The New Stone Age in Northern Europe Part 2

The growth and succession of the forests of Denmark, accompanying changes in conditions of soil and climate, have been clearly traced by Steenstrup.[29] The scene of his investigations was a moraine country broken by low ranges of hills in the island of Zealand, north of Copenhagen. The hills are often strewn with erratic blocks of rock brought by glaciers, with here and there small lakes, ponds, or peat-bogs often giving place to meadow or forest.

Some of these depressions are filled with a poor variety of peat, dug for fuel, and the sides are often abrupt, steep, and deep. These sides furnish a calendar by showing the different layers which have been formed by successive generations of tree-growth falling into the bog.

Thus, in the upper layers we find remains of trees which still flourish in Denmark, while the deepest strata contain the remains of reindeer.

The thickness of these layers is between five and seven metres. Their formation, according to Steenstrup, occupied 10,000 to 12,000 years.(1)

The following layers are found in these "calendars," beginning at the surface:

1. Surface layer. Remains of the beech, which furnishes the chief beauty of the forests of Denmark to-day.

2. Oak. The beginning of this layer was contemporary with the Litorina depression.

3. Scotch pine (_pinus sylvestris_). The earliest pines were dwarfed, the trunks showing as many as seventy rings to the inch. In upper strata their trunks were a metre or so in diameter. In the Lillemose moor, near Rudesdal, the whole eastern side, twenty metres deep, was filled with pines. While no human remains have been found in these moors, a stone axe embedded in a pine trunk, and a stone arrow-head in a bone of the _bos primigenius_ (which, like the auerhahn or pine partridge lived on the young pine shoots) have been discovered. The soil best adapted to the pine is a damp soil, poor in humus, whereas the present rich, fertile soil of Denmark is best suited to the beech. This explains the fact that pine forests no longer grow there.

4. At the bottom, poplars and aspens. The clay underlying the pines and poplars contains leaves of arctic willows and saxifrages.

Through these types of strata we may trace the epochs described at the beginning of the chapter. The pine characterizes the Azilian-Tardenoisian-Ancylus Epoch; at the time of the Litorina depression it was fast giving place to the oak, which remains characteristic of the Neolithic and Bronze periods, yielding to the beech during the Iron Age. But this advance must have been gradual and the boundary of advance irregular.

Blytt has traced a very similar succession of changes in flora and climate in southern Norway, and Geikie in Scotland.[30] These changes are very important in our study of the traces of man's first appearance in Denmark as furnishing not only their setting but also their chronology.

Sh.e.l.l-heaps are found all over the world in favorable sheltered localities where sea food is abundant, especially near clam flats. Hence they are not characteristic of any one race or time. Some are very ancient, some comparatively or very modern. They merely show the remains of the camping-grounds of people in a low stage of culture. Every one has its own history and its own slight or marked peculiarities.

The Danish sh.e.l.l-heaps or kitchen-middens are mounds generally about fifty metres wide and one hundred metres long, and perhaps one metre in thickness. But, as we should naturally expect, the size varies greatly according to the advantages of the situation, the number of inhabitants, and the length of time that it was inhabited.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.e.l.l-HEAP]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.e.l.l-HEAP AXE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.e.l.l-HEAP JAR]

The age of these sh.e.l.l-heaps is shown approximately by the presence of the auerhahn, proving the neighborhood of pine forests. The charcoal in the fireplaces came from oak wood, showing that oak forests are overspreading the country. The Baltic was more salt than at present, and the sh.o.r.e line was depressed. These facts indicate a period of transition from the Ancylus to the Litorina Epoch. The stone implements resemble those of western Europe during the late transition epoch, and do not occur in the oldest graves. There are no domestic animals except the dog, and no cultivated plants except some wheat in the later remains. All this seems to prove that genuine Neolithic culture had not yet reached the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic. They are composed mostly of oyster sh.e.l.ls with a mingling of those of scallops, mussels, and periwinkles.

The oyster has now disappeared from large parts of the coast and in others has decreased in size. Land elevation has narrowed the connection of the Baltic with the North Sea, and the water contains less salt.

Remains of cod and herring show that the fishermen who lived on or near these harbors ventured out to sea in dugouts or on rafts, and that they must have made lines for fishing in fairly deep water. Remains of other fish occur. Bones of birds are often very abundant, especially swamp, sh.o.r.e, and swimming species; wild geese and ducks, swans and gulls, the _Alca impennis_ or wingless auk, now extinct. The blackc.o.c.k, or "spruce (pine) partridge," was then common, but has now disappeared from Denmark with the pine whose buds formed a large part of its food.

Bones of stag, deer, and wild boar form, according to Steenstrup, 97 per cent of all those of mammals found at Havelse.[31] Bones of seal, otter, wolf, fox, bear, beaver, and wildcat also occur. There are no traces of reindeer or musk-ox. These animals had already migrated or died out.

Steenstrup noticed that the long bones of birds are about twenty times as numerous as others of their skeletons, and that the heads or ends of the long bones of mammals are generally missing. These were exactly the parts which are gnawed by dogs, whose remains also occur. Hence he drew the inference, now universally accepted, that the dog was domesticated in Denmark at this time. It was a small species, apparently akin to the jackal and of southeastern origin. No remains of other domesticated animals have been found, nor of cultivated plants, except a few casts of grains of wheat in the pottery of the upper layers of some of the heaps.

Daggers, awls, and needles were made of bone; also combs apparently used for stretching sinews into long threads. The flint implements are rudely chipped, never polished. We find long flakes used as knives, and numerous sc.r.a.pers and borers.[32] The axe, if we may call it so, was of peculiar form, approaching the triangular and looking as if made out of a circular disk of flint by breaking away two sides of the periphery, leaving a somewhat flaring cutting edge. The middle was thick, the edge tapered somewhat rapidly, making a rough but quite durable instrument.

Longer implements in the form of chisels or picks were also roughly flaked with skilfully retouched edges, often with one end narrowed or bluntly pointed. In all cases the work is very rude compared with the best specimens of Paleolithic time. Arrow-heads are common, usually with a broad edge instead of a point, well suited to killing birds and small mammals. The bone harpoon seems to have gone out of use.

The pottery is thick, heavy, crude, with practically no ornament, except finger-prints around the upper edge. The jars are sometimes of large size; often the base is pointed instead of flat or rounded. Hearths of calcined stones are abundant. Sometimes these are surrounded by circular depressions in the heaps, which may mark the form and position of huts or shelters; or these may have been placed under the lee of the near-by forests. No graves or human remains of this period have been found.

Sh.e.l.l-heaps quite similar to those of Denmark were discovered at Mugem, in Portugal, in the valley of the Tagus, twenty-five to thirty metres above sea-level, and thirty to forty miles from the mouth of the river.

The sh.e.l.ls are of marine origin, and indicate a considerable elevation of land since their acc.u.mulation. The stone implements are very primitive and of Azilian-Tardenoisian type. Large flat stones, perhaps for grinding, perhaps for dressing skins, occur. Pottery occurs only in the upper layers, where the bones of mammals increase in number. There are no polished implements, no traces of domesticated animals, not even of the tame dog. Graves were found here and there; and while the skulls were badly contorted, they seemed to show that the inhabitants were partly long-headed, partly broad-heads. Remains, apparently of the same age, have been found in Great Britain.

Even the Danish sh.e.l.l-heaps are not all of the same age. According to Forrer, Havno is ancient; Ertebolle is also old, but was long inhabited, and some of its uppermost layers may be full Neolithic; Aalborg and others are younger. Mugem strikes us as more ancient than the similar Danish remains. Other remains near the Baltic suggest very strongly quite marked differences in age or in the culture of their inhabitants, or in both these respects. We can notice only two of these.

Maglemose lies on the west coast of Zealand near the harbor of Mullerup.

Here a peat-bog has encroached upon a fresh-water lake and has covered a mud bottom strewn with sh.e.l.ls of pond-snails and mussels. Pines had grown in the swamp, and their stumps still protrude into or above the moss. The implements were found a little above the old lake bottom between seventy centimetres and one metre below the surface of the peat.

The remains of the settlement were distributed over an area about one hundred feet long and broad. The charred or burned wood was very largely (eighty per cent) pine, ten per cent hazel, a little elm and poplar. No oak was found here, but oak-pollen grains were found in the same level as the settlement, or slightly higher and later. Flint cracked by heat and charred fragments of wood were found, but no definite hearths. Bones of fresh-water fish and of swamp turtles occur. The sh.o.r.e could not have been very distant even if it stood considerably higher, but no bones of marine fish have been found. Many birds were hunted. The mammals include boar, deer, stag, and urus. The dog is the only domesticated animal.

Flint chips are abundant at Maglemose; long knife-flakes and axes are rare. Sc.r.a.pers and nuclei are numerous. The arrow-heads are long and pointed instead of broad and edged, as in the usual Danish sh.e.l.l-heap.

Many of these so-called arrow-heads may have been nothing more than microliths used for a great variety of purposes. No flint implements or fragments show any trace of polishing. Bone implements are numerous. We find rude harpoons of a very late Magdalenian type. Also, some of the bone implements are ornamented with various patterns of incised lines, and even one or two rude drawings of animals occur. The culture evidently differs quite markedly from that of the ordinary sh.e.l.l-heaps.

It is worthy of notice that the mud of the lake bottom and the overlying peat were continuous over and around the whole area of the settlement; there is no sign of any island at this point and the settlement was some 350 metres from the original sh.o.r.e of the lake. There are abundant traces of fire but no hearths. No traces of piles have been discovered.

All this seems to corroborate Sarauw's view that the people lived on a raft all the year round. Sarauw considers the remains as of the same age as the oldest sh.e.l.l-heaps. But there is a wide-spread tendency to consider Maglemose as considerably older, belonging probably to the close of the Ancylus Epoch.

Virchow has described a heap composed of mussel-sh.e.l.ls on the outlet of Burtnecker Lake, east of Riga, called Rinnekalns.[33] Its most interesting feature is its pottery made of clay mixed with powdered mussel-sh.e.l.ls, giving it a peculiar glitter. It is ornamented with lines arranged in an angular geometrical pattern encircling the vessel.

Similar pottery can be followed far southward into Russia and westward as far as East Prussia, but not farther into Germany. Bored teeth used for ornaments occur. Bone implements are numerous, often ornamented with fine lines in zigzag or network. We find harpoons also. The flint industry was poorly and sparingly developed. Graves were discovered, but their contents proved that they belonged to a much later period.

The culture is peculiar, paralleled to a certain extent but not repeated in western Europe. We still seem to detect the influence of a decadent, late Magdalenian style of ornament. Virchow considered them as very late Paleolithic or very early Neolithic.

The sh.e.l.l-heaps of different regions resemble one another in general features, but differ and show their individuality in details of culture.

These peculiarities may be due to difference of age or of culture or population, or to both. We must first attempt to find some place for them in the chronological succession discovered in France. They cannot be much older than the French period of transition, when Scandinavia first became habitable. But good cave-series covering the transition epoch are rare, and usually very incomplete. In 1887 Piette found a remarkable series in a cave or natural tunnel at Mas d'Azil, near Toulouse.[34] The most important strata were the following:

1. A dark layer evidently Magdalenian.

2. A yellow layer deposited by river floods.

3. Dark Magdalenian layer, with reindeer harpoons, engravings, and sculptures. Reindeer becoming rare; stag increasing.

4. Barren yellow layer, like 2.

5. Reddish layer (Azilian). No reindeer. Stag abundant. Flints nearly all of Magdalenian types. Flattened stag-horn harpoons perforated at base. Bone points and smoothers. Pointed flat pebbles. Bones of stag, bear, boar, wildcat, beaver.

6. Bones of wild boar, stag, horse. Flints similar to those in 5.

Beginnings of pottery and of polishing; but not of polished axes.

Piette's Arisian. Beginning of Neolithic.

7. Neolithic and Bronze remains.

Layer 5 evidently represents a period posterior to the Magdalenian and anterior to the real Neolithic. Hence Piette considered it as marking a distinct Azilian Epoch, resembling the Magdalenian in most of its flint implements, in the absence of pottery and of polished axes. But the reindeer has here given place to the stag, and the harpoon has changed correspondingly and is less skilfully made. Bone implements are decadent.

Another culture, the Tardenoisian, was of exceedingly wide range. It took its name from Fere-en-Tardenois, Department of Aisne, northeast of Paris, and was characterized by its very small "pygmy" flints of various, usually geometric forms.[35] This microlithic industry was found in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Russia, and along the southern sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean. The culture was well represented along rivers and inlets, and seemed to characterize a fishing rather than hunting folk.

In 1909 Breuil and Obermaier found in the grotto of Valle, in northern Spain, a cla.s.sic Azilian deposit, forming the lower levels of a series rich in these microliths or pygmy flints. The Azilian was more nearly a continuation of the Magdalenian culture, while the Tardenoisian, in France, seemed to be an importation from the Mediterranean region. Since the two were so closely related in point of time it seemed safe and wise to combine the two names and call the epoch the Azilian-Tardenoisian, the Azilian representing the older portion.

The station of Campigny, on the lower Seine, seems to be somewhat later than the Azilian-Tardenoisian.[36] Here, in a pit oval in outline, with a long diameter of 4.30 metres, evidently an ancient dwelling, there were found bits of pottery, utensils of older stone epochs, no polished implements, but the tranchet or axe and the pick (pic) characteristic of the Danish sh.e.l.l-heaps. These Campignian remains are hardly widely enough diffused or sufficiently definite to give name to a distinct epoch. They may well be nearly contemporaneous with the (older?) sh.e.l.l-heaps.

The whole transition epoch, which we have hastily surveyed, shows us a series or mixture of disconnected cultures, yet with curious and striking interrelations. This may be partly due to the fact that the population of Europe was diminished and scattered. Little groups of people formed more or less isolated communities, and developed their own special peculiarities according to situation, needs, and opportunities.

Connecting links, or intermediate cultures, which may once have existed, have been completely lost or still remain to be discovered. The general desertion of the caves destroyed one of our best sources of continuous records.

But the cause of this diversity lies deeper. New cultures and new waves of migration of peoples were pouring into Europe, especially into the Baltic region now left free of ice, enjoying a mild climate, and offering an abundance of food along the sh.o.r.es of its rivers, lakes, and seas. The Tardenoisian culture had spread northward from the Mediterranean. The broad-headed people of Furfooz, Grenelle, and Ofret had apparently crossed Europe from the east and had settled in a long zone extending northward and southward through Belgium and France and probably southward into Spain, for we remember the broad-heads found at Mugem, in Portugal. But their distribution was far wider than this strip of territory. New Neolithic types of culture had already entered Italy, perhaps as early as Magdalenian times. Series of waves appear to have pa.s.sed into Poland, Russia, and Siberia, and to have moved northward until they reached the coast in Scandinavia and to the eastward. In all these cases we may probably imagine a gradual and perhaps slow infiltration or "seeping" in of the new population rather than an invasion in crowds or ma.s.ses, such as we are likely to imagine. Vast stretches of habitable land had been newly opened, and there was plenty of room for all comers. In many regions the old population may have remained comparatively undisturbed until a much later date. But even they slowly came under the influence of the new and improved technique and mode of life. All this collision of culture and conflict of peoples meant stimuli, awakening, the jogging of dull minds, a veritable spur of necessity. A new day was beginning to break. The dawn was dim and cloudy, but there was the possibility and prospect of clear shining.

CHAPTER III

LAND HABITATIONS