In a much later age the Scandinavians were regarded as pure barbarians. For this reason it is important to observe that graves from the Stone Age show that the Swedes in that remote period had several domesticated animals, the dog, horse, ox, swine, sheep, and, perhaps, also the goat. Hence they were certainly a pastoral people, not living exclusively by hunting and fishing. But whether they practiced agriculture cannot be decided in the present state of our knowledge. The fact that the very oldest graves are found in the most fertile districts of Southern Sweden seems to speak in favor of the supposition that agriculture was known and appreciated. Of metals, even of gold, the people of the late Stone Age were entirely ignorant, also of the art of writing. Hence no monuments of their language will ever be found. Still it is highly probable that the Teutonic ancestors of the Swedes began to settle in the land from the beginning of the Stone Age. It is true that some skulls, very much like those of the Laps, have also been found in the graves of the Stone Age; but it must be borne in mind that these burial places, impressive through their size and the amount of work and mechanical skill necessary for their erection, can be believed to have been originally intended only for kings or chieftains, and their families. It was probably a custom, as in later heathen times, to bury with such distinguished people a number of slaves, dead or alive. The presence of skulls of a non-Scandinavian type can thus be explained, without the necessity of accepting the theory of an early mixture of two races. In the northern part of Sweden have been found relics of stone, usually of slate, which do not appear to have belonged to the people of the dolmens or passage-graves. They bear a close resemblance to those found in Finland and in other countries inhabited by Laps, Finns and peoples related to them. This seems to prove that these so-called Arctic stone implements are relics of the Laps and belong to the time when this people was still ignorant of the use of metal. Judging from the number of relics found on the coast, from Westerbotten to Gestrikland, and in Dalecarlia, the Laps dwelt also in somewhat more southerly parts of Sweden than at the present day. So far south as in the middle provinces, no Arctic stone relics have been found, still less in any of the southern provinces. This seems to indicate that the Laps and the Swedes did not dwell in the same parts of the country during the Stone Age, and their intercourse, if any, must have been of a very accidental and casual nature. That the Stone Age lasted a very long time in the North is proved by the fact that it reached a far higher development there than anywhere else in Europe. The best authorities think that it must have ended rather before than after 1500 B.C., or 3,500 years before our time.