Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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The Marquis de Nadaillac >> Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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Necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti
Pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,
Sed nemora atque caveos monteis sylvasque colebant
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra
Verbera ventorum vitare imbreisque coactei.[109]
CHAPTER IV
Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, "Terremares," Crannoges,
Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti," and "Truddhi."
The earliest races of men lived in a climate less rigorous than ours,
on the shores of wide rivers, in the midst of fertile districts,
where fishing and the chase easily supplied all their needs. These
races were numerous and prolific, and we find traces of them all
over Western Europe, from Norfolk to the middle of Spain. What
were the homes of these men and their families? Did they crouch
in dens, as Tacitus says the German tribes did in his day? In his
"Ancient Wiltshire," Sir R. Coalt Hoare says that the earliest human
habitations were holes dug in the earth and covered over with the
branches of trees. Near Joigny there still remain some circular
holes in the ground, about fifty feet in diameter by sixteen to
twenty deep, known in the country under the name of BUVARDS. The
trunk of a tree was fixed at the bottom and rose above the ground,
and the branches plastered with clay formed the roof. The floor
of these BUVARDS consists of a greasy black earth mixed with bones,
cinders, charcoal, and worked flints. Amongst the last named, polished
hatchets predominate, which proves that these refuges were inhabited
in Neolithic times, but there is nothing to prevent our supposing that
they were also occupied in the Palaeolithic period. Ameghino gives a
still more striking example of an earth-dwelling. Near Mercedes, about
twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres, he picked up numerous human bones,
together with arrow-heads, chisels, flint knives, bone stilettos and
polishers, and bones of animals scratched and cut by man. Later,
Ameghino discovered the actual dwelling of this primeval man, and
his strange home was beneath the carapace of a gigantic armadillo,
the now extinct glyptodon seen in Fig. 48.
FIGURE 48
The glyptodon.
"All around the carapace," says Ameghino, "in the reddish agglomerate
of the original. soil lay charcoal cinders, burnt and split bones,
and flints. Digging beneath this, a flint implement was found, with
some long split llama and stag bones, which had evidently been handled
by man, with some toxodon and mylodon teeth." Fig. 49 represents
the now extinct mylodon. Some time afterwards, the discovery of
another carapace under similar conditions added weight to Ameghino's
supposition.[110] In the midst of the pampas, those vast treeless
plains, where no rock or accident of conformation affords shelter
from heat or cold or a hiding-place from wild beasts, man was not at
a loss; he hollowed out for himself a hole in the earth, roofing it
over with the shell of a glyptodon, and securing a retreat where he
could be safe at least for a time.
FIGURE 49
Mylodon robustus.
It was not until later, driven to do so by the cold, that man learnt
to use the natural caves hollowed out in limestone rocks, either in
geological convulsions or by the quieter action of water. The absence
in the caves which have been excavated in America of implements of
the Chelleen type, the most ancient known as yet, would point to
this conclusion, though it is impossible to fix the earliest date of
their occupation. This date, moreover, varies very much in different
localities. The earth was but gradually peopled, and our ancestors
penetrated into different countries in successive migrations. Some
caves have recently been discovered in Wales, in the midst of Glacial
deposits.[111] The Boulder Clay and marine drift on neighboring heights
are incontrovertible proofs of the submergence of this region, when
Great Britain was almost completely covered with ice. Excavations
made in 1886 have brought to light a series of deposits, one above
the other, the gravel and red earth containing Quaternary bones and
worked flints, whilst the stalagmite and ooze are evidently of more
recent origin. This is the usual state of things in all the English
eaves; but in those of the Clyde, the bone beds had been disturbed and
mixed with striated pebbles and Glacial drift. From this Hicks, who
superintended the excavations, concluded that man and the Quaternary
animals had lived in those caves before the Glacial epoch, and before
the great submergence, which in some places was no less than some 1,300
feet below the present level of the sea. If this were so, it would be
one of the most ancient proofs not only of the presence of man, but
also of the kind of habitation he first dwelt in. These conclusions
have, however, been hotly disputed. M. Arcelin[112] remarks that there
are in England two exceptional geological landmarks, the Forest Bed
representing the last Pliocene formations, and the River Gravels,
which are the most ancient Quaternary deposits. Between the two, we
find the Boulder Clay of Glacial origin. Now the fauna of the caves
of the Clyde, far from resembling that of the Forest Bed, appears
to be more recent than that of the ancient deposits of the River
Gravels. Amongst this fauna we find neither the ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS nor
the RHINOCEROS MERCKII; the worked flints are not like those known as
belonging to the River-Gravel type, but the relics more nearly resemble
those of the Reindeer period of France. It is therefore impossible,
in the present state of our knowledge, to assert that man lived in the
southwest of England in the Glacial epoch, to the phenomena of which,
if he witnessed them, he must eventually have fallen a victim.
Our ancestors must constantly have disputed the possession of
their caves of refuge with animals, but there is often a certain
distinction between those chiefly occupied by man and the mere dens
of wild beasts. The latter are generally more difficult of access,
and are only to be entered by long, low, narrow, dark passages. Those
permanently inhabited by man are wide, not very deep, and they are well
lighted. That at Montgaudier, for instance, has an arched entrance
some forty-five feet wide by eighteen high. The cave-men had already
learnt to appreciate the advantages of air and light.
The caves are often of considerable height; that of Massat is some
560 feet high, that of Lherm is 655, that of Bouicheta nearly 755,
that of Loubens 820, and that of Santhenay is, as much as 1,344
feet high. Those of Eyzies, Moustier, and Aurignac are also very
lofty. As the valleys were hollowed out by the rushing torrents of
the Quaternary floods, men sought a home near the waters which were
indispensable to their existence, and came to dwell on the shores
of rivers. The most ancient of the inhabited caves, therefore, are
those on the highest levels, but the difference in the nature of the
country and the varying force of geological action have led to so many
exceptions, that all we can say with any certainty is that the caves
were inhabited at different epochs. That of Montgaudier, for instance,
was filled with an accumulation of ooze about forty feet thick. Weapons
and tools lay one above the other from the bottom to the top, and it is
easy to distinguish the succession of hearths by the blackened earth,
cinders, charcoal, and crushed bones lying about them.
In the Placard Cave eight different deposits bear witness to the
presence of man; and these are separated by others bare of traces of
human occupation. The lowest deposit, which is some twenty-five feet
below the present level of the soil, contains worked flints of the
Mousterien type, above which, but separated by an accumulation of
DEBRIS which has fallen from the roof, comes a layer in which was
found a number of arrow-heads of the shape of laurel leaves. The
fauna of both these levels includes the reindeer, the horse, and
the aurochs. As we go up we find, above another layer of DEBRIS, the
Solutreen type of tools and weapons represented by bone implements
and numerous arrow-heads, this time stalked and notched. The four
following levels correspond with those belonging to what is known as
the Madeleine type, and the arrow-heads are decorated with geometrical
designs. The traces of human occupation at different times, doubtless
separated by long intervals, are therefore very clearly defined. The
Fontabert Cave, in Dauphine, contained, at a depth of about six feet,
traces of fire and roughly worked flints, and about three feet below
the surface lay the skeleton of a man, who had perhaps been overtaken
by a fall of earth, still holding in his hand a polished dipper of
fine workmanship. Yet a third and evidently more recent period is
characterized by a jade crescent. We might easily multiply instances
of a similar kind, but that we wish to avoid so much repetition.
We soon begin to find evidence of the progress made by man, and though
in Neolithic times he still continued to occupy caves he learned to
adapt them better to his needs. The rock shelters of the Petit-Morin
valley, so well explored by M. de Baye, are the best examples we
can give.
These caves are hollowed out of a very thick belt of cretaceous
limestone. They date from different epochs, and each presents special
characteristics which can easily be recognized. Some were used as
burial-places, others as habitations. In the former the entrance is
of irregular shape, the walls are roughly cut, and the work is of
the most elementary description. The sepulchral eaves were simply
closed by a large stone rolled into place and covered with rubbish,
the better to hide the entrance. The shelters used to live in show
much more careful work, and are divided into two unequal parts by a
wall cut in the living rock. To get into the second partition one has
to go down steps, cut in the limestone, and these steps are worn with
long usage. The entrance was cut out of a massive piece of rock, left
thick on purpose, and on either side of the opening the edges still
show the rabbet which was to receive the door. Two small holes on the
right and left were probably used to fix a bar across the front to
strengthen the entrance. A good many of these eaves are provided with
an opening for ventilation, and some skilful contrivances were resorted
to for keeping out water. Inside we find different floors, shelves,
and crockets cut in the chalk, and on the floors M. de Baye picked up
shells, ornaments, and flints, which were lying just where their owners
had left them. Very different is all this from the Vezere caves, and
everything proves an undeniable improvement in the conditions of life.
The most interesting of all the objects found in these caves
are, however, the carvings; but few date from Neolithic times,
and some archaeologists have argued from their absence in favor
of the displacement everywhere of old races by the incursion of
new-corners. Some of these carvings represent hafted hatchets,
the flint being painted black to make the raised design stand out
better. Others represent human figures. In the Coizard Cave, for
instance, was found a roughly outlined representation of a woman with a
prominent nose, eyes indicated by black dots, highly developed breasts,
but no lower limbs. A necklace adorns her throat, and a pendant hanging
from this necklace is colored yellow. On the passage leading to the
door is engraved another figure which was originally more accurately
drawn than the others, but is not in such good preservation. In the
Courjonnet Cave we see a woman with a bird's bead; she was probably
one of the LARES PENATES, the protectors of the domestic hearth. We
meet with this same goddess at Santorin, and at Troy, and on the
shores of the Vistula, which is a very interesting ethnological fact.
The objects found in the sepulchral caves are important, and included
a number of arrow-heads with transverse cutting edges. There is no
doubt about their use; they have been picked up in black earth, in
contact with human bones, the decomposition of the soft parts of which
caused them to fall out of the mortal wound they had inflicted. With
these arrow-heads were found flint knives, large sloped scrapers,
polishers, and bone stilettos, the femora of a ruminant with a pig's
tooth fixed on to each end, hoes made of stag horn, beads and pendants
made of bone, shell, schist, quartz, and aragonite, with the teeth of
bears, boars, wolves, and foxes, all pierced with holes. Some of the
shell anti schist beads were spread upon the surface of the skull,
and perhaps formed a net or RESILLE, such as that already referred
to as found at Baousse-Rousse.
For centuries this occupation of caves continued, offering as they did
a shelter that was dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer. Homer
tells us that the Cyclops lived on the heights of the mountains
and in the depths of the caves,[113] and Prometheus says that, like
the feeble ant, men dwelt in deep subterranean caves, where the sun
never penetrated.[114]
Whilst the men of the Petit-Morin valley hollowed out caves, or
enlarged those made by nature, others took refuge in buts made of
dried clay and interlaced branches, or in tents of the skins of
the animals they had slain, and, though these fragile dwellings have
disappeared, leaving no trace, there yet remain indelible evidences of
the presence of many successive generations. Everywhere throughout the
world we find heaps of rubbish, consisting chiefly of the shells of
mollusca and crustacea, broken bones, flakes of flint, and fragments
of stone and bone implements, covering vast areas and often rising
to a considerable height.
Not until our own day did these rubbish heaps attract attention,
and it was reserved to our own generation, so interested in all that
relates to the past, to recognize their true significance. Steenstrup
noticed, in the north of Europe, that these mounds consisted nearly
entirely of the shells of edible species, such as the oyster, mussel,
and LITTORINA LITTOREA; that they were all those of adult specimens,
but not all subject to similar conditions of existence or native to
the same waters. The kitchen-middings, or heaps of kitchen refuse --
such was the name given to these shell-mounds -- could not have been
the natural deposits left by the waves after storms, for in that case
they would have been mixed with quantities of sand and pebbles. The
conclusion is inevitable, that man alone could have piled up these
accumulations, which were the refuse flung away day by day after
his meals. The excavation of the kitchen-middings confirmed in
a remarkable manner the opinion of Steenstrup, and everywhere a
number of important objects were discovered. In several places the
old hearths were brought to light. They consisted of flat stones, on
which were piles of cinders, with fragments of wood and charcoal. It
was now finally proved that these mounds occupied the site of ancient
settlements, the inhabitants of which rarely left the coast, and fed
chiefly on the mollusca which abounded in the waters of the North Sea.
These primeval races, however savage they may have been, were not
wanting in intelligence. The earliest inhabitants of Russia placed
their dwellings near rivers above the highest flood-level known
to or foreseen by them. The Scandinavians were most precise in the
orientation of their homes, and M. de Quatrefages points out that the
kitchen-midding of Soelager is set against a hill in the best position
for protecting those who lived near it from the north winds, which are
so trying in these districts on account of their violence. At Havelse,
says Sir John Lubbock, the settlement was on rather higher ground, and,
though close to the shore, was quite beyond the reach of the waves. The
English visitors had an excavation made whilst they were present,
and in two or three hours they obtained about a hundred fragments
of bone, many rude flakes, sling stones, and fragments of flint,
together with some rough axes of the ordinary shell-mound type. The
excavations at Meilgaard a little later by the same explorers were
even more fruitful in results.
Scandinavia does not appear to have been occupied in the Paleolithic
period, and the most ancient facts concerning it only date from the
expeditions of the Romans against the Teutons, and our knowledge even
of them is very incomplete.[115] We are still ignorant of much which
may have been known to the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians. It is
possible that in the remote days under notice the Scandinavians were
ignorant of the art of tilling the ground, for so far no cereal or
agricultural product of any kind has been discovered, nor the bones
of any domestic animal, except indeed those of the dog, which may,
however, have been still in a wild state. Amongst the bones collected
from the kitchen-middings, those of the stag, the kid, and the boar
are much the most numerous. The bear, the urns, the wild cat, the
otter, the porpoise, the seal, and the small mammals, the marten,
the water-rat and the mouse, have also been found. At Havelse were
collected more than 3,500 mammal bones, amongst which do not occur
those of the musk-ox, the reindeer, the elk, or the marmot; their
absence bearing witness to a more temperate climate than that of
the present day in the regions under notice. The stag antlers found
belong to every season of the year, from which we may conclude that
the people of these districts, like the cave-men of the Pyrenees,
had given up a nomad life and remained at home all the year round,
living in the dwellings they had built upon the shores of the sea.
Amongst the birds found, we may mention the large penguin, now extinct,
the moor-fowl, which fed entirely on pine buds, and several species
of clucks and geese; whilst amongst the fish were the herring, the
cod, the dab, and the eel. The numerous relics of chelonia prove the
existence of numbers of the turtle tribe in the North Sea.
A great variety of objects, most of them of a coarse type, have been
found beneath the kitchen-middings; metals are however completely
absent, and it is probable that they were quite unknown to the
Scandinavians for several centuries after their arrival in the country.
It is easy to quote similar facts in other countries. In 1877,
Count Ouvarof mentioned, at the Archaeological Congress at Kazan,
some kitchen-middings near the Oka, a little river flowing into the
Volga near Nijni-Novgorod. In excavating some BOUGRYS, or little
mounds of sand overlooking the valley, he discovered amongst the
layers of alluvium, successive deposits of cinders and fragments of
charcoal, which appear to have been the remains of a fire. A little
lower down in another deposit were fragments of pottery, stone weapons
and implements, and an immense number of shells. Judging from these
relics of their daily life, this numerous population must have fed
exclusively on fish and mollusca, for excavations brought to light but
few mammal bones. The mollusca were all of species that only live in
salt water. From this we know that the waves washed the shores near
this BOUGRY, and that a milder climate probably prevailed in these
regions, making life more supportable.
Virchow has recognized on the shores of Lake Burtneek in Germany, a
kitchen-midding belonging to the earliest Neolithic times, perhaps
even to the close of the Palaeolithic period. He there picked
up some stone and bone implements, and notices on the one hand
the absence of the reindeer, and on the other, as in Scandinavia,
that of domestic animals. But in this case, the home of the living
became the tomb of the dead, and numerous skeletons lay beside the
abandoned hearths. Similar discoveries have been made in Portugal;
shell-heaps having been found thirty-five to forty miles from the
coast, and from sixty-five to eighty feet above the sea-level. Here
also excavations have brought to light several different hearths;
and in many of the most ancient kitchen-middings in the valley of the
Tigris were found crouching skeletons, proving that here too the home
had become the tomb.[116]
Similar deposits are by no means rare in France. M. du Chatellier
mentions one in Brittany, which he estimates as 325 cubic feet in
size. From it be has taken spear- and arrow-heads, knives and scrapers,
some highly finished, others but roughly cut and often with scarcely
any shape at all. The population was evidently ichthyophagous,
to judge by the vast accumulations of shells of scallops, oysters,
limpets, pectens, and other mollusca. The few animal bones are those
of the stag, the bear, and certain wading birds.
At Canche, near Etaples, has been evade out a series of mounds forming
a semicircle some eight hundred and fifty feet in extent. These mounds
are made up of successive layers of shells and charcoal, the relics
of successive occupations. Lastly we must mention a kitchen-midding
situated at the mouth of the Somme, which is eight hundred and
twenty feet long by about one hundred wide. It consists principally
of shells of adult species, with which are mixed fragments of coarse
black pottery and numerous goat and sheep bones, the latter bearing
witness to a more recent date than that of the kitchen-middings of
Scandinavia or of Germany.
Throughout Europe similar facts are coming to light. Evans mentions
heaps of shells on the coasts of England. Chantre speaks of others
near Lake Gotchai in the Caucasus, and Nordenskiold of others at Cape
North, to which he wishes to restore its true name of Jokaipi. He
sass these mounds are exactly like those of Denmark.
It is, however, chiefly in America that these heaps attract attention,
for there huge shell-mounds stretch along the coast in Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, California, and Nicaragua. We
meet with them again near the Orinoco and the Mississippi, in the
Aleutian Islands, and in the Guianas, in Brazil and in Patagonia,
on the coasts of the Pacific as on those of the Atlantic. Owing to
the darker color of the vegetation growing on them, the shell-heaps
of Tierra del Fuego are seen from afar by the navigator. For a long
time the true character of these mounds was not known, and they were
attributed to natural causes, such as the emergence of the ancient
coast-line from the sea, and it was not until lately that it was
discovered that they were the work of men.
Some of these kitchen-middings are of great size. Sir Charles Lyell
describes one on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth of the Altamaha
(Georgia), which covers ten acres of ground and varies in height from
five to ten feet. It consisted almost entirely of oyster shells. In
America, as in Europe, excavations brought to light hatchets,
flints, arrows, and fragments of pottery. Another of these mounds,
near the St. John River, consists, as does that visited by Lyell,
of oyster shells, and is of extraordinary dimensions, being three
hundred feet long, and though the exact width cannot be made out, is
certainly several hundred feet across. Putnam[117] gives an account
of the excavation of one of these mounds formed of shells of the MYA,
VENUS, PECTEN, BUCCINUM, and NATICA genera. It stretched along the
sea-coast for a distance of several hundred feet, it was from four to
five feet thick, and penetrated some distance below the surface of the
ground. The valves had been opened with the aid of heat, and the animal
bones found with the shells had been broken with heavy hammers which
were found in the kitchen-midding. The bones included those of the
stag, the wolf, and the fox. Fishes were also represented by remains
of the cod, the plaice, and chelonia by turtle shells. Some bird bones
were also found, and the knives, arrow- and spear-heads, scrapers,
etc., were all of the rudest workmanship. Mr. Phelps has superintended
yet more important excavations at Damariscotta[118] and all along the
coast to the month of the Penobscot. In the lowest layers he made
out ancient hearths, and found numerous fragments of pottery which
are the most ancient examples of keramic ware found in New England,
and were covered with incised ornamentation of considerable refinement.
The kitchen-middings of Florida and Alabama are even more
remarkable. There is one on Amelia Island which is a quarter of
a mile long with a medium depth of three feet and a breadth of
nearly five. That of Bear's Point covers sixty acres of ground,
that of Anercerty Point one hundred, and that of Santa Rosa five
hundred. Others taper to a great height. Turtle Mound, near Smyrna, is
formed of a mass of oyster shells attaining a height of nearly thirty
feet, and the height of several others is more than forty feet.[119]
In all of them bushels of shells have already been found, although a
great part of the sites they occupy are still unexplored; huge trees,
roots, and tropical creepers having, in the course of many centuries,
covered them with an almost impenetrable thicket.
Whether man did or did not live in the basin of the Delaware at the
most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces
of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At
Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in
California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile
in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations,
excavations have yielded thousands of stone hammers and bone implements
(Fig. 24).
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