scarcely less ancient. Trustworthy records in China and India do not extend beyond 1000 B.C. For the Greeks and Romans the commencement of the historic period must be placed about 750 B.C. The inhabitants of northern Europe did not come into the light of history until about the opening of the Christian era. 2. Prehistoric People In studying the historic period our chief concern is with those peoples whose ideas or whose deeds have aided human The prehisprogress and the toric period spread of civilization. Six-sevenths of the earth's inhabitants now belong to civilized countries, and these countries include the best and largest regions of the globe. At the beginning of historic times, however, civilization was confined within a narrow area the river valleys of western Asia and Egypt. The uncounted centuries before the dawn of history make up the prehistoric period, when savagery and barbarism prevailed throughout the world. Our knowledge of it is derived from the examination of A PREHISTORIC EGYPTIAN GRAVE The skeleton lay on the left side, with knees drawn up and hands raised to the head. About it were various articles of food and vessels of pottery. the objects found in caves, refuse mounds, graves, and other sites. Various European countries, including England, France, Denmark, Switzerland, and Italy, are particularly rich in prehistoric remains. The prehistoric period is commonly divided, according to the character of the materials used for tools and weapons, into the Age of Stone and the Age of Metals. The one is the age of savagery; the other is the age of barbarism or semicivilization. The two ages Man's earliest implements were those that lay ready to his The Stone Age hand. A branch from a tree served as a spear; a thick stick in his strong arms became a powerful club. Later, perhaps, came the use of a hard stone such as flint, which could be chipped into the forms of arrowheads, axes, and spear tips. The first stone implements were so rude in shape that it is difficult to believe them of human workmanship. They may have been made several hundred thousand years ago. After countless centuries of slow advance, savages learned to fasten wooden handles to their stone tools and weapons and also to use such materials as jade and granite, which could be ground and polished into a variety of forms. Stone implements continued to be made durA hatchet of flint, ing the greater part of the prehistoric period. Every region of the world has had a Stone tended to fit the Age. Its length is reckoned, not by centuries, but by milleniums. A HATCHET OF probably used with out a helve and in hand. Similar implements have been found all over the world, except in Australia. The Age of Metals, compared with its predecessor, covers a brief expanse of time. The use of metals came in The Age of not much before the dawn of history. The earliest civilized peoples, the Babylonians and Egyptians, when we first become acquainted with them, appear to be passing from the use of stone implements to those of metal. Copper was the first metal in common use. The credit for the invention of copper tools seems to belong to the Egyptians. At a very early date they were working the Copper copper mines on the peninsula of Sinai. The Babylonians probably obtained their copper from the same region. Another source of this metal was the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. The Greek name of the island means "copper." 1 There are still some savage peoples, for instance, the Australians, who continue to make stone implements very similar to those of prehistoric men. Other primitive peoples, such as the natives of the Pacific islands, passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron, after this part of the world was opened up to European trade in the nineteenth century. But copper tools were soft and would not keep an edge. Some ancient smith, more ingenious than his fellows, discovered that the addition of a small part of tin to the copper produced a new metal Bronze the old, yet capable of being molded into a variety of forms. At least as early as 3000 B.C. we find bronze taking the place of copper in both Egypt and Babylonia. Somewhat later bronze AVIA ARROWHEADS OF THE LATER STONE AGE Different forms from Europe, Africa, and North America. was introduced into the island of Crete, then along the eastern coast of Greece, and afterwards into other European countries. Iron The introduction of iron occurred in comparatively recent times. At first it was a scarce, and therefore a very precious, metal. The Egyptians seem to have made little use of iron before 1500 B.C. They called it "the metal of heaven," as if they obtained it from meteorites. In the Greek Homeric poems, composed about 900 B.C. or later, we find iron considered so valuable that a lump of it is one of the chief prizes at athletic games. In the first five books of the Bible iron is mentioned only thirteen times, though copper and bronze are referred to forty-four times. Iron is more difficult to work than either copper or bronze, but it is vastly superior to those metals in hardness and durability. Hence it gradually displaced them throughout the greater part of the Old World.1 During the prehistoric period early man came to be widely 1 Iron was unknown to the inhabitants of North America and South America before the coming of the Europeans. The natives used many stone implements, besides those of copper and bronze. The Indians got most of their copper from the mines in the Lake Superior region, whence it was carried far and wide. zation scattered throughout the world. Here and there, slowly, and First steps with the utmost difficulty, he began to take the toward civili- first steps toward civilization. The tools and weapons which he left behind him afford some evidence of his advance. We may now single out some of his other great achievements and follow their development to the dawn of history. 3. Domestication of Animals and Plants Prehistoric man lived at first chiefly on wild berries, nuts, roots, and herbs. As his implements improved and his skill Hunting and increased, he became hunter, trapper, and fisher. fishing stage A tribe of hunters, however, requires an extensive territory and a constant supply of game. When the wild animals are all killed or seriously reduced in number, privation and hardship result. It was a forward step, therefore, when man began to tame animals as well as to kill them. The dog was man's first conquest over the animal kingdom. As early as the Age of Metals various breeds appear, such as deerhounds, sheep dogs, and mastiffs. The dog soon showed how useful he could be. He tracked game, guarded the camp, and later, in the pastoral stage, protected flocks and herds against their enemies. The cow also was domesticated at Domestication of the dog The cow remote period. No other animal has been more useful to mankind. The cow's flesh and milk supply food; the skin provides clothing; the sinews, bones, and horns yield materials for implements. The ox was early trained to bear the yoke and draw the plow, as we may learn from ancient Egyptian paintings. Cattle have also been commonly used as a kind of money. The early Greeks, whose wealth consisted chiefly of their herds, priced a slave at twenty oxen, a suit of armor at one hundred oxen, and so on. The early Romans reckoned values in cattle (one ox being equivalent to ten sheep). Our English word "pecuniary" goes back to the Latin pecus, or "herd" of cattle. 1 See the illustration, page 45. The domestication of the horse came much later than that of the cow. In the early Stone Age the horse ran wild over western Europe and formed an im The horse portant source of food for primitive men. This prehis 1 EARLY ROMAN BAR MONEY A bar of copper marked with the figure of a bull. Dates from the fourth century B.C. toric horse, as some ancient drawings show, was a small animal with a shaggy mane and tail. It resembled the wild pony still found on the steppes of Mongolia. The domesticated horse does not appear in Egypt and western Asia much before 1500 B.C. For a long time after the horse was tamed, the more manageable ox continued to be used as the beast of burden. The horse was kept for chariots of war, as among the Egyptians, or ridden bareback in races, as by the early Greeks. At the close of prehistoric times in the Old World nearly all the domestic animals of to-day were known. Besides those just mentioned, the goat, sheep, ass, mals domesand hog had become man's useful servants.2 Other ani ticated The domestication of animals made possible an advance from the hunting and fishing stage to the pastoral stage. Herds of cattle and sheep would now furnish more certain Pastoral and abundant supplies of food than the chase could stage ever yield. We find in some parts of the world, as on the great Asiatic plains, the herdsman succeeding the hunter and fisher. But even in this stage much land for grazing is required. With the exhaustion of the pasturage the sheep or cattle must be driven to new fields. Hence pastoral peoples, as well as hunting and fishing folk, remained nomads without fixed homes. Before permanent settlements were possible, another onward step became necessary. This was the domestication of plants. 1 See the illustration, page 14. 2 In the New World, the only important domestic animal was the llama of the Andes. The natives used it as a beast of burden, ate its flesh, and clothed themselves with its wool. |