INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



cut in the chalk. Everything proves an undeniable 

 improvement in the conditions of life." 



The Marquis de Nadaillac notes that when man 

 reached that stage of his development, which, according 

 to the character of his implements, we call the Neo- 

 lithic or Late Stone Age, he "still continued to occupy 

 caves," but there is good evidence that at this time these 

 were not his sole form of habitation. All over Europe 

 and America, too, there have been discovered curious 

 mounds not of natural origin which, when investigated, 

 have proved to be refuse heaps (the oldest belong to 

 the Neolithic Age) piled up by primitive man. Kitchen- 

 middings they have been called, and they have yielded 

 an immense amount of shells, bones, charred wood, 

 stone implements, hearth-stones, in fact, refuse of all 

 kinds, to the extreme joy of the archaeologist, and the 

 enlightenment of mankind as to the habits and customs 

 of our early ancestors. Their very nature and exist- 

 ence indicates clearly that they belonged to settlements, 

 the habitations of which have quite vanished, but 

 which were huts made of branches and dried clay, or 

 tents of the skins of animals slain in the chase. Man 

 had reached the stage where he was able to live in a 

 more or less organized community, and the kitchen- 

 midding shows that he had reached the dignity of a 

 fixed abode. 



Late in that period when human beings hewed their 

 necessary implements from stone, and more frequently 

 in that which marks the transition to the use of metals, 

 we find a people characterized by their habitations. 

 The "Swiss Lake Dwellers" they are called, but ac- 



