The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and MankindWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
World history
The chief tool and weapon of Neolithic man was his axe; his next the bow
and arrow. His arrow heads were of flint, beautifully made, and he
lashed them tightly to their shafts. Probably he prepared the ground for
his sowing with a pole, or a pole upon which he had stuck a stag’s horn.
Fish he hooked or harpooned. These implements no doubt stood about in
the interior of the house, from the walls of which hung his
fowling-nets. On the floor, which was of clay or trodden cow-dung (after
the fashion of hut floors in India to-day), stood pots and jars and
woven baskets containing grain, milk, and such-like food. Some of the
pots and pans hung by rope loops to the walls. At one end of the room,
and helping to keep it warm in winter by their animal heat, stabled the
beasts. The children took the cows and goats out to graze, and brought
them in at night before the wolves and bears came prowling.
[Illustration: _Hut urns, the first probably representing a
lake-dwelling.... After Lubbock._]
Since Neolithic man had the bow, he probably also had stringed
instruments, for the rhythmic twanging of a bow-string seems almost
inevitably to lead to that. He also had earthenware drums across which
skins were stretched; perhaps also he made drums by stretching skins
over hollow tree stems.[58] We do not know when man began to sing, but
evidently he was making music, and since he had words, songs were no
doubt being made. To begin with, perhaps, he just let his voice loose as
one may hear Italian peasants now behind their ploughs singing songs
without words. After dark in the winter he sat in his house and talked
and sang and made implements by touch rather than sight. His lighting
must have been poor, and chiefly firelight, but there was probably
always some fire in the village, summer or winter. Fire was too
troublesome to make for men to be willing to let it out readily.
Sometimes a great disaster happened to those pile villages, the fire got
free, and they were burnt out. The Swiss deposits contain clear evidence
of such catastrophes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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