222. The Full Neolithic
It is the later or Full Neolithic, beginning probably between 6000 and 5000 B.C. in western Europe, that is marked by the grinding or polishing of stone. Even this criterion is less deep-going than might be thought from all the references that prehistorians have made to it, since the new process was put to limited service. Practically the only stone implements that were ground into shape in Europe were of the ax class: the ax head itself, the celt or chisel, hammer stones, and clubheads. The mill is the principal artifact that can be added to the list. The ax long remained what we to-day should scarcely dignify with the name of ax head: an unpierced, ungrooved blade. It is only toward the end of the Neolithic in Europe, after metal was already in use in the Orient and Mediterranean countries, that perforated and well ground stone axes appear; many of these make the impression of being stone imitations, among a remote, backward people, of forms cast in bronze by the richer and more advanced nations of the South and East.
Much more important than the ground stone ax in its influence on life was the commencement, during the Neolithic, of two of the great fundamentals of our own modern civilization: agriculture and domestic animals. These freed men from the buffetings of nature; made possible permanent habitation, the accumulation of food and wealth, and a heavier growth of population. Also, agriculture and animal breeding were evidently introduced only after numbers had reached a certain density. A sparse population, being able to subsist on wild products, tends to remain content with them. A fertile area with mild winters may support as high as one soul per square mile without improvement of the natural resources; in large forests, steppes, cold climates, and arid tracts, the territory needed for the subsistence of each head becomes larger in a hunting stage of existence.
The cultivated food plants of the European Neolithic were barley, wheat, and millet, pease, lentils, and somewhat later, beans and apples. All of these seem to derive from Mediterranean or west Asiatic sources. Of non-edible plants there was flax, which served textile purposes and involved loom weaving.
The species of domesticated animals numbered four, besides the dog: cattle, swine, sheep, and goats. The horse,[34] cat, hen, duck, came into Europe during the metal ages, in part during the historic period.