The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18): A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the PresentVarious
History
The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18): A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the Present
Various
World history
If we compare the small, often tiny, knives and flint flakes from the
German places with the powerful axes and lance-heads of those regions,
it is self-evident how much more laborious life must have been for the
man who used the former. What labour he must have expended in carving
weapons and implements out of bone and horn, while flint supplied the
others with much better and more lasting ones with less expenditure
of time and trouble! In this light a wealth of flint was a civilising
factor of that period which is not to be under-estimated. In the flint
districts not only are the stone implements better worked, answering in
a higher degree the purpose of the weapon and the tool, but delight in
ornament and decoration is also more prominent.
[Sidenote: The Life in the Caves]
[Sidenote: Drift Man as Artist]
Life in the caves and grottos and under the rock shelters in the
neighbourhood of rivers was by no means quite wretched. The remains
left in the caves by their former inhabitants give almost as clear an
idea of the life of man in those primeval times as the buried cities of
Herculaneum and Pompeii do of the manners and customs of the Italians
in the first century of the Christian era. The floors of these caves
in which men formerly lived appear to consist entirely of broken bones
of animals killed in the chase, intermixed with rude implements and
weapons of bone and unpolished stone, and also charcoal and large burnt
stones, indicating the position of fireplaces. Flints and chips without
number, rough masses of stone, awls, lance-heads, hammers, and saws of
flint and chert lie in motley confusion beside bone needles, carved
reindeer antlers, arrow-heads and harpoons, and pointed pieces of horn
and bone; in addition to which are also the broken bones of the animals
that served as food, such as reindeer, bison, horse, ibex, saiga
antelope, and musk-ox. The reindeer supplied by far the greater part of
the food, and must at that time have lived in Central France in large
herds and in a wild state, all trace of the dog being absent.
[Sidenote: Pictures from the Drift World]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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