For the first time the retreat of the Scandinavian ice-fields and the less severe climate permitted a northern migration route along the shores of the Baltic. This is the first known migration of any tribes along this route, which throughout all glacial times had been blocked by the vicinity of the Scandinavian and Baltic ice-fields, but which was now opened by the approach of the more genial climate which succeeded the long Postglacial Stage. Whether this Baltic invasion was the advance wave of a northern long-headed Teutonic race is wholly a matter of conjecture.

"Other peoples," observes Breuil,[(19)] "known at present only from their industries, were advancing toward the close of the Upper Palæolithic along the northern and southern shores of the Baltic and persisted for an appreciable time before the arrival of the tribes introducing the early Neolithic Campignian culture which accumulated in the kitchen-middens along the same shores. Like the southern races of Azilian-Tardenoisian times, these northerly tribes were truly Pre-Neolithic, ignorant both of agriculture and of pottery; they brought with them no domesticated animals excepting the dog, which is known at Mugem, at Tourasse, and at Oban, in northwestern Scotland. In the use of bone harpoons of elegant form and in the taste displayed in fine decorations engraved upon bone, these tribes suggest the culture of the Magdalenians, but a close examination shows that it could not have been derived from the Magdalenian type. The community of style with the painted and engraved figures found in western Siberia and in the central Ural region and north of the Altai Mountains denotes rather an Asiatic and Siberian origin.

"The decorative designs of these Baltic peoples were very different from those of the Crô-Magnons in Magdalenian times, and are not schematic; the conception of the animal figures, although naturalistic, is as crude as that of the early Aurignacian figures, and is far inferior to that of the Magdalenian stage." "It is probable," continues Breuil, "that in these northerly regions the closing cultures of the Upper Palæolithic developed along more or less parallel lines with those observed in the south in giving rise to ethnographic elements which travelled along the littoral regions of the northern seas."

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Fig. 261. Implements and decorations showing the conventional and crude animal designs of the art of the Baltic, from Maglemose, Denmark. After Reinecke and Obermaier. The implements include bone harpoons, fish-hooks, horn chisels, awls, spear points, and smoothers. About one-fifth actual size.

This race and culture is described by Obermaier[(20)] as follows:

When primitive man took possession of Denmark the sea-coast was so remote that he could also reach southern Scandinavia. The station of Maglemose in the 'Great Moor,' discovered and described by F. L. Sarauw, of Copenhagen, in 1900, is near the harbor of Mullerup on the western coast of Zealand and not far from the shore of an ancient freshwater lake formation. These people were lake-dwellers, living perhaps on rafts but not on dwellings supported by piles. From these rafts it is supposed the implements dropped into the lake. The 881 flint implements found here include scrapers, borers, cleavers, and knives, as well as microlithic flints. They show no trace of the Neolithic art of polishing, merely suggesting certain chipped styles observed in the 'kjöddenmöddings.' (See Figs. 263, 264, and 265.) The influence of the Palæolithic is much stronger, especially in the case of the microlithic Tardenoisian types. In the industrial culture of Maglemose, however, far more important than stone are implements of horn and bone. These the Maglemose folk obtained from the wild ox, moose, stag, and roe-deer, fashioning them into tools of various types, some of which are shown in Fig. 261. Many of these tools are ornamented with conventional designs or very crude animal outlines on one or both surfaces.

The forests of this time consisted of the characteristic northern flora including numerous evergreens, the birch, aspen, hazel, and elm, but without any trace of the oak. There is absolutely no trace of pottery in the Maglemose deposits. Of great interest is the fact that skeletal remains of the domestic dog are found here.

The Maglemose culture of the Baltic region is regarded as contemporary with the Azilian and Tardenoisian in the south. It contains types, not of flint but of bone, which are prophetic of the Neolithic. Traces of this culture have been found throughout northern Germany, in Denmark, and in southern Sweden, as well as to the east and in the Baltic provinces. Although no human remains have as yet been discovered, it is highly probable that these people belonged to the northern Teutonic races.