Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/363

] age has not passed away without leaving its mark behind among the non-Aryan inhabitants of France and Spain, in those places where the aboriginal population is to be found in its greatest purity. They point back to a time when the Neolithic civilisation and Iberic dialects spread over the whole of Europe north of the Alps and west of the Rhine, and probably also over Germany and Denmark.

The principal domestic animals and cereals, and many of the European fruits, are directly traceable, as we have seen, to the Neolithic age. The Neolithic population also is still represented by the Iberic and Celtic peoples. It is not, therefore, surprising that the Neolithic age should have left traces which survived, long after it had passed away, in the manners and customs of the European peoples of the succeeding ages. The polished stone axes were gradually supplanted, as will be seen in the next chapter, for purposes of every-day use by better implements of bronze, and ultimately came to be looked upon with awe and respect. In Italy, France, Germany, and Scandinavia, in the Middle Ages, they were termed thunderbolts, and were supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers in healing the sick, and in averting the evil eye from men and beasts. In the two last countries they were termed Thor's hammers (Thor's