Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/28

 8 General History of Europe Mediterranean ; that is, about 4000 B.C., not only in Europe but in Asia, and especially in northern Africa, mankind had reached about the same stage of advancement. But civilization cannot arise or advance without the following three things : writing, the use of metals, 1 and the control of men by an organized, government. PART OF THE EQUIPMENT OF A LATE STONE AGE LAKE-DWELLER This group contains the evidence for three important inventions made or received by the men of the Late Stone Age : first, pottery jars, like 2 and j, with rude decorations, the oldest baked clay in Europe, and i, a large kettle ; second, ground-edged tools like 4, a stone chisel with ground edge, mounted in a deerhorn handle like a hatchet, or 5, stone ax with a ground edge, and pierced with a hole for the ax handle (the houses shown in the cut on page 6 were built with such tools) ; and third, weaving, as shown by 6, a spin- ning "whorl" of baked clay. When suspended by a rough thread of flax, it was given a whirl which made it spin in the air like a top, thus rapidly twisting the thread by which it was hanging Nowhere around the entire Mediterranean did the world of the Late Stone Age as yet possess these things, nor did Europe ever gain them for itself unaided. Europe borrowed them. Hence we must now turn elsewhere to see where these, and many other things that help to make up our civilization, first appeared. The 1 Metal was introduced in southeastern Europe about 3000 B. c. and passed like a slow wave, moving gradually westward and northward across Europe. It probably did not reach Britain until about 2000 B.C. Hence we have included the great stone monuments of western Europe (like Stonehenge) in our survey of Stone Age Europe. They were erected long after southeastern Europe had received metal, but before metal came into common use in western Europe ( 20).