Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/302

274 out of the forest, but it was rather an occasional supply, and did not furnish them with their main subsistence. The roe and the stag, probably also the elk and the reindeer, and in Ireland the Irish elk, provided them with venison; and the discovery of the urus in a refuse-heap at Cissbury by Mr. Ernest Willett, proves that that large wild ox was still living in the forests, and sometimes fell a victim to the Neolithic hunter. They also ate hares, wild boars, and beavers.

Of all the Neolithic implements, the axe was by far the most important. It was by the axe that man achieved his greatest victory over nature. Before it, aided by fire, the trees of the forest fell to make room for the tiller of the ground, and by its sharp edge wood became useful for the manufacture of various articles and implements indispensable for the advancement of mankind in culture. It was immeasurably superior to the rude flint hâche of the Palæolithic hunter, which could not make a straight cut in wood, and which was very generally intended for use in the hand, without any handle. It is therefore chosen as the symbol of the Neolithic culture.