NEOLITHIC AGE. 33 



had worked out their mission iu Europe, while the musk-ox, reindeer, chamois, 

 ibex, and other quadrujieds adapted to a low temperature, had either migrated 

 northward, or chosen the cold heights of mountains as their abodes. On the 

 other hand, several species of animals, perhaps derived from distant countries, 

 appear as the domesticated associates of man, who was no lon^-er a mere savao-e 

 hunter, but had become, in some districts at least, a tiller of the soil, and, conse- 

 quently, a consumer of vegetable food, though still assiduousl}^ applying himself 

 to the chase and to fishing. During the palaeolithic ages, it appears, man made 

 his stone tools and weapons almost exclusively of flint, reducing them to the 

 intended shape by flaking or chipping alone, not having learned yet to improve 

 their form and efficiency by the process of grinding. It was quite diff'erent in 

 the times now under consideration. The stone implements of the neolithic period 

 exhibit a greater variety of well-defined forms, and are no longer generally made 

 of flint, but also of other kinds of stone, such as diorite, serpentine, basalt, 

 quartzite, and similar suitable materials. Many of the neolithic axes, chisels, 

 etc., are brought into their final shapes by grinding and polishing. Yet the 

 practice of chipping flint into arrow and spear-heads, knives, scrapers, and other 

 utensils was carried on with great industry, the articles produced in this way being 

 not onl}' very numerous, but also, generally speaking, of sujierior workmanship, 

 insomuch that flint-chipping may be said to have assumed in this period almost 

 the character of an art. Some of the Danish handled daggers are marvels of 

 skill. The manufacture of clay vessels was general during this epoch ; and, 

 though always hand-made, they fi-equently exhibit elegant forms. The earlier 

 megalithic monuments of Europe (dolmens, chambered tumuli, etc.), pertain to 

 the same era. 



Were the men of neolithic times the descendants of the contemporaries of 

 the mammoth and the great bear, or immigrants from abroad, who brought with 

 them new arts and the animals they had tamed in their old homes ? There 

 certainly exists a gap between palseolithic and neolithic implements, the gradual 

 transition from one class to the other not being represented with sufficient 

 distinctness by intermediate forms. It is highly probable, to say the least, that the 

 neolithic period was inaugurated in Europe by the spreading of a new population, 

 in which some are inclined to recognize the first wave of Aryan immigration. 



ARTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS. 



Character. — On the indented coasts of the Danish islands of Seeland, Fiincn, 



Mcien and Samsiie, and along the tjords of the Peninsula of Jiitland there occur, 



mostly in the neighborhood of the sea, considerable accumulations of shells, 



which were formerly supposed to have been deposited by the sea at a time when 



k5 



