viii THE HUMAN EACES 367 



arose the custom of burying the dead and providing them with 

 food, weapons, and tools, pointing to a belief in the resurrection 

 of the dead or in the immortality of the soul. To this epoch 

 belong the large, sometimes gigantic, sepulchres (dolmens, megalithic 

 monuments} which amaze the scientists of our own day and bear 

 witness to the honour paid to the dead by this people. 



The neolithic age ends with the first metal implements in the 

 form of copper axes and daggers, which do not, however, seem to 

 have been introduced by fresh immigrants, but rather by commerce 

 with oriental races who had already learnt the art of working in 

 metal. At the same time the arts of making stone implements 

 and pottery show great progress and we note the beginning of 

 the textile industry: this period is known as that of eneolithic 

 civilisation. 



A new people with a new civilisation meanwhile appeared in 

 eastern Italy, from Switzerland and the Danube, the people known 

 as lake-dwellers from their characteristic dwellings built on piles in 

 the lakes, who even on dry land continued to build wooden houses 

 on piles thrust into the ground surrounded by moats into which 

 they turned water from some neighbouring stream. They are 

 known as the people and civilisation of the terremare a word de- 

 rived from terra mama, the term commonly applied to the soil in 

 which the remains of these races are found for our knowledge of 

 whom we are indebted to the untiring and patient work of 

 Pigorini and his pupils. This people carried weapons of bronze, 

 and the many animal and vegetable remains found in their 

 dwelling-places show that they had made great progress in 

 agriculture and the pastoral art; we also find for the first time 

 branches and seeds of the vine. They cremated their dead instead 

 of burying them, collecting the ashes, which they preserved in 

 vases or cinerary urns. Pigorini thinks that this civilisation 

 nourished about 1500 B.C., and may be regarded as the cradle of 

 Roman civilisation, in view of the absolute similarity between the 

 method of establishing and building their homes adopted by this 

 people and the Roman custom of founding cities or setting up en- 

 campments of which historic tradition tells us. The bronze age 

 was succeeded by the iron age, in which the use of iron implements 

 was introduced and the invention of writing gave a great impetus 

 to the progress of civilisation. From this last of the prehistoric 

 civilisations, which ends with the first historic civilisation in Italy 

 (that of the Romans), there have come down to us many works 

 of art and culture, which were dug up in the rich necropoli, such 

 as the necropoli of the Etruscans, but we know little or nothing 

 of their cities and dwelling-places, the remains of which have 

 escaped the searches made by palethnologists. 



VII. The question of the descent of man from lower animal 

 forms is, as is well known, discussed by the most widely different 



