3 66 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



been excavated have disclosed layers of charcoal and small 

 platforms of flat stones, which are evidently old hearths. The 

 Danish savants (Forchhammer, Steenstrup, and Worsaae) who 

 first examined these curious shell-mounds, came to the conclu- 

 sion that they were the refuse-heaps which had accumulated 

 round the dwellings of some ancient coast-tribe, and the de- 

 pressions or hollows at the surface are supposed to indicate 

 the position of the huts or tents, while the hearth -stones of 

 course mark the sites of old fireplaces. Immense numbers of 

 implements have been obtained from the middens, all with- 

 out exception, formed either of stone, horn, or bone ; not a 

 single trace of metal has yet turned up. The flint implements 

 and weapons are very different in form from those fashioned by 

 Palaeolithic man, but they are nevertheless rudely finished, and 

 seldom or never polished. Only a very few well- worked imple- 

 ments, most of them, too, broken or imperfect, have been met 

 with, and this remarkable scarcity has given rise to some dis- 

 cussion, Professor "Worsaae maintaining that the almost total 

 absence of well-finished implements is good proof that the men 

 of the Danish kitchen-middens lived in very early Neolithic 

 times before great skill in the manufacture of stone implements 

 had been acquired ; while Professor Steenstrup, on the other 

 hand, is of opinion that the rude denizens of the coast-lands 

 were contemporaneous with other tribes occupying the inland 

 districts who knew how to grind and polish their implements, 

 and were in many respects farther advanced in civilisation. It 

 is one of those nice cases in which Sir Roger De Coverly's de- 

 cision — there is much to be said on both sides — must commend 

 itself to the cautious archseologist. Sir John Lubbock remarks 

 that he is unable altogether to agree with either, but he appa- 

 rently leans to Professor Worsaae' s view, for after an admirable 

 summary of the evidence he concludes as follows : — " On the 

 whole, the evidence appears to show that the Danish shell- 

 mounds represent a definite period in the history of that country, 

 and are probably referable to the early part of the Neolithic 

 Age, when the art of polishing flint implements was known, 



