BY THE SHELL-MOUNDS. 189 



brows, round heads, and faces probably much, like those of 

 the present Laplanders. As they must evidently have had 

 some protection from the weather, it is most probable that 

 they lived in tents made of skins. The total absence of metal 

 in the Kjokkenmoddings proves that they had not yet any 

 weapons except those made of wood, stone, horn, and bone. 

 Their principal food must have consisted of shell-fish, but they 

 were able to catch fish, and often varied their diet <by game 

 caught in hunting. It is, perhaps, not uncharitable to con- 

 clude that, when their hunters were unusually successful,, the 

 whole community gorged itself with food, as is the case with 

 many savage races at the present time. It is evident that 

 marrow was considered a great delicacy, for every single bone 

 which contained any was split open in the manner best 

 adapted to extract the precious morsel. 



We have already seen that the mound-builders were 

 regular settlers and not mere summer visitors, and on the 

 whole they seem to have lived in very much the same 

 manner as the Tierra del Fuegians, who dwell on the 

 coast, feed principally on shell-fish, and have the dog as 

 their only domestic animal. A very good account of them is 

 given in Darwin's Journal (p. 234) from which we extract 

 the following passages, which give us a vivid and probably 

 correct idea of what might have been seen on the Danish 

 shores, long, long ago. "The inhabitants, living chiefly upon 

 shell-fish, are obliged constantly to change their place of resi- 

 dence ; but they return at intervals to the same spots, as is 

 evident from the pile of old shells, which must often amount 

 to some tons in weight. These heaps can be distinguished at 

 a long distance by the bright green colour of certain plants 

 which invariably grow on them The Fuegian wig- 

 wam resembles, in size and dimensions, a haycock. It merely 

 consists of a few broken branches stuck in the ground, and 

 very imperfectly thatched on one side with a few tufts of 



