PREHISTORIC RECORDS. 547 



buried in barrows or cairns ; numerous broken implements were laid 

 beside them ; and, from the quantities of calcined bones found in some 

 of these graves, it is believed that, in the case of a chief, human sacri- 

 fices may have been offered. From the number of these tombs and 

 the plentiful remains of Neolithic dwellings scattered over Britain, we 

 are led to the conclusion that our country, in common with Europe, 

 had in those days a somewhat large and tolerably civilized population, 

 who had flocks and herds, who practiced agriculture, and who were 

 hunters and fishermen. 



In the pile or lake dwellings of Switzerland, which are assigned to 

 this era, many interesting discoveries have been made. Three kinds 

 of wheat— one an Egyptian variety — have been found ; also two kinds 

 of barley, two kinds of millet, the remains of fruit such as apples and 

 pears, peas, flax, and weeds. For their cattle and swine the lake-dwell- 

 ers seem to have laid up winter fodder in the shape of acorns and beech- 

 nuts. They made cloth of their flax, and could even Aveave it into an 

 ornamental pattern. From an examination of the human remains 

 found in these curious lake-dwellings and in the sepulchral caves, the 

 most eminent geologists are of opinion that our Neolithic ancestors 

 were of the same race as the Basque-speaking peoples who are still to 

 be found in the north of Spain and in the south of France. 



However acquired, the possession of bronze marks an era of ad- 

 vancement. The dwellings of the people who used it were better, and 

 their circumstances more comfortable, than those of the Neolithic 

 tribes they succeeded. They had axes and sickles of bronze, gouges, 

 chisels, hammers, and knives ; and, as a natural consequence, all the 

 products of their labor were superior and better finished. They could 

 weave well a tough and strong fabric, and their clothes were formed 

 of several pieces sewed together. Their cloth is almost invariably of 

 linen — no woolen cloth belonging to this period having been found 

 either in France or Switzerland ; but in a wooden coffin discovered in 

 1861 at Ribe, in Jutland, the remains of a body were found inclosed 

 in a cloak of coarse woolen cloth ; a woolen cap covered the head, the 

 lower limbs having been wrapped in woolen leggings. Under the 

 cloak was a woolen shirt, girt round the waist by a long woolen band. 

 A bronze dagger in a wooden sheath had been laid beside the dead 

 hand ; and in a small box were a few necessary articles for the long 

 journey toward the spirit-land, consisting of another woolen cap, a 

 comb, and a knife — the whole inclosed in a bull's hide. Another cof- 

 fin contained the paraphernalia of an ancient belle, a brooch, a knife, 

 a double-pointed awl, and a pair of tweezers — all of bronze, two studs, 

 one of bronze and one of tin, and a javelin head of flint ; while a 

 third coflin, that of a baby, contained a small bronze bracelet and a 

 bead of amber. Sir John Lubbock considers that these bodies belonged 

 to the close of the bronze period. Bodies wrapped in woolen cloth have 

 also been found in Britain, as at Scale House barrow near Rylston in 



