12 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



extract the marrow or, in the case of small examples, simply because 

 the midden builders liked to crunch the heads just as many people 

 do today. All marrow bones are, however, invariably opened one 

 way or another. 



Other even more interesting things are found in kitchen-middens. 

 Those of the Stone Age occurring in western Europe contain num- 

 bers of crude flint implements and many animal bones still bearing 

 marks obviously made by knives and scrapers of this material. 

 Hearths of flat stones are also found, showing that oyster stews are 

 as old as shipping. On the other hand, no trace of agriculture, cereals, 

 or vegetable remains, other than charred wood and masses of sea- 

 weed, has ever been found. The flint implements consist of axes, 

 flakes of flint, and things which have been called "slingstones" but 

 probably were weights for fishing nets. There are also a lot of bone 

 implements of quite fine workmanship, such as pins, spear points, and 

 many harpoon heads with sharp recurved barbs. There is also some 

 very crude pottery. 



These Stone Age sites were probably inhabited the whole year 

 round and must have had much the appearance of the modern coastal 

 settlements of the Lapps. The inhabitants were fishermen, hunters, 

 and beachcombers. They had no agriculture and probably no do- 

 mestic animals, with the possible exception of the dog, which they 

 may have raised for food rather than for hunting. The exact dating 

 of the kitchen-middens in Europe is still a matter of some debate 

 and it is possible that they accumulated throughout an immense 

 period of time. The probability of this conjecture is greatly en- 

 hanced when we consider that the making of such refuse piles has 

 gone on ever since, in one part of the world or another, and is still 

 taking place in some areas today. It has been estimated that some of 

 those in Denmark were started about eight thousand years before 

 the Christian Era, but others appear to be of much later date. Some 

 experts believe that the principal period of their formation was from 

 5000 to 3000 B.C. 



The builders in Denmark were a people known as the Ertebolles, 

 from the place where their particular brand of pottery was first 

 found. If their pottery is any criterion of origin, these people seem 

 to have come originally from the Danubian basin, and to have been 

 pushed right across Europe till they came to its western edge. They 



