Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/28

 from each other by the degree of civilisation to which man had attained: viz. the Eolithic Age in which man makes use of only such tools as he picks up that are already shaped by Nature's hand, the Palaeolithic Age in which he chips and fashions stones to suit his purpose, the Neolithic Age in which he works stones into shape by rubbing and polishing, and the succeeding Ages of Bronze and Iron.

The man of the Neolithic Age was not only a far later arrival than those who had lived before him, but his civilisation was at a very much higher level. According to Boyd Dawkins, "The population" of Britain "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." That man still hunted the beasts of the forest is proved by the ox in the Woodwardian Museum "with a polished stone implement sticking in its skull," but the state of his larder depended no longer upon his success with the Urus, since another much smaller ox had come westward with Neolithic man, and,