Archeology: Age of Polished Stone, 29 



kind of pottery, charcoal and ashes, but no objects 

 of metal. The earlier great stone, or megalithic 

 monuments of Europe, called dolmens, or cham- 

 bered tumuli, belong to this period. 



26. The men who lived then were not mere 

 hunters; they were tillers of the soil. The bearing 

 of this distinction will appear subsequently. Some 

 are inclined to believe that the polished stone 

 period was inaugurated in Europe by the spreading 

 of a new population, in which they would recognize 

 the first wave of Aryan immigration. That there 

 was a sudden infusion of some new people is ren- 

 dered plausible by the gap which is found in the 

 process of transition from the implements of an 

 earlier age to those which characterize this one: 

 there is a want of intermediate forms to mark what 

 might be considered stages of evolution. Besides, 

 there is noticed the presence now of divers species 

 of domesticated animals, presumably brought by a 

 new people from distant countries. 



27. The lands, in which this neolithic age is dis- 

 cerned, are the same European countries 

 enumerated before for the age of iron; £™** witl1 

 along with North and South America, 



Terra del Fuego, Australia, New Caledonia, South 

 Africa, the Isles of the Ocean. The oldest lake 

 settlements of Switzerland belong to the same 

 period. Many, however, of the settlements in the 

 most Western Swiss lakes must have been flourish- 

 ing rather late in history. For what do we find? 



