NEOLITHIC, BRONZE, AND IRON AGES. 363 



CHAPTEE XV. 



NEOLITHIC, BKONZE, AND IKON AGES. 



Difficulty of ascertaining the relative antiquity of Neolithic relics — The Danish 

 "kitchen-middens" — Views of Worsaae, Steenstrup, and Lubbock — Fauna 

 of the "kitchen-middens" — Neolithic man — Conditions of life — Shell- 

 mounds of Britain and France — Lake -dwellings of Switzerland — Dr. Keller 

 on various forms of lake-dwellings — Human relics — Remains of plants and 

 animals met with in ruins of lake-dwellings — Conditions of life — Passage 

 from the Neolithic through the Bronze into the Iron Age — Relics of Neo- 

 lithic and later archaeological periods in other regions — " Long-heads " and 

 "broad-heads" of British barrows — Celtae, Belgae, and Germani — Contrasts 

 between Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages. 



The relics of Neolithic man have been met with in mnch 

 greater abundance and over a vastly wider area in Europe than 

 those of his Palaeolithic predecessor. The latter are restricted 

 to caves in various countries, and to certain alluvial deposits in 

 France and the south of England, in which they occur more or 

 less numerously, and to similar accumulations in Germany, 

 Spain, Italy, and Greece, where, however, they have been less 

 frequently encountered. But the weapons, implements, and 

 ornaments of Neolithic times are strewn broad-cast over the 

 Continent — from the shores of the Atlantic to the borders of 

 Asia, and from Scandinavia and Eussia to the Mediterranean. 

 Our knowledge of the modes of life — the manners and customs 

 — in a word, the state of civilisation of Neolithic man, is thus 

 somewhat ample. We have still much to learn, however, and 

 there is a great deal which will probably always remain obscure. 

 It is not unlikely, also, that some of the views now more or less 

 generally held with regard to the relative antiquity of various 



