Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/318

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From the preceding pages the reader will gather a distinct idea of the physical condition of Britain in the Neolithic age, and of the manners and customs of the inhabitants. The population was probably large, divided into tribal communities possessed of fixed habitations, and living principally on their flocks and herds, acquainted with agriculture, and subsisting in a lesser degree by hunting and fishing. The arts of spinning, weaving, mining, and pottery-making were known, and that of boat-building had advanced sufficiently far to allow of voyages being made from France to Britain, and from Britain to Ireland. Traffic was carried on by barter, and stone axes were distributed over areas far away from those in which the stone was found. Tombs also were built, some of imposing grandeur, for the habitation of the dead in the after-world, in which the spirits were supposed to lead a life not very different from that of the living, and at which they were worshipped by the family or tribe, after the manner of the Red Indians and many African peoples.

The traces of this civilisation have been discovered in almost every part of Europe, under conditions which prove that the manners and customs of the people were tolerably uniform, and only presented those minor differences which may be noted in the social state of the present inhabitants. We may survey them from the standpoint offered by the discoveries made in the pile-dwellings of Switzerland, and at the same time