Another class of settlements usually well protected were the workshops (ateliers) and manufacturing villages, especially those where flint was mined, or where flint implements were made in large quantities and distributed by trade over wide areas.[47] During the Neolithic period these settlements would have held much the same place and importance as our centres of coal, iron, manufacturing, and business have with us to-day. Grand Pressigny and Camp de Chassey, in France, and Cissbury, in England, are single examples of a great number of such fortified mining and manufacturing villages. For a further study of these very interesting remains the reader is referred to the manuals of Déchelette and Hoernes. Even before the close of the Paleolithic period tundra and steppe were giving place to forests, which were advancing even into Scandinavia. The forest looms large and terrible in the works of classical writers and German antiquarians. Says Tacitus: "Who would leave the softer climes of Asia, Africa, or Italy to fix his abode in Germany, where Nature offers nothing but scenes of ugliness, where the inclemency of the seasons never relents?... The face of the country, though in some parts varied, presents a cheerless scene, covered with the gloom of forests, or deformed with wide-extended marshes." He says that the soil produces grain and is well stocked with cattle, though of small size. But grain does not grow in primeval forests, and herds of cattle need at least open glades for pasturage. It is an extreme picture tinged by the homesickness of a citizen of sunny Italy. Northern Europe was generally heavily forested until long after Tacitus's time. The Romans began in earnest the work of deforesting France, and the work was carried on all over Europe in mediæval times. The Neolithic immigrants probably made small clearings with the aid of fire, especially where the trees were low and not too thick, as on many light-soiled areas. They could make but little impression on the heavy forest growth, though they could limit its spread. They probably did not need to make wide clearings of dense forest. There were many open stretches of country of greater or less extent awaiting occupants and culture. This was true especially of districts occupied by the loess, whose origin from dust drifted by Paleolithic wind-storms we have already noticed.