We may
confidently assume that there was a large and stirring population
of human beings on it during the Magdalenian cold. We may, with
many of the authorities, look to this temperate and fertile
region for the slight advance made by early Neolithic man beyond
his predecessor. As the cold relaxed, and the southern fringe of
dreary steppe w as converted once more into genial country, the
race would push north. There is evidence that there were still
land bridges across the Mediterranean. From Spain and the south
of France this early Neolithic race rapidly spread over Europe.
It must not be supposed that the New Stone Age at first goes much
beyond the Old in culture. Works on prehistoric man are apt to
give as features of "Neolithic man" all that we know him to have
done or discovered during the whole of the New Stone Age. We read
that he not only gave a finer finish to, and sometimes polished,
his stone weapons, but built houses, put imposing monuments over
his dead, and had agriculture, tame cattle, pottery, and weaving.
This is misleading, as the more advanced of these accomplishments
appear only late in the New Stone Age. The only difference we
find at first is that the stone axes, etc.
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