Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/34

 lO Outlines of European History Section 4. The Late Stone Age The signs left by the ice, and still observable in Europe, would lead us to think that it withdrew northward for the last time probably some ten thousand years ago. The climate again grew warmer and became what it is to-day. Men were soon after mak- ing rapid advances. They had now learned that it was possible Fig. 6. Surviving Remains of a Swiss Lake- Village After an unusually dry season the Swiss lakes fell to a very low level in 1854, exposing the lake bottom with the remains of the piles which once supported the lake villages along the shores. They were thus dis- covered for the first time. On the old lake bottom, among the projecting piles, were found great quantities of implements, tools, and furniture, like those in Fig. 7, including the dug-outs and nets of Fig. 5, wheat, barley, bones of domestic animals, woven flax, etc. (see p. 12). There they had been lying some five thousand years. Sometimes the objects were found in two distinct layers, the lower (earlier) containing only stone tools, and the upper (later) containing byvnze tools, which came into the lake village at a later age and fell into the water on top of the layer of old stone tools already lying on the bottom of the lake (see p. 114) to grind the edge of a stone ax or chisel (Fig. 7) as we now do with tools of metal. They were also able to drill a hole in the stone ax head and insert a handle (Fig. 7). With such an ax they could fell trees and build houses. The common use of the ground stone ax brings in the Late Stone Age. From the forests of southern Sweden southward to Sicily and the heel of Italy, from the marshes of Ireland and the harbors of Spain eastward iCr the