76 THE RISE OF MAN. 



remembering of course that in the early part of that time 

 he had less brain to work with than the lowest living races. 



"It was not until 60,000 years more had passed that 

 the sum of mesolithic inventions reached a neolithic age 

 and the more rapid increase towards the end of course 

 made it appear like a sudden jump in culture. In no other 

 way than by assuming a geometrical increase of culture 

 can we explain that remarkable jump to the neolithic. 

 The mesolithic had but rude tools and pottery, no grain 

 and the only domestic animal was the dog. The new age 

 had pottery, artifical caves for houses, then lake dwellings, 

 and such a sudden appearance of cows, pigs and goats 

 that they were once thought to have been brought into 

 Europe from the east, though a much later invasion really 

 did occur. Yet we know from recent experiments that 

 new varieties of domestic animals can arise in a much 

 shorter time by artificial selection than we once thought 

 the estimates of biologists are undergoing constant re- 

 duction. So that the domestication of the above animals, 

 though perhaps started by the mesolithic man, may have 

 been accomplished by the neolithic in a short time, for we 

 know that these bones were fairly numerous in the late 

 neolithic. 



* ' The pig and the horse were unknown to the early 

 Egyptians and also to the Akkadians before the Semitic 

 invasion. The wonderful resemblance between many 

 breeds of domestic animals for a long time after birth so 

 that experts may be deceived as to the breed until near 

 maturity, is strong evidence of the very late specialization 

 of these varieties by artificial selection. 



( ' These suddenly appearing domestic animals are al- 

 most exclusively gregarious, and had undergone a natural 

 selection for millions of years, fitting them for a semi- 

 dependent existence in herds, and the transference of that 

 dependence to man was an easy matter and need not have 

 taken long." 



