512 Dr. Nils Olof Hoist — The Ice Age in England. 



probable, they proceeded in analogous fashion to the last Scandinavian 

 movements, they may be supposed to have taken place somewhat in 

 the following way. 



After the inland ice during post-glacial times had melted so much 

 that its pressure was notably diminished, the whole of Scotland, and 

 perhaps also the most northern part of England, began to rise, but at 

 the same time the remaining part of England sank. In a word the 

 land behaved something like a see-saw ; when the one (northern) end 

 went up, the other (southern) end went down. Probably both the up 

 and the down movement increased with distance from the fulcrum 

 of the see-saw, that is, from the line of equilibrium, which in this 

 particular case seems to have been the border between England and 

 Scotland. At any rate, something similar was the case in Scandinavia, 

 where the line of equilibrium is held to proceed in Denmark from 

 Nissum Fiord west of Holstebro, lat. 56° 20' N., on the west coast 

 of Jutland in the north, down to the northern part of Falster in 

 the south. 1 



In Southern Scandinavia this change of level carried with it the 

 •evident and very interesting result that the well-known kitchen- 

 middens, which originally lay on the shore very little above sea-level, 

 have come to lie higher and higher above sea-level the further they 

 are north of the Nissutn-Falster line, but lower and lower under 

 sea-level the further they are south of that line. Thus the kitchen- 

 middens at Kolding now lie 3 to 4 metres below sea-level, but the 

 kitchen-middens in Kiel Harbour, 140 kilometres further south, are 

 not less than 9 metres below sea-level. 



If this result is applicable to England, it is clear that the English 

 kitchen-middens, as well as all coast deposits approximately con- 

 temporaneous with the Danish ones, must now lie below sea-level, 

 and be therefore inaccessible. The so-called Hastings kitchen-midden 

 is merely a fisherman's dwelling-place of far later neolithic date. 



The circumstances just mentioned can therefore in no way be 

 adduced as evidence against the idea that the kitchen - midden 

 civilization and its bearei's came to the north by the so-called 

 ' western way ' or the Atlantic coast road. I am the more 

 convinced of this since I consider that it can be shown, and in 

 part indeed already has been shown, that Egypt, which, during 

 the pluvial epoch was a ' promised land ', was also a centre of 

 civilization for the whole of Europe right from the earliest palaeolithic 

 time down almost to the close of the Stone Age, and in general 

 sent its civilization into Europe by the roads along the south and 

 west of the Mediterranean. Clearly this was still so after the 

 kitchen-midden time, as shown by the distribution of the megalithic 

 monuments — the dolmens and the long barrows or chambered 

 barrows (in Swedish : gang-grifter). For these monuments follow 

 without exception the Atlantic coast lands — France, England, and 

 Holland, to continue subsequently over North Germany to Scandinavia, 

 but are not found in the interior of Europe. Therefore it cannot be 

 correct to consider the main neolithic immigration to Scandinavia 



1 N. V. Ussing, 1913. Danmarks Geologi, Kebenhavn, see pp. 327-8. 



