368 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



parts of bones which a dog will devour are almost invariably 

 wanting in the shell-mounds. No trace of any other domestic 

 animal, such as ox {Bos taurus), sheep, goat, or hog, occurs, 

 and the northern mammals of the so-called Eeindeer period 

 are likewise wanting. 



No human skulls have been obtained from any of the mounds, 

 but those which are met with in certain tumuli, and here and 

 there in the peat of Denmark, are believed to belong to the same 

 date. They are small and round with prominent ridges over the 

 eyes, and the facial angle is well developed. The type, in short, 

 presents characters more or less analogous to that of the Lapps. 

 The character of the relics and debris of the shell-mounds gives 

 us a pretty good notion of the kind of life led by the old coast- 

 tribes of Denmark. Ignorant, apparently, of agriculture, or of 

 the use of textile plants, their highest art showed itself in the 

 production of coarse hand-made pottery and chipped flints, for 

 it is doubtful whether the very few polished stone implements 

 that have been detected amongst the others were really fash- 

 ioned by the shell-mound builders, or " conveyed " by them 

 from some neighbouring people. Their only garments consisted 

 probably of the skins of animals snared or killed in the chase. 

 As to their food, oysters, cockles, and mussels doubtless formed 

 a part, but it is not unlikely that these and other molluscs were 

 also largely used for bait — the quantities of bones of herring, 

 cod, and other deep-sea fish, showing that the fishermen were 

 not afraid to trust themselves in their canoes for some distance 

 from the shore. At other times they hunted, and the catalogue 

 of birds and beasts secured by them evinces both skill and 

 courage, and probably no small degree of cunning. Perhaps it 

 was only when trapping, hunting, and fishing did not prove 

 successful that they had resource to a molluscous diet. That 

 they were sometimes, at all events, put to straits seems to be 

 shown by the fact that they occasionally ate their dogs, the 

 bones of which have been found split, for the sake of the mar- 

 row, in the same manner as those of other animals. We can 

 picture to ourselves the little round-headed people coiled up 



