Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/679

stones, rough hammers, and hollowed dish-like pebbles; there is a total absence of pottery. The remarkable similarity of the stone implements from different parts of the world is worthy of notice; this form of primitive industry has been traced in Europe from Greece to Scandinavia, and from the Atlantic coast to the steppes of Russia; in Asia, it appears from Palestine to the Malay archipelago, in India and Japan, and on the shores of the Arctic ocean; in America, from Behring strait to the plateau of Mexico, from Colombia to the Atlantic, from Peru to Tierra del Fuego, along the valley of the Amazon and its tributaries, in central Brazil, and in the West Indies; and the ancient weapons resemble those now used by the natives of New Caledonia and the Esquimaux. M. Pruner-Bey, from the examination of skeletons found in the cave of Cro-Magnon, maintains that the crania of the reindeer age, which he calls Mongoloid, belong to a double series, one approaching the Lapp and the other the Finn of the present day; the skulls of the Dordogne caves, different from both these, he refers to the Esthonian type. From the low and projecting bony palate, he thinks the language of the cave dwellers was neither Aryan nor Semitic, but analogous to that of the Finnish races. He concludes that they had massive bones, long and flat feet, comparatively short arms and long forearms, with powerful muscles, greatly developed jaws, widely opened nostrils, and were of unbridled passions. Prof. Broca found the human thigh bones in their width approaching those of the highest apes, and a remarkable transverse flattening of the tibia; the ascending branch of the lower jaw was very wide, and the cranial capacity equal to that of high races of the present day. In reply to M. Broca, M. Quatrefages cautions anthropologists against too hastily giving undue significance to assumed agreements between fossil man and apes, from any preconceived views of the origin and descent of the human race.—The neolithic or polished-stone age was separated by a considerable interval of time from the old stone age. Many thousand polished-stone implements are collected in the museums of northern Europe and America; they are not found in the river-drift gravels, and are especially abundant in Den- mark and Sweden, while the ruder implements of the palæolithic age are unknown there, indicating that these northern countries were not inhabited during the earlier period. No bones of the reindeer nor of the great extinct mammals are found with the polished implements, and nothing made of metals; arrow heads and rough chisels would continue to be made in this, and even in the next and the present ages, while the metals were rare and costly. The Danish shell mounds are the refuse heaps of the people around their dwellings or temporary stopping places; they contain no remains of reindeer, but bones of the domestic animals, and all kinds of household objects lost or broken, including rude pottery made by hand. Similar shell heaps have been found in the United States, especially along the seacoast, marking the former dwelling places of the aborigines of this continent; several of these have been described by Prof. J. Wyman in vols. i. and ii. of the "American Naturalist" (1868). They are found from Maine to Florida, and are made up of the shells of the mollusks used by them as food, especially the clam and quahog, with bones of the elk, deer, beaver, bear, dog, various fur-bearing mammals, birds, and especially the great auk, now believed to be extinct; occasional pieces of charcoal, and implements of bone and stone, but no human remains, are found. The growth upon them of large trees proves that they must be several centuries old, though not so ancient as the shell heaps of Denmark; they show a great variety of animal food, to say nothing of the vegetable; they afford no trace of any intercourse with European nations. The layers are from 1/2 to 3 feet thick, and sometimes 250 feet long and 40 or 50 wide, and near the seashore, which has evidently been raised since their deposition; there are sometimes several layers, separated by earth, indicating successive occupations. Some of the lake dwellings of Switzerland (see Lake Dwellings) belong to this age, while those yielding metal implements belong to the next or bronze age. There are evidently two classes of these lake dwellings. Many burial mounds contain flint daggers and stone implements, and none of metal. Bodies in the stone age were either buried in the sitting posture or were burned; they were rarely, if ever, extended at length. Bones of the dog in the shell heaps, and of the ox, sheep, goat, and pig in the lake villages, lead to the belief that these animals were then domesticated; the domestic fowl and the cat were unknown. The hunting had by this time given place to the agricultural state, as we find corn-crushers, blackened wheat, barley, and flax in the lake dwellings, but no oats, rye, nor hemp; tissues of woven flax are met with. Even at this early period two kinds of skulls are found, one long and the other round, indicating the existence of at last two human races, the first perhaps belonging to men of the stone age, and the last to the bronze period, which was now coming on. In the villages of the Swiss lakes the houses were built on wooden platforms extending over the water, resting on piles driven into the mud. Similar villages have been found in Italy, Savoy, the French Jura, Germany, Scotland, and Wales; and from their number and size they must have been the centres of a numerous population, a single one having had more than 40,000 piles. Some of the people on the coast of Borneo and in parts of Polynesia make their huts on similar platforms at the present day. The charred posts and grains indicate that these villages were destroyed by fire.—In the succeeding or bronze age, implements and arms of this alloy were extensively