The New Stone Age in Northern Europe Part 4

"The small-grained, six-rowed barley (_Hordeum hexastichum sanctum_) and the small lake-dwelling wheat (_Tritic.u.m vulgare antiquorum_) were the most ancient, most important, and most generally cultivated farinaceous seeds of our country. Next to them come the beardless compact wheat (_T.

vulg. compactum mutic.u.m_) and the larger six-rowed barley (_Hordeum hexastichum densum_), with the two kinds of millet, the common millet (_Panic.u.m miliaceum_) and the Italian millet (_Setaria italica_). The Egyptian wheat (_Tritic.u.m turgidum L._), the two-rowed wheat (emmer, _Tritic.u.m dicocc.u.m Schr._), and the one-grained wheat (_Trit.

monococc.u.m_) were probably, like the two-rowed barley, only cultivated as experiments in a few places; and the spelt (_Tritic.u.m spelta L._), which at present is one of the most important cereals, and the oat (_Avena sativa L._) appeared later, not till the Bronze Age, while rye was entirely unknown among the lake-dwellings of Switzerland."[61]

Oats occur in the Bronze period in western, middle, and northern Europe, in the Alpine lake-dwellings, and in the Danish islands. The ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, Indians and Chinese, did not cultivate them; they were raised in Asia Minor and America only since historic times. We remember that wheat and barley are mentioned in the oldest records of the Old Testament--as in Gideon's barley loaf--but rye and oats not at all.

The grains seem to show a gradual improvement in productiveness from the very oldest settlements to those of the Bronze period. They are found charred and perfectly preserved wherever the houses were destroyed by fire. Even the ears and stalks have been saved for us in the same manner. Charred loaves of bread, and cake made of poppy-seeds, were also found. "Bread was made only of wheat and millet, the latter with the addition of some grains of wheat, and, for the sake of flavoring it, with linseed also. Bread made of barley has not yet been found, and it is probable that barley was chiefly eaten boiled, or more probably parched or roasted."[62] Flint sickles made of a long flake set at a right angle with the wooden handle have been found in Denmark, and others whose blade is formed by a row of small, sharp flints set in the edge of a wooden block occur in Egypt. The hand-mills or mealing-stones are very abundant, as might be expected.

The occurrence of the seeds of the Cretan catchfly (_Silene cretica L._) is interesting, as it is not found wild in Germany or in southeastern Europe, but over all the countries of the Mediterranean. Similarly, the corn-bluebottle (_Centaura cya.n.u.s L._) is found wild in Sicily. This seems to show that these plants came in with the wheat from Italy. But it is still possible that both Switzerland and Italy received them from a source somewhat or considerably farther east or south.

Apples and pears, split and dried, occur abundantly. Some of the apples are so large that they suggest a certain amount of care and cultivation.

Sour crabapples, and the stones of cherries, plums, and sloes are found accompanied by the seeds of the wild grape; of elderberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Acorns, beechnuts, and hazelnuts were stored up. Besides the seeds of the poppy, already mentioned, those of caraway were used apparently to flavor the bread.

Altogether some 170 plants have been discovered and determined from these localities.[63]

Basket-making and the weaving of mats from bast-fibres had led up to a highly developed weaver's art. Few or no remains of wool have come down to us from Neolithic time, though it occurs in graves of the Bronze Age farther north. It would not preserve by charring, as all other lake-dwelling organic remains have been saved for us, and our failure to discover it is not surprising. We can hardly believe that these people did not use the wool of their flocks of sheep, or failed to felt the hair of their goats. But flax has been found in all stages of preparation and manufacture in great quant.i.ties. Says Messikommer of Robenhausen: "Every house had its loom." We find not only threads, cords, and ropes, twine and nets, but cloth of varying pattern and design. Some pieces were so finely woven and well preserved that their discoverers could hardly believe that they were not of modern make.

Fringes and embroidery occur.[64]

Linen alone could hardly have furnished sufficient protection against the cold and dampness of the Swiss winter climate. The more primitive inhabitants had an abundance of furs. Garments of sheepskin were doubtless in use. And probably wool and goat's-hair were woven or felted into outer garments. Dye-stuffs of black, yellow, red, and blue coloring furnished a variety of tints and shades.

Very few human bones have been found among those lake-dwelling remains; and only a few burial-places, or rather tombs, in the neighboring mainland. The discussion of their mode of burial and racial characteristics may well be deferred to a later chapter.

Of their religious cult we know almost nothing.[65] No idols or fetiches have been recognized. Certain "crescents" of clay, supported with the horns turned upward, have been considered by some as head-rests, for which purpose they are still used by certain African tribes. Others have considered them as representatives of the crescent moon; still others as conventionalized ox heads and horns. It seems highly probable that they had some religious significance, but its exact nature is still uncertain. We shall return to them later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WEAVING AND PLAITING FROM LAKE-DWELLINGS]

A lake-dwelling of any size is inconceivable without a well-advanced social development. It could hardly be founded, builded, or maintained without close co-operation. Families had to live closely crowded together, almost as in our modern cities. Neighbors had learned to get on with one another and live together in peace, and to submit to a close regulation or discipline by law or custom. They seem to have been a peaceful folk and exposed to no great dangers from outside attack, at least in Neolithic time. When the ice fringed the sh.o.r.es or covered the small lakes, they must have been easily open to attack. A few brands thrown into the thatched roof would have brought sure destruction.

Traces of conflagration occur, as at Robenhausen, which was twice destroyed by fire.[66] But these occurrences are rare. Neolithic settlements seem to have been more frequently abandoned because of the growth of peat than by any sudden or violent destruction. Conditions probably changed in this respect during the Bronze period.

Their food was varied and more than fairly abundant. They had their domestic animals to furnish flesh, milk, probably b.u.t.ter and cheese.

Agriculture was primitive, but in some cases we find large stores, we might say granaries, of wheat; and wild fruits and vegetable foods were abundant. The forests offered game, and the lakes were well-stocked with fish. There may have been times of hardship and dearth, but famine could hardly have ravaged a people with these three sources of supply.

The lake offered a thoroughfare for their canoes, and communication was easy for long distances. To cite only one ill.u.s.tration: flint was brought from Grand Pressigny, in France, and manufactured in certain Swiss localities. There was much variety and division of labor between different villages. One manufactured flint very largely--so at and around Moosseedorf; while Robenhausen and w.a.n.gen have furnished great quant.i.ties of cloth. Others were rather centres for the manufacture of pottery. Even in the same village one area is richer in one product, a second in another. There was much variety as well as freedom of intercommunication. The whole region lay a little back from the great Danube thoroughfare, but near enough to it to retain connection with the larger world. Life was not altogether monotonous.

The lake-dwellings have been divided according to their age into three groups or stages, representing three epochs more or less marked.[67]

_Stage I._ _Archaic Epoch._--Axes small and made out of indigenous material. "Hammer-axes" and utensils of horn and bone rude. No decorations on weapons, utensils, nor on the crude pottery. Plaiting and weaving practised. Population in Switzerland at this time seems to have been spa.r.s.e. Food obtained from hunt more than from domestic animals.

Examples: Chavannes (Schafis) Moosseedorf, Wauwyl. People brachycephalic.

_Stage II._ _Middle Neolithic Epoch._--Weapons and utensils more perfect.

Stone axes finely polished, often with hole for handle, sometimes very large. Beside the commoner minerals five to eight per cent of implements made of nephritoids (nephrite, jadeite, and chloromelanite). These are almost absent in Epochs I and III. Pottery of far better material and manufacture, with traces of ornament. Remains of domestic and wild animals nearly equal. Domestic animals are turbary pig, goat, sheep, turbary cattle, but _primigenius_ form present though less common.

Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic people nearly equal in number.

Examples: Robenhausen and Concise.

_Stage III._ _Copper Epoch._--Hammer-axes, beautifully finished. Bone and horn implements. Nephritoid minerals less used. Pottery more artistic.

Cord-decoration appears. Certain ornaments, weapons, and implements are made of copper. Domesticated animals improve and form a larger part of the food than game. Cattle especially increase in numbers, and a new race of sheep has arisen. Long-heads more numerous than broad-heads.

Examples: Roseax, at Morges. Locraz, Ferril (Vinelz).[68]

It is interesting to notice that remains of domestic cattle are abundant in all ages, that goats are more abundant than sheep in the earliest lake-dwelling, but that the sheep became equally numerous in the second epoch, while they decidedly outnumbered the goats during the Bronze period. This is what we should expect from the advance of culture.

Says Keller:[69] "The sh.o.r.es of the western portion of Lake Constance are probably more thickly studded with settlements than those of any other Swiss lake. In fact, here are found happily united all the requirements necessary for the erection of dwellings of this nature. A deposit of marl stretches along nearly the whole of its sh.o.r.es and of tolerable breadth. A rich tract of country between the sh.o.r.e and the hills which rise quietly behind; forests of pine and oak; pleasant bays with a gravelly bottom; a great abundance of fish in the lake, and a superfluity of game in the surrounding forests, were circ.u.mstances highly favorable to the colonization of these sh.o.r.es."

Could we have sat on one of these village platforms of a summer afternoon and looked out to the wheat-fields on the sh.o.r.e, and seen the canoes come in with fish or game, and the cattle returning from the mainland pasture; could we have watched the men fashioning implements and all manner of woodwork, and the women grinding the grain or moulding pottery, or spinning and weaving; we should have found a great deal to please and interest us. The fruits and berries, the smell of roasting fish and baking bread, of cakes well flavored with the oil from beechnut or flax, or perhaps sifted over with the seeds of poppy or caraway, would have been far from disagreeable. We should have felt that it was a goodly land, and that life was well worth living. We should not have been disturbed by shrieking steamboats, puffing and groaning locomotives, or honking automobiles, or by telegraphs or telephones, by letters which must be answered or books which must be read. There were no stocks and bonds, bills or notes, strikes or lockouts. There was no labor question; all simply had to work. No one went to school, except to nature, and there were no lectures. "The name of that chamber was peace."

We ought not to forget in our comfort that everybody could not live in a lake-dwelling, that all over Europe there were other settlements or dwellings, more lonely or isolated, where food was never abundant and sometimes very scarce, where labor was unremitting and the reward scanty. But even in those less civilized regions there was probably usually much rude comfort; and if there were times of scarcity and want, there were also times of feasting and abundance. All over Europe there were, even in Neolithic time, children, boys and girls playing around the houses; and young men and women looking out on life with the same inexperience and illusions, courage and hopes, which lure us onward to-day.

CHAPTER V

A GLANCE EASTWARD

The culture of the oldest lake-dwellings appears suddenly in Europe, and its beginnings are exotic in all their essentials. The turbary cattle were quite different from the wild _primigenius_ race of the surrounding regions; and we find no remains of the intermediate forms which should occur if domestication had taken place here. The same is true of the turbary pig. Wild sheep are unknown in northern Europe, and the moufflon of the Mediterranean islands can hardly have been the ancestor of our Swiss flocks, and is very possibly descended from domesticated ancestors which reverted to wild life. Something very similar may be said of our oldest cereals, wheat and barley.

We must evidently turn eastward or southward to find the cradle of the whole culture. Even if it came partly from Italy, it could hardly have developed there. Egypt may have made contributions, but mostly at a later date. We naturally turn first to Asia, the great centre of mammalian evolution, probably the oldest seat of cattle-raising and agriculture, cradle of man and centre of his earliest development. The true Neolithic cultures in northern Europe can hardly be older than about 6000 B. C.; the lake-dwellings are probably far younger. We must first inquire into the location, age, and character of the oldest agriculture in nearer Asia, where great discoveries have been made during the last twenty years.

We naturally turn first to Babylonia. Under the temple of Bel, at Nippur, was an immense platform constructed of sun-dried bricks, most of them stamped with the name of Sargon or of Naram Sin. The date of Sargon seems still uncertain; many historians place it at 2800 B. C.; others, and apparently most archaeologists, like Obermaier, still hold to the old date, 3750 B. C.[70] Without any attempt to decide this question, we will hold in this chapter to the older date; and believers in the latter date can subtract 1,000 from our figures for earlier times, though this does not apply to Pumpelly's estimates.

Says Delitzsch[71] of this mound: "In the deepest layers of these remains, or what amounts to the same, back many centuries beyond the fifth millennium, everywhere interesting and valuable remains of human civilization come to light, fragments of vessels of copper, bronze, and clay, a quant.i.ty of earthenware so beautifully lacquered in red and black that we might consider them of Greek origin, or at least influenced by Greek art, had they not been found eight metres deep under Naram Sin's pavement." Here we find the Bronze period, or possibly late Copper, before 5000 B. C. A city with a high and complex culture had already arisen. No one believes that the culture could have originated in the rank, almost untamable, primitive jungle of Mesopotamia. Its beginnings must be sought elsewhere and earlier. But the age and character of Babylonian civilization encourage one to seek further in western Asia.

In 1904 Pumpelly[72] made most thorough and careful investigations at Anau, near Askabad in Turkestan, about 300 miles east of the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea, and 200 miles west of Merv. The remarkable results of his work are described in two large volumes, and have not received the attention which they deserve. He excavated in two large Kurgans or mounds. The north Kurgan is the older and chiefly concerns us. The Neolithic remains occur in thin compact strata aggregating some forty-five feet in thickness. The earliest settlement was a town covering at least five acres, possibly nearly ten.

At the time of the beginning of the settlement, which Pumpelly estimated as somewhat before 8000 B. C., the inhabitants lived in rectangular houses built of uniform sun-dried bricks. They were skilful potters, though unacquainted with the potter's wheel, making different grades of coa.r.s.e and fine vessels. These were unglazed, but often painted with a definite series of geometrical patterns. They had the art of spinning, for whorls are found in all strata from the lowest up. They cultivated cereals, for the casts of the chaff of wheat and barley are found in the clay of the thicker pots. At first they had no domestic animals, only the bones of wild forms being found. When ten feet of culture strata had been acc.u.mulated the remains of a tame _Bos namadicus_, the Asiatic variety of the _Bos primigenius_, or urus, occurred. That this animal had already been domesticated is inferred from the less compact microscopic structure of the bones modified by artificial conditions. At this time the change of structure, if not complete, was evident. It had been for some time under the new conditions. The turbary pig appears about 7500 B. C.,[73] the turbary sheep about 1500 years later, but preceded by varieties of the great horned mountain sheep. The turbary cattle appear to have been a small variety of the _Bos namadicus_, somewhat dwarfed by drought and hardship.

The camel appears at Anau somewhat after 6000 B. C., and seems to be a means of intercourse and transport far antedating the horse, in a region already showing signs of dessication.

Spherical mace-heads occur reminding us of those used in Egypt. But no lance-head or arrow-point or other stone weapon was found in the lower levels. We do not know how they killed or captured the larger animals; they may have used the sling or bolero. In the lowest strata we find the bones of young children, but not of adults, buried in a contracted position under the floors of the dwellings. The first objects of copper and lead appear about 6000 B. C., and, open the aeneolithic period.

Pumpelly distinguishes a Copper period, here longer and more distinctly marked than in Europe. The turquoise bead found in one of the graves came, in all probability, from the Iranian plateau, as did probably the copper and lead also.

He has shown us that even on the steppe the cultivation of cereals precedes the domestication of sheep and cattle. The nomadic life follows instead of preceding agriculture. The pioneers in this region cultivated the zone of steppe, into which rivers poured from the mountains. When cattle and sheep and goats had multiplied, the herdsmen drove them farther and farther on the rich pasturage of the boundless steppe. Thus nomads gradually appear. There are also different varieties of nomadism. Nomadic tribes were far less active and dangerous neighbors even after the domestication of the camel than when, about 2000 B. C., they had domesticated the horse. The first herdsman may have differed from the latter nomad almost as much as the most pacific sheep-herder of our Western plains differs from the liveliest cowboy.

Pumpelly's time-estimates have been criticised by Doctor H. Schmidt, of Berlin.[74] He makes the rate of growth far more rapid than Pumpelly thought and shortens the periods. In determining length of periods he relies far more on artifacts and less on probable rate of acc.u.mulation.

The criticisms seem hardly well founded. Pumpelly's estimate of rate of increase was based upon a careful and broad comparison of acc.u.mulations in the deserted city, Anau, in Merv, and other localities. They seem conservative, but we must recognize that such estimates are always only approximate. His estimates result in a series of dates generally in close agreement with those of most students of oriental archaeology.

In the Third Culture Epoch there was found "copper, with sporadic appearance of low percentage of tin." This describes well the close of the Copper period or the beginning of the Bronze Age, the rest of which is not represented at Anau, the settlement being deserted, probably because of aridity. Pumpelly thinks that the last strata deposited before the desertion comes down to the Bronze Age, and, a.s.suming the latest possible date for the beginning of this period, places it about 2200 B. C. This is almost surely much too late. Obermaier dates the beginning of the Bronze period at 4000 B. C.[75] (If we subst.i.tute the later date, 2750 B. C., for Sargon's region, the Bronze period would begin about 3000 B. C., the date accepted by Montelius.[76]) Pumpelly places the beginning of the Copper Epoch at 5000 B. C., again agreeing with Montelius. His estimates seem generally somewhat too conservative, as he doubtless intended they should be; the earliest remains may be considerably older than he thought. Investigations made during the last twenty years seem generally to lead us to believe that the beginnings of Neolithic culture are far older in western Asia than we had supposed, while in middle and northern Europe they are probably somewhat younger than we had thought. In this connection we may well remember that Evans found eight metres of Neolithic remains under the palace at Cnossus, in Crete, and estimated their age at about 14,000 years.

The culture at Anau is very similar in all its essentials to that of the European lake-dwellers, and is much older. The same cereals and the same kinds of domesticated animals appear in both. The brick houses are better and the very fine painted pottery is new and peculiar. These and the art of spinning and the cultivation of cereals were brought hither by the first settlers; their development to this stage must have taken place elsewhere and occupied a long period of time. Sheep could not have been domesticated here, for they and the goats are natives of the mountains, and could not survive wild on the steppe. Neither is the pig a steppe animal, but lives naturally in forest glades and along watercourses. Pumpelly has evidently discovered a very old and interesting station in the spread of this ancient culture, but not its cradle. This was apparently in some mountainous region. The nearest and most likely place to search for it is somewhere on the Iranian plateau, to which the turquoise bead and the later-introduced copper and lead found at Anau also point.

Here at Susa (Shushan), about one hundred miles from the apex of the Persian Gulf, de Morgan excavated in a mound rising about thirty-four metres above the level of the plain and continuing some six metres below the surface, which has been raised that amount since the first settlement was made.[77] The total thickness of the remains is therefore about forty metres. The lowest strata as yet have been only slightly studied. The uppermost ten to fifteen metres cover a period of about 6,000 years. If the lower strata were acc.u.mulated at the same rate, the first settlement was begun about 18,000 years ago at a conservative estimate. Montelius, the best authority on European prehistoric chronology, basing his conclusions on de Morgan's discoveries, places the date of the beginning of Neolithic culture in this part of Asia at about 18,000 B. C., or somewhat earlier.[78]

Over twenty metres of these remains are purely Neolithic. There was the usual abundance of flint nuclei, flakes, and utensils. There was obsidian, evidently brought from a distance--de Morgan thinks from Armenia, a thousand miles away. This is not impossible; we shall find that trade or barter was far more extensive at this time than has usually been supposed.

Here again we find abundant pottery in the lowest strata. It is of a "dark brown pattern painted on a pale ground, partly imitating basketry and textiles, partly rendering plants and animals with childish simplicity.... It resembles in a striking way a few widely scattered series which are all that have been secured hitherto from a very ill-explored area: from a Neolithic site underlying the Hitt.i.te castle at Sakye-Giezi, in North Syria, from the surface of early mounds in Cappadocia, and from low levels of the Hitt.i.te capital, at Boghaz-Keui; and, more surprising still, from an important site, also Neolithic, at Anau, on the northern edge of the Persian plateau looking over into Turkestan; and at a number of points scattered over the flat lowland on the north side of the Black Sea, and thence into the Balkan Peninsula as far south as Macedonia and Thessaly. These resemblances are general and their value may be overestimated; there are differences in detail, but the general similarity seems to link the peoples over this wide area at the same time in one region of kindred art and culture, if not of blood."[79]

The discoveries at Susa and elsewhere in this region seem to prove that compact settlements of fair size had arisen in western Asia long before the founding of Anau.[80] Such settlements could have been formed only by sedentary peoples practising agriculture, not by mere wandering hunters. Our definite knowledge of the domestic animals of Susa is very small. But, as we have just seen, the peculiar, fine, decorated pottery found in the oldest strata of Susa, Anau, and many other localities scattered over a wide area, is certainly a strong argument for believing that an agriculture in general very similar to that of the oldest strata at Anau was wide-spread over the Iranian plateau, Asia Minor, and elsewhere. Where or when it began we do not know. We can only conjecture as to the place and mode of its beginning. It may not be out of place to mention a very general hypothesis of this sort, and this we will now attempt to frame.

The Buhl moraines, in Lake Lucerne, are estimated as having been deposited between 16,000 and 24,000 B. C., during the Early Magdalenian stage of post-glacial time, which would, therefore, be contemporaneous with the earliest settlement at Susa.[81] The climate of Europe was then somewhat colder and much moister than at present. The ice-cap extended much farther south in middle Europe than in Russia or Siberia. Under these circ.u.mstances central Asia probably enjoyed a much moister climate than at present, without extreme cold. The Caspian and Aral Seas occupied a much larger area than at present, and were very likely connected. The Tarim basin may well have been a great lake surrounded by a zone of garden instead of the sandy waste which it is to-day.

Conditions of increased moisture would have made the now parched regions of the Iranian plateau an exceedingly rich and favored region. Toward the close of the Post-glacial Epoch the mountains were probably well forested, but alternating dryer times would have brought open glades, with lakes interspersed.