At Spiennes, in Belgium, they sunk shafts sometimes to a depth of forty feet. Here horizontal galleries extended out into the layers of chalk containing the best quality of flint. Similar mines were located at Grimes Graves and at Cissbury, in England.[104] The flint was exported sometimes in blocks, sometimes as half or completely finished implements. Around Grand Pressigny workshops are numerous. But they are by no means limited to the immediate vicinity of the mines. In some localities the manufacture was almost limited to one particular article. Here the product was exported in finished form.
During the Bronze period Halle was a seat of wealth, and the large amount of copper found here suggests that the production of salt had begun here before the close of Neolithic times. Hoernes says that the production of salt at Hallstadt, a source of great wealth and luxury during the earliest Iron Epoch, and of no small extent during the Bronze period, had its beginnings in Neolithic days. The value of salt in trade or barter can hardly be overestimated.
A very small amount of gold, mostly in the form of beads, has been found in the Neolithic monuments of France erected at the very close of this period. Occurring native in small nuggets in the beds of streams and rivers of many parts of Europe, its color and malleability must have attracted the notice of the searchers after new material for implements. Large nuggets were found in Spain at a much later date with callais, a mineral resembling turquoise, which occurs from Portugal to Brittany.[105]
Objects of copper were found by Pumpelly at Anau contemporary with the appearance of turbary sheep, about 6000 B. C.[106] It appears in Egypt perhaps 1,000 years later. We find traces of it in the oldest city of Troy (Hissarlik). It may well have entered southeastern Europe by way of Troy, or northward from Greece through the Balkan Peninsula to the Danube valley. A more westerly route lay open through Italy, or the islands west of it, into Spain. Native metallic copper seems to fail in Europe proper, but mines for ore were opened in Tyrol, and probably elsewhere, before the end of the period.
Copper was very useful for ornaments, especially rings, armlets, and bracelets; for pointed objects like needles, pins, awls, and even daggers; to a certain extent for knives and razors. Copper axes were modelled at first after old stone patterns. This metal had one fatal defect, however; it would not hold an edge. Copper utensils were beautiful, but generally less useful than similar ones made of stone. They were largely for display and luxury, though this may hardly be true of its use in Egypt and the Orient. In Europe it could not shake the hold of the old, established flint. When the copper ore contained impurities of antimony or zinc, the alloy was harder. Then we find a very small percentage of tin, which slowly increases. There must have been long searching and experimenting before the classical recipe for bronze, ninety per cent copper and ten per cent tin, was established. We cannot well speak of a new copper culture or period. This began with the introduction of the harder and more beautiful, but always rare and expensive bronze. Still the great characteristic of the Bronze Age lay not so much in the introduction of a new metal as in the wider relations, communications, exchange of goods, and knowledge, and freer movements of individuals and peoples, which had brought it about. The discovery of metals, of salt, of minerals, and other materials useful for ornament and of the Baltic amber, was gradually furnishing considerable material which could be readily exchanged for the products of other sometimes distant and more advanced provinces and lands. The centres of distribution were often at some or considerable distance from the sources of the raw material, so especially in the case of flint implements. The location of the seat of manufacture and distribution depends largely on freedom and ease of communication. This leads us to glance at trade and trade-routes during this period.
We must bear in mind that the means of transportation were few and inadequate. The wheeled cart appeared during the Bronze period, but we have no proof of its use earlier. The horse was not yet domesticated in Europe, and did not come into use in the Orient much before 2000 B. C.[107] Cattle may have been used as beasts of burden at an early period, but of this we know nothing. Roads of a certain kind, often probably hardly more than mere trails, almost certainly existed, especially in the neighborhood of the great stone monuments and larger villages. The great bar to free communication was the forest. To avoid this almost impassable barrier the roads and trails seem usually to have kept to the uplands, especially those where the chalk prevented a heavy forest growth. Certain river valleys, like that of the Thames, were heavily forested almost or quite to the shore, and hardly inhabited at this time. But when the forest drew back somewhat from the water’s edge there was a most attractive place for human settlement. The river bottoms were fertile and easy of cultivation. There was grass for herds, wood for buildings and fuel. The rivers swarmed with fish down to recent times, and there was a great variety and abundance of smaller animal life. Such valleys formed natural routes of trade and migration.[108] We are not surprised to find that the earliest settlers of Sweden made their way from shore to interior along the rivers and lakes, whose shores are dotted with settlements of this age.[109] Déchelette tells us that this was true of the grouping of the Neolithic stations of France in three great provinces in the basins of the Seine, the Garonne, the Rhone, the Saone and the Loire. We remember the lake-dwellers. The valley of the Danube has been the great thoroughfare since the arrival of man in Europe. The great ancient civilizations of Egypt and Chaldea arose in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates.
We know that the people of the shell-heaps must have ventured some distance from shore, fishing for cod. The transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic might almost be characterized as a time of change from a hunting life to one very largely of fishing. Long before this emigrants, probably from Asia Minor, had sailed out into the Mediterranean and settled Crete. Here, before 3000 B. C., a veritable sea-power had arisen carrying on trade with Egypt and the shores of the Ægean. The voyage of the Argonauts, a “much-sung” story and saga in Homer’s time, may well have had a historical foundation in expeditions for trade and plunder along the shores of the Black Sea, up its rivers, and extending as far as distant Colchis. Hence the importance of Troy in ancient times and of Constantinople to-day.
Returning to the Baltic region,[110] we find that a cave on the island of Stora Karlso, close to the west shore of Gothland, contained Neolithic deposits nearly three metres thick. In the upper layers there were remains of domestic animals, in the lower only wild forms. This island lies some thirty miles from Oland, just off the east coast of Sweden. Montelius tells us that before the end of the Neolithic period there was communication between Sweden and Finland, as well as with Denmark and Germany; that trade between these regions was active, and that there is reason for thinking that there was communication between the west coast of Sweden and England. It seems highly probable that boats were creeping along the coast of Spain and France from harbor to harbor, although the evidence is here less clear and compelling.
Our knowledge of Neolithic boats is still very incomplete.[111] Those of the lake-dwellers seem to have been usually hardly more than dugouts hollowed by fire. One, however, from Lake Châlain (Jura) was about thirty feet long and two and one-half wide, made out of an oak-trunk. Such boats served well for river navigation, but were too shallow and clumsy for the open sea. It would have been a comparatively easy matter to add one or two planks along each side of such a dug-out and thus build up a fairly seaworthy craft. The rock-sculptures of Bohuslan, Sweden, which probably date from early in the Bronze Age, represent boats of fair size carrying as many as thirty men.[112]
The wares exchanged in this trade were limited in material and value. Metals and metallic objects were still unknown, except as copper and gold came in before the end of the period. Still, there were many objects which met a fairly wide demand. We have already seen that different lake-dwellings differed markedly in their products. Some were almost purely agricultural. In others we find remains of pottery evidently manufactured on the spot in larger quantities than the village could use. Much of this must have been exported along the lake, perhaps farther. Schliz distinguished at Grosgartach a rude home-made pottery from a finer ware apparently brought from some centre of finer and more artistic work. The Neolithic housewife was probably very proud of this “china.” The finer grades of cloth manufactured at Robenhausen and elsewhere were probably carried far and wide, but it is impossible to trace it. The flint mined at Grand Pressigny was transported to greater or less distances, as well as manufactured at the mouth of the mine. At the various workshops the implements were made in great numbers and still more widely disseminated. This was equally true of flint regions in other parts of Europe. Stone arm-rings, mace-heads and other fine articles found sparsely in northern Europe may well have been copies of a few articles brought from Italy or even farther.[113]