The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
On the shores of the lakes which furnished them with a place of
habitation they raised many of our present species of grain.
Owing to a cause of which we have already spoken—that is,
destruction of the lake settlements by fire—the carbonized
remains of these cereals have been preserved to us. There were
four varieties of wheat raised, none exactly like our common
wheat. In addition to this they raised barley and millet, several
varieties of each. Nor were the fruits neglected. Apples and
pears were dried and laid away for use in the Winter. Seeds of
the common berries were found in abundance, showing that these
primitive people were fully alive to their value.
From this it follows that the Neolithic people were not only
tillers of the soil, but horticulturists as well. According to
Dr. Keller, the vegetable kingdom furnished their principal
supply of food. Hazelnuts, beechnuts, and chestnuts were found in
such quantities as to show they had been gathered for use.
Neither hemp, oats, nor rye were known. Not only do we find the
remains of the grains, fruits, seeds, etc., from which the above
conclusions are drawn, but, farther than this, pieces of bread
have been found in a carbonized state, and thus as effectually
preserved as the bread of a far later date found in the ovens of
Pompeii. According to Figuier, the peasant classes of Tuscany now
bake bread, after merely bruising the grain, by pouring the
batter on glowing stones and then covering it with ashes. As this
ancient prehistoric bread is of similar shape, it was probably
baked in an equally primitive fashion.21
Aside from the natural interest we feel in these evidences as to
ancient industry, a study of the remains of plants cultivated by
the Neolithic people reveals to us two curious and suggestive
facts. It has been found that the wild plants then growing in
Switzerland are in all respects like the wild plants now growing
there. But the cultivated plants—wheat, millet, etc.—differ from
all existing varieties, and invariably have smaller seeds or
fruits.22 This shows us that man has evidently been able to
effect considerable change by cultivation, in the common grains,
during the course of the many centuries which separate the
Neolithic times from our own age. But if this rate of change be
adopted as a measure of time, what shall we say is to the
antiquity demanded to explain the origin of cultivated grain from
the wild grasses of their first form?
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