But in
the later part of the Neolithic--to which much of this finer work
also may belong--we find him building huts, rearing large stone
monuments, having tame dogs and pigs and oxen, growing corn and
barley, and weaving primitive fabrics. He lives in large and
strong villages, round which we must imagine his primitive
cornfields growing and his cattle grazing, and in which there
must have been some political organisation under chiefs.
When we wish to trace the beginning of these inventions we have
the same difficulty that we experienced in tracing the first
stages of new animal types. The beginning takes place in some
restricted region, and our casual scratching of the crust of the
earth or the soil may not touch it for ages, if it has survived
at all. But for our literature and illustrations a future
generation would be equally puzzled to know how we got the idea
of the aeroplane or the electric light. In some cases we can make
a good guess at the origin of Neolithic man's institutions. Let
us take pottery. Palaeolithic man cooked his joint of horse or
reindeer, and, no doubt, scorched it. Suppose that some
Palaeolithic Soyer had conceived the idea of protecting the
joint, and preserving its juices, by daubing it with a coat of
clay.
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