Part 11

THE LAKE-DWELLERS.

Among the earliest inhabitants of Europe, there were some who did not live in caves; but I think they must have lived a long time after the cave-dwellers, when they built their houses out in the middle of the lakes. These houses were built in a very curious way, and the remains of them have been discovered in Ireland and Scotland, Switzerland and other countries. The people carried quantities of stones, and earth, and sticks out into the lake and let them sink to the bottom. Then when they had piled up enough to make an island, they laid wood across and set up their huts, and lived there surrounded by water. These were very poor houses of course; but when men had begun to build for themselves, they would find how much more comfortable they were than in damp and dark caves. They must have had some kind of boats or canoes, or they could not have passed between their lake-dwellings and the land unless they swam to them; but I do not think that any of these boats have been found. Perhaps they were made of the dried skins of animals stretched over wooden frames, as I have seen savages make boats.

Lake-Dwellings.]

There was another way of building these lake-dwellings, and a better way too. Long poles were driven into the earth at the bottom of the water, and when the builders had got enough of these together they laid other poles across them, and built their huts on this floor above the water. People are living now in much the same way near the Orinoco river in South America, in New Guinea, and in Central Africa. The land all round is covered with water from the overflowing of the rivers, which are very large, and the huts are built up on these poles out of the way of it. The lake-dwellers of Europe would thus be safer in their houses from dangerous animals than if they were on land. They were more civilized than the cave-dwellers, but still a great many of their tools and weapons were of stone and bone; yet we know that they had made wonderful progress, because they had learned to make pottery, and even to weave cloths out of hemp or flax. They had most likely begun to plant and cultivate the land, too, for corn is found about these dwellings, and the bones of domestic animals are very numerous. They had left the cave-dwellers a long way behind in many things, in wearing artificial clothing, in cultivating the land, and in keeping domestic animals; but their implements—that is, their weapons and tools—were not much improved, and were very much like those of the cave-dwellers, though better finished and more polished than some of theirs.

But not all the articles used by the lake people were of stone and bone. Some of those who lived in the Swiss lakes had ornaments, such as bracelets and hair-pins, made of the metal called bronze, and no doubt they made spear-heads of the metal, because they would look to usefulness before ornament.

Now you see how these people seem to have lived: first the old stone age men, then those of the newer or polished stone age, and lastly the lake-dwellers. The people of both the first and second stone ages certainly saw the mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, lion, and reindeer alive in France, Switzerland, and England; but when the lake-dwellings were built, all these animals, except perhaps the reindeer, had died, and most of the animals were the same as they are now. None of these people have left us any kind of history whatever, except that which their simple works tell us, their flint and bone weapons, and their dwellings. They have set up no gigantic monuments like the Egyptians or the Druids. They thought of no men to come after them who would take an interest in their ways; but it is fortunate that what they did make was of such lasting materials as stone and flint, or we should have known next to nothing about their lives.

It is impossible to say how many thousands of years may have passed before the rough stone weapons were replaced by the polished stone, or the cave was exchanged for an artificial house in a lake; but you must feel in your minds that the time was immense, and the more we study the ways and works of pre-historic man, the more certain we become that it is longer than the whole time that has passed since men first began to use any kind of writing.

KITCHEN-MIDDENS.

I dare say you have seen untidy people in country places, and even in towns, throw oyster-shells and broken dishes and dirt outside their doors until quite a heap is formed. This is called a “midden,” and the habit of doing this is a very old one. We learn just a little more of the history of man from great middens made by ancient people in several countries. They were first discovered in Denmark, and since then they have been found in Scotland, Brazil, and New Zealand. They are sometimes very large, and must have been used by the whole village as places to throw the refuse of their cookery in. When these heaps have been dug into all sorts of things have been found in them—the shells of oysters and mussels, bones of fishes, birds, and animals, pieces of broken earthenware, little ornaments, stone axes, arrow-heads, wood ashes, burnt bones, and other odds and ends. In Brazil many of these kitchen-middens are on the sea shore, and it seems as if the people who made them came there to live on the shell-fish, for the shells are the same as those living in the sea close by now. In New Zealand the middens contain many of the bones of the Moa, which was described in “The Animal Part,” and has now perished, and these are cracked in such a manner that the people evidently wanted to get at the marrow in them, and it shows too that this gigantic bird was common in New Zealand then. The midden makers seemed to have lived in the open air, and wherever food was most plentiful. Perhaps they built huts of the bark and small branches of trees like the Australian savages, but such houses would not last. We only know of the life of the midden makers from these heaps. Their weapons are of the same kind and pattern as those of the Second Stone Age, but they had learned to make rough earthenware dishes and basins, and some pieces of a woven material have been found, and pieces of wood and bone worked with a little skill. Whether they lived after or before the lake-dwellers I cannot say, but I should think about the same time.

These pre-historic people, nevertheless, were not always thinking of making things which were useful. They thought too of making ornaments, many of which are found in their dwellings and graves. Like ourselves, they had an idea that little trinkets improved their appearance. In one grave a skeleton was found with a small pile of shells under its neck, which no doubt had been strung together as a necklace, and when the string rotted the shells parted and fell in a heap under the head, to be a memorial of that ancient man or woman’s possession of the same feelings as our own. Various little articles, too, found about the lake-dwellings show that people liked to decorate themselves.

We shall never know what language they spoke, but they must have been able to tell their thoughts to one another. It was most likely a simple language with few words as names for things and a simple grammar, like the language of savages, because they had not so many things to talk about as we have. The names of animals would perhaps be imitated from their cries and the noises they made. These cries would be among the most familiar sounds to them, and when they wished to speak of some animal the simplest way would be to imitate the noise it generally makes. If we think of our own language, we shall see how very likely this was. We have many such words. We teach our children the names of animals by the sounds they make. The dog we call “bow-wow,” the cow “moo-moo,” the duck “quack-quack,” and many other names of the same kind which you will think of yourselves. At the present time even the name by which the Egyptians call the donkey has almost exactly the same sound as our “hee-haw.” This trick of doubling or repeating the sound, too, is very common among savages, who are as far behind us as the pre-historic men were. The natives of Australia give these double names to a great many animals and things, and sometimes do the same with English words. They call fish “ningy-ningy,” and a certain tree the “bunya-bunya,” and their language is full of such words. But it is not only the names of things which have been made in this way. Verbs as well as nouns have grown up thus. When we whisper to one another, that word imitates the low sound we make.

I shall leave you to trace the natural origin of the following words, and think how much of man’s spoken language is taken from common sounds. Thus we have roar, shriek, whistle, hiss, sigh, sing, ring, thump, bump, clash, clang, bang, twang, clap, smack, slap, smash, swish, swirl, gong, thong, boom, bellow, batter, chatter, clatter, snap, snip, whip, gurgle, shiver, quiver, rumble, roll, rattle, prattle, and a hundred more. Words thus derived from familiar sounds abound in all languages, and they, no doubt, are the easy steps by which men climbed to a more complicated speech. The earliest men must have been obliged to pay great attention to animals and birds, which have voices of their own; for to hunt and catch them was the principal occupation of their lives; therefore, when speaking of them to one another, they would naturally call them by names resembling the sounds they made. Our verbs “to squeak” and “to squeal” are certainly taken from the cries of animals when in pain; but I have said enough to show you how language grew up among pre-historic people.

We do not know for certain that they had any musical instruments, but they would hear the sighing of the wind among the trees, and it would almost certainly be found out that blowing down a hollow stick or reed, open at one end and closed at the other, would make a whistle; but if they used any of these things they would not last like the stone tools, and have decayed away; and we do know that they had begun to draw upon such imperishable materials as bone and slate.

There is a very interesting specimen of a human fossil in the British Museum, which you ought to go and see, if you can; but in case you are not able there is a drawing of it on page 159. This specimen was brought to England about the year 1814. Others like it have since been found imbedded in the hard breccia limestone rock at the same place on the shore of the island of Guadaloupe. The skeleton most likely was that of a woman, from the shape of some of the bones, and most probably was of the race of Caribs, of whom there are none living now. Perhaps this was originally a burying place of the ancient inhabitants of the island, and when the sea washed the small broken pieces of shells and corals over it (all of which contain lime) they hardened into breccia rock, and the skeleton became completely imbedded in it. This must have taken a very long time, at all events; but I do not think the Guadaloupe fossils are as old as the people who lived in the caves in France. Some little ornaments and articles of human workmanship are found with these skeletons, which show that the people to whom they belonged were still in the Stone Age. There is very little to judge from when we wish to get some idea of the time these fossils have been in this breccia: but at this particular place the rock is formed pretty quickly, as we can see; and it is quite likely that these skeletons were buried there long after the mammoth, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus died out of Europe. However, they are the most complete specimens we have of any fossil human beings. In looking at the drawing you will see the leg bones and hips, part of the backbone, the ribs of one side, and an arm bone; but you see no skull, because the bones of the skull are very thin, and have become crushed down into the limestone. In one of these fossils, which they have in Paris, taken from near the same place, the bones are much more distinct, and part of the lower jaw with some teeth in it can be seen. These fossil men no doubt lived before the period of written human history began; but they are not considered to be at all the oldest of pre-historic men.

The Guadaloupe Human Fossil.]

Two periods in the life of mankind followed all these long-lost and forgotten people, and they are called the Bronze Age and the Iron Age; but now history comes in, and there are plenty of old records and books to tell you about these. Bronze is a mixed metal of copper and tin, and it was used by the oldest nations who have left any histories—the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. It was better than stone because it could be made sharper and would not chip, and swords and armour, vases, axes, hammers, needles, &c., were made of it.

The Stone Age is beyond all history, the Bronze begins with it, and the Iron Age began at some distant time before the dawn of authentic history. Thus we are told, in Genesis iv. 22, that Tubal Cain taught people to make it. It was used also by the Egyptians for perhaps 2,000 years before the Christian era; but the real Iron Age is that in which we are living now. We can, indeed, make all metals much better than any of the older nations.

But there is a wide gap between the time when people left off using stone and discovered bronze and iron; and if one of the Druids could come to life he might help us to fill it up, because those old British priests had many secrets, which they told to one another from generation to generation.

If the Spanish conquerors had not destroyed the civilization of Mexico and Peru, we might know something of the discovery of the metals there, and the people of India and China must have used them long ago; but the first use of metal in any country where it was found out would most likely be before the people had begun to put their language into any kind of writing, so that the time would be forgotten among the many scraps of lost knowledge which we have tried to collect from the remains of the industry of pre-historic man.

We have seen how much these ancient people differed from us in their civilization, and how far they were behind us in everything; but we must not suppose that they were very different in bodily size and shape. Some of their skulls might have belonged to a philosopher, or they might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage. The skulls from the Cromagnon and Engis caves are quite equal in size and shape to those of several uncivilized, and even of some civilized races of the present time, and there are people in all large cities whose heads are not better formed. Though the outward signs of their civilization then were so different from ours, it is not certain that their mental capacity was much less.

A race possessing considerable civilization may, we know, pass away, as the Assyrians and the Pyramid builders have. In one of the Pacific islands—Easter Island—a thousand miles from the nearest land, there are hundreds of carved images of stone, fifty or sixty feet high, and weighing perhaps a hundred tons each. The people who made these must have been very numerous and must have had considerable skill. Yet they have passed away. The arts of Nineveh and Babylon have only lately become known, so that, you see, the works of a race may easily become hidden from us who follow. Quite lately, too, the works of a partly civilized people have been discovered in Ohio in America. There are there hundreds of mounds and earth embankments forming fortified camps. Some of them are several miles round, and they could only have been made by a very numerous and intelligent people who knew something about geometry; for the circles, squares, and angles of these earthworks are quite as correct as we could make them. Among the multitude of things found here are copper tools made by hammering, ornamental pottery, silver beads, plates of mica with scrolls and designs engraved on them, and carefully carved pieces of stone. These carvings are most curious and excellently finished. They represent human heads and many animals, such as the bear, otter, wolf, beaver, raccoon, frog, rattlesnake, heron, crow, &c. A people, then, who could do these things and took pleasure in doing them must have possessed great intelligence and a knowledge of things far beyond a simple state. They even had religious ideas, such as they were, for they had places for sacrifice. All their works are now overgrown by forests, but it is impossible to mistake them; yet the native Indians of Ohio living now have no idea that such a people lived in their country before them, and no tradition at all about a people whose civilization was so far superior to their own.

We may come nearer to our own times, and look at the Assyrians and Egyptians. Until quite recently nothing was known about the Assyrians except what could be learned from the few references made to them in Scripture and some ancient writers; but Mr. Layard dug up their cities, and found that they possessed the arts of building, sculpture, working in metals, and a written language. All this was buried under the sand of a desert! Then there is the great Pyramid of Egypt, built in a way that we could not surpass, and with much knowledge of geometry and other sciences. The men who designed and constructed these works could not have lived among a half-barbarous people; and as these are the highest works of the people, how much there must have been that went before, of which there is no trace now, when Assyria and Egypt were in their age of stone axes and flint arrow-heads.

I do not think that the Stone-Age men of Europe were nearly so civilized. At all events, they have not left any such imperishable monuments as the gigantic images of Easter Island, the earthworks of the Ohio people, or the sculptures, writings, and buildings of the Assyrians and Egyptians; but they might have been more civilized than they seem to have been from their simple weapons and tools. They might have made many things which were perishable, and have been destroyed by time—things which would have given us a higher belief in their intelligence and civilization.

The past history of the human race may be compared to the rise and fall of the tide. Wave after wave has risen higher and higher on the everlasting shore of Time, and when the tide was at its highest it has fallen again slowly, to rise again and again in the same way through many ages. We know that man may rise slowly from a simple condition to much civilization and power, and may again sink back almost to barbarism, as has been the case with the people of whom we have been speaking, and then again a new civilization may grow up. It is possible that all now savage nations are the sinking descendants of some, in comparison, once civilized people. Modern nations are taking up the ground of savages all over the world, and soon there will be no trace of these simple people. Thus it may have been with mankind throughout all the time during which they have occupied the earth, and so it may be perhaps again.

FOOTNOTES:

A fine Mexican MS. on diapered cloth, with figures and mystical signs, has lately been added to the MS. department of the British Museum.

Some fine examples of papyrus writings on the North-west Staircase, Upper Floor.

British Antiquities Room, upper floor, Middle and Upper Shelf-cases, Nos. 1, 2, and 5-12, flint and stone implements. Table-case B, horn implements from French caves and Swiss lake-dwellings.