16 A MILLION YEAES OF CHILDHOOD 



exaggerated. I am describing them as I have seen 

 them. Man was still a long way from civilization. 

 He had no pottery, no metal, no writing, no agricul- 

 ture, no building, no tame animals. His culture 

 compares so well with that of the Eskimo that some 

 have thought that the Eskimo are really the descen- 

 dants of the Cave Men : that they followed the 

 retreat of the ice northward. However, the path of 

 progress was now fairly entered. The ice slowly 

 disappeared, and presently we begin to find burned 

 wheat (wild), cherry-stones, nutshells, and bones of 

 the pig and ox in the caves. At last the Ice Age was 

 quite over, and the greatly improved race emerged 

 from the caverns and, on the now fertile plains of 

 Europe, inaugurated the New Stone Age. The long 

 childhood was over. The New Stone Age proved to 

 be the nursery of civilization. 



