Although classed in the lowest rank on account of the small extent of its territory and the number of its inhabitants, the Danish nation is, nevertheless, one of the most important in Europe, in virtue of the eminence to which it has attained in science and arts. This valiant, although numerically speaking, inconsiderable people, can boast of a great number of distinguished men who are an honour to science. The unwearied researches of their archÆologists and antiquarians have ransacked the dust of bygone ages, in order to call into new life the features of a vanished world. Their labours, guided by the observations of naturalists, have brought out into the clear light of day some of the earliest stages in man's existence and progress.

There is no part of the world more adapted than Denmark to this kind of investigation. Antiquities may be met with at every step; the real point in question is to know how to examine them properly, so as to obtain from them important revelations concerning the manners, customs, and manufactures of the pre-historic inhabitants. The Museum of Copenhagen, which contains antiquities from various Scandinavian states, is, in this respect, without a rival in the world.

Among the objects arranged in this well-stocked Museum a great many specimens may be observed which have come from the so-called kitchen-middens.

In the first place, what are these kjoekken-moeddings, or kitchen-middens, with their uncouth Scandinavian name?

Immense accumulations of shells have been observed on different points of the Danish coast, chiefly in the north, where the sea enters those narrow deep creeks, known by the name of fiords. These deposits are not generally raised more than about 3 feet above the level of the sea; but in some steep places their altitude is greater. They are about 3 to 10 feet in thickness, and from 100 to 200 feet in width; their length is sometimes as much as 1000 feet, with a width of from 150 to 250 feet. On some of the more level shores they form perfect hills, on which, as at Havelse, windmills are sometimes built.

What do we meet with in these heaps? An immense quantity of sea-shells, especially those of the oyster, broken bones of mammiferous animals, remains of birds and fish; and, lastly, some roughly-wrought flints.

The first idea formed with regard to these kitchen-middens was that they were nothing but banks of fossil shells, beds which had formerly been submerged, and subsequently brought to light by an upheaval of the earth caused by some volcanic cause. But M. Steenstrup, a Danish savant, opposed this opinion, basing his contradiction on the fact that these shells belong to four different species which are never found together, and consequently they must have been brought together by man. M. Steenstrup also called attention to the fact that almost all these shells must have belonged to full-grown animals, and that there were hardly any young ones to be found amongst them. A peculiarity of this kind is an evident indication of the exercise of some rational purpose, in fact, of an act of the human will.

When all the dÉbris and relics which we have enumerated were discovered in these kitchen-middens, when the remains of hearths—small spots which still retained traces of fire—were found in them, the origin of these heaps were readily conjectured. Tribes once existed there who subsisted on the products of fishing and hunting, and threw out round their cabins the remains of their meals, consisting especially of the dÉbris of shell-fish. These remains gradually accumulated, and constituted the considerable heaps which we are discussing; hence the name of kjoekken-moedding, composed of two words—kjoekken, kitchen; and moedding, heap of refuse. These "kitchen-middens," as they are called, are, therefore, the refuse from the meals of the primitive population of Denmark.

If we consider the heaps of oyster-shells and other dÉbris which accumulate in the neighbourhood of eating-houses in certain districts, we may readily understand, comparing great things with small, how these Danish kitchen-middens were produced. I myself well recollect having noticed in the environs of Montpellier small hillocks of a similar character, formed by the accumulation of oyster-shells, mussels, and clams.

When the conviction was once arrived at that these kitchen-middens were the refuse of the meals of the primitive inhabitants, the careful excavation of all these heaps scattered along the Danish coast became an extremely interesting operation. It might be justly expected that some data would be collected as to the customs and manufactures of the ancient dwellers in these countries. A commission was, in consequence, appointed by the Danish Government to examine these deposits, and to publish the results of its labours.

This commission was composed of three savants, each of whom were eminent in their respective line—Steenstrup, the naturalist, Forchhammer, a geologist, and the archÆologist, Worsaae—and performed its task with as much talent as zeal. The observations which were made are recorded in three reports presented to the Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen. From these documents are borrowed most of the details which follow.

Before proceeding to acquaint our readers with the facts brought to light by the Danish commission, it will be well to remark that Denmark does not stand alone in possessing these kitchen-middens. They have been discovered in England—in Cornwall and Devonshire—in Scotland, and even in France, near HyÈres (Bouches-du-RhÔne).[18]

MM. Sauvage and Hamy have pointed out to M. de Mortillet the existence of deposits of this kind in the Pas-de-Calais. They may be noticed, say these naturalists, at La Salle (Commune of Outreau) at certain parts of the coast of Portel, and especially a very large heap at Cronquelets (Commune of Etaples.) They chiefly consist of the cardium edule, which appear to abound in the kitchen-middens of the Pas-de-Calais.

Messrs. Evans, Prestwich, and Lubbock observed one of these deposits at Saint-Valery, near the mouth of the Somme. Added to this, they have been described by various travellers as existing in different parts of the world. Dampier studied them in Australia, and Darwin in Tierra del Fuego, where deposits of the same character are now in the course of formation. M. Pereira da Costa found one on the coast of Portugal; Sir C. Lyell has testified to the existence of others on the coasts of Massachusetts and Georgia, in the United States; M. Strobel, on the coasts of Brazil. But those in Denmark are the only deposits of this kind which have been the subject of investigations of a deliberate and serious character.

Almost all these kitchen-middens are found on the coast, along the fiords, where the action of the waves is not much felt. Some have, however, been found several miles inland; but this must be owing to the fact that the sea once occupied these localities, from which it has subsequently retired. They are not to be met with on some of the Danish coasts, as those of the western side; this, on the one hand, may be caused by their having been washed away by the sea, which has there encroached on the land, or, on the other hand, by the fact that the western coast was much less sheltered than the other parts of the Danish peninsula. They are not unfrequently to be found in the adjacent islands.

These kitchen-middens form, in a general way, undulating mounds, which sink in a gentle incline from the centre to the circumference. The spot where they are thickest indicates the site of the habitations of man. Sometimes, we may notice one principal hillock, surrounded by smaller mounds; or else, in the middle of the heaps, there is a spot which must have been the site of the encampment.

These refuse deposits are almost entirely made up of shells of various kinds of molluscs; the principal species are the oyster, the cockle, the mussel, and the periwinkle. Others, such as whelks, helices (edible snails), nassa, and trigonella, are also found; but they are comparatively few in number.

Fishes' bones are discovered in great abundance in the kitchen-middens. They belong to the cod, herring, dab, and eel. From this we may infer that the primitive inhabitants of Denmark were not afraid of venturing out to brave the waves of the sea in their frail skiffs; for the herring and the cod cannot, in fact, be caught except at some little distance from the shore.

Mammalian bones are also plentifully distributed in the Danish kitchen-middens. Those most commonly met with are the remains of the stag, the roe, and the boar, which, according to M. Steenstrup's statement, make up ninety-seven hundredths of the whole mass. Others are the relics of the urus, the wolf, the dog, the fox, the wild-cat, the lynx, the marten, the otter, the porpoise, the seal, the water-rat, the beaver and the hedgehog.

The bison, the reindeer, the elk, the horse, and the domestic ox have not left behind them any trace which will permit us to assume that they existed in Denmark at the period when these deposits were formed.

Amongst other animals, we have mentioned the dog. By various indications, we are led to the belief that this intelligent creature had been at this time reduced to a state of domesticity. It has been remarked that a large number of the bones dispersed in these kitchen-middens are incomplete; exactly the same parts are almost always missing, and certain bones are entirely wanting. M. Steenstrup is of opinion that these deficiencies may be owing to the agency of dogs, which have made it their business to ransack the heaps of bones and other matters which were thrown aside by their masters. This hypothesis was confirmed, in his idea, when he became convinced, by experience, that the bones which were deficient in these deposits were precisely those which dogs are in the habit of devouring, and that the remaining portions of those which were found were not likely to have been subject to their attacks on account of their hardness and the small quantity of assimilable matter which was on or in them.

Although primitive man may have elevated the dog to the dignity of being his companion and friend, he was, nevertheless, sometimes in the habit of eating him. No doubt he did not fall back upon this last resort except in cases when all other means of subsistence failed him. Bones of the dog, broken by the hand of man, and still bearing the marks of having been cut with a knife, are amongst the remains found, and place the fact beyond any question.

We find, besides, the same taste existing here which we have seen manifested in other ages and different countries. All the long bones have been split in order to extract their marrow—the dainty so highly appreciated by man during the epochs of the reindeer and the mammoth.

Some remains of birds have been found in the kitchen-middens; but most of the species are aquatic—a fact which may be readily explained by the seaboard position of the men who formed these deposits.

As the result of this review of the various substances which were made use of for food by the men of the polished-stone epoch, we may infer that they were both hunters and fishermen.

Animals of rapid pace were hunted down by means of the dart or arrow, and any more formidable prey was struck down at close quarters by some sharp stone weapon.

Fishing was practised, as at the present day, by means of the line and net.

We have already seen that men, during the reindeer epoch, probably used hooks fastened at the end of lines. These hooks, as we have before remarked, were made with splinters of bone or reindeer horn. During the polished-stone epoch this fishing instrument was much improved, and they now possessed the real hook with a recurvate and pointed end. This kind of hook was found by Dr. Uhlmann in one of the most ancient lacustrine stations of Switzerland. But a curved hook was both difficult to make and also not very durable; instead of it was used another and more simple sort—the straight skewer fixed to serve as a hook. This is a simple fragment of bone, about an inch long, very slender and pointed at the two ends (fig. 77). Sometimes it is a little flattened in the middle, or bored with a hole, into which the line was fastened.

This little splinter of bone, when hidden by the bait and fastened to a line, was swallowed by the fish and could not be disgorged, one of the pointed ends being certain to bury itself in the entrails of the creature.

Some of our readers will perhaps be surprised to learn that men of the polished-stone epoch were in the habit of fishing with nets; but it is a fact that cannot be called into question, for the very conclusive reason, that the remains of these nets have been found.

How could it possibly come to pass that fishing-nets of the polished-stone epoch should have been preserved to so late a period as our times? This is exactly the question we are about to answer.

On the lakes of Switzerland and of other countries, there used to exist certain habitations of man. These are the so-called lacustrine dwellings which we shall have hereafter to consider in some considerable detail, when we come to the Bronze Age. The men who lived on these lakes were necessarily fishers; and some traces of their fishing-nets have been discovered by a circumstance which chemistry finds no difficulty in explaining. Some of these lake-dwellings were destroyed by fire; as, for instance, the lacustrine settlements of Robenhausen and Wangen in Switzerland. The outsides of these cabins, which were almost entirely constructed of wood, burnt, of course, very readily; but the objects inside, chiefly consisting of nets—the sole wealth of these tribes—could not burn freely for want of oxygen, but were only charred with the heat. They became covered with a slight coating of some empyreumatic or tarry matter—an excellent medium for insuring the preservation of any organic substance. These nets having been scorched by the fire, fell into the water with the dÉbris of the hut, and, in consequence of their precipitate fall, never having come in actual contact with the flame, have been preserved almost intact at the bottom of the lakes. When, after a long lapse of centuries, they have been again recovered, these dÉbris have been the means of affording information as to the manufacture both of the fishing-nets, and also as to the basket-work, vegetable provisions, &c., of these remote ages.

In one of Dr. Keller's papers on these lacustrine dwellings, of which we shall have more to say further on, we find a description and delineation of certain fishing-nets which were recovered from the lake of Robenhausen. In the Museum of Saint-Germain we inspected with curiosity several specimens of these very nets, and we here give a representation of one of them. There were nets with wide meshes like that shown in fig. 78, and also some more closely netted. The mesh is a square one, and appears to have been made on a frame by knotting the string at each point of intersection. All these nets are made of flax, for hemp had not yet been cultivated.

These nets were held suspended in the water by means of floats, made, not of cork, but of the thick bark of the pine-tree, and were held down to the bottom of the water by stone weights. We give a representation here (fig. 79), of one of these stone weights taken from a specimen exhibited in the Museum of Saint-Germain.

These stone weights, large quantities of which are to be seen in museums, and especially in that of Saint-Germain, are, in almost every case, nothing but pebbles bored through the centre. Sometimes, however, they were round pieces of soft stone, having a hole made in the middle. Through this hole the cord was passed and fastened by a knot on the other side. By means of the floats and weights the nets were made to assume any position in the water which was wished.

The large size of the meshes in the nets belonging to the polished-stone epoch proves, that in the lakes and rivers of this period the fish that were used for food were of considerable dimensions. Added to this, however, the monstrous hooks belonging to this epoch which have been found in the Seine tend to corroborate this hypothesis.

Thus, then, the art of fishing had arrived in the polished-stone epoch to a very advanced stage of improvement.

In plate 80 we give a representation of fishing as carried on during the polished-stone epoch.

Returning to the subject of the ancient Danes, we must add, that these men, who lived on the sea-coasts, clad themselves in skins of beasts, rendered supple by the fat of the seal and marrow extracted from the bones of some of the large mammals. For dwelling-places they used tents likewise made of skins prepared in the same way.

Arts and Manufactures.—What degree of skill in this respect was attained by the men who lived during the polished-stone epoch? To give an answer to this question, we must again ransack those same kitchen-middens which have been the means of furnishing us with such accurate information as to the system of food of the man of that period. We shall also have to turn our attention to the remains found in the principal caves of this epoch.

An examination of the instruments found in the kitchen-middens shows us that the flints are in general of a very imperfect type, with the exception, however, of the long splinters or knives, the workmanship of which indicates a considerable amount of skill.

Fig. 81 represents a flint knife from one of the Danish deposits, delineated in the Museum of Saint-Germain; and fig. 82 a nucleus, that is, a piece of flint from which splinters have been taken off, which were intended to be used as knives.

We also give a representation of a hatchet (fig. 83) and a scraper (fig. 84), which came from the same source.

Besides these instruments, bodkins, spear-heads, and stones for slings have also been found in the kitchen-middens, without taking into account a quantity of fragments of flint which do not appear to have been wrought with any special purpose in view, and were probably nothing but rough attempts, or the mere refuse of the manufacture.

In the same deposits there are also found a good many pebbles, which, according to the general opinion, must have been used as weights to sink the fishing-nets to the bottom of the water. Some are hollowed out with a groove all round them, like that depicted in fig. 86, which is designed from a specimen in the Museum of Saint-Germain. Others have a hole bored through the middle. This groove or hole was, doubtless, intended to hold the cord which fastened the stone weight to the net.

Weapons and Tools.—We shall now pass on to the weapons and tools which were in use among the people in the north of Europe during the period we are considering.

During the latter period of the polished-stone epoch working in stone attained to a really surprising degree of perfection among the people of the North. It is, in fact, difficult to understand how, without making use of any metallic tools, men could possibly impart to flint, when fashioned into weapons and implements of all kinds, those regular and elegant shapes which the numerous excavations that have been set on foot are constantly bringing to light. The Danish flint may, it is true, be wrought with great facility; but nevertheless, an extraordinary amount of skill would be none the less necessary in order to produce that rectitude of outline and richness of contour which are presented by the Danish specimens of this epoch—specimens which will not be surpassed even in the Bronze Age.

The hatchets found in the north of Europe, belonging to the polished-stone epoch, differ very considerably from the hatchets of France and Belgium. The latter are rounded and bulging at the edges; but the hatchets made use of by the people of the North (fig. 87) were flatter and cut squarely at the edge. They were nearly in the shape of a rectangle or elongated trapezium, with the four angles cut off. Their dimensions are sometimes considerable; some have been found which measured nearly 16 inches in length.

Independently of this type, which is the most plentiful, the northern tribes used also to manufacture the drilled hatchet, which is combined in various ways with the hammer. In these instruments, the best workmanship and the most pleasing shapes are to be noticed. The figs. 88, 89 and 90, designed in the Museum of Saint-Germain, from authentic specimens sent by the Museum of Copenhagen, represent double-edged axes and axe-hammers. They are all pierced with a round hole in which the handle was fixed. The cutting edge describes an arc of a circle, and the other end is wrought into sharp angular edges.

These hatchets are distinguished from those of the reindeer epoch by a characteristic which enables us to refer them without hesitation to their real date, even in cases in which they have not yet been subject to the operation of polishing. The hatchets of the reindeer epoch have their cutting edge at the narrowest end, whilst those of the polished-stone epoch are sharp at their widest end. This observation does not apply specially to the Danish hatchets; it refers equally to those of other European countries.

The spear-heads are masterpieces of good taste, patience, and skill. There are two sorts of them. The most beautiful (figs. 91, 92) assume the shape of a laurel-leaf; they are quite flat, and chipped all over with an infinite amount of art. Their length is as much as 15 inches. Others are shorter and thicker in shape, and terminate at the base in an almost cylindrical handle. Sometimes they are toothed at the edge (fig. 93). These spear-heads were evidently fixed at the end of a staff, like the halberds of the middle ages and the modern lance.

The poniards (fig. 94) are no less admirable in their workmanship than the spear-heads, from which they do not perceptibly differ, except in having a handle, which is flat, wide, solid, and made a little thicker at the end. This handle is always more or less ornamented, and is sometimes covered with delicate carving. To chip a flint in this way must have required a skilful and well-practised hand.

After these somewhat extraordinary instruments, we must mention the arrow-heads, the shapes of which are rather varied in their character.

The arrow-heads most frequently found are formed in the shape of a triangular prism, terminating at the lower end in a stem intended to be inserted into a stick (fig. 95); others are deeply indented at the base and quite flat. Many are finely serrated on the edges, and occasionally even on the inside edge of the indentation.

Figs. 95, 96, 97, and 98 represent the various types of Danish arrow-heads, all of which are in the Museum of Saint-Germain, and from which these designs were made.

The chisels and gouges equally merit a special mention.

The chisel (fig. 99) is a kind of quadrangular prism, chipped in a bevel down to the base.

The gouges are hollowed out on one of their faces, so as to act as the tool the name of which has been applied to them.

We next come to some curious instruments, of which we have given designs taken from the specimens in the Museum of Saint-Germain; the purpose they were applied to is still problematical. They are small flakes, or blades, in the shape of a crescent (figs. 100, 101). The inner edge, which was either straight or concave, is usually serrated like a saw; the convex side must have been fixed into a handle; for the traces of the handle may still be detected upon many of them. These instruments were probably made use of as scrapers in the preparation of skins for garments; perhaps, also, they were used as knives or as saws.

We must now turn our attention to instruments made of bone or stag's horn. They are much less numerous than those of stone, and have nothing about them of a very remarkable character. The only implement that is worthy of notice is the harpoon (fig. 102). It is a carved bone, and furnished with teeth all along one side, the other edge being completely smooth. The harpoon of the reindeer epoch was decidedly superior to it.

On account of its singularity, we must not omit to mention an object made of bone, composed of a wide flat plate, from which spring seven or eight teeth of considerable length, and placed very close together; there is a kind of handle, much narrower, and terminating in a knob, like the top of a walking-stick. This is probably one of the first combs which ever unravelled the thickly-grown heads of hair of primitive man.

It is a well-known fact that amber is very plentiful on the coasts of the Baltic. Even in the Stone Age, it was already much appreciated by the northern tribes, who used to make necklaces of it, either by merely perforating the rough morsels of amber and stringing them in a row, or by cutting them into spherical or elliptical beads, as is the case nowadays.

Fig. 104 represents a necklace and also various other ornaments made of yellow amber, which have been drawn from specimens in the Museum of Saint-Germain.

Although these northern tribes of the polished-stone epoch were such skilful workmen in flint, they were, nevertheless, but poor hands at pottery. The dÉbris of vessels collected from the Danish kitchen-middens, and also from the peat-bogs and tombs, are in every way rough, and testify to a very imperfect knowledge of the art of moulding clay. They may be said to mark the first efforts of a manufacturing art which is just springing into existence, which is seeking for the right path, although not, as yet, able to find it. The art of pottery (if certain relics be relied on) was more advanced at a more ancient period, that is, during the reindeer epoch.

We have already stated that during the reindeer epoch there existed certain manufactories of weapons and tools, the productions of which were distributed all round the adjacent districts, although over a somewhat restricted circle. In the epoch at which we have now arrived, certain workshops—for really this is the proper name to give them—acquired a remarkable importance, and their relations became of a much more extensive character. In several of the Belgian caves, flints have been found which must have come from the celebrated workshop of Grand-Pressigny, situated in that part of the present France which forms the department of Indre-et-Loire, and, from their very peculiar character, are easily recognisable. Commerce and manufacture had then emerged from their merely rudimentary state, and were entering into a period of activity implying a certain amount of civilisation.

The great principle of division of labour had already been put into practice, for there were special workshops both for the shaping and polishing of flints.

The most important of all the workshops which have been noticed in France is, unquestionably, that of Grand-Pressigny, which we have already mentioned. It was discovered by Dr. LÉveillÉ, the medical man of the place; but, to tell the truth, it is not so much in itself a centre of manufacture as a series of workshops distributed in the whole neighbourhood round Pressigny.

At the time of this discovery, that is in 1864, flints were found in thousands imbedded in the vegetable mould on the surface of the soil, over a superficies of 12 to 14 acres. The AbbÉ Chevalier, giving an account of this curious discovery to the AcadÉmie des Sciences at Paris, wrote: "It is impossible to walk a single step without treading on some of these objects."

The workshops of Grand-Pressigny furnish us with a considerable variety of instruments. We find hatchets in all stages of manufacture, from the roughest attempt up to a perfectly polished weapon. We find, also, long flakes or flint-knives cleft off with a single blow with astonishing skill.

All these objects, even the most beautiful among them, are nevertheless defective in some respect or other; hence it may be concluded that they were the refuse thrown aside in the process of manufacture. In this way may be explained the accumulation of so many of these objects in the same spot.

There were likewise narrow and elongated points forming a kind of piercer, perfectly wrought; also scrapers, and saws of a particular type which seem to have been made in a special workshop. They are short and wide, and have at each end a medial slot intended to receive a handle.

But the objects which are the most numerous of all, and those which obviate any doubt that Pressigny was once an important centre of the manufacture of flint, are the nuclei (fig. 105), or the remnants of the lump of flint, from which the large blades known under the name of knives were cleft off. Some of these lumps which we have seen in the Museum of St. Germain were as much as 11 and 13 inches in length; but the greater part did not exceed 7 inches. The labourers of Touraine, who often turn up these flints with their plough-shares, call them pounds of butter, looking at the similarity of shape. At the present day these nuclei are plentiful in all the collections of natural history and geology.

A strange objection has been raised against the antiquity of the hatchets, knives, and weapons found at Pressigny. M. EugÈne Robert has asserted that these flints were nothing else but the refuse of the siliceous masses which, at the end of the last century and especially at the beginning of the present, were used in the manufacture of gun-flints!

The AbbÉ Bourgeois, M. Penguilly l'Haridon, and Mr. John Evans did not find much difficulty in proving the slight foundation there was for this criticism. In the department of Loire-et-Cher, in which the gun-flint manufacture still exists, the residue from the process bears no resemblance whatever to the nuclei of Pressigny; the fragments are much less in bulk, and do not present the same constantly-occurring and regular shapes. Added to this, they are never chipped at the edges, like a great number of the flakes coming from the workshops of Touraine.

But another and altogether peremptory argument is that the flints of Pressigny-le-Grand are unfitted, on account of the texture, for the manufacture of gun-flints. Moreover, the records of the Artillery DepÔt, as remarked by M. Penguilly l'Haridon, librarian of the Artillery Museum, do not make mention of the locality of Pressigny having ever been worked for this purpose. Lastly, the oldest inhabitants of the commune have testified that they never either saw or heard of any body of workmen coming into the district to work flints. M. EugÈne Robert's hypothesis, which MM. Decaisne and Elie de Beaumont thought right to patronise, is, therefore, as much opposed to facts as to probability.

Very few polished flints are found in the workshops of Pressigny-le-Grand; it is, therefore, imagined that their existence commenced before the polished-stone epoch. According to this idea, the nuclei would belong to a transitional epoch between the period of chipped stone, properly so called, and that of polished stone. The first was just coming to an end, but the second had not actually commenced. In other words, most of the Pressigny flints have the typical shapes and style of cutting peculiar to the polished-stone age, but the polishing is wanting.

This operation was not practised in the workshops of Pressigny until some considerable period after they were founded, and were already in full operation. In the neighbourhood of this locality a number of polishers have been found of a very remarkable character. They are large blocks of sandstone (fig. 106), furrowed all over, or only on a portion of their surface, with grooves of various depths, in which objects might be polished by an energetic friction.

Some polishers of the same kind, which have been found in various departments, are rather different from the one we have just named. Thus, one specimen which was found by M. Leguay in the environs of Paris, in the burial-places of Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, of which we give a representation further on, is provided not only with grooves but also hollows of a basin-like shape, and of some little depth.

The polishing of the flints was carried into effect by rubbing them against the bottom of these hollows, which were moistened by water, and no doubt contained siliceous dust of a harder nature than the stone which had to be polished.

We must here pause for a moment to remark that all these operations which were carried out by our ancestors in fashioning the flint could not fail to have presented certain difficulties, and must have required a remarkable development of intelligence and skill.

Working flints into shape, which appears at first sight a very simple matter, is, however, a rather complicated operation, on account of the properties of this mineral substance and the beds in which it lies.

In its natural state the flint presents itself in the shape of nearly round lumps, which are brittle, but nevertheless very hard, and which, like glass, can be split in any direction by a blow, so as to furnish scales with sharp edges. In consequence of this circumstance, all that would be requisite in order to produce sharp objects is to cleave off flakes in the shape of a knife or poniard, by striking a flint, held in the left hand, with another and harder flint or hammer. Instead of holding in the left hand the flint which was to be wrought, it might also be placed on a rest and, being held fast with the left hand, suitable blows might be applied to the stone.

We must not, however, omit to mention, that to enable the flint to be cut up into sharp splinters and to be broken in any desired direction, it is necessary for it to have been very recently extracted from the bosom of the earth; it must possess the humidity which is peculiar to it, with which it is impregnated when in its natural bed. If pieces of flint are exposed to the open air they cannot afterwards be readily broken with any degree of regularity; they then afford nothing but shapeless and irregular chips, of an entirely different character from that which would be required in fashioning them. This moisture was well known to the workmen who used to manufacture the gun-flints, and was called the quarry damp.

The necessity that the flint should be wrought when newly extracted from the earth, and that the stones should only be dug just in proportion as they were wanted, brought about as a proximate result the creation and working of mines and quarries, which are thus almost as ancient as humanity itself. Being unable to make use of flints which had been dried in the air, and consequently rendered unfit for being wrought, the workmen were compelled to make excavations, and to construct galleries, either covered or exposed to the open air, to employ wooden battening, shores, supports; in short, to put in use the whole plant which is required for working a stone-quarry. As, in order not to endanger the lives of the labourers, it was found necessary to prevent any downfalls, they were induced to follow out a certain methodical system in their excavations, by giving a sufficient thickness to the roofs of the galleries, by sinking shafts, by building breast-walls, and by adopting the best plan for getting out the useless detritus. When, as was often the case, water came in so as to hinder the miners, it was necessary to get rid of it in order that the workmen should not be drowned. It was also sometimes requisite that the galleries and the whole system of underground ways should be supplied with air.

Thus their labour in fashioning the flint must have led our ancestors to create the art of working quarries and mines.

It has been made a subject of inquiry, how the tribes of the Stone Age could produce, without the aid of any iron tool, the holes which are found in the flints; and how they could perforate these same flints so as to be able to fit in handles for the hatchets, poniards, and knives; in fact, lapidaries of the present day cannot bore through gun-flints without making use of diamond dust. We are of opinion that the bow, which was employed by primitive man in producing fire by rubbing wood against wood, was also resorted to in the workshops for manufacturing stone implements and weapons for giving a rapid revolving motion to a flint drill which was sufficient to perforate the stone. Certain experiments which have been made in our own day with very sharp arrow-heads which belonged to primitive man have proved that it is thus very possible to pierce fresh flints, if the action of the drill is assisted by the addition of some very hard dust which is capable of increasing the bite of the instrument. This dust or powder, consisting of corundum or zircon, might have been found without any great difficulty by the men of the Stone Age. These substances are, in fact, to be met with on the banks of rivers, their presence being betrayed by the golden spangles which glitter in the sand.

Thus the flint-drill, assisted by one of these powders, was quite adequate for perforating siliceous stones. When it is brought to our knowledge that the workmen of the Black Forest thus bore into Bohemian granite in less than a minute, we shall not feel inclined to call this explanation in question.[19]

Fig. 107 attempts to give a representation of the workshop at Pressigny for shaping and polishing flints—in other words, a manufacturing workshop of the polished-stone epoch.

In this sketch we have depicted the polisher found by M. Leguay, of which we give a representation in fig. 108. In this picture it was indispensable for us to show the operation of polishing, for the latter is a characteristic of the epoch of mankind which we are now describing, that is, the polished-stone period. It must, in fact, be remarked that during the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth, and the reindeer epoch, stone instruments were not polished, they were purely and simply flakes or fragments of stone. During the epoch at which we have now arrived, a great improvement took place in this kind of work, and stone instruments were polished. It is therefore essential to call attention to the latter operation.

We think we ought to quote here the brief account M. Leguay has given of the polisher represented in our figure. In his 'Note sur une Pierre À polir les Silex trouvÉe en Septembre, 1860, À la Varenne-Saint-Hilaire (Seine),' M. Leguay thus writes:—

"Amongst the many monuments of the Stone Age which I have collected at Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, on the site of the ancient settlement which once existed there, there is one which has always struck me, not only by its good state of preservation, but also by the revelations which it affords us as to one of the principal manufactures of these tribes—the fabrication of flint weapons and utensils.

"This object is a stone for polishing and fashioning the finest kind of hatchets. I discovered it in September, 1860, at a spot called La Pierre au PrÊtre, along with several other monuments of primitive art which I intend before long to make public. This stone is a rough sandstone of cubical shape, showing no trace whatever of having been hewn. It is 13 inches in its greatest thickness, and measures 37 inches long by 21 wide, and, just as in many boulders, one of its faces is well adapted to the use for which it was employed.

"This is the face which was used for many long years for rubbing and polishing the weapons made in the place, the remains of which are still found in small quantities in the neighbourhood, and abound in the burial-places, where they have been deposited as votive offerings.

"Almost the whole of its surface is occupied. In the centre is a basin presenting an oval surface 25 inches the long way, and 12 inches the narrow way. The stone, which has been considerably worn away in consequence of long use, has been rubbed off to a central depth of about 1 inch; this portion must have been used for rubbing the larger objects after they had been roughly shaped by chipping. The length of the basin allowed a motion of considerable length to be given to the stone which was being worked, at the same time giving facilities to the workman for the exercise of all his strength. Added to this, this cavity enabled the almond-like shape to be given to the objects—a form which they nearly all present.

"Either in front or to the right, according to the position in which the observer stands, and almost touching the edge of this basin, there is a hole deeply hollowed in the stone, being 30 inches long; it extends along almost the whole length of the sandstone, with the maximum breadth of about 1 inch, and presents the shape of a very elongated spindle hollowed out to a depth of something less than half an inch in the centre, which tapers off to nothing at the two ends.

"The wear of the stone and the shape of this groove point out its intention. It must have been used to reduce the edges or the sides of the hatchet, which after the chipping and flat polishing were left either too thick or too sharp for a handle to be easily fitted to them. Added to this, it smoothed down the roughnesses caused by chipping, which it replaced by a round form of no great thickness, which was again and again rubbed flatly on the stone to give it a square and sharp-edged level. This last operation took place in a basin, and it gave to the hatchet a curve in a lengthwise direction which is by no means ungraceful.

"The thinning off of the edges of the groove was not an immaterial matter. It not only assisted in forming the above-named curve, but also prevented the cutting edge being distorted, and avoided the need of subsequent repolishing, which spoiled the object by rubbing it away too much.

"It must not be for a moment imagined that the edge of the hatchet was made in this groove. Examination proves the contrary, and that it was done flatwise while polishing the rest of the object; and if sometimes its thickness did not allow this, it was preliminarily done, and then finished in the general polishing.

"But although this basin, and its accompanying groove, on account of their dimensions, acted very well for polishing the large hatchets, the case was different with the smaller ones. This is the reason why two other smaller basins, and also a small groove, were made on the flat part of the stone by the side of the others.

"These two basins were placed at two corners of the face of the stone, but still parallel to the larger basin and also to the larger groove, so as to be convenient for the requirements of the workman engaged in polishing without compelling him to shift his position; one is 10 inches, and the other 13 inches in length, with a mean breadth of about 2½ inches. They are both in the shape of a rather narrow almond, and end almost in a point, which seems to show that they also were used in polishing somewhat narrow objects—perhaps to set right the edges of hatchets, in which the rubbing in the larger basin had produced cavities prejudicial to the perfection of the faces.

"The small groove, placed very near the larger one, is 9 inches long. It is the same shape as the other, but is not so deep, and scarcely half an inch wide.

"Not far from the end of this latter groove, at the point where it approaches the larger one, there are traces of a groove scarcely commenced.

"Lastly, the flat portions of the stone which are not occupied by the basins and grooves, were sometimes used for touching up the polish, or even for smoothing various objects.

"Thus, as we see, this polishing-stone, which is one of the most complete in existence, has on it three basins of different sizes, two well-defined grooves, and one only just sketched out. It would serve for finishing off all the instruments that could be required; but, nevertheless, two other sandstones of moderate size were found near it; one round, and the other of a spindle-like shape; these, which were worn and rubbed all over their surfaces, must also have been used in polishing objects.

"Finding these stones was, however, a thing of frequent occurrence in several spots of this locality, where I often met with them; they were of all sizes and all shapes, and perfectly adapted for polishing small flints, needles, and the cutting edges of knives, deposited with them in the sepulchres.

"This polishing-stone, which is thickly covered with dendrites or incrustations, must have been in use at the time it was abandoned. I found it about 2 feet below the surface of the soil, in which it was turned upside down; that is, the basin lay next the earth. The few monuments that were with it—one among which I looked upon as an idol roughly carved in a block of sandstone—were all likewise turned upside down. There had been sepulchres in the neighbourhood, but they had been violated; and the displaced stones, as well as the bones themselves, only served to point out the presence of the former burial-place."

The polishing of stone instruments was effected by rubbing the object operated upon in a cavity hollowed out in the centre of the polisher, in which cavity a little water was poured, mixed with zircon or corundum powder, or, perhaps, merely with oxide of iron, which is used by jewellers in carrying out the same operation.

It is really surprising to learn what an enormous quantity of flints could be prepared by a single workman, provided with the proper utensils. For information on this point, it is requisite to know what could be done by our former flint-workers in the departments of Indre and Loire-et-Cher, who are, in fact, the descendants of the workmen of the Stone Age. Dolomieu, a French naturalist, desired at the beginning of the century to acquaint himself with the quantity which these workmen could produce, and at the same time to thoroughly understand the process which they employed in manufacturing gun-flints.

By visiting the workshops of the flint-workers, M. Dolomieu ascertained that the first shape which the workmen gave to the flint was that of a many-sided prism. In the next place, five or six blows with the hammer, which were applied in a minute, were sufficient to cleave off from the mass certain fragments as exact in shape, with faces as smooth, outlines as straight, and angles as sharp, as if the stone had been wrought by a lapidary's wheel—an operation which, in the latter case, would have required an hour's handiwork. All that was requisite, says Dolomieu, is that the stones should be fresh, and devoid of flaws or heterogeneous matter. When operating upon a good kind of flint, freshly extracted from the ground, a workman could prepare 1000 proper flakes of flint in a day, turning out 500 gun-flints, so that in three days he would perfectly finish 1000 ready for sale. In 1789, the Russian army was furnished with gun-flints from Poland. The manufactory was established at Kisniew. At this period, according to Dolomieu, 90,000 of these gun-flints were made in two months.

Besides those at Grand-Pressigny, some other pre-historic workshops have been pointed out in France. We may mention those of Charente, discovered by M. de Rochebrune; also those of Poitou, and lastly, the field of DioriÈres, at Chauvigny (Loire-et-Cher), which appears to have been a special workshop for polishing flint instruments. There is, in fact, not far from Chauvigny, in the same department, a rock on which twenty-five furrows, similar to those in the polishing-stones, are still visible; on which account the inhabitants of the district have given it the name of the "Scored Rock." It is probable that this rock was used for polishing the instruments which were sculptured at DioriÈres.

The same kind of open-air workshops for the working of flints have also been discovered in Belgium.

The environs of Mons are specially remarkable in this respect. At Spiennes, particularly, there can be no doubt that an important manufactory of wrought flints existed during the polished-stone epoch. A considerable number of hatchets and other implements have been found there; all of them being either unfinished, defective, or scarcely commenced. We here give a representation (fig. 109) of a spear-head which came from this settlement.

Sometimes these workshops were established in caverns, and not in the open air. We are told this by M. J. Fournet, a naturalist of Lyons, in his work entitled, 'Influence du Mineur sur la Civilisation.'

"For a very long time past," says M. Fournet, "the caves of Mentone had been known to the inhabitants of the district, on account of the accumulation of dÉbris contained in them, a boxful of which were sent to Paris, before 1848, by the Prince of Monaco; the contents of it, however, were never subjected to any proper explanation. Since this date, M. Grand, of Lyons, to whom I am indebted for a collection of specimens from these caves, carefully made several excavations, by which he was enabled to ascertain that the most remarkable objects are only to be met with at a certain depth in the clayey deposit with which the soil of these caves is covered. All the instruments are rough and rudimentary in their character, and must, consequently, be assigned to the first commencement of the art. Nevertheless, among the flints some agates were found, which, in my opinion, certainly came from the neighbourhood of Frejus; and with them also some pieces of hyaline quartz in the shape of prisms terminated by their two ordinary pyramids. We have a right to suppose that these crystals, which resembled the Meylan diamonds found near Grenoble, did not come there by chance, and that their sharp points, when fixed in a handle and acting as drills, were used for boring holes in stone."

Flint was not, however, the only substance used during this epoch in the manufacture of stone-hatchets, instruments and tools. In the caves of France, Belgium and Denmark a considerable number of hatchets have been found, made of gneiss, diorite, ophite, fibrolite, jade, and various other very hard mineral substances, which were well adapted to the purpose required and the use to which they were put.

Among the most remarkable we may mention several jade hatchets which were found in the department of Gers, and ornamented with small hooks on each side of the edge. One of these beautiful jade hatchets (fig. 110), the delineation of which is taken from the specimen in the Museum of Saint-Germain, was found in the department of Seine-et-Oise; it has a sculptured ridge in the middle of each face.

But neither flint, gneiss, nor diorite exist in every country. For these stones some less hard substance was then substituted. In Switzerland the instruments and tools were generally made of pebbles which had been drifted down by the streams. They were fashioned by breaking them with other stones, by rubbing them on sandstone, or by sawing them with toothed blades of flint according to their cohesive nature.

In some localities also objects of large size were made of serpentine, basalts, lavas, jades, and other rocks chosen on account of their extreme cohesiveness.

Manual skill had, however, attained such a pitch of perfection among the workmen of this period, in consequence of their being habituated to one exclusive kind of labour, that the nature of the stone became a matter of indifference to them. The hammer, with the proper use of which our workmen are almost unacquainted, was a marvellous instrument in the hands of our ancestors; with it they executed prodigies of workmanship, which seem as if they ought to have been reserved for the file and grindstone of the lapidary of the present day.

We shall not, perhaps, surprise our readers if we add that as certain volcanic lavas, especially obsidian, fracture with the same regularity and the same facility as the flint, obsidian was employed by the natives of America as a material for making sharp instruments. The ancient quarries whence the Indians procured this rock for the manufacture of instruments and tools, were situate at the Cerro de Navajas—that is, the Mountain of Knives—in Mexico. M. H. de Saussure, the descendant of the great geologist, was fortunate enough to meet with, at this spot, pieces of mineral which had merely been begun upon, and allowed a series of double-edged blades to be subsequently cut off them; these were always to be obtained by a simple blow skilfully applied. According to M. H. de Saussure, the first fashioning of these implements was confined to producing a large six-sided prism, the vertical corners of which were regularly and successively hewn off, until the piece left, or nucleus, became too small for the operation to be further continued.

Hernandez, the Spanish historian, states that he has seen 100 blades an hour manufactured in this way. Added to this, the ancient aborigines of Peru, and the Guanches of Teneriffe, likewise carved out of obsidian both darts and poniards. And, lastly, we must not omit to mention that M. Place, one of the explorers of Nineveh, found on the site of this ancient city, knives of obsidian, supposed to be used for the purpose of circumcision.

Having considered the flint instruments peculiar to the polished-stone epoch, we must now turn our attention to those made of stag's horn.

The valley of the Somme, which has furnished such convincing proof of the co-existence of man with the great mammals of extinct species, is a no less precious repository for instruments of stag's horn belonging to the polished-stone epoch. The vast peat-bogs of this region are the localities where these relics have been chiefly found. Boucher de Perthes collected a considerable number of them in the neighbourhood of Abbeville.

These peat-bogs are, as is well known, former marshes which have been gradually filled up by the growth of peat-moss (sphagnum), which, mixed with fallen leaves, wood, &c., and being slowly rotted by the surrounding water, became converted after a certain time into that kind of combustible matter which is called peat. The bogs in the valley of the Somme in some places attain to the depth of 34 feet. In the lower beds of this peat are found the weapons, the tools, and the ornaments of the polished-stone epoch.

Among these ancient relics we must mention one very interesting class; it is that formed by the association of two distinct component parts, such as stone and stag's horn, or stone and bone.

The hatchets of this type are particularly remarkable; they consist of a piece of polished flint half buried in a kind of sheath of stag's horn, either polished or rough as the case may be (fig. 111).

The middle of this sheath is generally perforated with a round or oval hole intended to receive a handle of oak, birch, or some other kind of wood adapted for such a use.

Fig. 112, taken from the illustration in Boucher de Perthes' work ('AntiquitÉs Celtiques et AntÉdiluviennes'), represents this hatchet fitted into a handle made of oak.

It is difficult to understand how it was that a hatchet of this kind did not fall out of its sheath in consequence of any moderately violent blow; for it seems as if there was nothing to hold it in its place. This observation especially applies to hatchets, the whole length of which—even the portion covered by the sheath—was polished; for the latter would certainly slide out of their casing with ease. The fact is, that complete specimens are seldom found, and, generally speaking, the flints are separated from their sheaths.

With regard to the handles, the nature of the material they were made from was unfavourable to their preservation through a long course of centuries; it is, therefore, only exceptionally that we meet with them, and even then they are always defaced.

Fig. 113 is given by Boucher de Perthes, in his 'AntiquitÉs Celtiques,' as the representation of an oaken handle found by him.

A number of these sheaths have been found, which were provided at the end opposite to the stone hatchet with strong and pointed teeth. These are boar's tusks, firmly buried in the stag's horn. These instruments therefore fulfilled a double purpose; they cut or crushed with one end and pierced with the other.

Sheaths are also found which are not only provided with the boar's tusks, but are hollowed out at each end so as to hold two flint hatchets at once. This is represented in fig. 114 from one of Boucher de Perthes' illustrations.

The hatchet fitted into a sheath of stag's horn which we here delineate (fig. 115), was picked up in the environs of Aerschot, and is an object well worthy of note; it is now in the Museum of Antiquities at Brussels. Its workmanship is perfect, and superior to that of similar instruments found in the peat-bogs of the valley of the Somme.

Stag's horn was often used alone as a material for the manufacture of tools which were not intended to endure any very hard work; among these were instruments of husbandry and gardening.

We here give representations (figs. 116, 117, 118) from Boucher de Perthes' illustrations, of certain implements made of stag's horn which appear to have had this purpose in view. It is remarked that they are not all perforated for holding a handle; in some cases, a portion of the stag's antler formed the handle.

In the course of his explorations in the peat-bogs of Abbeville, M. Boucher de Perthes found numerous flakes of flint of irregular shapes, the use of which he was unable to explain. But there have also been discovered in the same deposits some long bones belonging to mammals—tibia, femur, radius, ulna—all cut in a uniform way, either in the middle or at the ends; he was led to imagine that these bones might have been the handles intended to hold the flints. In order to assure himself that this idea was well founded, he took one of the bones and a stone which came out of the peat, and, having put them together, he found he had made a kind of chisel, well-adapted for cutting, scooping-out, scratching and polishing horn or wood. He tried this experiment again several times, and always with full success. If the stone did not fit firmly into the bone, one or two wooden wedges were sufficient to steady it.

After this, Boucher de Perthes entertained no doubt whatever that these bones had been formerly employed as handles for flint implements. The same handle would serve for several stones, owing to the ease with which the artisan could take one flint out and replace it with another, by the aid of nothing but these wooden wedges. This is the reason why, in the peat-bogs, flints of this sort are always much more plentiful than the bone handles. We must also state that it seems as if they took little or no trouble in repairing the flints when they were blunted, knowing how easy it would be to replace them. They were thrown away, without further care; hence their profusion.

These handles are made of extremely hard bone, from which we may conclude that they were applied to operations requiring solid tools. Most of them held the flint at one end only; but some were open at both ends, and would serve as handles for two tools at once.

Figs. 119 and 120 represent some of these flint tools in bone handles—the plates are taken from those in Boucher de Perthes' work.

Generally speaking, these handles gave but little trouble to those who made them. They were content with merely breaking the bone across, without even smoothing down the fracture, and then enlarging the medullary hollow which naturally existed; next they roughly squared or rounded the end which was intended to be grasped by the hand.

In fig. 121, we delineate one of these bone handles which is much more carefully fashioned; it has been cut off smooth at the open end, and the opposite extremity has been rounded off into a knob, which is ornamented with a design.

During the polished-stone epoch, as during that which preceded it, the teeth of certain mammals were used in the way of ornament. But they were not content, as heretofore, with merely perforating them with holes and hanging them in a string round their necks; they were now wrought with considerable care. The teeth of the wild boar were those chiefly selected for this purpose. They were split lengthwise, so as to render them only half their original thickness, and were then polished and perforated with holes in order to string them.

In the peat-mosses of the valley of the Somme a number of boars' tusks have been found thus fashioned. The most curious discovery of this kind which has been made, was that of the object of which we give a sketch in fig. 122. It was found in 1834, near Pecquigny (Somme), and is composed of nineteen boars' tusks split into two halves, as we before mentioned, perfectly polished, and perforated at each end with a round hole. Through these holes was passed a string of some tendinous substance, the remains of which were, it is stated, actually to be seen at the time of the discovery. A necklace of this kind must have been of considerable value, as it would have necessitated a large amount of very tedious and delicate work.

In the peat-bogs near Brussels polished flints have likewise been found, associated with animal bones, and two specimens of the human humerus, belonging to two individuals.

The peat-bogs of Antwerp, in which were found a human frontal bone, characterised by its great thickness, and its small surface, have also furnished fine specimens of flint knives (fig. 123), which are in no way inferior to the best of those discovered at Grand-Pressigny.

On none of the instruments of bone or horn, of which we have been speaking, are to be found the designs which we have described as being the work of man during the reindeer epoch. The artistic instinct seems to have entirely vanished. Perhaps the diluvial catastrophe, which destroyed so many victims, had, as one of its results, the effect of effacing the feeling of art, by forcing men to concentrate their ideas on one sole point—the care of providing for their subsistence and defence.

A quantity of remains, gathered here and there, bear witness to the fact that in the polished-stone epoch the use of pottery was pretty widely spread. Most of the specimens are, as we have said, nothing but attempts of a very rough character, but still they testify to a certain amount of progress. The ornamentation is more delicate and more complicated. We notice the appearance of open-work handles, and projections perforated for the purpose of suspension. In short, there is a perceptible, though but preliminary step made towards the real creations of art.

In the caves of AriÉge, MM. Garrigou and Filhol found some remains of ancient pottery of clay provided with handles, although of a shape altogether primitive. Among the fragments of pottery found by these savants, there was one which measured 11 inches in height, and must have formed a portion of a vase 20 inches high. This vessel, which was necessarily very heavy, had been hung to cords; this was proved by finding on another portion of the same specimen three holes which had been perforated in it.

Agriculture.—We have certain evidence that man, during the polished-stone epoch, was acquainted with husbandry, or, in other words, that he cultivated cereals. MM. Garrigou and Filhol found in the caves of AriÉge more than twenty mill-stones, which could only have been used in grinding corn. These stones are from 8 to 24 inches in diameter.

The tribes, therefore, which, during the polished-stone epoch, inhabited the district now called AriÉge, were acquainted with the cultivation of corn.

In 1869, Dr. Foulon-Menard published an article intended to describe a stone found at Penchasteau, near Nantes, in a tomb belonging to the Stone Age.[20] This stone is 24 inches wide, and hollowed out on its upper face. It was evidently used for crushing grain with the help of a stone roller, or merely a round pebble, which was rolled up and down in the cavity. The meal obtained by this pressure and friction made its way down the slope in the hollowing out of the stone, and was caught in a piece of matting, or something of the kind.

To enable our readers to understand the fact that an excavation made in a circular stone formed the earliest corn-mill in these primitive ages, we may mention that, even in our own time, this is the mode of procedure practised among certain savage tribes in order to crush various seeds and corn.

In the 'Voyage du Mississippi À l'OcÉan,' by M. Molhausen, we read:—

"The principal food of the Indians consisted of roasted cakes of maize and wheat, the grains of which had been pulverised between two stones."[21]

In Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi (Central Africa), it is stated that "the corn-mills of the Mangajas, Makalolos, Landines and other tribes are composed of a block of granite or syenite, sometimes even of mica-schist, 15 to 18 inches square by 5 or 6 inches thick, and a piece of quartz, or some other rock of equal hardness about the size of a half-brick; one of the sides of this substitute for a millstone is convex, so as to fit into a hollow of a trough-like shape made in the large block, which remains motionless. When the woman wants to grind any corn, she kneels down, and, taking in both hands the convex stone, she rubs it up and down in the hollow of the lower stone with a motion similar to that of a baker pressing down his dough and rolling it in front of him. Whilst rubbing it to and fro, the housewife leans all her weight on the smaller stone, and every now and then places a little more corn in the trough. The latter is made sloping, so that the meal as soon as it is made falls down into a cloth fixed to catch it."

Such, therefore, was the earliest corn-mill. We shall soon see it reappear in another form; two mill-stones placed one over the other, one being set in motion above the other by means of a wooden handle. This is the corn-mill of the bronze epoch. This type maintained its place down to historic times, as it constituted the earliest kind of mill employed by the Roman agriculturist.

In order to represent the existence of agriculture during the polished-stone epoch, we have annexed a delineation of a woman grinding corn into meal in the primitive mill (fig. 125).

In the same figure may be noticed the way of preparing the meal coming from the mill for making a rough kind of cake. The children are heating in the fire some flat circular stones. When these stones are sufficiently heated, they rapidly withdraw them from the fire, using for the purpose two damp sticks; they then place on the stones a little of the meal mixed with water. The heat of the stones sufficed to bake the meal and form a sort of cake or biscuit.

We may here state, in order to show that we are not dealing with a mere hypothesis, that it is just in this way that, in the poor districts of Tuscany, the polenta is prepared even in the present day. The dough made of chestnut-meal, moistened with water, is cooked between flat stones that are placed one over the other in small piles as portrayed in the annexed plate.

In the background of the same sketch we see animals, reduced to the state of domestic cattle, being driven towards the group at work. By this particular feature we have wished to point out that the polished-stone epoch was also that of the domestication of animals, and that even at this early period the sheep, the dog and the horse had been tamed by man, and served him either as auxiliaries or companions.

The traces of agriculture which we have remarked on as existing in the caves of AriÉge, are also found in other parts of France. Round the hearths in the department of Puy-de-DÔme, M. Pommerol discovered carbonised wheat intermingled with pottery and flint instruments. The men of the period we are now considering no longer devoted themselves exclusively to the pursuits of hunting and fishing. They now began to exercise the noble profession of agriculture, which was destined to be subsequently the chief source of national wealth.

Navigation.—The first origin of the art of navigation must be ascribed to the polished-stone epoch. With regard to this subject, let us pay attention to what is said on the point by M. G. de Mortillet, curator at the ArchÆological and Pre-historic Museum of Saint-Germain—one of the best-informed men we have in all questions relating to the antiquity of man.

In M. de Mortillet's opinion, navigation, both marine and inland, was in actual existence during the polished-stone epoch.

The earliest boats that were made by man consisted simply of great trunks of trees, shaped on the outside, and hollowed out in the interior. They were not provided with any rests or rowlocks for the oars or paddles, which were wielded by both hands. In hollowing out the tree they used both their stone implements and also the action of fire.

In the earliest boats, the trunk of the tree, cut through at the two ends as well as their imperfect tools allowed, preserved its original outward form. The boat, in fact, was nothing but the trunk of a tree first burnt out and then chipped on the inside by some cutting instrument, that is, by the stone-hatchet.

Some improvement subsequently took place in making them. The outside of the tree was also chipped, and its two ends, instead of being cut straight through, were made to terminate in a point. In order to give it more stability in the water and to prevent it from capsizing, it was dressed equally all over, and the bottom of the canoe was scooped out. Cross-stays were left in the interior to give the boat more solidity, and perhaps, also, to serve as a support to the back, or, more probably, to the feet of the rowers, who sat in the bottom of the canoe.

Sails must soon have been added to these means of nautical progression. But it would be a difficult matter to fix any precise date for this important discovery, which was the point of transition between elementary and primitive navigation, and more important voyages. This progress could not have been made without the help of metals.

In an article entitled 'Origine de la Navigation et de la PÊche,' M. de Mortillet passes in review all the discoveries, which have been made in different countries, of the earliest boats belonging to pre-historic man.

After stating that the Museum of Copenhagen contains drawings of three ancient canoes, he goes on to say:—

"The first canoe is the half-trunk of a tree 17 inches wide, cut straight at the two ends, about 7 feet in length, and hollowed out in a trough-like shape. This canoe much resembles that of Switzerland.

"The second was about 10 feet in length, one end terminating in a point, the other more rounded. It was formed of the trunk of a tree hollowed out into two compartments, a kind of cross-stay or seat being left at a point about one-third of the length from the widest end.

"The third canoe, No. 295, likewise made of the trunk of a tree, was much longer, having a length of at least 13 feet, and was terminated by a point at both ends. At the sharpest end, the hollow is finished off squarely, and there is also a small triangular seat at the extremity. Two cross-stays were left in the interior.

"These three canoes are classed in the bronze series; a note of interrogation or doubt is, however, affixed to the two latter.

"Ireland, like Scandinavia, has a history which does not go back very far into the remote past; like Scandinavia, too, Ireland has been one of the first to collect with care not only the monuments, but even the slightest relics of remote antiquity and of pre-historic times. The Royal Irish Academy has collected at Dublin a magnificent Museum, and the praiseworthy idea has also been put in practice of publishing a catalogue illustrated with 626 plates.

"In these collections there are three ancient canoes. The first is about 23 feet long, 31 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, and is hollowed out of the trunk of an oak, which must have been at least 4½ feet in diameter. This boat, which came from the bogs of Cahore on the coast of Wexford, is roughly squared underneath. One of the ends is rounded and is slightly raised; the other is cut across at right angles, and closed with a piece let in and fitted into grooves which were caulked with bark. In the interior there are three cross-stays cut out of the solid oak.

"The interior, at the time the canoe was discovered, contained a wooden vessel, intended to bale out the boat, and two rollers, probably meant to assist in conveying it down to the sea.

"The second is a canoe made of one piece of oak, rather more than 23 feet long, about 12 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. It terminates in a point at both ends, and contains three cross-stays cut out of the solid wood, and a small terminal triangular seat.

"The third, likewise made of one piece, is rather more than 20 feet long and about 21 inches wide. On each side the wood is cut out so as to receive a seat. This boat appears less ancient than the others, although these may not have belonged to any very remote antiquity. In fact, Ware states that in his time there were still to be seen on some of the Irish rivers canoes hollowed out of a single trunk of oak.

"It is also well known that the lacustrine habitations constructed on the artificial islands called Crannoges, existed to a late period in Ireland. All the boats found round these island-dwellings are canoes made all in one piece and hollowed out of the trunks of large trees.

"The trough-shaped canoe, consisting merely of the trunk of a tree cut straight through at the two ends, and in no way squared on the outside, also exists in Ireland. A very singular variety has been found in the county of Monaghan;[22] at the two ends are two projections or handles, which were probably used for carrying the boat from one place to another, or to draw it up upon the beach after a voyage.

"According to Mr. John Buchanan, quoted by Sir C. Lyell,[23] at least seventeen canoes have been found in the low ground along the margin of the Clyde at Glasgow. Mr. Buchanan examined several of them before they were dug out. Five of them were found buried in the silt under the streets of Glasgow. One canoe was discovered in a vertical position, with the prow upwards, as if it had foundered in a tempest; it contained no small quantity of sea-shells. Twelve other canoes were found about 100 yards from the river, at the average depth of about 19 feet below the surface of the ground, or about 7 feet below high-water mark. A few only of them were found at a depth of no more than 4 or 5 feet, and consequently more than 20 feet above the present level of the sea. One was stuck into the sand at an angle of 45°; another had been turned over and lay keel upwards; the others were in a horizontal position, as if they had sunk in still water.

"Almost every one of these ancient boats had been formed of a single trunk of oak, and hollowed out with some blunt instrument, probably stone hatchets, assisted also by the action of fire. A few of them presented clean-made cuts, evidently produced by a metallic tool. Two of them were constructed of planks. The most elaborate of the number bore the traces of square metal nails, which, however, had entirely disappeared. In one canoe was found a diorite hatchet, and at the bottom of another, a cork bung, which certainly implies relations with southern France, Spain, or Italy.

"The Swiss lakes, with their lacustrine habitations, have furnished numerous specimens of canoes. Dr. Keller, in his fifth Report on Lake-Dwellings (plate X. fig. 23), represents a canoe from Robenhausen; it is the half trunk of a tree 12 feet long and 29 inches wide, hollowed out to a depth of from 6 to 7 inches only. Taking the centre as the widest part, this trunk has been chipped off so as to taper towards the two points which are rounded. It is, however, very probable that the whole of this work was executed with stone implements; for the primitive settlement of Robenhausen, situated in a peat-bog near the small lake PfÆffikon in the canton of Zurich, although very rich in many kinds of objects, has not, up to the present time, furnished us with any metal instruments.

"In his first report (plate IV. fig. 21), Dr. Keller had given the sketch of another canoe which came from the Lake of Bienne. Like the first, mentioned by M. Worsaae, it is the half of the trunk of a tree cut almost straight through, its two ends hollowed out inside in the shape of a trough, the exterior being left entirely unwrought.

"Professor Desor mentions several canoes found in the Lake of Bienne. One of them, near the island Saint-Pierre, was still full of stones. According to M. Desor the builders of the lacustrine habitations during the polished-stone epoch, in order to consolidate the piles which were intended to support their dwellings, were accustomed to bank them up with stones which they fetched in boats from the shore; the bottom of the lake being completely devoid of them. The canoe found at the isle of Saint-Pierre had therefore sunk to the bottom with its cargo, and thus may be dated back to the polished-stone epoch. M. Troyon[24] gives some still more circumstantial details as to this canoe. It is partly buried in the mud at the northern angle of the isle, and is made of a single piece of the trunk of an oak of large dimensions; it is not much less than 49 feet long with a breadth of from 3½ feet to 4 feet.

"M. Desor, in his Palafittes, informs us that the Museum of NeuchÂtel has lately been enriched by the addition of a canoe which was discovered in the lake; unfortunately, it was dreadfully warped in drying.

"Also M. Troyon, in his 'Habitations Lacustres,' speaks of several canoes at Estavayer and Morges.

"Estavayer is situated on the Lake of NeuchÂtel. There are two settlements near it, one of the Stone Age, and one of the bronze age. One canoe is still lying at the bottom of the lake, near these settlements. Another was brought out of the water by the fishermen some years ago; it was about 10 feet in length, and 2 feet in width. The end which had been preserved was cut to a point and slightly turned upwards.

"Morges is on the Lake of Geneva, in the Canton of Vaud. M. Forel discovered there two interesting settlements of the bronze age. Two canoes were found. According to M. Troyon, one of them which had been carried up on to the bank was not long before it was destroyed. It was formed of the trunk of an oak, hollowed out like a basin. The other still lay near some piles in 13 to 15 feet of water. One portion of it is buried in the sand, the other part, which is not covered, measures about 10 feet in length by 2 feet in width. It terminates in a point and has been cut out so as to provide a kind of seat, taken out of the thickness of the wood at the end, just as in the third canoe represented in the catalogue of the Copenhagen Museum.

"In France, too, several canoes have been found which date back to pre-historic times.

"On the 6th of January, 1860, the labourers who were working at the fortifications which the engineers were making at Abbeville found a canoe in the place called Saint-Jean-des-PrÉs, on the left bank of the canal; it was discovered in the peat, 36 feet below the road and about 220 yards from the railway station. It was made out of a single stick of oak and was about 22 feet in length; its ends were square and cut in a slope, so that its upper surface was 8 feet longer than its bottom, which was flattened off to a width of about 14 inches. The greatest width of its upper surface, the widest part being placed at about one-third of its length, measured nearly 3 feet; from this point the canoe contracted in width, and was not more than 18 inches in width at the furthest end. Now, as no tree exists which diminishes to this extent in diameter on so short a length, we must conclude that the trunk which formed the canoe must have been shaped outside.

"Two projections about 4 inches in thickness, placed 6½ feet from the narrowest end, and forming one piece with the sides and the bottom, which in this part are very thick, left between them an empty space which was probably intended to fit against the two sides of a piece of wood cut square at the bottom and meant to serve as a mast. The deepest internal hollow had not more than 10 inches in rise, and the side, which at the upper part was not more than an inch in thickness, followed the natural curve of the trunk, and united with the much thicker portion at the bottom. This canoe, although it was completely uncovered and still remained in a very good state of preservation, has not been got out from the place in which it lay.

"In 1834, another canoe was discovered at Estreboeuf, 33 feet long, about 21 inches wide, and 18 inches deep. The bottom was flat, the sides cut vertically both within and without, which gave it nearly the shape of a squared trough. In its widest part it bore some signs of having carried a mast. It was conveyed to the Museum at Abbeville and became completely rotten; nothing now is left but shapeless remains.

"The AbbÉ Cochet relates that between 1788 and 1800, during the excavation of the basin of La Barre, at Havre, at 11 feet in depth, a canoe was discovered, more than 44 feet in length, and hollowed out of one trunk of a tree. The two ends were pointed and solid, and the interior was strengthened with curved stays formed out of the solid wood. This canoe was found to be made of elm and was hollowed out to a depth of nearly 4 feet. It was in so good a state of preservation that it bore being carried to a spot behind the engineer's house on the south jetty; but when it was deposited there, it gradually wasted away by the successive action of the rain and sun.

"The same archÆologist also mentions another canoe, with a keel of from 16 to 20 feet long, which was discovered in the year 1680, at MontÉviliers, in the filled-up ditches known under the name of La Bergue.

"The ArchÆological Museum of Dijon also contains a canoe found in the gravel in the bed of the Loue, on the boundaries of the department of Jura, between DÔle and Salins. It is made of a single colossal trunk of oak, shaped, in M. Baudot's opinion, by means of fire. Its present length is 17 feet, and its width, 2 feet 4 inches; but it has become much less in the process of drying. Some iron braces which were fixed to keep the wood in position plainly showed that the width had diminished at least 6 inches. In the interior, the traces of two seats or supports, which had been left in the solid wood in order to give strength to the canoe, might be very distinctly seen. The first was about a yard from one end, the other 5½ feet from the other. Both extremities terminate in a point, one end being much sharper and longer than the other.

"At the Museum of Lyons there is a canoe which was found in the gravel of the Rhone, near the bridge of Cordon, in the department of Ain. It is 41 feet in length, and hollowed out of a single trunk of oak tapering off at the two ends. The middle of it is squared, and the interior is strengthened by two braces left in the solid wood.

"Lastly, we must mention the canoe that was dug out of the bed of the Seine in Paris, and presented by M. Forgeais to the Emperor. It is now in the Museum of Saint-Germain. It was made of a single trunk of oak and had been skilfully wrought on the outside, terminating in a point at both ends. This canoe was bedded in the mud and gravel at the extremity of the CitÉ, on the Notre-Dame side. Close by a worked flint was met with, and various bronze weapons; among others, a helmet and several swords were also found. In the beds of rivers objects belonging to different epochs readily get mixed up. This flint appears to have accidentally come thither; the bronze arms, on the contrary, seem to mark the date of the canoe."[25]

We have previously spoken of the primitive workshop of human industry, of which, indeed, we gave a design. In contrast to this peaceful picture, we may also give a representation of the evidences which have been preserved even to our own days of the earliest means of attack and defence constituting regular war among nations. War and battles must have doubtless taken their rise almost simultaneously with the origin of humanity itself. The hatred and rivalry which first sprung up between individuals and families—hatred and rivalry which must have existed from all time—gradually extended to tribes, and then to whole nations, and were outwardly expressed in armed invasions, pillage and slaughter. These acts of violence were, in very early days, reduced to a system in the art of war—that terrible expedient from which even modern nations have not been able to escape.

In order to find the still existing evidence of the wars which took place among men in the Stone Age, we must repair to that portion of Europe which is now called Belgium. Yes, even in the Stone Age, at a date far beyond all written record, the people of this district already were in the habit of making war, either among themselves or against other tribes invading them from other lands. This fact is proved by the fortified enclosures, or entrenched camps, which have been discovered by MM. Hannour and Himelette. These camps are those of Furfooz, Pont-de-Bonn, Simon, Jemelle, Hastedon, and Poilvache.

All these different camps possess certain characteristics in common. They are generally established on points overhanging valleys, on a mass of rock forming a kind of headland, which is united to the rest of the country by a narrow neck of land. A wide ditch was dug across this narrow tongue of land, and the whole camp was surrounded by a thick wall of stones, simply piled one upon another, without either mortar or cement. At the camp of Hastedon, near Namur, this wall, which was still in a good state of preservation at the time it was described, measured 10 feet in width, and about the same in height. When an attack was made, the defenders, assembled within the enclosure, rained down on their assailants stones torn away from their wall, which thus became at the same time both a defensive and offensive work (fig. 127).

These entrenched positions were so well chosen that most of them continued to be occupied during the age which followed. We may mention, as an instance, the camp of Poilvache. After having been a Roman citadel it was converted in the middle ages into a strongly fortified castle, which was not destroyed until the fifteenth century.

The camps of Hastedon and Furfooz were likewise utilised by the Romans.

Over the whole inclosure of these ancient camps worked flints and remains of pottery have been found—objects which are sufficient to testify to the former presence of primitive man. The enormous ramparts of these camps also tend to show that pre-historic man must have existed in comparatively numerous associations at the various spots where these works are found.

If we were to enter into a detailed study of the vestiges of the polished-stone epoch existing in the other countries of Europe, we should be led into a repetition of much that we have already stated with regard to the districts now forming France and Belgium. Over a great portion of Europe we should find the same mode of life, the same manners and customs, and the same degree of nascent civilisation. From the scope, therefore, of our present work, we shall not make it our task to take each country into special consideration.

We will content ourselves with stating that the caves of Old Castille in Spain, which were explored by M. Ed. Lartet, have furnished various relics of the reindeer and polished-stone epochs. Also in the provinces of Seville and Badajos, polished hatchets have been found, made for the most part of dioritic rocks.

Numerous vestiges of the same epoch have, too, been discovered in various provinces of Italy.

We give in fig. 128 the sketch of a very remarkable arrow-head found in the province of Civita-Nova (the former kingdom of Naples). It is provided with a short stem with lateral grooves, so as to facilitate the point being fitted into a wooden shaft.

Elba, too, was surveyed by M. Raffaello Foresi, who found in this Mediterranean isle a large quantity of arrows, knives, saws, scrapers, &c., formed of flint, jasper, obsidian, and even rock crystal. There were also found in the Isle of Elba workshops for shaping flints. Great Britain, Wurtemburg, Hungary, Poland, and Russia all furnish us with specimens of polished stone instruments; but, for the reason which we stated above, it would be superfluous to dwell upon them.

We shall now pass on to an examination of the type of the human race which existed among the northern nations of Europe during the polished-stone age.

There is a cavern of AriÉge which belongs to the polished-stone epoch, and has been explored by MM. Garrigou and Filhol—this is the cavern of Lombrive, or des Echelles; the latter name being given it because it is divided into two portions placed at such very different levels that the help of five long ladders is required in order to pass from one to the other. This cave has become interesting from the fact that it has furnished a large quantity of human bones, belonging to individuals of both sexes and every age; also two entire skulls, which M. Garrigou has presented to the Anthropological Society of Paris.

These two skulls, which appear to have belonged, one to a child of eight to ten years of age, the other to a female, present a somewhat peculiar shape. The forehead, which is high in the centre, is low at the sides; and the orbits of the eyes and also the hollows of the cheeks are deep.

We shall not enter into the diverse and contrary hypotheses which have been advanced by MM. Vogt, Broca, Pruner-Bey, Garrigou and Filhol, in order to connect the skulls found in the cave of AriÉge with the present races of the human species. This ethnological question is very far from having been decided in any uniform way; and so it will always be, as long as scientific men are compelled to base their opinions on a limited number of skulls, which are, moreover, always incomplete; each savant being free to interpret their features according to his own system.

Neither in the Danish kitchen-middens nor in the lower beds of the peat-bogs have any human bones been discovered; but the tombs in Denmark belonging to the polished-stone epoch have furnished a few human skulls which, up to a certain point, enable us to estimate the intellectual condition and affinities of the race of men who lived in these climates. We may particularly mention the skull found in the tumulus at Borreby in Denmark, which has been studied with extreme care by Mr. Busk.

This skull (fig. 129) presents a somewhat remarkable similarity to that of Neanderthal, of which we have spoken in a previous chapter. The superciliary ridges are very prominent, the forehead is retiring, the occiput is short and sloped forward. It might, therefore, find its origin among the races of which the skulls of Neanderthal and Borreby are the representatives and the relics, and the latter might well be the descendants of the former.

Anthropologists have had much discussion about the question, to what particular human race of the present time may the skulls found in the tumulus at Borreby be considered to be allied? But all these discussions are deficient in those elements on which any serious and definite argument might be founded. It would, therefore, be going beyond our purpose should we reproduce them here. If, in the sketch of the Borreby skull, we place, before the eyes of our readers the type of the human cranium which existed during the period of the Stone Age, our only object is to prove that the primitive Northerner resembles the present race of man, both in the beauty and in the regularity of the shape of his skull; also, in order once more to recall to mind how false and trivial must the judgment be of those short-sighted savants who would establish a genealogical filiation between man and the ape.

As we stated in the Introduction to this volume, a mere glance cast upon this skull is sufficient to bring to naught all that has been written and propounded touching the organic consanguinity which is asserted to exist between man and the ape, to say nothing of the objects produced by primitive man—objects which, in this work, we are studying in all necessary detail. An examination of the labours of primitive man is the best means of proving—every other consideration being set aside—that a great abyss exists between him and the animal; this is the best argument against our pretended simial origin, as it is called by those who seek to veil their absurd ideas under grand scientific phrases.

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