VI 

 THE RISE OF PERSONALITY 



NEOLITHIC civilization had apparently sprung up in 

 more or less compact and isolated tribes of agri- 

 culturists, where life v/as simple and quiet, and 

 where there was generally comparative equality of possession 

 and uniformity of Hfe. Here it lasted longest. Its typical 

 development went on somewhat aside from the great routes of 

 trade and migration, as in large parts of France and England, 

 in Scandinavia and the extensions of the Danube valley. It 

 rose and culminated far earlier in Asia than in Europe. 



But even in Europe increase of wealth and difference of 

 power and condition, trade, commerce and the spread of ideas, 

 the mingling of peoples and cultures in its central valley, 

 above all the increase and spread of knowledge, diicovery and 

 initiative, were continually undermining tribal custom and 

 control. It was fast becoming outgrown. 



The same changes had gone faster and farther in the 

 great thoroughfare of migration and trade running westward 

 along the northern face of the Caucasus Mountains and shores 

 of the Caspian and Black Seas from Central Asia into the 

 grasslands of southern Russia.^ Here isolation was impos- 

 sible. Here we find fortified villages when they had hardly 

 appeared in northern Europe. Agriculture flourished, but 

 much of the country was even better fitted to the raising 

 of cattle and sheep. Here apparently the horse had been 

 domesticated not far from 2000 b. c. The population was 

 mixed and diversified. 



Along the southern borders of this great fertile and popu- 



^8i. Chap. IX. 



64 



