302 EAELY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. vin. 



Caraway seeds (Garum carui). 

 Apples (Pyrus mains, L.) 

 Pears (Pyrus communis, L.) 

 Bullace plums (Prunus institia, L.) 



The cereals are of Mediterranean habit, and have 

 been used by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Eomans from 

 the earliest times. Two weeds also which grew in the 

 cornfields, the common blue corn-bottle (Centaurea 

 cyanuSj L.) and the Cretan catchfly (Silene cretica), are 

 indigenous in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. The 

 small-leaved flax is also a native of Southern Europe. 



It is remarkable that the seeds of the wild plants 

 found in the lake-dwellings are absolutely identical with 

 those of the present time ; while the seeds of the plants 

 under cultivation have been improved by the care of 

 man in the many centuries which separate the Neo- 

 lithic age from our own times. 



It is therefore evident that in the fields, gardens, and 

 orchards the pile-dwellers possessed vegetables not 

 traceable to wild stocks now growing in Switzerland; 

 and it is certain, from the researches of Professor Heer, 

 that the foreign stocks have been derived from Southern 

 Europe or from Asia Minor. They show that agriculture 

 was probably first invented in the warmer regions of the 

 south and east, and that the knowledge of it was after- 

 wards introduced into northern, western, and central 

 Europe. 



The Shell-Mounds of Denmark. 



The discoveries made in the refuse -heaps of Denmark 

 by Prof. Steenstrup, and others, 1 reveal to us a state of 



1 Steenstrup, Sur les Kjokkenmoddings de VAge de la Pierre, Congres. 

 Int. Archeol. Prehist, Copenhague, 1869. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times 



