THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRON MEXT 167 



superior to the wild beasts among which tlicy lived. They ha«l 

 the mind of a child, with the strong animal passions of a man. 



Great mounds, or cromlechs or barrows, as they are called in 

 England and France, were probably built by these early races, 

 possibly at the same time that a race of semicivilized men were 

 building the pyramids of Egypt. The cromlechs and barrows, 

 made at different times, are of different forms. Many of them 

 were used as burial places. In the long l)arrows the dead were 

 generally buried in a crouching or sitting posture. Major Powell 

 tells us that the property used exclusively by the individual, 

 such as clothing, ornaments, and weapons, was inherent in the 

 indivitlual, and to prevent strife was Iniried with the owner, 

 together with food for the long journey. 



The family relation and nuirriage were in their first germ, and 

 the idea of property was scarcely more than that of the wild 

 beasts. Many wild animals protect their right of pr()i>erty in 

 the prey they take and in the females of their kind. 



We have no certain knowledge when these men lived, Init the 

 great geographic changes which have taken place must have re- 

 quired thousands of years. They seemed to disappear from 

 Europe ; possil)ly they were destroyed b^' the changes of climate 

 during the glacial era, which, as is now known, was not as great 

 and far-reaching in Asia as in Europe and America. Some 

 geologists do not believe that man lived in the glacial period ; 

 others that the Drift men of Europe were conquered by immi- 

 grant hordes from the East, who had reached a progress some- 

 what higher, and that thus the first upward step in European 

 progress came from the influence of the Orient. 



The superiority of the men of the later Stone and Bronze Ages 

 is confirmed by comparisons between the skulls and other re- 

 mains of the Stone and Bronze Ages. The skulls of the Stone 

 Age are narrower and tlie men smaller than those of the Bronze 

 Age. Those who lived in a limestone or volcanic country, or 

 where there were fissures and caves in the rocks, made their 

 homes in the rocks and caves. In such places as the Marne 

 valley, where the rocks are soft, they excavated caves, and later 

 built their habitations of limestone, shaping them after the cave. 

 The weapons they used were superior in workmansiiij) and 

 variety to those of the Drift men, being often ground and 

 polished. Charred wood has been found in these caves, show- 

 ing a knowledge of the use of fire, but no pottery. 



Far removed and strange as this life of the Stone .\ge may 



