Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/27

Prehistoric Man 7 the greatest things gained by man in his slow advance toward civilization. This was the food grains which we call cereals, especially wheat and barley. The seeds of the wild grasses, which their ancestors had been accustomed to eat, these Late Stone Age men had now learned to cultivate. Thus wild grain was GREAT STONE CIRCLE INCLOSING A TOMB, OR GROUP OF TOMBS, OF THE LATE STONE AGE CHIEFTAINS AT STONEHENGE, ENGLAND The circle is about one hundred feet across, and a long avenue connecting it with the neighboring Late Stone Age town is still traceable. No one knows how the men of the Late Stone Age were able to handle these great stones. Western Europe produced nothing more than this rude architecture in stone until the coming of the Romans domesticated and agriculture was introduced. Sixth, these Late Stone Age men possessed domestic cattle. For the mountain sheep and goats and the wild cattle had now been taught to dwell near man and submit to his control. The wild ox bowed his neck to the yoke and drew the plow across the forest-girt field where he had once wandered in unhampered freedom. Fragments of wooden wheels in the lake-villages show that oxen were also drawing wheeled carts, the earliest in Europe. 9. Rise of Civilization in Egypt (4000-3000 B.C.). Thus far we have followed man's advance only in Europe. Similar progress had also been made by Stone Age men all around the