THE READJUSTMENTS COMPLETED IN EUROPE
After a few thousand years, things began to look better. Or at least we can say this: By about 6000 B.C. we again get hotter archeological materials. The best of these come from the north European area: Britain, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, north Germany, southern Norway and Sweden. Much of this north European material comes from bogs and swamps where it had become water-logged and has kept very well. Thus we have much more complete assemblages[4] than for any time earlier.
[4] “Assemblage” is a useful word when there are different kinds of archeological materials belonging together, from one area and of one time. An assemblage is made up of a number of “industries” (that is, all the tools in chipped stone, all the tools in bone, all the tools in wood, the traces of houses, etc.) and everything else that manages to survive, such as the art, the burials, the bones of the animals used as food, and the traces of plant foods; in fact, everything that has been left to us and can be used to help reconstruct the lives of the people to whom it once belonged. Our own present-day “assemblage” would be the sum total of all the objects in our mail-order catalogues, department stores and supply houses of every sort, our churches, our art galleries and other buildings, together with our roads, canals, dams, irrigation ditches, and any other traces we might leave of ourselves, from graves to garbage dumps. Not everything would last, so that an archeologist digging us up—say 2,000 years from now—would find only the most durable items in our assemblage.
The best known of these assemblages is the Maglemosian, named after a great Danish peat-swamp where much has been found.
SKETCH OF MAGLEMOSIAN ASSEMBLAGE
CHIPPED STONE
HEMP
GROUND STONE
BONE AND ANTLER
WOOD
In the Maglemosian assemblage the flint industry was still very important. Blade tools, tanged arrow points, and burins were still made, but there were also axes for cutting the trees in the new forests. Moreover, the tiny microlithic blades, in a variety of geometric forms, are also found. Thus, a specialized tradition that possibly began east of the Mediterranean had reached northern Europe. There was also a ground stone industry; some axes and club-heads were made by grinding and polishing rather than by chipping. The industries in bone and antler show a great variety of tools: axes, fish-hooks, fish spears, handles and hafts for other tools, harpoons, and clubs. A remarkable industry in wood has been preserved. Paddles, sled runners, handles for tools, and bark floats for fish-nets have been found. There are even fish-nets made of plant fibers. Canoes of some kind were no doubt made. Bone and antler tools were decorated with simple patterns, and amber was collected. Wooden bows and arrows are found.
It seems likely that the Maglemosian bog finds are remains of summer camps, and that in winter the people moved to higher and drier regions. Childe calls them the “Forest folk”; they probably lived much the same sort of life as did our pre-agricultural Indians of the north central states. They hunted small game or deer; they did a great deal of fishing; they collected what plant food they could find. In fact, their assemblage shows us again that remarkable ability of men to adapt themselves to change. They had succeeded in domesticating the dog; he was still a very wolf-like dog, but his long association with mankind had now begun. Professor Coon believes that these people were direct descendants of the men of the glacial age and that they had much the same appearance. He believes that most of the Ice Age survivors still extant are living today in the northwestern European area.