NEOLITHIC PERIOD.
New Technical Processes qf the Neolithic an earlier page (30) the flaking and chipping of stone have been described—methods which were the only ones known to pristine man. With the introduction of the Neolithic Period a variety of novel technical procedures for man aging this refractory substance were invented, the results of which must the more closely attract our attention as they are the distinguishing traits of the period in both hemispheres. These new methods were those of boring or drilling, of pecking, of polishing, and of grinding stone.
poring or first sight it seems very remarkable that in so ignorant a condition as savage life the art of perforating even the hardest stones should be quite familiar. But, in fact, given an indefinite amount of patience, and it is nowise difficult. The method generally employed both in ancient Europe and throughout America was to take a hollow reed, and, fixing it firmly against the stone to be operated on, revolve it rapidly in the hand, moistening the surface of the stone and throwing upon it some sharp siliceous sand. Some reeds have so much silex in their tissues that even without the sand they will make an impression on stone. By this process a circular excavation was in time produced, in the midst of which was a cylindrical core. This was broken off from time to time, and a perforation with symmetrical sides and of equal calibre resulted. At other times a pointed stick was revolved against the stone, water and sand being employed in a similar manner, until the desired excavation was produced. Specimens showing these two primitive methods of boring are easily distinguishable, as the former leaves a perforation of equal cali bre throughout, while the latter shows a gradually decreasing diameter of the channel. In the more advanced nations the labor of this process was greatly lightened by the employment of the bow, with which the reed or drill could be revolved with great rapidity. (Comp. p. 43 and Vol. I. p. 97.) this is meant the dressing of stone by repeated light blows with a sharp-pointed instrument held nearly perpendicularly to the plane of the surface. When metals were not known a hard and pointed stone was the tool adopted, which in a practised hand shapes a softer stone with surprising rapidity. In this manner the grooves around stone axes and mauls were first chipped out. Many of these pecking-stones are merely triangular or sharp-pointed pebbles, but the peculiar marks of wear on their edges disclose the use to which they were put. They were not fastened to handles, but were held in the hand. On not a few of them we find " finger-pits," which are shallow artificial depressions on opposite sides of the stone to receive the extremities of the thumb and second finger, the first finger being placed upon the superior edge of the tool to direct the blows more accurately. Instruments answering this description are found in the vicinity of most of the sites of workshops of the Neolithic Age in both hemispheres.
Neolithic Period is often called "The Age of Polished Stone," this method of finishing being taken as distinctive, though it is not more so than the other technical methods we are describing. The polishing was secured by applying the Rrinciple of attrition. One stone was rubbed against another until all the marks of chipping and pecking were worn away. This could be accomplished, in a measure, by any hard and gritty stone, hut the artists of the later Stone Age were select in their tools. They sought out and preserved stones of a particular grain
and degree of hardness, and dressed them carefully into the most effective shapes for the purpose to which they were to be applied. Such specimens have long, slender, polished surfaces of regular contour and with a fine, sharp texture. By some antiquaries a relic of this kind is called a stone," on account of its resemblance to that implement (pl. 2, fig. 3S). the grinding or preparation of the edges of the polished stone implements was effected by long scouring with stones prepared for the purpose. These do not appear to be the same as those for polishing, but are more globular in shape, and often have the "finger-pits'' above spoken of on their sides. They were revolved with a circular motion along the edges of the instrument and wore it down to a cutting border. Abrupt Beginning of the Neolithic Period both in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe have noted a wide gap between the close of the PalmaEthic and the beginning of the Neolithic Age. There are indications of a long term of tune in which numerous geological strata were deposited which contain no human remains. The climate underwent marked changes, passing from an arctic condition almost to that with which we are now familiar. The mammoth, the reindeer, the hyena, and the great felines disappeared, never to return. Alen of the Neolithic the beginning of the Neolithic Period we find ourselves brought abruptly into the presence of a race of men with totally new arts and novel habits of social life. They are acquainted with the manufacture of pottery, and although their imple ments are still of bone and stone, they know how to polish and bore these materials, grinding their surfaces and perforating them. More than this, they are agriculturists as well as hunters and fishermen, and they have with them domestic animals, the horse, the dog, and perhaps the hog. They live no longer in caves or bark cabins, but in villages of felled logs, often built on piles in lakes or rivers for greater security, and they have the ability to move and set upright huge stones, singly or in rows, or in the shape of tables, one resting horizontally on others dis posed vertically.
All this proves an enormous advance in the arts and in social organ ization. Are we to regard the neolithic tribes as the descendants of those cave-dwellers whom we last saw occupying the same territory? if so, where are the evidences of the intervening stages of culture? Or are we to hold that neolithic man entered Western Europe from some Eastern home where lie had slowly developed these arts? If that was the case, where was his former home and what became of the race of cave men? To these queries the science of Archxology offers as yet no satisfactory replies. Perhaps the opinion of Professor Dawkins is as good as another. He thinks that the cave man of the late palzeolithic time was the ancestor of the modern Eskimo, and that when the ice-sheet receded to the far North, he went with it, migrating to the Arctic Circle along with his indispensable ally, the reindeer. As for neolithic man, he came from Central or Western Asia, bringing with him the arts and the cereals of that distant clime. Passing from this region of surmise, let us examine the arts of this period.