558 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



layer contained tiles and a Eoman coin; in the second were 

 found fragments of unglazed pottery, and a pair of bronze 

 tweezers, while the third afforded relics which are assigned to 

 the Neolithic period. Assuming the Eoman layer to have an 

 antiquity of 1600 years, M. Morlot obtains for the Bronze 

 Period an age of 3800 years, and for the Neolithic period 6400 

 years, or, in round numbers, 3000 to 4000 years for the former, 

 and 5000 to 7000 years for the latter. Again, Professor Gillieron 

 has endeavoured to compute the time required for silting up the 

 valley of the Thiele, up which the Lake of Bienne formerly 

 extended to the Pont de Thiele, where an ancient lake-dwelling 

 has been discovered. Calculating that the lake has retired from 

 the valley for some 375 metres since the Abbey of St. Jean was 

 founded about 750 years ago, he concludes that 6750 years at 

 least have elapsed since the lake reached the spot where the 

 pile -building occurs. With these conclusions of MM. Morlot 

 and Gillieron, the results obtained by M. H. de Ferry in the 

 valley of the Saone, between Tournus and Macon, agree suffi- 

 ciently well, the age assigned by him to certain Neolithic 

 accumulations being not less than 4383 years. 



Interesting and suggestive as these computations undoubtedly 

 are, they yet do not enable us to form any approximation to the 

 date of the commencement of the Neolithic Period. Even if we 

 assume them to be more exact than their authors claim them to 

 be, still they tell us no more than that Neolithic man was living 

 in Europe some 5000 or 7000 years ago. It may well be that the 

 Neolithic phase of civilisation survived down to that time, but 

 the ancient submerged peat -bogs and submarine forests with 

 their Neolithic relics can hardly be assigned to so recent a 

 period. The great geographical and climatic mutations, and the 

 consequent modifications of fauna and flora which took place in 

 Postglacial times, demand, as it seems to me, a much longer 

 time for their accomplishment. But any term of years I might 

 suggest would be a mere guess ; I have written to little purpose, 

 however, if the phenomena described in preceding chapters have 

 failed to leave the impression upon the reader that the advent 



