Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/323

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The interest of these discoveries in Switzerland does not merely consist in their enabling us to realise that the civilisation of Britain was closely related to that of Switzerland, and to obtain a more just idea of the Neolithic peoples, but in the light they throw on the origin of the domestic animals and of the cultivated fruits. In discussing these questions it will be necessary to examine the independent testimony of each breed.

The dog of the Neolithic age in Switzerland was about equally remote from the wolf and the jackal, and intermediate in size between a hound and a spaniel. There is no reason for supposing that it was descended from the European wolf; but Mr. Darwin's view is probably correct, that it may have been derived from an extinct form which had been imported from some other region. Its nearest native ally, in the wild state, is the jackal, an inhabitant of the warm regions of South-eastern Europe and of Southern and Central Asia; and it is therefore probable that the breed of dogs was originated under the care of man in one of those countries.

The two breeds of hogs, the turf-hog (Sus palustris), or Torfschwein of Rütimeyer, and the common domestic pig (Sus scrofa domesticus), found in the pile-dwellings,