The Antiquity of Man by Sir Charles Lyell
page 50 of 604 (08%)
page 50 of 604 (08%)
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the bones of many carnivora, such as the lynx, fox, and wolf, but
no signs of any domesticated animals except the dog. The long bones of the larger mammalia have been all broken as if by some instrument, in such a manner as to allow of the extraction of the marrow, and the gristly parts have been gnawed off, as if by dogs, to whose agency is also attributed the almost entire absence of the bones of young birds and of the smaller bones and softer parts of the skeletons of birds in general, even of those of large size. In reference to the latter, it has been proved experimentally by Professor Steenstrup, that if the same species of birds are now given to dogs, they will devour those parts of the skeleton which are missing, and leave just those which are preserved in the old "kitchen-middens." The dogs of the mounds, the only domesticated animals, are of a smaller race than those of the bronze period, as shown by the peat-mosses, and the dogs of the bronze age are inferior in size and strength to those of the iron age. The domestic ox, horse, and sheep, which are wanting in the mounds, are confined to that part of the Danish peat which was formed in the ages of bronze and iron. Among the bones of birds, scarcely any are more frequent in the mounds than those of the auk (Alca impennis), now extinct. The Capercailzie (Tetrao urogallus) is also met with, and may, it is suggested, have fed on the buds of the Scotch fir in times when that tree flourished around the peat-bogs. The different stages of growth of the roedeer's horns, and the presence of the wild swan, now only a winter visitor, have been appealed to as proving that the aborigines resided in the same settlements all the year round. That they also ventured out to sea in canoes such as are now found |
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