2l6 NATURE STUDIES. 



lives among the valleys of the Western Pyrenees and 

 the Asturias mountains. They seem to have crossed 

 over into Britain while still it was connected with the 

 Continent by a broad isthmus, or, perhaps, even by a 

 long stretch of land occupying the entire beds of the 

 Channel and the German Ocean. Our knowledge of 

 them is mainly derived from their tombs or barrows 

 great heaps of earth which they piled up above the 

 bodies of their dead chieftains. From these have been 

 taken- their skeletons, their weapons, their domestic 

 utensils, and their ornaments, all the latter objects 

 having been buried with the corpse, for the use of the 

 ghost in the other world. From an examination of 

 these remains, we are able largely to reconstruct the 

 life of the Euskarian people the earliest inhabitants 

 of Britain whose blood is still largely represented in 

 the existing population. 



In stature, the neolithic men were short and thick- 

 set, not often exceeding five feet four inches. In com- 

 plexion, they were probably white, but swarthy, like 

 the darkest Italians and Spaniards, or even the Moors. 

 Their skulls were very long and narrow ; and they 

 form the best distinguishing mark of the race, as well 

 as the best test of its survival at the present day* 

 The neoliths were unacquainted with the use of metal,, 

 but they employed weapons and implements of stone, 

 not rudely chipped, like those of the older stone age, 

 but carefully ground and polished. They made pot- 

 tery, too, and wove cloth ; they domesticated pigs and 

 cattle ; and they cultivated coarse cereals in the little 



