c/' WORKS BY MARQUIS DE NADAILLAC. Prehistoric America. ]]y the Marquis de Nadaillac. Translated, with the permission of tlic Author, by Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers), author of " History of Art." Edited, with notes, by W. H. Dall. Popular edition . . . . . .$225 Chiek Contents. — Man and the Mastodon — The Kjokken- moddings and Cave Relics — Mound-Builders — I'ottery — Weapons and Ornaments of the Mound-Builders — Cliff-Dwellers and Inhabitants of tiie Pueblos — People of Central America — Central American Ruins — Peru — Early Races — Origin of the American Aborigines, etc., etc. " The best book on this .subject that has yet been published, . . . for the reason that, as a record of facts, it is unusually full, and bcc.uise it is the first comprehensive work in which, discarding all the old and worn-out nostrums about the existence on this continent of an extinct civilization, we are brought face to face with conclusions that are based upon a careful comparison of architectural and other prehistoric remains wiih the arts and industries, the manners and cus- toms, of " the only people, except the whites, who, so f.ir as we know, have ever held the regions in which these remains are found." — Nation, The Customs and Moniments of Prehistoric Peoples. By the Manjuis de Nadaillac. Translated, with the permission of the Author, by Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers). F'ully illustrated. 8vo. ... $3 00 Chief Contents.— The Stone Age, its Duration, and its Place in Time — Food, Cannibalism, Mammals, Fish, Flunting and Fishing, Navigation — Weapons, Tools, Pottery ; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing, Ornaments ; Early Artistic Efforts — Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, " Terremares," Cran- noges, Burghs, " Nurhags," " Talayoti," and " Truddhi "— Megalithic Monuments— Industry, Commerce, Social Organiza- tion ; Flights, Wounds and Trepanation^Camps, F"ortifications, Vitrified F'orts ; Santorin ; the Towns upon the Hill of Ilissarlik — Tombs — Index. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Pubi.isiiERS, MEW YORK AND LONDON. MANNERS AND MONUMENTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES THE MARQUIS DE NADAILLAC COKRESrONDENT OK Ti;E INSTITUTE AUTHOR OF " l'aM^KIQUE PRfeHISTORlQUE," " LES PREMIERS HOMMES ET LES TEMl'S I'RliHISTORIQURS," ETC. WITH 113 ILLUSTRATIONS TRANSLATED liY NANCY BELT (N. D'Anvers) AUTHOR 01-- '"THE ELEMENl'AKV HISIOKY OF ART," "tIIE LIFE-STORY OF OUR EAKTH," "THE STORY OF EARLY MAN," ETC. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWEN lY-THIHl) STNEKI" 24 liEDFORlJ STREET, STRAND Sl^c Jmithcrbochtr llrtss 1894 Copyright, 1892 BY NANCY BELL lUortrotypcd, Printed, and Bound by trbc lljnichcrbochcr press, mew Jljorft Ci. r. I'll nam's Sons 1 ^% WI^ERSITY OF CALIFORNU TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The present volume lias been translated, with the author's consent, from the Fi'ench of the Marquis de Nadaillac. Tlie author and translator liave carefully ])rought down to date the original edition, embodying the discov^eries made during the progi-ess of the v\a)rk. The book will be found to be an epitome of all that is known on the subject of which it treats, and covei's ground not at present occupied by any other work in the English language. Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers). SOTTTTinoUKNE-ON-SEA, 1891. CONTENTS. I. The Stone Age, rrs Duratiox, and its Place in Time i 11. Food, Cannibalism, Mammals, Fish, Hunt. iNG and Fishin(;, Navigation . , 47 III. Weapons, Tools, Pottery ; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing, Ornaments ; Early Artistic Efforts ... 79 IV. Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, " Terremares," Crannoges, Burghs, " NURHAGS," " TaLAYOTI," AND " TrUD- DHI " 127 V. MEtJALiTHTc Monuments . . . .174 VI. Industry, Commerce, Social Organiza- tion; Fights, Wounds and Trepana- tion 231 VII. Cami's, P'ortifications, Vitrified P^orts; Santorin; the Towns upon the Hill OF HissARLiic 279 VIII. Tombs 343 Index 383 ILLUSTRATIONS. Fossil man from Men tone .... Frontispiece 1. Stone weapons described by Mahudel in 1734 . 8 2. Copper hatchets found in Hungary and now in national museum of Budapest .... 20 3. Copper beads from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size) . . . . . . . 21 4. Stone statues on Easter Island .... 37 5. Fort-hill, Ohio 39 6. Group of sepulchral mounds ..... 40 7. Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo valley . 41 8. Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos .... 42 9. House in a rock of the Montezuma canon . . 43 . Fragments of arrows made of reindeer horn'' from the Martinet cave (Lot-et-Garonne). !. Point of spear or harpoon in stag-horn (one I third natural size). ^^ 3. and 4. Bone weapons from Denmark. ^ 5. Harpoon of stag-horn from St. Aubin. 6. Bone fish-hooks pointed at each end, from Waugen. 11. Bear's teeth converted into fish-hooks. ) 02 12. Fish-hook made out of a boar's tusk. \ A. Large barbed arrow from one side of the Plan- tade shelter (Tarn-et-Garonne). B. Lowerpart of a barbed harpoon from the Plan- f 65 V tade deposit. 14. Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten . . . . . . . 73 15. Ancient boat discovered in the bed of the Cher 75 Vlli ILL US TEA TIONS. A lake pirogue found in the Lake of Neuchatel. i6. \ I. As seen outside. \ 76 2. and 3. Longitudinal and transverse sections. Stones used as anchors, found in the Bay ofl 17. I Penhouet. [ ' I, 2, 3. Stones weighing about 160 lbs. each. ' 82 4. and 5. Lighter stones, probably used for canoes 18. Scraper from the Delaware valley. 19. Implement from the Delaware valley. 20. Worked flints from the Lafaye and Plantade shelters (Tarn-et-Garonne) ...... 83 21. I. Stone javelin-head with handle. 2. Stone hatchet with handle ........ 8g 22. I. Fine needles. 2. Coarse needles. 3. Amulet. 4 and 6. Ornaments. 5. Cut flints. 7. Fragment of a harpoon. 8. Fragments of reindeer antlers w-ith signs or drawings. 9. Whistle. 10. One end of a bow (?). II. Arrow-head. (From the Vache, Massat, and Lourdes caves) . . . . 91 23. Amulet made of the penien bone of a bear and found in the Marsoulas cave .... 92 24. Various stone and bone objects from California . 93 25. Dipper found in the excavations at the Chassey camp 95 26. Pottery of a so far unclassified type found in the Argent cave (France). 98 27. I. Lignite pendant. 2. Bone pendant. (Thayngen cave) . . . . . . . . .107 28. Round pieces of skull, pierced with holes (M. de Baye's collection) . . . . , .110 ( Part of a rounded piece of a human parietal. 29. ■< Stiletto made of the end of a human radius. ' Disk, made of the burr of a stag's antler. 30. Whistle from the Massenat collection . . .112 31. Staff of office 113 32. Staff of office, made of stag-horn pierced with four holes . . . . . . . . .114 33. Staff of office found at Lafaye. \ 34. Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horsed 115 engraved on it (Thayngen). ) ILL US TA'A riONS. IX FIGURE PAGE 35. Staff of ofifice found at Montgaudier . . .117 36. Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Basse). ] 37. The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found \w r 118 the Massat cave (Garrigou collection). ' x?i. Mammoth or elephant from the Lena cave. \ 39. Seal engraved on a bear's tooth, found at Sordes. ) 40. Fragment of a bone, with regular designs. Frag- ment of a rib on which is engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas cave . . . .120 41. Head of a horse from the Thayngen cave. 42. Bear engraved on a bone, from the Thayngen cave. 43. Reindeer grazing, from the Thayngen cave . . 122 44. Head of Ovibos mosc/iatus, engraved on wood, found in the Thayngen cave . . . . .123 45. Young man chasing the aurochs, from Laugerie . 124 46. Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madelaine ^ cave. I 47. Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found m the Rochebertier cave. -^ 48. The glyptodon . . . . . . .128 49. Mylodon 7' ob list us . . . . . . .129 50. Objects discovered in the peat-bogs of Laybach, A. Earthenware vase. B. Fragment of orna- mented pottery. C. Bone needle. D. Earthen- ware weight for fishing-net. E. Fragment of jaw- bone ......... 152 51. Small terra-cotta figures found in the Laybach pile dwellings. ........ 153 52. Small terra-cotta figures from the Laybach pile dwellings. ........ 154 53. Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia) . . , 168 54. " Talayoti " at Trepuco (Minorca) , . . 170 55. Dolmen of Castle Wellan (Ireland) . . 175 56. The large dolmen of Careoro, near Plouharnel . 176 57. Dolmen of Arrayalos (Portugal) .... 177 58. Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru) . . . 178 59. The great broken menhir of Locmariaker with Caesar's table 186 ILL USTRA TIONS. 60. Covered avenue of Dissignac (Loire-Inferieure),view of the chamber at the end of the north gallery 61. Covered avenue near Antequera 62. Ground plan of the Gavr'innis monument (iTy. Monoliths at Stennis, in the Orkney Islands . 64. Cromlech near Bone (Algeria) 65. Dolmen at Pallicondah, near Madras (India) 66. Dolmen at Maintenon, with a table about 19I feet long 67. Part of the Mane-Lud dolmen 68. Sculptures on the menhirs of the covered avenue o Gavr'innis ....... 69. Dolmen with opening (India) .... 70. Dolmen near Trie (Oise) .... 71. Bronze objects found at Krasnojarsk (Siberia) 72. Prehistoric polisher near the ford of Beaumoulin Nemours ....... 73. Section of a flint mine ..... 74. Plan of a gallery of flint mine ... 75. Picks, hammers, and mattocks made of stag-horn 76. Cranium of a woman from Cro-Magnon (full face) 77. Skull of a woman found at Sordes, showing a severe wound, from which she recovered 78. Fragment of human tibia with exostosis enclosing the end of a flint arrow .... 79. Fragment of human humerus pierced at the elbow joint (Trou d'Argeni) .... 80. xMesaticephalic skull, with wound which has been trepanned ....... 8r. Trepanned Peruvian skull .... 82. Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-S^vres), seen in profile ....... 83. Trepanned prehistoric skull .... 84. Prehistoric spoon and button found in a lake station at Sutz ....... 85. General view of the station of Fuente-Alamo . 86. Group at Liberty (Ohio) .... 87. Trenches at Juigalpa (Nicaragua) . 88. Vases found at Santorin 189 190 191 196 201 204 208 210 211 212 237 239 242 243 245 249 250 252 253 259 268 273 274 287 293 299 300 ILL USTKA TIONS. XI 89. Vase ending in the snout of an animal, found on the hill of Hissarlik ....... 90. I'uneral vase containing human ashes. 91. Large terra-cotta vases found at Troy 92. Earthenware pitcher found at a depth of 19! feet. 93. Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy. 94. Terra-cotta vase found with the treasure of Priam. 95. Vase found beneath the ruins of Troy. 96. Earthenware pig found at a depth of 13 feet . 97. Vase surmounted by an owl's head, found beneath the ruins of Troy ...... 98. Copper vases found at Troy . . . . . 99. Vases of gold and electrum, with two ingots (Troy), 100. Gold and silver objects from the treasure of Priam, loi. Gold ear-rings, head-dress, and necklace of golden beads from the treasure of Priam 102 Terra-cotta fusaioles ..... 103. Cover of a vase with the symbol of the swastika 104. Stone hammer from New Jersey bearing an unde ciphered inscription ..... 105. Chulpa near Palca. ..... 106 Dolmen at Auvernier near the lake of Neuchatel 107. A stone chest used as a sepulchre . 108. Example of burial in a jar .... 109. Aymara mummy ...... no. Peruvian mummies ..... 111. Erratic block from Scania, covered with carvings 112. Engraved rock from Massibert (Lozere) 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 334 335 IZ^ 339 340 341 357 359 361 Z^l 365 367 379 380 MANNERS AND MONUMENTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. CHAPTER I. THE STONE AGE : ITS DURATION AND ITS PLACE IN TIME. The nineteenth century, now nearing its close, has made an indelible inipi'ession upon the history of the world, and never were greater things accomplished with more marvellous rapidity. Every branch of science, without exception, has shared in this prog- ress, and to it the daily accumulating information respecting different parts of the globe has greatly contributed. Regions, previously completely closed, have been, so to speak, simultaneously opened by the energy of explorers, who, like Livingstone, Stanley, and Nordenskiold, have won immortal renown. In Africa, the Soudan, and the equatorial regions, where the sources of the Nile lie hidden ; in Asia, the interior of Arabia, and the Hindoo Koosh or Pamir mountains, have been visited and explored. In America whole districts but yesterday inaccessible are now intersected by railways, whilst in the otlier hemisphere Australia and the islands of Polynesia have been colonized ; new 2 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. societies have rapidly s|)rung into l)eing, and even the iinmeltin^ ice of the polar regions no longer checks the advance of the intrepid explorer. And all this is but a small portion of the work on ^vhicli tlie present generation may justly pride itself. Distant wars too have contributed in no small meas- ure to the progress of science. To the victorious march of the French army we owe the discovery of new facts relative to the ancient history of Algeria ; it was the adv^ance of the English and Kussian forces tliat revealed the secret of the mysterious lands in the heart of Asia, whence many scholars believe the Euro- pean races to have first issued, and of this ever open book the French expedition to Tonquin may be con- sidered at present one of the last pages. Geographical knowledge does much to pi'omote the progress of the kindred sciences. The work of Cham- pollion, so l)rilliantly supplemented by the Vicomte de Rouge and IMai'iette Be}', has led to the accurate classi- fication of tlie monuments of Egypt. The deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions has given us tlie dates of the })alaces of Nineveh and Babylon ; the intei'[)reta- tion by savants of other inscriptions has made known to us those Ilittites whose formidable power at one time extended as far as the Mediterranean, but whose name had until quite recently fallen into complete ob- livion. The rock-hewn temples and the yet more straui^e dam)bas of India now belong: to science. Like the sacred monuments of Burniah and Cam- bodia they have been biought down to compara- tively I'ecent dates ; and though the [)alaces of Yucatan and Peru still maintain their I'eserve, we are able to fix their dates a[)proximately, and to show that long be- THE STONE AGE. 3 fore their construction North America was inhabited by races, one of which, known as the Mound Buihlers, left behind them gigantic earthworks of many kinds, whilst another, known as the Cliff Dwelleis, built for themselves houses on the face of all but inaccessible rocks. Comparative [)hilology has enabled us to trace back the genealogies of races, to determine their origin, and to follow their migrati(Mis. Burnouf has brought to light the ancient Zend language, Sir Henry Rawlin- son and Op[)ert have })y their magnificent works opened up new methods of research. Max Muller aiiri. 6 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. of an extinct race. This belief was long maintained ; in 1547 and again in 1667 fossil remains were fonnd in the cave of San Giro near Palermo ; and Italian savants decided that they had belonged to men eighteen feet high, Guicciadunus speaks of the bones of huge elephants carefully pi-eserved in the Hotel de Ville at Antwerp as the bones of a giant named Donon, who lived 1300 years before the Chiistiau era. In days nearer our own the most cultiv^ated people accepted the i-emains of a gigantic bati'achian ' as those of a man who had ^vitnessed the flood, and it was the same with a tortoise fonnd in Italy scarcely thii'ty years ago. Dr. Carl, in a Avork published at Frankfort' in 1709, took up another theory, and, such was the general ignorance at the time, he used long arguments to prove that the fossil bones were the result neither of a freak of nature, nor of the action of a plastic force, and it was not until near the end of his life that the illustrious Camper could bring him- self to admit the extinction of certain species, so totally against Divine revelation did such a phenomenon appear to him to be. Pi'ejudices were not, however, always so obstinate. Foi' moT'e than thi'ee centuries stones worked by the hand of man have been preserved in the Museum of the Vatican, and as long ago as the time of Clement VIII. his doctor, Mercati, declared these stones to have been the weapons of antediluvians \vho had been still ignorant of the use of metals. ' This skeleton was discovered in 1726 by Scheiichzer, a doctor of QEningen, and by him placed in the Leyden Museum, with the pompous inscription : Homo diluvii testis {Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxxiv.). Cuvier, by scraping away the stone, revealed the true nature of the fossil. * " Ossium Kossiliuni Docimasia." THE STONE AGE. 7 During the eai'ly portion of the eigbteentli century a pointed black iiint, evidently the head of a spear, was found in London with the tooth of an elephant. It was described in the newspapers of the day, and placed in the British Museum. In 1723 Antoine de Jussieu said, at a meeting of the Academie des Sciences, that these worked stones had been made where they were found, or bi-onght from distant countries. He supported his arguments by an excellent example of the way in which savage i-aces still polish stones, by rubbing them continuously together. A few years later the members of the Academie des InscriiMons in their turn, took up the question, and Mahudel, one of its membei's, in presenting several stones, showed that they had evidently been cut by the hand of man. " An examination of them," he said, " affords a proof of the efforts of our earliest ancestors to provide for their wants, and to obtain the necessaries of life." He added that after the re- peopling of the earth after the deluge, men were ignorant of the use of metals. Mahudel's essay is illustrated by drawings, some of which we reproduce (Fig. 1), showing wedges, hammers, hatchets, and flint arrow-heads taken, he tells us, from various private collections.* Bishop Lyttelton, writing in 1736, speaks of such weapons as having been made at a remote date by savao-es io;uorant of the use of metals,^ and Sii' W. Dugdale, an eminent autiquaiy of the seventeenth century, attributed to the ancient Britons some flint ' " Mem. Acad, des Inscriptions," 1734, vol. x., p. 163. ^ Arc/i(£ologia, vol. ii., p. llS. PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. hatchets found in Warwickshire, and thinks they were made when these weapons alone were used. ^ Fk;. I. — Stone weapons ile.sci"il)ee done was to come at last. Dr. Falconer visited fii'st Amiens and then Abbeville, to examine the deposits and the flints and bones found in them. In January, 1859, and in 1860, othei' Englishmen <>f science followed his exam- ple ; and excavations were made, under their direction, in the massive strata which rise, from the chalk foi'ming their base, to a height of 108 feet above the level of the Somme. Their search was crowned with success, and they lost no time in making known to the world the I'esults they had obtained, and the convictions to which these results had led.' In 1859 Prestwich an- nounced to the Royal Society of London that the flints found in the bed of the Somme wei'e undoubtedly the work of the hand of man, that they had been found in sti'ata that had not been disturbed, and that the men who cut these flints had lived at a period prioi' t(» the time ^vhell our eai'th assumed its ])resent configuration. Sir Chai'les Lyell, in liis opening ad- dress at a session of the British Association, dif the possessions of a noble Veronese published in 1656, we find them mentioned under this namc.~' Every one knows Cymbeline's funeral chant in Shakespeare's play : Fear no iiKire the lightning flash Nor tlie all dreaded thunder-stone. In Germany we are shown Donner-Keile, in Alsace Downer- Axt, in Holland Domier-Beitels, in Denmark Tordensteen, in Norway TordenlceUe, in Sweden Thor- so(j(/ai% Thor having been the god of thunder amongst northern nations; while with the Celts ^ the Mengurun, in Asia Mjnor the Ylderim-taclii., in Japan the Mai-fti- selci-nn-rui, in Roussillon the Pedrns de La7np, and in Andalusia the Piedras de Mayo have the same significa- ' A short time before his tragic end, the noble and patriotic Gordon sent to Cairo three hatchets or stone wedges found amongst the Niams-Niams, who said they had fallen from Heaven, and who worsliippcd them with supersti- tious rites (/jV///. Instilict Egyp/icn, 1886, No. 14). * " Museo Moscardo," I'adova, 1656. * According to M. I'itre de Lisle, the Bretons think that these stcmes vibrate at every clap of tluindcr. THE STONE AGE. I7 tion. The inhabitants of the Mindanao islands call these stones the teeth of the thnnder animal, and the Japan- ese the teeth of the thnnder.^ In Cambodia, ^vol■ked stones, celts, adzes, and gouges or knives, are known as thunder stones. A Chinese emperor, who lived in the eightli century of our era, received from a Buddhist [)riest some valuable presents which the donoi's said had been sent by the Lord of Heaven, amongst which were two flint hatchets called loui-hong, or stones of the god of thunder. In Brazil we meet with the same idea in the name of corisco, or lightnings, given to worked flints ; whilst in Italy, by an exception almost unique, they are called lingne san Paolo. May we not also attribute to the worship of stones some of the religious and funeral rites of antiquity? According to Poi'phyry, Pythagoras, on his ari'ival on the island of Crete, was purified with thunder-stones by the dactyl priests of Mount Ida. The Etruscans wore flint arrow-heads on their collars. They were sought after by the Magi, and the Indians gave them an honored place in their temples. According to Herodotus, the Arabs sealed their engagements by making an incision in their hands with a sharp stone ; in Egypt the body of a corpse before being embalmed was opened with a flint knife ; a similai* implement was used by the Hebrews for the rite of circumcision ; and it was also with cut stones that the priests of Cybele inflicted self-mutilation in memory of that of Atys. At Rome the stone hatchet was dedicated to Jupiter Latialis, and solemn treaties were ratified by the sacrifice of a pig, the throat of which was cut mth a sharp flint. According to Virgil, this custom was ' Roulin : Acad, dcs Sciences , December 28, 1868. 1 8 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. handed down to the ancient Romans l^y tlie uncouth nation of the Equicoles. At the beginning of the Christian era, the heroes commemorated by Ossian still had in the centre of tlieli' shields a polished stone consecrated by the Druids, and a saga maintains that the ceraunia assured certain victory to their owners. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Aztecs used obsidian blades for the sacrifices, in which hundreds of human victims perished miserably ; and similar blades are used by the Guanches of Teneriff'e to open the bodies of their chiefs after death. At the present day, the Albanian Palikares use pointed flints to cut the flesh off the shoulder-blade of a sheep with a \\e\x to seeking in its fibres the secrets of the future, and when the god Gima\vong visits his temple of Labode, on the western coast of Africa, his worshippers offer him a bull slain with a stone knife. Lumholtz,^ in the second of his recent explorations in Queensland, tells us that the natives still use stone weapons, varying in form and in the handles used, and that the weapons of the Australians living near Darling River, as well as those of the Tasmaniaus, are without handles. During the first centuries of the Christian era, strange rites were still performed in honor of dolmens and menhirs. The councils of the Church condemned them, and the emperors and kings supported by their authority the decrees of the ecclesiastics.' Childebert in 554, Cai'loman in 742, Charlemagne by an edict issued at Aix-la-Chapelle in 789,^ forbid their subjects to practise these rites borrowed from heathenism. But ' " Congres d' Anthropologic et d'Archeologie Prehistorique," Paris, 1889. ''Council of Aries in 452, of Tours in 567, of Nantes in 658, of Toledo in 681 and 692, and of Leptis in 743. ^Baluze: " Capitularia Regum Francorum," vol. i., pp. 51S, 1234, 1237. THF STONE AGE. 10 popes and emperors are alike powerless In this direc- tion, and one generation transmits its traditions and superstitions to another. In the seventeenth century a Pi'otestant missionary called in the aid of the secular arm to destroy a superstition deeply rooted in the minds of his people; in England, sorcerers \vei"e pro- ceeded against for having used flint arrow-heads in their pretended witchcraft ; in Sweden, a polished hatchet was placed in the bed of women in the pangs of labor ; in Burmah, thunder-stones reduced to powder were looked upon as an infallible cure for ophthalmia; and the Canaches have a collection of stones with a special superstition connected with each. But why seek examples so far away and in a past so lemote? In our own day and in our own laud we find men who think themselves invulnerable and their cattle safe if they are fortunate enough to possess a polished flint. Prehistoric times are generally divided into three epochs — the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. We owe this classification to the ai'chaeologists of Northern Europe.' It is neither very exact nor very satisfactory, and fresh discoveries daily tend to unsettle it.* Alsberg maintained that iron was the first metal used, founding his contention on the scai'city of tin, the difficulty of obtaining alloys, and on the sixty-one iron foundries of Switzerland which may date from prehistoric times. The rarity of the discovery of iron objects, he urged, is accounted for })y the ease with which such oljjects are destroyed by rust. There has never been a Bronze or an Iron age in America, so ' Steenstrup, Forchammer, Thomsen, Worsaae, and Nillsson. The commis- sion appointed by the Copenhagen Academy of Sciences presented six reports on the subject between 1850 and 1S56. * " Die Anfang des Eisens Cultur," Berlin, 1886. 20 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. that it would seem very doubtful wlietlier all races went through the same cycles of development. I my- self prefer the division into the Palceolithic period, when men only used roughly chipped stones, and the NeolithiG period, wlien they carefully polished their stone weapons. "There may" says Alexander Ber- trand,^ "be one imuuitable law for the succession of strata throughout the entire crust of the eaitli, but there is no corresponding law applicable^ to liuman Fig. 2. — Copper hatchets found in Hungan', and now in the National Museum of Budapest. aofoflomerations or to the succession of the strata of civilization. It would be a very grave error to adopt the theory according to which all human races have passed through the same phases of development and have gone through the same complete series of social conditions." It may perhaps be convenient to introduce a fourth period when copper alone was used and our ancestors were still ignorant of the alloys necessary for the pro- ' " Archeologie Celtique et Gauloise," p. 46. THE STONE AGE. 21 ductioii of bronze. Hesiod. speaks of a third genera- tion of men as possessing copper only, and altliougli it does not do to attach undue importance to isolated facts, recent discoveries in the Cevennes, in Spain, in Hungary, and elsewhere, appear to confirm the exist- ence of an age of cojjper (Fig. 2). We may add that the mounds of North America contain none but copper implements and ornaments, witnesses of a time when that metal alone was known either on the shores of the Atlantic or of the Pacific ^ (Fig. 3). It is impossible to fix the duration of the Stone age. It began with man, it lasted for countless Fig. 3. — Copper beads, from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size). centuries, and we find it still prevailing amongst certain races who set their faces against all progress. The scenes sculptured upon Egyptian monuments dating from the ancient Empire represent the employment of stone weapons, and their use was continued throughout the time of the Lagidae and even into that of the Roman domination. A few years ago, on the shores of the Nile, I saw some of the common people shave • Dr. Much : " L'Age de Cuivre en Europe et son Rapport avec la Civilisa- tion des Indo-Germains," Vienna, 1886. Pulsky : "Die Kupfer Zeit im Un- garn," Budapest, 1884. Cartailhac : "Ages Prehistoriques de I'Espagne et du Portugal," p. 211. E. Chantre : Mat., June, 1887; and Berthelot : Journal des Savanls, September, 1889. 22 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. their heads with stone razors, and the Bedouins of Gournah using spears headed with pointed flints. The Ethiopians in the suite of Xerxes had none but stone weapons, and yet their civilization was several centuries older than that of the Persians. The excavations on the site of Alesia yielded many stone weapons, the glorious relics of the soldiers of Vercingetorix. At Mount Beuvray, on the site of Bibracte, flint hatchets and weapons have been discovered associated with Gallic coins. At Rome, M. de Rossi collected similar objects mixed with the ^Ea rude. Flint hatchets are mentioned in the life of St. Eloy, written by St. Owen, and the Mei"o\ ingian tombs have yielded hundreds of small cut flints, the last offerings to the dead. William of Poitiers tells us that the English used stone weapons at the battle of Hastings in 1066, and the Scots led by Wallace did the same as late as 1288. Not until many centuries after the beginning of the Christian era did the Sarmatians know the use of metals ; and in the fourteenth century we find a lace, [)robably of African origin, making their hatchets, knives, and arrows of stone, and tipping their Javelins with horn. The Japanese, moreover, used stone weapons and imple- ments until the ninth and even the tenth century a.d. But there is no need to go back to the past for examples. The Mexicans of the present day use ob- sidian hatchets, as their fathers did before them ; the Es(piimaux use nephi-itis and jade vvea[)ons with Rem- ington rifles. Nordenskiold tells us that the Tchout- chis know of no weapons but those made of stone ; that they show their artistic feeling in engravings on bone, very similar to those found in the caves of the south of France. In 1854, the Mqhavi, an Indian THE STONE AGE. 23 tribe of the Rio C'olonulo (California), possessed no metal objects ; and it is the same with the dwellers on the banks of the Shingu River (Brazil), the Oyacoiilets of French Guiana, and many other wandering and savage races. Pere Pelitot tells us that the natives living on the banks of the Mackenzie River are still in the stone age; and Schumacker has given an interest- ing example of the manufacture of stone weapons by the Klamath Indians dwelling on the shores of the Pacific. It has been justly said: "The Stone age is not a fixed period in time, but one phase of the de- velopment of the human race, the duration of which varies according to the environment and the race." ^ In thus limiting our idea of the stone age, we may conclude that alike in Europe and in America,^ there has been a period when metal was entirely unknown, when stones were the sole weapons, the sole tools of man, when the cave, for which he had to dispute possession with l)ears and othei* beasts of prey, was his sole and precarious refuge, and when clumsy heaps of stones served alike as temples for the worship of his gods and sepulchral monuments in honor of his chiefs. Excavations in every department of France have yielded thousands of worked flints, and there are few more intei'esting studies than an examination of the mural map in the Saint Germain Museum on which are marked with scrupulous exactitude the dwelling-places of our most remote ancestors, and the megalithic monu- ments \vhich are the indestructible memorials of our forefathers. ' Irenee Cochut : " These presentee a la Faculte de The'ologie Protestante de Montauban." - See my translation of the author's admirable and exhaustive work on " Prehistoric America," chapters i. and iv. — Nancy Bell. 24 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. In the Crimea were picked up a number of small flints cut into the shape of a crescent exactly like those found in the Indies and in Tunis, and the Anthropo- logical Society of Moscow has introduced us to a Stone age the memory of which is preserved in the tumuli of Russia. On the shores of Lake Lagoda have been found some implements of argillaceous schist, in Carelia and in Finland tools made of slate and schist, often adorned with clumsy figures of men or of animals. The rigor of the climate did not check the develop- ment of the human race ; in the most remote times Lapland, Nordland, the most northerly districts of Scandinavia, and even the bitterly cold Iceland, were peopled. The Exhibition of Paris, 1878, contained some stone weapons found on the shores of the White Sea. On several parts of the coast of Denmark we meet with mounds of au elliptical shape and about nine feet high, with a hollow in the centre, marking the site of a prehistoric dwelling. It was not until about 1850 that the true nature of these mounds was determined. Excavations in them have brought to light knives, hatch- ets, all manner of stone, horn, and bone implements, fragments of pottery, charred ^vood, with the bones of mammals and birds, the skeletons of fishes, the shells of oysters and cockles buried beneath the ashes of ancient hearths. To these accumulations the cliar- acteiistic name of Kitchenmiddings^ or kitchen refuse, has been given. Several caves have recently been examined in Poland, one of which, situated near Cracow, appears to belong to Palaeolithic times. Count Zawiska has already given an account of his interesting discoveries to the THE STONE AGE, 25 Prehistoric Congress at Stockholm. In the Wirzchow cave he identified seven different hearths, and took out of the accumulations of cinders various amulets, clumsy representations of fish cut in ivory, split l)ones, bears', wolves', and elks' teeth pierced with a hole for thread- inij^, and more than four thousand stone objects of a similar type to those found in Russia, Scandinavia, and Germany. We meet with similar traces of successive habitation in a cave near Ojcow ; the valuable contents of which included some beautiful flint tools, some awls, bone spatula, and some gold ornaments, mixed, in the lower of the heai'ths, with the bones of extinct animals, and in the upper, with those of species still living. The discoveries made in the Atter See and in the Salzburg lakes with those in the Moravian caves prove what had previously l)eeu very stoutly denied, the ex- istence in those districts of ancient races at a very remote date. The most ancient inhabitants of Hungary, however, cannot be traced further back than to Neolithic times. In that country have been found, with polished stone implements, thousands of objects made of stag-horn, or bone, almost all without exception finely finished oft'. The discovery of copper tools and ornaments of a peculiar form in the Danubian provinces, bears wit- ness to a distinct civilization in those districts, and confirms what we have just said about a Copper age. From the Lake Stations of Austria and Hungary, we pass naturally to those of Switzerland. We shall have to introduce to our readers whole villages built in the midst of the waters, and a people long completely forgotten. In many of these stations, none but stone implements have been found, and on the half-burnt 26 PREHISTORIC PEOPLES. piles on which the huts had been set up, it is still easy to make out the notches cut with flint hatchets. We meet with similar pile dwellings, as these struc- tures are called, in France, Ital\', Germany, Ireland, and England, for iwnw the earliest times man was con- stantly engaged in sanguinary contests with his fellow- men, and souirht in the midst of the waters a refufi;e fi'oin the ever [)resent dangers surrounding him. The dis(;overies made in Belgium must be ranked amongst the most important in Eui'0[)e, and we shall often have occasion to refer to tliem. Holland, on the other hand, having much of it been under the sea for so long, yields nothing to our researches but a few arrow-heads, hatchets, and knives made of quartz oi- diorite, and all of them of the coarsest workmanshijt. No less fruitfid in resuhs to [)i'ehistoric science are the researches made in the south of Europe. Tlie con- gress that met at Bologna, in 1871, showed us tliat in the Transalpine provinces man was witness of those physical phenomena Avliich gave to Italy its pi'esent configuration ; and the exhi]:)ition in connection with the congress enabled us to ix^t a £rood idea of the primitive industry whicli lias left relics behind it in every district of the ])eninsula. Some hatchets of a similar type to the most ancient foun