Life in ancient Britain, a survey of the social and economic development of the people of England from earliest times to the Roman conquest

Front matter

New York

State College of Agriculture

At Cornell University

Introduction

The idea that the everyday life of the people should be the chief concern of the historian has been familiar since the work of J. R. Green. As yet, however, little or no attempt has been made to apply this principle to what are known as "prehistoric" times. But in the development of the institutions, usages and ideas which constitute civilisation, the division between historic and prehistoric does not exist. Many of the social and economic problems of our own day — as, for example, the specialisation of industry, the activities of the middleman, and the functions of money — can best be understood if first studied, not in their present baffling intricacies, but in the simpler yet quite highly developed form which they had already reached in this country long before Caesar's invasion ; and by tracing them back to their origins and ultimate causes in the increasing complexity of the earlier social life. Hence of recent years there has been a growing demand that the study of history should begin at the beginning, and should be based on at least a general knowledge of the considerable attainment of this earlier civilisation ; for only thus is it possible to realise the history of man as a living, developing, organic whole. Yet the illuminating discoveries of recent archaeological and anthropological viii Introduction

research remain for the most part in scattered reports and papers or in ponderous volumes accessible only to experts ; and there is no single book which presents an up-to-date survey of the whole field of the social and economic life of Ancient Britain. '

The present volume is an attempt to supply this lack, and to give a succinct, scientifically reliable and, at the same time, readable account of the origins of our civilisation — an account which, it is hoped, may not only be useful for the upper forms of Schools and, as an introductory study, to Teachers and University Students, but may also interest the general reader. And perhaps some who are tempted to despair of the future of civilisation may find in the spectacle of the sure though slow development of social achievement through the storms and stress of a hundred thousand years, hope renewed, and the promise of the ultimate dawn of an ideal social order.

I cannot leave unacknowledged my great debt to Mr. H. Balfour, Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford ; and Mr. R. A. Smith, of the British Museum ; for the assistance they have given me from the very outset in the preparation of this book. I must also express my gratitude for many valuable criticisms and suggestions, to Dr. R. R. Marett, Reader in Social Anthropology, Oxford ; Prof. A. C. Haddon, Lecturer in Anthropology, Cambridge ; Prof. A. Thomson, of the University Museum, Oxford; and Mr. A. Bulleid and Mr. H. St. George Gray, the excavators of Glastonbury Lakevillage — all of Avhom have read in manuscript or proof portions of the book ; and also to Mr. E. T. Leeds, of the

Introduction ix

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, who has gone through the whole in proof.

At least twenty of the antiquities which appear in the illustrations to the text have never before been depicted ; and for the permission which has enabled me to make these and the other drawings in this book, my thanks- are due as follows : to the Director of the British Museum, as regards Pigs. 3-5, 6 c, 9 6, d, 10 a, b, d, 11 a-g, 12 a-c, e, f, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22 e, f, 24 a, b, 25 d, 26, 27 a, c-e 2, g, i, 28, 29 a, b, 30 a-g, k, 31-33, 35-40, 48, 49, 50 a^c, e ; to Prof. A. Thomson — Pigs. 1, 7, 8 ; to the Curators of the following museums : Pitt Rivers, Oxford — Pigs. 2, 6 a, b, 9 a, 10 c, e, 11 h, 22 d, 25 a^c; Ashmolean, Oxford — Pigs. 12 d, g, 41 a, 43 6 ; and Northampton- Figs. 41 b, c, 43 c, 45 a, b, and the Frontispiece ; to Prof. W. J. Sollas— Pig. 9 c ; to Dr. R. Munro— Fig. 14 ; to Messrs. Bulleid and Gray — Figs. 41 e-g, 42, 43 a, 44, 45ch, 46, 47, 50 d ; to Sir A. J. Evans— Pigs. 27 /i, 29 c ; to the Society of Antiquaries of London — Figs. 18^ 19, 22 a-c, 24 c-e, 27 b, f, 30 c, h-j, 84, 40 a, d, e,ild; and to the Royal Archaeological Institute with regard to Pig. 40 b, c.

N. A.

OSEORD, 1920.

CONTENTS rAGE

Ihtboduction . . vii

PAET I

CIVILISATION IN THE PALEOLITHIC AGE

OHAr.

I. Man befobe the Old Stone Age .... . . 3

II. The Ancient Hunters . . .12

III. The Cave Dwellbbs . 23

PAET II

CIVILISATION IN THE NEOLITHIC AGE

IV. The Step Between ... 47

V. DiSCOVBEIES AND INVENTIONS .... ... 56

VI. Pbimitivb Economics 74

VII. Social Beginnings . . 87

PAET III

CIVILISATION IN THE BEONZE AGE

VIII. The Coming of Metal Ill

IX. Economic Developments 122

X. Individual and Family Life 137

XI. Social Pbogbess 151

PAET IV

CIVILISATION IN THE EABLY IRON AGE *

XII. Invasion and Tbansition 171

Xni. Economic Expansion ....... ... 182

XIV. Money — Its Use and its Effects 198

XV. Home Life 210

XVI. Social Attainment 228

iNiEX 245

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS na. PAGE

Late Keltic Bronze Mirror Frontispiece

1. The Piltdown Skull compared with a Modern Skull ... 4

2. Eoliths from the Kent Plateau . 11

3. Strepyan Flint Implements 15

4. Chellean Flint Implements 17

5. Acheulean Flint Implements ... . .... 18

6. Mousterian Flint Implements 25

7. A Neanderthal Skull (La ChapeUe-aux-Saints) compared

with an Australian Skull 26

8. An Aurignacian Skull (Cro-Magnon) compared with a

Modern SkuU 2T

9. Aurignacian Implements, Flint and Bone . .... 32

10. Solutrean Flint Implements 34

11. Magdaleuian Implements, Bone, Horn and Flint .... 37

12. Late Paleolithic Art 39

18. Paleolithic WaU-Painting . 42

14. Harpoons of the Transition . . 51

15. Painted Pebbles of the Transition 53

16. Neolithic Agricultural and Mining Implements .... 63

17. Neolithic Bowl 70

18. Late Neolithic Beaker 71

19. Neolithic Flint Axes .... 77

20. Neolithic Axes and Hafts 78

21. Section of a Neolithic Flint Mine 81

22. Neolithic Mining Implements 82

23. Kit's Coty House 96

24. Neolithic Art, Decorative Motifs . . 104

25. Early Metal Work, Bronze Age 119

26. Early Bronze Knives 120

27. Stages in the Evolution of the Bronze Celt J 27

28. Stages in the Evolution of the Bronze Spear-head . . . L29

xii

List of Illustrations xiii

via. VACIE

29. The Hafting of Bronze Celts 131

30. Objects from the Heathery Burn Cave 141

31. Jet Necklace 147

32. Gold Bracelets . . ' 148

33. Looped Spear-head . 149

34. Bronze Tore 150

35. Sepulchral -Pottery : Beaker 158

36. Sepulchral Pottery : Food-vessel 159

37. Sepulchral Pottery : Cinerary Urn 159

38. Sepulchral Pottery :" Incense Cup " ^. .160

39. Sword of HaUstatt Type 176

40. Iron, Agricultural Implements 187

41. Tools of the Early Iron Age 190

42. Saw in its Original Handle 191

43. Iron Currency Bars ... 200

44. Section through a Hut Site, Glastonbury 213

45. Domestic Utensils of the Early Iron Age 220

46. Lathe-turned Wooden Bowl . . 222

47. Dice, Dice-Box and Counters . . 223

48. Iron Bit from a Chariot-Burial 236

49. Sepulchral Pottery : Cinerary Urn 237

50. Late Keltic Art 242

Note. — The approximate amount of reduction is indicated below each illustration by a fraction. Thus [J] means that the length and breadth of the illustration are half those of the actual object.

Table of Principal Developments

CIVILISATION

, eolithic Age

Palbolithic Age

Neolithic Age

Bronze Age

Early Iron Age

TRANSITION (S EARLY PERIOD

MIDDLE PERIOD.

PERIOD OR DATE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES

Flints chipped at edge or corner.

Piltdown man. Worked bone club.

Heidelberg jaw. Articulate speech.

/sTRBPYAN Flint work improves. Stone weapons.

OHBLlfEAN Large well-chipped flint hand-axes.

Hunting groups. Sabre-tooth tiger.

ACHBULBAN i Finely chipped flint. Fire. Cooking.

,, ii Clothes. Cave-life and burial begin.

MODSTBRIAN Cave-dwelling. Flakes worked on one

face. Funeral feasts. Mammoth.

Neanderthal man extinct at close.

AURIGNACIAN Cro-Magnon man. Bone and Ivor}' used.

Flakes worked on both faces. Art.

SOLUTHE AN Exquisite flint work. Open ^ stations.

Large hunting communities. ' Huts (?)

MAGDALENIAN Cave-dwelling. Best period of art.

Flint less used. Horn. Bone. Ivory. Bone needles. Reindeer abundant.

Harpoons. Painted pebbles. Pottery. Shell-mounds. Dog domesticated.

Modern fauna. Grinding of stone.

Animals domesticated. Hut-building. Villages. Clans. Eidgeways. Mines.

Implements made by various means.

Navigation. Agriculture. Weaving.

LATE PERIOD Megalithio structures. Sun-worship.

Long barrows chambered. Surgery.

Round-headed invaders. Cremation.

Domestic beakers. Beehive huts.

2000 B.c Copper, or poor bronze, implements.

Round barrows. Sepulchral beakers.

1800 B.c True bronze appears. Food-vessels.

Gold, amber, jet, shale. Stonehenge. Flanged celts. Hut-circles. Bronzefoundries. Stone Implements fewer.

1400 B.c Cremation spreading. Cinerary urns.

Tribes growing larger. Hill-forts.

Palstaves. Trade growing. Merchants.

'1000 B.c Tin exported. Cremation generaL

Socketed celts. Looped spear-heads. Cemeteries superseding barrows.

800-700 B.c Goidelic invasion.

\a. 600-400 B.c Hallstatt types. Transition begins.

jc. 400 B.c Brythonic invasion begins.

Iron implements displacing bronze.

Currency bars. Vehicles. Roads.

c, 200 B.c Belgic invasion. Goldcoinage.

Mirrors. Sport. Growth of towns.

55-54 B.c Caesar's invasions. Inscribed coins.

Art and commerce. Roman influence.

Progress towards national unity. \a.d. 43 Roman conquest begins.

Ic.

Part I Civilisation In The Paleolithic

AGE

CHAPTER I Man before the Old Stone Age

The recent discovery, in 1911, of a skull — or, rather, portions of one— in the gravel of an ancient bed of the Ouse, on Piltdown Common in Sussex, carries back the evidence of the existence of man, as man, on the earth to a point of time far anterior to any hitherto commonly accepted. Some scientists have ascribed it to a date not less than half a million years ago ; and though that is still a matter of controversy, the general opinion is that it is the earliest remains of man yet found.

Prom certain features in the structure and conformation of the skull and the lower jaw — assuming them to have belonged to one another — it is probable that Piltdown man was not capable of articulated speech, though the organ of speech in his brain was already fairly developed ; that he walked with a more or less upright carriage ; and that he fed himself with his hands. His head and face approximated to those of modern man in form,^ so that in spite of his receding chin and more prominent mouth, he probably would — other things being equal — pass unnoticed in a crowd of the present day. So much can be told of this man who hundreds of thousands of years ago had developed a brain capacity equal to if not more than ' See next page, Fig. 1. 3 that of an aboriginal Australian ; so much is certain — he was a man, but more as yet is unknown.

Whence Piltdown man had come, and by what devious or progressive steps his forefathers had climbed upwards from the brute, are alike outside the province of this book ; suffice it that here and at last a definite stage in the evolution of man has been reached — a stage at which man, as man, existed. Nor is it purposed here to examine every particle of the evidence of man's progress throughout the ensuing ages; but rather to consider the several broadly marked stages of his t ^

Fig. 1. — The Piltdown skull (a) reconstructed by Prof. A. Thomson, showing the existing portions shaded, and compared with a modern European skull (d). The fragment of jaw (reversed) and the tooth, (b) and (c), found in the same gravel.

civilisation, which modern research has shown to have preceded what are called historical times, for what they have to reveal of his social and economic development. The most primitive civilisation of which indisputable evidences have been found, dates from a time long subsequent to that of Piltdown man, and marks the beginning of a period which, because the use of metal in any foi"m was unknown, is popularly called the Stone Age. But as two definite stages of man's development, each of immense duration, and each easily recognisable by its distinct and peculiar culture, occurred during this period, the words, " Paleolithic," for the older civilisation (Greek, palaios — old, lithos — stone), and "Neolithic,"

Man before the Old Stone Age s

for the later (Greek, neos — new, and lithos), are now used to denote more accurately the ages under discussion.

Paleolithic civilisation, then, is the first which will call for detailed examination ; and when its earliest evidences, in museums and private collections, are sought out and regarded, the most significant thing about them for the thoughtful observer is the fact that these ancient witnesses of man's activities, these roughly chipped flint implements, are all of them tools and weapons.

Weapons and tools 1 Thus already has man stepped outside the realm of brute intelligence ; already is he become a law unto himself ; and, not content with things as they are, already is he using his mental powers to shape them to his will. And then, hard on the heels of these thoughts, another : this cannot be the beginning of civilisation — there must have been something before this.

Let us cast our thoughts back even further still, and picture a man scarce more than brute, without weapons of any sort, or, as yet, a conscious need for them. Let us imagine such a man at a moment of peril, hard beset by his enemy — some beast, or but little better — he is cornered by a tree, and, as he makes a last frenzied effort to escape with his life by climbing, a dead branch breaks off in his hand, and still grasping it he falls at the mercy of his pursuer ; then in his dire extremity he strikes wildly at his leaping foe heedless of what his hand still clutches, and to his amazement that ravening death itself is smitten dead or wounded at his feet, and he has not touched it with his hand. Surely his brain would be quickened then, and to some purpose, for he has gained a long arm which places him at an advantage over others in hunting and in war. The knowledge spreads, quickly or slowly, and a race of club- wielding men walks the earth dealing death at two paces.

How long thereafter would it take man to discover that a heavy stone held in the hand, or bound with thongs of hide on the end of the club, increases the impact of a blow beyond all expectation ? How long, to choose, and later on to shape roughly, a pointed or edged stone to enhance still more its deadliness ? And when, one day, as he strikes at a foe, the stone or club accidentally slipping from his sweating hand slays his enemy at three paces or four — how soon -would man realise that his long arm was now only limited by the jerking power of the mighty muscles of his shoulder girdle ? And — for this too had its effect upon his development — how long was it before the lesser animals learnt to keep their distance from this strange biped who walked ringed about by a . sacred zone of sixty, or, maybe, eighty paces in diameter, in which, if they entered it, a winged death met them, and none knew how ?

Not long, perhaps, as time is counted in those ages, but long enough for these new experiences to be so burnt into the very fibre of man and beast, as to be handed down as instincts to the present day : what boy can see a running rabbit and not look and long for a stone, and what rabbit is there which will not give a boy a wide berth ?

So both man and beast assimilated this new knowledge, but with this difference : that whereas the beast has but transmitted its early expedient of avoiding man, man himself by reason of his developing brain had the power to seize on the event and improve upon it ; which in fact was precisely the course he had been pursuing in his unceasing struggle for existence through unnumbered generations. But though this potentiality was there already, as has been seen in the case of the Piltdown skull, and though it must always have been there in advance of his experience, it was experience alone that was the spur to the brain urging it ever on

Man before the Old Stone Age 7

to fresh, efforts, until such, time, immeasurably later, when, with a mind more highly developed now because of those efforts, man began to reason and deduce facts in advance of his experience.

Hence it is inconceivable that primitive man should, as it were, have sat down one day and, taking thought for the morrow, fashioned for his several sudden needs the quite highly specialised flint weapons and tools of the early Paleolithic age.

That such a train of reasoning can never be substantiated by material evidence is only to be expected : stones lay here and there at hand, then as now ; then as now, clubs and staves grew on every side ; but for different reasons it is impossible now to identify such as were used. That club which once slew a sabre-toothed tiger has long since mouldered away, it is true ; but yonder imperishable stone, not differing apparently from its neighbours, has slain some man's foe hundreds of thousands of years ago, and we know it not.

But it is otherwise when man, responding to those early dim promptings of his mind, began to modify the natural shapes of stones by chipping : at this point it becomes reasonable to expect that such evidence of his handiwork should sooner or later be recognised. But, even so, because the earliest chipping could have been nothing more than a slight emphasising of a natural shape chosen from among others as being the more suitable for a specific purpose, it follows that such handiwork will be the most difficult to distinguish from naturally chipped stones, and therefore the most open to doubt as being of human origin.

Numerous flints which seem to show signs on edge or corner of primitive human chipping have been found in many places in the kingdom, chiefly in those parts contained by a line drawn from Ipswich to Salisbury and thence south to the coast. Such stones are now called eoliths {Greek, eos — dawn, and lithos). And, indisputably, they are of an age incredibly remote, reaching back far beyond Paleolithic times which occurred in the latter half of the period called by geologists the Pleistocene epoch — back into that earlier and yet vaster age known as the Pliocene epoch. That is to say, sorae of them date from a time when the river system of England was different from the present one ; when, for instance, the summit of the North Downs was a valley, and the rivers brought and laid down there patches of gravel denuded from higher surrounding land. Eoliths have been found in that gravel and elsewhere, notably on an old land surface now lying beneath the pre-glacial formation known as the Red Crag of Suffolk. But the evidence of human handwork on them, while gaining a wider recognition from year to year, is not yet universally accepted.

The old arguments against the "humanity" of all eoliths maintained that the chipping was due to natural causes, such as the pounding of waves, rolling in rapid rivers, or pressure due to local earth movement. All recent discoveries, however, only tend to establish their " humanity." At least, it is now certain that man existed at the date ascribed to the later eoliths. This is proved both by the Piltdown skull and by the discovery near Heidelberg, in Germany, of a fossilised human jaw embedded in the hitherto undisturbed deposits of an ancient river-bed eighty feet below the present land level. This jaw is universally admitted to be older than Paleolithic times, though probably more recent than the Piltdown remains. And brutal and massive as it is, belonging to a different race of men from that of our own ancestors — to a race, in fact, which eventually became extinct — still the most significant thing about it is that it shows that man was at that time capable of articulated speech. And as a genuine quickening of man's intellect must have both preceded

Man before the Old Stone Age 9

and followed the use of speech, however rude, it is evident that no argument based on man's mentality can be advanced against the genuineness of eoliths.

An examination of these much-debated implements shows that they fit exactly into the scheme of evolution which governs alike man and his civilisations ; and, incidentally, corroborates the general truth of our imaginative picture of early man and his first use of weapons. Most eoliths are small in size, their greatest diameter being generally less than four inches ; and, though roughly approximating to several types, of which more later, they are so irregular in shape that their use as weapons is incomprehensible. Any heavy pebble when hafted would make a better bludgeon ; any fractured angular piece of rock would be a deadlier axe ; and a more serviceable spear-point or dagger could easily be scraped at the end of the first stick that comes to hand ; in fact, any conceivable thing, almost, would be a better weapon than an eolith ! No, eoliths were not weapons, whatever else they may have been. But that is not all : further examination makes it obvious that Bolithic man had not yet attained to that knowledge of flint fracture which even in earliest Paleolithic times enabled his descendants to fashion stone weapons far more lethal than nature can supply. Thus for a long time man's weapons must have been more or less of the "natural" type: for it is beyond question that he had weapons ; and, equally so, that if they had been artificially wrought of some enduring material, such as stone, traces of them must have been discovered and identified ere this.

But even through the interminable and apparently stagnant period under discussion, man's mind was developing, surely though slowly, under the continual stimulus of experience. And inevitably it must have followed that he did not always remain satisfied with the purely "natural" weapons of his predecessors.

He must have endeavoured to modify those weapons — or those parts of them, which with his scanty knowledge were modifiable — to meet his growing needs. Hence his wooden clubs and spears, and the hafts of his crazy axes, would be the first to be worked upon — to be shaped for a surer and firmer grip, to be more finely pointed, to be smoothed by scraping away bark and other irregularities. Yet even for such rude work he must have had tools of sorts. Here, too, the law of evolution holds good: the "natural" tool first — an edged fragment of rock used as a scraper or knife, and a pebble as a hammer ; and the next step — eoliths.

This argument is supported by other facts connected with the Piltdown discovery : for with the fragments of the skull were found both eoliths and a club made from the thigh bone of a primitive elephant (Elephas meridionalis) which had become extinct before the Paleolithic Age ; and this bone club had been artificially sharpened to a crude point. While we cannot, of course, be absolutely certain that the skull, eoliths, and club were all of the same date, it is unquestionable that they were brought together and laid down with the gravel by the action of the river at more or less the same time. And this very fact, besides establishing the use of weapons by man very early in his development, proves also that he shaped and modified them by means of tools — by eoliths, or their still undiscovered equivalent.

It is as tools that eoliths must be considered if they are to be considered at all. One of the types frequently found is a flattish flint with one of its sides naturally concave ; and almost invariably this hollow-curved side is chipped to some seeming attempt at an edge, while the rest of the implement is left untouched (Fig. 2, a) ; so that it would appear to have been used to scrape the shafts of spears or clubs. Another type chipped to some semblance of a point is regarded as a borer

Man before the Old Stone Age

II

(Fig. 2, 6) ; and yet another as a more or less straightedged scraper, or perhaps a rude knife. But while possible — even probable — uses are ascribed to many of them ; it is admitted that the uses of as many more which are also claimed to be eoliths, are problematical in the extreme : thus providing the sceptical in this matter with another argument against their " humanity."

Those, however, who have most closely studied the

Fig. 2. — Eoliths from the Kent plateau [§].

chipping of eoliths claim that the later work, which is of early Pleistocene date, shows a marked improvement on what had been done before ; and that the last and best phase was superseded gradually by the still better forms of the earliest Paleolithic culture which first appeared about the middle of the Pleistocene epoch. It is probable that future discoveries will justify this claim, and prove beyond shadow of doubt that Eolithic culture had its place in the development of m.ankind, and was in very truth the " dawn " heralding the glories of the Paleolithic Age.

CHAPTER II The Ancient Hunters

As the first faint glimmer of dawn never blazes into sudden meridian light, but by imperceptible degrees grows into the perfect day, so it ever is with man and his works. The earliest paleoliths were better certainly, but not so much better than the latest eoliths which they superseded; and it is a far cry in time, as in civilisation, from;the first clumsily pointed flint daggers but little removed from the " dawn," to the beautiful leaf -shaped flint spear-heads wrought at the zenith of Paleolithic flint culture — a far cry indeed, being probably not less than a hundred thousand years.

So long, or longer, was Paleolithic civilisation developing. And many things of much moment happened during that time. There was, for instance, a recurrence of the process of glaciation, popularly called the Ice Age, which twice or thrice previously in the early Pleistocene epoch had laid its frozen grip on all northern Europe, and had covered the northern parts of Great Britain with an ice-sheet of prodigious thickness — as much as three thousand feet deep in Scotland, and gradually thinning thence southwards towards the Thames. And if one should say that man gave up his ancient dwelling-places, and retreated before its inexorable approach, that literal truth would convey a false impression, for the fact is, the advance of the ice-sheet — as also its retreat — was so slow as to be undiscernible, even during two or three generations.

And not once only, but most probably twice, this stupendous phenomenon of glaciation was repeated, after a long intervening period of dry, cold climate. Further, mighty rivers scoured out wide valleys, in the case of the Thames to a depth of over one hundred feet, valleys which, later on during periods of land subsidence, were slowly silted up once more ; only to be re-excavated during upheaval, time and time again. And rightly to appreciate what this' means, it must be remembered that neither the process of silting, nor the far more rapid one of erosion, was perceptible to the man living on the river-bank. Moreover, a race of men (Homo neanderthalensis) distinct from our progenitors, though derived from the same original stock, flourished alongside them and shared their civilisation until — one might almost say, suddenly — it disappeared from the face of the earth, towards the close of this period. Hordes of strange animals, too, most of them long since extinct, succeeded one another in migratory waves, and roamed in English forests and plains and rivers for thousands of years, and then disappeared, giving place to others as strange : for England was not as yet separated from the mainland by sea. Only a few of these animals need be mentioned here : the straight-tusked elephant, the leptorhine rhinoceros, the large hippopotamus, the sabre-toothed tiger, and the striped hysena ; these were followed by the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave-bear and cave-lion, and the cave-hysena ; and these, in turn, by the reindeer, the ibex, the musk-sheep, and the arctic hare and fox.

Such, then, was the unimaginable duration of Paleolithic time ; such was the changing environment of man's ceaseless struggle for existence; and it is against such a gloomy background of incalculable physical force that we must watch the growth of this new element in the scheme of nature, the spirit of man, as it were a spark of fire exposed to all the winds of heaven, and they blow upon it and it is not quenched ; nay, more, it is fanned into lambent flame by those very powers which threaten to extinguish it.

But before we begin our examination of man's activities during this period, it should be understood that as political divisions of land as we now know them did not exist, all north-west Europe was simply one country with one civilisation, as in Bolithic times ; and that Britain, not yet an island, was part and parcel of it. Hence it is unnecessary for our purposes always to discriminate between the separate evidences contributed by what are now known as the British Isles, France, Belgium, and Germany ; especially as one country supplements or corroborates the witness of another, and in such a manner that it is only by regarding the sum total of the discoveries that a picture, trustworthy in the main, however imperfect in detail, can be obtained.