shaped sculptures from the
tumuli of Schleswig-Holstein and those on the Indian rocks of Kamaou,
or between those of Algeria and of England?


FIGURE 112

Engraved rock from Massibert (Lozere).


In Brittany and in Scotland these cup-like sculptures are found on
rocks and menhirs, on the walls of sepulchral chambers, on stones
forming the sides of KISTVAENS, accompanied in many instances with
radiated circles, which do not, however, help us to understand them
better. In Scandinavia they are known as ELFEN STENAVS, or elf stones,
and the inhabitants come and place offerings on them for the LITTLE
PEOPLE. According to a touching tradition, these little people are
souls awaiting the time of their being clothed once more in human
flesh. In Belgium these strangely decorated stones are attributed to
the NUTONS, dwarfs who are very helpful to mortals. In every country
there is some legend sacred to the sculptured stones.

Such are the only facts we have been able to collect respecting the
religious feeling of prehistoric races. They are not sufficient to
authorize any final conclusion on the subject. At every turn we are
compelled to admit our helplessness. But yesterday this past without a
limit was absolutely unknown to us, and to-day we are but beginning to
be able to obtain a glimpse into its secrets. We have been the laborers
of the first hour, it will be for those who come after us to complete
the task we have been able but to begin. May a genuine love of truth
be to them, as we may justly claim it has been to us, the only guide.








WORKS BY MARQUIS DE NADAILLAC.

Prehistoric America. By the Marquis de Nadaillac. Translated, with
the permission of the Author, by Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers), author
of "History of Art." Edited, with notes, by W. H. Dall. Popular
edition. $2 25

CHIEF CONTENTS. -- Man and the Mastodon -- The Kjokkenmoddings and
Cave Relics -- Mound-Builders -- Pottery Weapons and Ornaments of
the Mound-Builders -- Cliff-Dwellers and Inhabitants of the Pueblos
-- People of Central America -- Central American Ruins -- Peru --
Early Race -- Origin of the American Aborigines, etc., etc.

"The best book on this subject that has yet been published, ... for the
reason that, as a record of facts, it is unusually full, and because it
is the first comprehensive work in which, discarding all the old and
worn-out nostrums about the existence on this continent of an extinct
civilization, we are brought face to face with conclusions that are
based upon a careful comparison of architectural and other prehistoric
remains with the arts and industries, the manners and customs, of
"the only people, except the whites, who, so far as we know, have
ever held the regions in which these remains are found." -- NATION.

The Customs and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples. By the Marquis de
Nadaillac. Translated, with the permission of the Author, by Nancy Bell
(N. D'Anvers). Fully illustrated. 8vo.	    $3 00

CHIEF CONTENTS. -- The Stone Age, its Duration, and its Place in Time
-- Food, Cannibalism, Mammals, Fish, Hunting and Fishing, Navigation
-- Weapons, Tools, Pottery; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing,
Ornaments; Early Artistic Efforts -- Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake
Stations, "Terremares," Crannoges, Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti,"
and "Truddhi" -- Megalithic Monuments -- Industry, Commerce, Social
Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation -- Camps, Fortifications,
Vitrified Forts; Santorin; the Towns upon the Hill of Hissarlik --
Tombs -- Index.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON.




NOTES

[1] -- M. Gaston.

[2] -- Pliny calls them CERAUNIA GEMMA ("Natural History," book ii.,
ch. 59 book xxxvii., ch. 51).

[3] -- S. Reinach proves clearly enough that the collections of the
Emperor Augustus were from Capri.

[4] -- This skeleton was discovered in 1726 by Scheuchzer, a doctor
of OEningen, and by him placed in the Leyden Museum, with the
pompous inscription HOMO DILUVII TESTIS (PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS,
vol. xxxiv.). Cuvier, by scraping away the stone, revealed the true
nature of the fossil.

[5] -- "Ossium Fossilium Docimasia."

[6] -- "Mem. Acad. des Inscriptions," 1734, vol. x., p. 163.

[7] -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. ii., p. 118.

[8] -- "The Antiquities of Warwickshire," vol. iv., 1656.

[9] -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xiii., p. 105.

[10] -- Castelfranco: REVUE D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887.

[11] -- ANNALES DES SCIENCES NATURELLES, vol. xvii.,
p. 607. Cartailhac: MATERIAUX, 1884.

[12] -- "Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles de la Province de
Liege."

[13] -- ATHENAEUM, 16 July, 1859.

[14] -- "Discours sur les Revolutions du Globe," third edition, p. 13,
Paris, Didot, 1861.

[15] -- ACAD. DES SCIENCES, 18th and 23d May, 1863.

[16] -- Lubbock: "On the Evidence of the Antiquity of Man Afforded
by the Physical Structure of the Somme Valley" (NAT. HIST. REVIEW,
vol. ii.). Prestwich: "On the Occurrence of Flint Implements Associated
with the Remains of Extinct Species in Beds of a Late Geological
Period" (PHIL. TRANS., 1860). Evans: "Flint Implements in the Drift"
(ARCH., 1860 -- 62).

[17] -- ACAD. DES SCIENCES, 1859, 1863.

[18] -- Cartailhac: "L'Age de Pierre dans les Souvenirs et les
Superstitions Populaires."

[19] -- A short time before his tragic end, the noble and patriotic
Gordon sent to Cairo three hatchets or stone wedges found amongst the
Niams-Niams, who said they had fallen from Heaven, and who worshipped
then with superstitious rites (BULL. INSTITUT EGYPTIEN, 1886, No. 14).

[20] -- "Museo Moscardo," Padova, 1656.

[21] -- According to M. Pitre de Lisle, the Bretons think that these
stones vibrate at every clap of thunder.

[22] -- Roulin: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, December 28, 1868.

[23] -- "Congres d'Anthropologie et d'Archeologie Prehistorique,"
Paris, 1889.

[24] -- Council of Arles in 452, of Tours in 567, of Nantes in 658,
of Toledo in 681 and 692, and of Leptis in 743.

[25] -- Baluze: "Capitularia Regum Francorum," vol. i., pp. 518,
1231, 1237.

[26] -- Steenstrup, Forchammer, Thomsen, Worsaae, and Nillsson. The
commission appointed by the Copenhagen Academy of Sciences presented
six reports on the subject between 1850 and 1856.

[27] -- "Die Anfang des Eisens Cultur," Berlin, 1886.

[28] -- "Archeologie Celtique et Gauloise," p. 46.

[29] -- Dr. Much: "L'Age de Cuivre en Europe et son Rapport avec la
Civilisation des Indo-Germains," Vienna, 1886. Pulsky: "Die Kupfer
Zeit im Ungarn," Budapest, 1884. Cartailhac: "Ages Prehistoriques
de l'Espagne et du Portugal," p. 211. E. Chantre: MAT., June, 1887;
and Berthelot: JOURNAL DES SAVANTS, September, 1889.

[30] -- Irenee Cochut: "These presentee a la Faculte de Theologie
Protestante de Montauban."

[31] -- See my translation of the author's admirable and exhaustive
work on "Prehistoric America," chapters i. and iv. -- Nancy Bell.

[32] -- ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, May 23, 1881; "Antiquites du Musee de
Minoussink," Tomsk, 1886 -- 7.

[33] -- "Les Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et en Portugal."

[34] -- "Stone Implements from the Northwestern Provinces of India,"
JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, Calcutta, 1883.

[35] -- LITERARY JOURNAL OF MADRAS, vol. xiv.

[36] -- "L'Age de Pierre et la Classification Prehistorique d'apres
les Sources Egyptiennes," Paris, 1879.

[37] -- Pitt Rivers: "On the Discovery of Chert Implements in the
Nile Valley," British Association, York, 1881.

[38] -- Belluci: "L'Eta della Pietra in Tunisia," Roma, 1876,
BOL. DELLA SOC. GEOG. ITALIANA, 1876.

[39] -- "The Stone Age of South Africa," JOURN. ANTH. INSTITUTE, 1881.

[40] -- REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, march 1, 1878.

[41] -- De Quatrefages: REV. D'ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1883, p. 97, etc.

[42] -- Sir J. Lubbock: "Prehistoric Times," pp. 483, 549.

[43] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, le Havre, 1877. DISCOURS D'OUVERTURE.

[44] -- "Prehistoric America," Paris, New York, and London.

[45] -- See my translation of "L'Amerique Prehistorique," chap. i.,
"Man and the Mastodon." -- Nancy Bell.

[46] -- Many interesting details respecting the Cliff Dwellers are
given in De Nadaillac's "L'Amerique Prehistorique," chap. v. --
Nancy Bell.

[47] -- CONGRES DES NATURALISTES ALLEMANDS, Innsbruck, Sept., 1869,

[48] -- "Quaternary man is always man in every acceptation of the
word. In every case in which the bones collected have enabled us
to judge, he has ever been found to have the hand and foot proper
to our species, and that double curvature of the spinal column has
been made out, so characteristic that Serres made it the distinctive
attribute of his human kingdom. In every case with him, as with us,
the skull is more fully developed than the face. In the Neanderthal
skull so often quoted as bestial, the cranial capacity is more than
double that ever found in the largest gorilla." De Quatrefages:
"Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Sauvages," p. 60.

[49] -- In this cave were found the bones of 45 bears. In the Goyet
Cave (which bears the number 3), were found complete sets of the bones
of 12 mammoths, 8 rhinoceroses, 57 bears, 57 horses, 24 hyaenas,
35 reindeer, 6 uruses, 2 lions, with the bones of a great number
of goats, chamois, and boars. Dupont: "L'Homme pendant l'Age de la
Pierre," p. 86.

[50] -- These birds belonged to the rapaces, passeres, gallinaceous,
wading, and web-footed groups. Every order is represented, and nearly
all the bones were those of edible species, which had certainly served
as food to man.

[51] -- Richard Andree: "Die Anthropophagie eine Ethnographische
Studie," Leipzig, 1887.

[52] -- "Les Hommes de Chavaux et d'Engis" BUL. ACAD. ROY. DE BELGIQUE,
vol. xx., 1853; vol. xviii. (new series), 1863; vol. xxii., 1866;
MATERIAUX, 1872. p, 517.

[53] -- "L'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre," p. 225.

[54] -- "Compte Rendu," p. 363.

[55] -- "Hist. Nat.," book vii., sec. 2.

[56] -- Belgrand: "Le Bassin Parisien," vol. i., p. 232.

[57] -- BULL. SOC. ANTH., 1869, p. 476. -- AC. DES SCIENCES, 1870,
first week, p. 167.

[58] -- ARCHIVES DU MUSEE NATIONAL DE RIO DE JANEIRO, vol. i., 1876.

[59] -- See my translation of De Nadaillac's "Prehistoric America,"
pp. 53, 58, and 59." -- N. D'Anvers.

[60] -- "Geography," book iv.

[61] -- "Opera," vol. ii., Migne edition, p. 335. Richard, of
Cirencester, says that the Attacotes lived on the shores of the Clyde,
beyond the great wall of Hadrian.

[62] -- Schweden's "Urgeschichte," p. 341.

[63] -- The felidae were very numerous in Europe in Quaternary
times. We may mention two species of lions, LEO NOBILIS and LEO
SPELAEUS, the latter often confounded with the DELIS SPELAEUS of
such frequent occurrence in French caves, two species of tigers,
TIGRIS EDWARDSIANA and TIGRIS EUROPAEA, the largest of the Quaternary
felidae, which was some twelve feet long. We also know of seven species
of leopards, six species of cats, from the Serval to a little felis
smaller than our domestic cat; two species of lynx, and lastly the
MACHAIRODUS, a beast of prey of considerable size, characterized by
having exceptionally long upper canines serrated like a saw. Probably
these beasts of prey were not all contemporaries, but succeeded each
other. (Bourguignat: "Histoire des Felidae Fossiles en France dans
les Depots de la Periode Quaternaire," Paris, 1879.)

[64] -- "Testimony of the Rocks," p. 127, Edinburgh and Boston, 1857.

[65] -- OSSEMENTS FOSSILES TROUVES A ODESSA. The cave-hyena resembles
that now living at the Cape.

[66] -- Ducrost and Arcelin: "Stratigraphie de l'Eboulis de Solutre,"
MAT., 1876, p. 403. ARCHIVES DIE MUSEUM D'HIST. NAT. DE LYON, vol. 1.

[67] -- M. de Baye found a great many similar arrow-heads in the
Petit-Morin caves.

[68] -- Nilsson: "The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia."

[69] -- Captain Edward Johnson, who travelled about in New England
from 1628 to 1632, relates that the children there spent their days
in shooting at the fish that appeared on the surface of the water,
succeeding in catching them with marvellous skill. "A History of New
England," London, 1654.

[70] -- Reiss and Steubel: "The Necropolis of Ancon in Peru," London
and Berlin.

[71] -- MATERIAUX, 1870, p, 348.

[72] -- WIADOMOSEI ARCHEOLOGIZNE, No. iv., Warsaw, 1882.

[73] -- Ch. Rau: "Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and America."

[74] -- Horace: "Odes," book i., ode iii.

[75] -- Friedel: "Fuhrer durch die Fischerei Abtheilung."

[76] -- "A Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal
Academy."

[77] -- PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCOTLAND,
vol. iii. Dr. R. Munro "Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannoges,"
Edinburgh, 1882.

[78] -- Geikie, EDINBURGH NEW PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, vol. xv. De
Lapparent "Traite de Geologie," first edition, p. 518.

[79] -- "Discoveries in the more Recent Deposits of the Bovey Basin,"
TRANS. DEVONSHIRE ASS., 1883.

[80] -- "Nordische Oldsager i der kongelige Museum i Kjobenhawn."

[81] -- "Les Proto-Helvetes," NATURE, 1880, 1st week, p. 151.

[82] -- "Mem. Soc. d'Emulation d'Abbeville," 1867.

[83] -- Indra, the all-seer, to whom it is given to pierce the cloud,
personified by Vritra, and "to open the receptacles of the waters with
his far-reaching thunder-bolts," is of course the sun, the worship of
which was one of the earliest and most natural instincts of humanity;
whilst Vritra was in the first instance merely the symbol of the
cloud, intervening between heaven and earth, shutting out from men the
light of the sun, and keeping back the refreshing rain. The gradual
conversion of these natural phenomena into a good and a malignant
power, ever struggling for the mastery, is a forcible illustration
of the way in which myths are evolved. -- Trans.

[84] -- De Mortillet: "Le Prehistorique," Paris, 1883, p. 133.

[85] -- "Limon du Plateau du Nord de la France," Paris, 1878. Acheuleen
et Mousterien: REVUE DES QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIQUES, October,
1880. BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1884, 1887.

[86] -- CHELLEEN, so called from their having been found at Chelles
(Seine-et-Marne), where the remains of the ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS, the most
ancient of the pachyderms now known in Europe, was associated with
these tools.

[87] -- De Mortillet: "Musee Prehistorique," pl. xvi. to xix.

[88] -- M. de Mortillet enumerates 127 polishers found at various
points in thirty departments of France. "Le Prehistorique," first
edition, p. 534.

[89] -- Piette: ASS. FRANC. POUR L'AVANCEMENT DES SCIENCES, Nantes,
1875, p. 909.

[90] -- De Mortillet: "Le Prehistorique," p. 544; "Musee
Prehistorique," figs. 431 to 434.

[91] -- "Musee Prehistorique," fig. 410.

[92] -- Lagneau: "De l'Uusage des Fleches empoisonnees chez les
Anciens Peuples l'Europe," Ac. des Insc., 2d November, 1877.

[93] -- "Les Temps Prehistoriques en Belgique," p. 151.

[94] -- "Reliquiae Aquitanicae," p. 127.

[95] -- NATURE, 1876, second week, p. 5.

[96] -- In this cave, in the second ossiferous deposit, were found
four fragments of pottery. De Puydt and Lohest: "L'Homme Contemporain
du mammouth."

[97] -- "La poterie en Belgique a l' age du mammouth," REVUE
D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887.

[98] -- AC. DES SCIENCES, Nov. 9, 1885. We must add that at a later
seance M. Cartailhac contested, if not the facts, the conclusions
deducted from them.

[99] -- But what is the value of categorical assertions of this kind
in presence of the fragments of pottery found at different levels in
Kent's Hole? One of these fragments was so rotten that when placed
in water it formed a black liquid mud as it decomposed.

[100] -- I have not space to speak here of the curious pottery found
in America. The most ancient specimens, moreover, are of much later
date than the Quaternary epoch. I can only refer those interested in
the subject to my book on "Prehistoric America," published in French by
M. Masson of Paris, and in English in America by Messrs. G. P. Putnam's
Sons.

[101] -- "De Architectura," book ii., c. i.

[102] -- On the subject of tatooing an excellent work may be consulted
by Dr Magitot ("Ass. Franc. pour l'Avancement des Sciences," Alger,
1881).

[103] -- CYPRAEA RUFA, CYPRAEA LURIDA (COMPTES RENDUS ACAD. DES
SCIENCES, vol. lxxxiv., p. 1060).

[104] -- On this point an excellent work may be consulted by
S. Reinach: "Le Musee de Saint Germain,'' p. 232.

[105] -- Vaudry: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, August 25, 1890.

[106] -- A. Bertrand: ACAD. DES INSCRIPTIONS, April 29 and May 6, 1887.

[107] -- Reinach in his "Catalogue of the Saint-Germain museum"
gives the best description I know of this now celebrated reindeer.

[108] -- A. Milne Edwards: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, May 8, 1888.

[109] -- "De Natura Rerum," book v., v. 951, etc.

[110] -- "El hombre seguramente habitaba las corazas de los Glyptodon
Pero no siempre las colocaba en la posicion que acabo de indicar." --
"La Antiguedad del Hombre en el Plata," vol. ii., p. 532.

[111] -- "On Some Recent Researches in Cone-Caves in Wales,"
PROC. GEOL., ASSO., vol. ix. "On the Flynnon, Benno, and Gwyu Caves,"
GEOL. MAG., Dec., 1886.

[112] -- REVUE DES QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIQUES, April, 1887.

[113] -- "Odyssey," book ix., v. 105 -- 124.

[114] -- AEschylus: "Prometheus Bound."

[115] -- A. Maury: "La Vieille Civilisation Scandinave," REVUE DES
DEUX MONDES, September, 1880.

[116] -- F. de Olivera: "As Racas dos Kjoekkenmoeddings de Mugem,"
Lisbon, 1881.

[117] -- REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1882.

[118] -- REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1882 and 1885.

[119] -- Brinton: "Notes on the Floridian Peninsula," Philadelphia,
1849.

[120] -- We take many of these details from Dr. Gross' excellent work
on the "Pile Dwellings of Switzerland."

[121] -- Virchow: "Drei Schadel aus der Schweiz."

[122] -- REVUE D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887, p. 607.

[123] -- G. Cotteau: NATURE, 1877, first week, p. 161.

[124] -- Rutimeyer: "Fauna der Pfahlbauten in der Schweiz."

[125] -- ANZEIGER FUR SCHWEIZERISCHE ALTERTHUMS KUNDE, April, 1884.

[126] -- Comte Conestabile: "Sur les Anciennes Immigrations en
Italie." Heilbig: "Beitrage zur Altitalischen Kultur and Kund
Geschichte," i. Band. G. Boissier: REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, October,
1879.

[127] -- BUL. DI PALETHNOLOGIA ITAL., 1879. The TERPENS of Holland,
though of much more modern date, greatly resemble the TERREMARES.

[128] -- "Ricerce di Archeologia Preistorica nella Valle della
Vibrata."

[129] -- Wylie, ARCH. BRIT., vol. xxxviii. Wylde, PROC. ROYAL IRISH
ACAD., vol. i., p. 420.

[130] -- ARCH. BRIT., vol. xxvi., p. 361. PROC. ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY,
vol. vii., p. 155.

[131] -- "Habitations Lacustres des Temps Anciens et Modernes," p. 170.

[132] -- R. Munro: "Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannoges,
with a Supplementary Chapter on Remains of Lake Dwellings in England,"
Edinburgh, 1882.

[133] -- "Prehistoric Times." Wilson: "Prehistoric Scotland."

[134] -- Nicolucci: "Scelse Lavorate, Bronzi e Monumenti di
Terra d'Otranto." Lenormant, REVUE D'ETHNOGRAPHIE, February,
1882 (BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1882 and 1884). S. Reinach: "Esquises
Archeologiques."

[135] -- "Les Premiers Ages du Metal dans le Sud-Est de l'Espagne,"
Brussels, 1887.

[136] -- Bateman: "Ten Years' Diggings," Preface, p. 11.

[137] -- W. MacAdams: "The Great Mound of Cahokia." Am. Ass.,
Minneapolis, 1883.

[138] -- Pelagaud: "Prehistoire en Syrie."

[139] -- Moore, POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, New York, March, 1880;
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ETHNOLOGIE: Berlin, 1887.

[140] -- "Monuments de Roknia," p. 18.

[141] -- Haxthausen: "Mem. sur la Russie," vol. ii., p. 204;
A. Bogdanow: "Mat. pour Servir a l'Histoire des Kourganes," Moscow,
1879; Margaret Stokes: "La Disposition des Principaux Dolmens de
l'Irlande," REV. ARCH., July, 1882.

[142] -- Sir A. de Capell Brooke: "Sketches in Spain and Morocco."

[143] -- Tissot: "Recherches sur la Geographie Comparee de la
Mauritanie Tinigitane."

[144] -- Margaret Stokes: "La Distribution des Principaux Dolmens de
l'Irlande." REVUE ARCH., July, 1882.

[145] -- Sir W. Wilde: "Ireland, Past and Present." Miss Buckland:
"Cornish and Irish Prehistoric Monuments." ANTH. INST., NOV.,
1879. O'Curry: "Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History."

[146] -- BUL. SOC. POL. DU MORBIHAN, April, 1885.

[147] -- S. Reinach, REV. ARCH., 1888. Wilson: "Megalithic Monuments
of Brittany." Cartailhac: "La France Prehistorique," in which the
measurements are given of the principal monuments of Brittany.

[148] -- A. Bertrand: "Archeologie Celtique et Gauloise," p. 105.

[149] -- Iliad, book xxiii., v. 380.

[150] -- Joshua, chap. iv., v. 13 ET SEQ.

[151] -- P. du Chatellier, MEM. SOC. D'EMULATION DES COTES-DU-NORD,
vol. xix.

[152] -- Cartailhac: "Les Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et en
Portugal."

[153] -- Verreaux, L'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1890, p. 157.

[154] -- Haxthausen: "Mem. sur la Russie Mer., Vol. ii.,
p. 204. "Fouilles des Kourganes," par M. Sarnokoasof, REVUE ARCH.,
1879. Much: MITTHEILUNGEN DER ANTH. GESELL. IN WIEN, 1878.

[155] -- On this point see the excellent work by Maury, "Les Monuments
de la Russie et les Tumulus Tchoudes," and Meynier and Eichtal's
"Tumulus des Anciens Habitants de la Siberie."

[156] -- REVUE D' ANTH., 1880, p. 655.

[157] -- MEM. DE LA SOC. ARCH. DE LA PROVINCE DE CONSTANTINE, 1863.

[158] -- "Monuments Megalithiques de la Tunisie," ANT. AFRIC., July,
1884. Dr. Rouire: "Les Dolmens de l'Enfida," BULL. GEOG. HIST., 1886.

[159] -- "Heth and Noah," pp. 191 and 192.

[160] -- "Heth and Moab," p. 249.

[161] -- "Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh," Calcutta, 1881.

[162] -- MATERIAUX, 1887, p. 458. M. Pallart ("Mon. Meg. de Mascaro"),
thinks that this dolmen was not erected by man, but that a long slab
of stone has slipped down the slopes of the mountain and rested on
two natural supports. It is not easy to accept this view.

[163] -- Dr. de Closmadeuc, agreeing, I think, with Henry Martin,
derives the name of DOL VARCHANT from DOL MARCH'-HENT, the table of
the horse of the avenue.

[164] -- COMPTE RENDU, p. 421.

[165] -- MAT., 1877, p. 470.

[166] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Bordeaux, 1872, p. 725.

[167] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1881, p. 283.

[168] -- By permission of the author, the translator adds the
following quotation from Taylor's "Origin of the Aryans," p. 17,
which is referred to by Professor Huxley in his paper on the Aryan
question in the NINETEENTH CENTURY for November, 1890. Taylor says:
"It is now contended that there is no such thing as an Aryan race in
the same sense that there is an Aryan language, and the question of
late so frequently discussed as to the origin of the Aryans can only
mean, if it means anything, a discussion of the ethnic affinities
of those numerous races which have acquired Aryan speech; with the
further question, which is perhaps insoluble, among which of these
races did Aryan speech arise and where was the cradle of that race?"

[169] -- This poet is one of those whose work is to be found in the
so-called "Black Book of Caermarthen." See also "The Four Ancient
Books of Wales, Containing the Cymric Poems Attributed to the Bards
of the Sixth Century." Edinburgh, 1868.

[170] -- Foureau, BUL. SOC. GEOG., June 1, 1883.

[171] -- Munck has just discovered a similar station at Oburg
(Hainault), where similar implements, produced by similar processes
as those at Spiennes, were discovered.

[172] -- Briart, Cornet, and Houzeau: RAPPORT SUR LES DECOUVERTES
FAITES A SPIENNES EN 1867. Malise: BUL. ACAD. ROYALE DE BELGIQUE.

[173] -- JOURNAL, ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 1818, p. 419.

[174] -- ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, Nov., 1883. MAT. Jan., 1884. Nature,
June 18, 1887.

[175] -- NATURE, June 16, 1887.

[176] -- Heilbig: "Osservazioni sopra il Commercio del l'Ambra"
(ACAD. DEI LINCEI). We must not confound the yellow amber of the Baltic
with the red amber found in Italy, in the mountains of Lebanon, and
even in some lignites in the south of France. Sadowski: "Le Commerce
de l'Ambre chez les Anciens."

[177] -- Nephrite is found in Turkestan, in Siberia, and in New
Zealand. Deposits of jadeite are known in Burmah, Jeannetay, and Michel
-- "Note stir la Nephrite ou jade de Siberie" (BUL. SOC. MINERALOGIQUE
DE FRANCE, 1881). Meyer: "Die Nephritfrage kein ethnologische Problem,"
Berlin, 1882.

[178] -- Objects made of chloromelanite have been picked up in
thirty-eight of the departments of France. No deposit of it is known
now. -- Fischer and Damour: REV. ARCH., 1877.

[179] -- Obsidian is chiefly found in the mines and quarries of Terro
de las Navajas (Mexico), known in the time of the Aztecs. Deposits
have also lately been discovered in Hungary and the island of Melos.

[180] -- Calaite differs from the turquoise by an equivalent of
aluminium; it was described by M. Damour in 1864. It is said that
traces of it have been found in the tin mines of Montebras, which
appear to have been worked from prehistoric times. -- MAT., 1881,
p. 166, etc. Cartailhac: BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1881, p. 295.

[181] -- Broca: "Les Ossements des Eyzies," Paris, 1868.

[182] -- Lartet and Chaplain-Duparc: "Une Sepulture des Anciens
Troglodytes des Pyrenees."

[183] -- BULL. SOC. ANTH., 1878, p. 215. The Baumes-Chaudes
caves are the most complete charnel houses of Neolithic times yet
discovered. Dr. Prunieres collected in them as many as three hundred
skeletons.

[184] -- "In a large proportion of the long barrows I have opened,
the skulls exhumed have been found to be cleft apparently with a blunt
weapon, such as a club or stone axe." -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xlii.,
p. 161, etc.

[185] -- Wilson: "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," 2d ed., vol. i.,
p. 187.

[186] -- Keller: "Pfahlbauten," SIEBENTER BERICHT, P. 27, Zurich, 1876.

[187] -- "Habitants Primitifs de la Scandinavie," pp. 212 and 213.

[188] -- "On the Occurrence of Fossil Bones in South America."

[189] -- JOURNAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY, May, 1882.

[190] -- Wyman: REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1874, p, 40.

[191] -- This skill was not always shown, for Dr. Topinard speaks
of a femur found at Feigneux which had been so clumsily set that one
part greatly overlapped the other. -- Bul. Soc. ANTH., P. 534.

[192] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1883, pp. 258 -- 301; 1885,
p. 412. BUL. SOC. POLYMATIQUE DU MORBIHAN, 1883, p. 12.

[193] -- NATURE, January 2, 1886.

[194] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH. DE LYON, 1883 -- 1884.

[195] -- Belucci: CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE LISBONNE, 1880, p. 471.

[196] -- "Uber trepanirte Schadel won Giebiechenstein" (VERH. DER
BERLINER GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTH., 1879, p. 64).

[197] -- MATERIAUX POUR L'HISTOIRE DE L'HOMME, Aout, 1886.

[198] -- American Ass., Detroit, 1875, Nashville, 1877; "Ancient Men of
the Great Lakes" "Additional Facts Concerning Artificial Perforation of
the Cranium in Ancient Mounds in Michigan." See also on this question
generally Fletcher "On Prehistoric Trepanning and Cranial Amulets,"
Washington, 1882.

[199] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., February 17, 1881.

[200] -- Jehan Taxil: "Traite de l'Epilepsie, Maladie Appalee
Vulgairement la Gouttete aux Petits Enfants."

[201] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1887, p. 527.

[202] -- De Baye: "Trepanations Prehistoriques," p. 28, fig. 11.

[203] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1877, p. 42. Broca constantly dwells on this
idea. "This funeral rite," he said, addressing the Anthropological
Society, "implies belief in another life."

[204] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Lille, 1874, p. 631.

[205] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1864, p. 199.

[206] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1882, pp. 143, 535.

[207] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Blois, 1884, p. 417.

[208] -- Boulogne: MEM. DE MEDECINE ET DE CHIRURGIE MILITAIRES, 3d
series, Paris, 1868. Vedrenes: "Le Trepanation du Crane" (REV. ANTH.,
October, 1886).

[209] -- On this point an admirable book should be consulted, by De
la Noe: "Enceintes Prehistoriques," MAT., 1888, p. 324, in which
the author says that positions protected by escarpments bordering
the greater party of the circumference of the ENCEINTE were at all
times chosen for the erection of fortifications. The absence of
water, however, often makes him hesitate in coming to a decision,
and leads him to think that the remains where it is absent must have
been temples for the worship of deities.

[210] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUES, Brussels, 1872, p. 318.

[211] -- "De Bello Gallico," book vii., chap. xxiii.

[212] -- Dupont: "Les Temps Prehistoriques en Belgique," p. 235.

[213] -- H. Bauduin: BUL. SOC. BELGE DE GEOGRAPHIE, 1879.

[214] -- RECUEIL DES TRAVAUX DE LA SOCIETE DE L'EURE, Evreux, 1879.

[215] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1880, p. 469.

[216] -- "Notice sur Quelques Monuments Trouves sur le Sommet des
Vosges" (SOC. DES MONUMENTS HISTORIQUES DE L'ALSACE, vol. i.).

[217] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1880, p. 295.

[218] -- We may also mention the Pen Richard in Charente Inferieure,
so well described by Cartailhac in his "France Prehistorique," p. 131.

[219] -- Arcelin: "L'Age de Pierre et la Classification Prehistorique,"
Paris, 1873. Flouest: "Notice sur le Camp de Chassey." Perrault:
"Un Foyer de l'Age de la Pierre Polie au Camp de Chassey" (MAT.,
1870). Coynart: "Fouilles au Camp de Chassey" (REV. ARCH., 1866
and 1867).

[220] -- Ponthieux, "Le Camp de Catenoy" (Oise).

[221] -- "Hist. Francorum," book i., chap. xxxii.

[222] -- De Rosemont: "Etude sur les Antiquites anterieures
aux Romains." Desjardins: "Les Camps Retranches des Environs de
Nice." Riviere: ASS. FRANCAISE, Rheims, 1880, p. 628.

[223] -- Pigorini: "Terramara dell'Eta del Bronzo Situata in Castione
de' Marchesi."

[224] -- NATURE, 1887, second week, p. 62.

[225] -- Memoranda read to the Royal Society of Antiquaries in
London (ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xlii., pp. 27 -- 76). Lane Fox: BRITISH
ASSOCIATION, Bristol, 1875. Evans: "Stone Age."

[226] -- "Solent et subterraneos specus aperire, eosque multo insuper
fimo onerant, suffugium hiemi et receptaculum frugibus" ("De Moribus
Germanorum," chap. xvi.).

[227] -- AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY.

[228] -- ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1874, p. 115; 1875, p. 127.

[229] -- Zaborowski: "Monuments Prehistoriques de la Basse Vistule."

[230] -- Ribeiro: "Notice sur Quelques Monuments Prehistoriques du
Portugal," Lisbon, 1878.

[231] -- "Noticia de Algunas Estarves e Monumentos Prehistoricos."

[232] -- H. and L. Siret: "Les Premiers Ages du Metal dans le Sud-est
de l'Espagne."

[233] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE COPENHAGUE, p. 118.

[234] -- Putnam: "Report Peabody Museum," vol. iii., p. 348.

[235] -- "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley."

[236] -- See Dr. Hibbert in the TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF
ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND, vol. iv., Appendix, p. 181.

[237] -- ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1870, p. 270.

[238] -- Pomerol: "Murailles Vitrifiees de Chateauneuf," ASS. FRANC.,
Blois, 1884.

[239] -- CONGRES SOC. SAV., Sorbonne, 1882.

[240] -- J. Marion: BUL. DES SOC. SAVANTES, 4th series,
vol. iv. Daubree: REV. ARCH., July, 1881.

[241] -- Sir J. Lubbock compares the ruins of Aztalan, in America,
with the vitrified forts of Scotland; but we think this is a mistake,
for the walls of Aztalan consisted of irregularly shaped masses of
hard, reddish clay, full of hollows, retaining the impression of
the straw or dried grass with which the clay was mixed before it
was subjected to the action of heat, whether the application of that
heat was intentional or accidental. There is nothing about this at
all resembling the melted granite of the vitrified forts.

[242] -- De Cassac: "Notes sur les Forts Vitrifies de la
Creuse." Thuot: "La Forteresse Vitrifiee du Pay de Gaudy," p. 102.

[243] -- We take most of these details from a note by M. A. de
Montaiglon published in the BULLETIN DES SOCIETES SAVANTES.

[244] -- MAT., 1881, p. 371.

[245] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1884, p. 816, etc.

[246] -- Fouque, NATURE, 1876, second week, p. 65.

[247] -- Book vi., chap. xvi. and xx. -- Pliny the Elder, uncle
and father by adoption of Pliny the Younger, lost his life in this
catastrophe, which took place in 79 A. D.

[248] -- Cigalla: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, November 12, 1866. Fouque:
ACAD. DES SCIENCES, March 25, 1867. "Un Pompei Prehistorique," REVUE
DES DEUX-MONDES, October 15, 1869.

[249] -- Schliemann: "Troy and its Remains," translated by Philip
Smith, London, Murray, 1875; "Ilios Ville et Pays des Troyens,"
translated by Mme. E. Egger, Paris, Hachette, 1885; E. Burnouf:
REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, January 1, 1874; Virchow: "Alt Trojanische
Graber and Schadel."

[250] -- Iliad, canto v., v., 692.

[251] -- Egyptologists tell us that in the fourth year of the reign
of Ramses II., or about 1406 B.C., the Hittites placed themselves
at the head of a coalition against the Egyptian Pharaoh. With these
Hittites, or Khittas, whose descendants still dwell in the north of
Syria, were the Mysians, the Lycians, the Dardanians, and other tribes.

[252] -- "Amerique Prehistorique" (Masson), translated by Nancy Bell
(N. D'Anvers), and published by Murray, London; Putnam, New York.

[253] -- "Troy and its Remains," plate ix. See also excellent essay
on the same subject by S. Reinach, which appeared in the REVUE
ARCHEOLOGIQUE in 1885. Later investigations by Dr. Schliemann also
brought to light a remarkable resemblance between the buildings at
Hissarlik and those of Tiryns.

[254] -- The British Museum contains a manuscript of the fourteenth
century, in which is a letter from Julian, written when he was emperor,
between 361 and 363 A.D., and relating to his visit to Ilium.

[255] -- The potter's wheel was, however, in use at a very remote
antiquity. In China its invention is attributed to the legendary
Emperor Hwang-Ti, who is supposed to have lived about 2697 B.C. The
wheel was also known from the very earliest times in Egypt, and Homer
(Iliad, c. xviii., v. 599) compares the light motions of the dancers
represented on the shield of Achilles to the rapid rotation of the
potter's wheel.

[256] -- Rivett-Carnac: "Memorandum on Clay Discs Called Spindle
Whorls and Votive Seals Found at Sankisa" (Behar), JOURNAL ASIATIC
SOCIETY OF BENGAL, vol. xlix., p. 1.

[257] -- "De Sacris AEdificiis," ch. ix., p. 128.

[258] -- It is interesting to note the discovery of urns closely
resembling those of Troy, and containing human remains, in Persia (Sir
W. Ouseley: "Travels in Persia"), and at Travancore, in the south of
Malabar, where, according to tradition, they were intended to receive
the remains of young virgins sacrificed in honor of the gods. --
"Some Vestiges of Girl Sacrifices," JOURN. ANTH. INST., May, 1882.

[259] -- The vulva was sometimes represented by a large triangle. The
same peculiarity occurs on some black marble statuettes, found in
the tombs of the Cyclades and Attica. Three such statuettes from
the island of Paros are in the Louvre, and the British Museum owns
a rich collection. Dr. Schliemann also mentions a female idol made
in lead of very coarse workmanship, in which the sexual organs are
represented by a double cross.

[260] -- The PHALLUS was, as we have already stated, the symbol of
generative force. Its worship extended throughout India and Syria;
a gigantic Phallus adorned the temple of the mother of the gods at
Hierapolis, and it was carried in triumph in processions through
Egypt and Greece. It is still worshipped in some places at the
present day. Near Niombo, in Africa, there is a temple containing
several phallic statues; at Stanley-Pool the fete of the PHALLUS is
celebrated with obscene rites. The Kroomen observe similar ceremonies
at the time of the new moon, and in Japan on certain fete clays young
girls flourish gigantic PHALLI at the end of long poles. The PHALLUS
is also often represented on the monuments of Central America -- on
the stones of the temples of Izamal and the island of Zapatero, for
instance. Possibly the worship of the productive and generative forces
of nature was the earliest religion of many primitive peoples, but
all that is said on the subject must be sifted with considerable care.

[261] -- Similar hatchets of pure copper (Fig. 2) have been found in
Hungary, and Butler ("Prehistoric Wisconsin") speaks of them also as
being found in North America.

[262] -- The tin used is making bronze probably came from Spain or
Cornwall, perhaps also from the Caucasus, where small quantities of
it are still found. It was doubtless imported by the Phoenicians, the
great navigators of antiquity. See Rudolf Virchow's "Das Gruberfeld
Von Koban im Laude der Osseten," Berlin, 1883.

[263] -- This idea gains probability from the fact that the remains
of a key were picked up near the treasure, which we have reason to
suppose belonged to Priam.

[264] -- The gold may have come from the mines of Astyra, not far
from Troy.

[265] -- Electrum was the ancient name for amber, but was also given
to an alloy of gold and silver, the yellow color of which resembles
that of amber.

[266] -- Dr. Schliemann gives a very careful description of all these
objects. See "Troy and its Remains," Figs. 174 to 497, pp. 260 to 353.

[267] -- The qr'hdemnon or diadem of the wife of Menelaus is a
narrow fillet from which hang several little chains formed of links
alternating with small leaves, and ending in rather larger leaves,
these leaves all representing the woman with the owl's head, so
characteristic of Trojan art. The golden objects are all soldered
with the same metals, which modern goldsmiths seem unable to do. At
Tiryns, which we believe to have been contemporary with Troy, the art
of soldering was unknown, and ornaments were merely screwed together.

[268] -- Bastian, ZEITSCHRIFT DER BERLINER GESELLSCHAFT FUR ERDKUNDE,
vol. xiii., plates 1 and 2.

[269] -- If we accept 1200 B.C. as the date of the Trojan war and
the eighth century as that of the foundation of Ilium, the towns
that succeeded each other on the hill of Hissarlik only lasted four
centuries altogether.

[270] -- In the Vedas the word SWASTI is often used in the sense of
happiness or good-fortune.

[271] -- Comte Goblet d'Auriella, BUL. ACAD. ROYALE DE BELGIQUE, 1889.

[272] -- G. Atkinson, CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE, Lisbon, 1880, p. 466.

[273] -- "Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et Portugal," figs 410, 411,
412, p. 286.

[274] -- Aussland, 1883. ZEITSCHRIFT FUR MUSEOLOGIE AND ANTEQUATEN
KUNDE, 1884. Musoeon, 1888 and 1889.

[275] -- Virchow, who visited the remains at Hissarlik, treats this
idea as FURCHTBAREN UNSINN (ridiculous nonsense).

[276] -- The true name of this cave is the BETCHE AUX ROCHES. A very
excellent essay on the subject was read by the explorers, MM. de
Puydt and Lohest, in August, 1886, to the Historic Society of Belgium,
and "Les Fouilles de Spy," by Dr. Collignon, published in the REVUE
D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887, may also be consulted. Excavations were also
carried on in the same cave in 1879 by M. Bucquoy (BUL. SOC. ANTH. DE
BELGIQUE, 1887). He distinguished five ossiferous levels and picked up
some flints of the Mousterien type, and even some Chelleen hatchets,
to which he gave the name of coups DE POING. -- Fraipont and Lohest;
"Recherches sur les Ossements Humains Decouvertes dans les Depots
Quaternaires d'un grotte a Spy."

[277] -- We borrow these details from a valuable work by Cartailhac
(MAL., 1886, p. 441; REV. D'ANTH., 1886, p. 448). The conclusions of
our learned colleague are that we really know nothing of the funeral
rites of the men of Chelles and Moustier, and that it is to the
Solutreen period that we must assign the first really authenticated
tombs. Cartailhac's admirable book, "La France Prehistorique," p. 302,
should also be consulted.

[278] -- "Ipui Antichi Sepolcri dell Italia."

[279] -- ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, vol. xxii.

[280] -- MATERIAUX, 1885, p. 299.

[281] -- This dolmen was carefully excavated by MM. Hahn and
Millescamps, BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1883, p. 312.

[282] -- Riviere; CONGRES DES SCIENCES GEOGRAPHIQUES, Paris, 1878.

[283] -- ATTI DELLA R. ACAD. DEI LINCEI, 1879 -- 1880. Pigorini:
BUL. DE PAL. ITALIANA, 1880, p. 33.

[284] -- SOC. ANTH. DE MUNICH, 1886.

[285] -- SOC. ANTH. DE LYON, 1889.

[286] -- "Histoire du Travail en Gaule," p. 24.

[287] -- Troyon: "De l' Attitude Repliee dans la Sepulture Antique,"
REVUE ARCH., 1864.

[288] -- MATERIAUX, 1875, p. 327.

[289] -- A. Nicaise: MATERIAUX, 1880, p. 186.

[290] -- ARCH. PREHISTORIQUE, p. 178.

[291] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE BRUXELLES, p. 299.

[292] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1876, p. 191. Grad: NATURE, 1877, 1st week,
p. 314.

[293] -- MEMORIE SULLE SCOPERTE PALEOETHNOLOGICHE DELLA CAMPAGNA
ROMANA. Pigorini adds in his turn: "I CADAVERI ERANO ABITUALMENTE
ADAGIATI SUL FIANCO SINISTRO, COL CRANIO APPOGIATO SULLA MANO SINISTRE
E LE GINOCCHIA ALQUANTO PIEGATE IN GUISA CHE TAVOLTA SI TROVARONO LE
TIBIE ASSAI PROSSIME ALLA CASSA TORACICA."

[294] -- Pallery: "Mon. Megalithiques de Mascara," BUL. SOC. ETHN.,
1887.

[295] -- Bancroft: "The Native Races of the Pacific," vol. i., pp. 365,
etc. Moreno: "Les Paraderos de la Patagonie," REV. D'ANTH., 1874.

[296] -- "Necropole de Colonna, prov. de Grosseto," R. ACAD. DEI
LINCEI, Roma, 1885.

[297] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1880, p. 895.

[298] -- Abbe Baudry et Ballereau: "Les Puits Funeraires du Bernard,"
La Roche-sur-Yon, 1873.

[299] -- "Renseignements sur une Ancienne Necropole Manzabotta,
pres de Bologna," Bologna, 1871.

[300] -- Gross: "Les Proto-Helvetes." Morel-Fatio: "Sepultures des
Populations Lacustres de Chamblandes." As at Auvernier, a great many
bears' tusks were found lying near the dead, which may possibly also
have had something to do with a funeral rite.

[301] -- D. Charnay: NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, January, 1881.

[302] -- Stuart: "The Early Modes of Burial."

[303] -- Vidal Seneze; BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1877, p. 561.

[304] -- "Histoire des Incas," Paris, 1744, chap. xviii.

[305] -- Conestabile: "De l'incineration chez les Etrusques."

[306] -- A. Bertrand: "Arch. Celtique et Gauloise," Introduction.

[307] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Nantes, 1875; Havre, 1877.

[308] -- Luco: "Exposition de Trois Monuments Quadrilateres par feu
James Miln," Vannes, 1883.

[309] -- P. du Chatellier: "Mem. Soc. d'Emulation des Cotes-du-Nord,"
Saint Brieuc, 1883.

[310] -- PROCEEDINGS SOC. ANTH. OF SCOTLAND, January 11, 1886.

[311] -- "On the Ancient Modes of Sepulchre in the Orkneys" (BRITISH
ASSOCIATION, 1877).

[312] -- Kohn and Mehlis: "Zur Vorgeschichte des Menschen im Ostlichen
Europa," Iena, 1879.

[313] -- Hochstetter: "Die neueste Graber Funde von Watsch. und
S. Margarethen und der Kultur Kreiss der Hallstadter Period," Wien,
1883. Siebenter: "Bericht der Prehistorischen Commission," Wien, 1884.

[314] -- In these tombs were found 61 gold objects, 5,574 bronze,
593 iron, 270 amber, 73 glass, and 1,813 terra-cotta. A. Bertrand:
REV. D ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1883.

[315] -- SMITHSONIAN REPORT, 1881.

[316] -- Putnam, xii. and XX. REPORTS OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM.

[317] -- "De Bello Gallico," book vi., cap. xix. Consult also Pomponius
Mela: "De Situ Orbis," book iii., cap. ii.

[318] -- In his fruitful excavations of Gallic, Gallo-Roman, and
Merovingian tombs, Moreau collected no less than 31,515 flint celts
or hatchets, which had evidently been votive offerings. See Album
de Caranda: "Fouilles de Sainte Restitute, de Trugny, d'Armentiere,
d'Arcy, de Brenny," etc.