tailieunhanh - Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, “Terremares,” Crannoges, Burghs, “Nurhags,” “Talayoti,” and “Truddhi”

The earliest races of men lived in a climate less rigorous than ours, on the shores of wide rivers, in the midst of fertile districts, where fishing and the chase easily supplied all their needs. These races were numerous and prolific, and we find traces of them all over Western Europe, from Norfolk to the middle of Spain. What were the homes of these men and their families? Did they crouch in dens, as Tacitus says the German tribes did in his day? In his “Ancient Wiltshire,” Sir R. Coalt Hoare says that the earliest human habitations were holes. | Caves Kitchen-Middings Lake Stations Terremares Crannoges Burghs Nurhags Talayoti and Truddhi The earliest races of men lived in a climate less rigorous than ours on the shores of wide rivers in the midst of fertile districts where fishing and the chase easily supplied all their needs. These races were numerous and prolific and we find traces of them all over Western Europe from Norfolk to the middle of Spain. What were the homes of these men and their families Did they crouch in dens as Tacitus says the German tribes did in his day In his Ancient Wiltshire Sir R. Coalt Hoare says that the earliest human habitations were holes dug in the earth and covered over with the branches of trees. Near Joigny there still remain some circular holes in the ground about fifty feet in diameter by sixteen to twenty deep known in the country under the name of buvards. The trunk of a tree was fixed at the bottom and rose above the ground and the branches plastered with clay formed the roof. The floor of these buvards consists of a greasy black earth mixed with bones cinders charcoal and worked flints. Amongst the last named polished hatchets predominate which proves that these refuges were inhabited in Neolithic times but there is nothing to page 128prevent our supposing that they were also occupied in the Paleolithic period. Ameghino gives a still more striking example of an earth-dwelling. Near Mercedes about twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres he picked up numerous human bones together with arrow-heads chisels flint knives bone stilettos and polishers and bones of animals scratched and cut by man. Later Ameghino discovered the actual dwelling of this primeval man and his strange home was beneath the carapace of a gigantic armadillo the now extinct glyptodon seen in Fig. 48. All around the carapace says Ameghino in the reddish agglomerate of the original soil lay charcoal cinders burnt and split bones and flints. Digging beneath this a flint implement was found with some long split