He would accidentally make a clay vessel. This is Mr.
Clodd's ingenious theory of the origin of pottery. The
development of agriculture is not very puzzling. The seed of corn
would easily be discovered to have a food-value, and the
discovery of the growth of the plant from the seed would not
require a very high intelligence. Some ants, we may recall, have
their fungus-beds. It would be added by many that the ant gives
us another parallel in its keeping of droves of aphides, which it
"milks." But it is now doubted if the ant deliberately cultivates
the aphides with this aim. Early weaving might arise from the
plaiting of grasses. If wild flax were used, it might be noticed
that part of it remained strong when the rest decayed, and so the
threads might be selected and woven.
The building of houses, after living for ages in stone caverns,
would not be a very profound invention. The early houses were--as
may be gathered from the many remains in Devonshire and
Cornwall--mere rings of heaped stones, over which, most probably,
was put a roof of branches or reeds, plastered with mud. They
belong to the last part of the New Stone Age. In other places,
chiefly Switzerland, Neolithic man lived in wooden huts built on
piles in the shallow shores of lakes.
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