English Villages | Page 6

English historians and antiquaries.

CHAPTER II
PREHISTORIC REMAINS
Pytheas of Marseilles--Discovery of flint implements--Geological
changes--Palaeolithic man--Eslithic--Palaeolithic implements-- Drift
men--Cave men--Neolithic man and his weapons--Dolichocephalic--
Celtic or Brachycephalic race--The Iron Age.
It was customary some years ago to begin the history of any country
with the statement, "Of the early inhabitants nothing is known with any
certainty," and to commence the history of England with the landing of
Julius Caesar B.C. 55. If this book had been written forty or fifty years

ago it might have been stated that our first knowledge of Britain dates
from 330 B.C. when Pytheas of Marseilles visited it, and described his
impressions. He says that the climate was foggy, a characteristic which
it has not altogether lost, that the people cultivated the ground and used
beer and mead as beverages. Our villagers still follow the example of
their ancestors in their use of one at least of these drinks.
Of the history of all the ages prior to the advent of this Pytheas all
written record is silent. Hence we have to play the part of scientific
detectives, examine the footprints of the early man who inhabited our
island, hunt for odds and ends which he has left behind, to rake over his
kitchen middens, pick up his old tools, and even open his burial mound.
About fifty years ago the attention of the scientific world was drawn to
the flint implements which were scattered over the surface of our fields
and in our gravel pits and mountain caves; and inquiring minds began
to speculate as to their origin. The collections made at Amiens and
Abbeville and other places began to convince men of the existence of
an unknown and unimagined race, and it gradually dawned on us that
on our moors and downs were the tombs of a race of men who
fashioned their weapons of war and implements of peace out of flint.
These discoveries have pushed back our knowledge of man to an
antiquity formerly never dreamed of, and enlarged considerably our
historical horizon. So we will endeavour to discover what kind of men
they were, who roamed our fields and woods before any historical
records were written, and mark the very considerable traces of their
occupation which they have left behind.
The condition of life and the character and climate of the country were
very different in early times from what they are in the present day; and
in endeavouring to discover the kind of people who dwelt here in
prehistoric times, we must hear what the geologists have to tell us
about the physical aspect of Britain in that period. There was a time
when this country was connected with the Continent of Europe, and the
English Channel and North Sea were mere valleys with rivers running
through them fed by many streams. Where the North Sea now rolls
there was the great valley of the Rhine; and as there were no

ocean-waves to cross, animals and primitive man wandered northwards
and westwards from the Continent, and made their abode here. It is
curious to note that the migratory birds when returning to France and
Italy, and thence to the sunny regions of Algiers and other parts of
Northern Africa, always cross the seas where in remote ages there was
dry land. They always traverse the same route; and it appears that the
recollection of the places where their ancestors crossed has been
preserved by them through all the centuries that have elapsed since "the
silver streak" was formed that severs England from her neighbours.
In the times of which we are speaking the land was much higher than it
is now. Snowdon was 600 feet greater, and the climate was much
colder and more rigorous. Glaciers like those in Switzerland were in all
the higher valleys, and the marks of the action of the ice are still plainly
seen on the rocky cliffs that border many a ravine. Moreover we find in
the valleys many detached rocks, immense boulders, the nature of
which is quite different from the character of the stone in the
neighbourhood. These were carried down by the glaciers from higher
elevations, and deposited, when the ice melted, in the lower valleys.
Hence in this glacial period the condition of the country was very
different from what it is now.
Then a remarkable change took place. The land began to sink, and its
elevation so much decreased that the central part of the country became
a huge lake, and the peak of Snowdon was an island surrounded by the
sea which washed with its waves the lofty shoulder of the mountain.
This is the reason why shells and shingle are found in high elevations.
The Ice Age passed away and the climate became warmer. The Gulf
Stream