racteristic form of
the relation of the sexes, the conditions of life admitting of no more
enduring relations.

The culture of the peoples of the river-drift and of the caves
signified little in British civilization, as these shadowy tribes
passed completely out of view. For a period of time that could be
expressed only in the term of vague geological computation, the
country remained devoid of inhabitants. Meantime, changes were wrought
in Britain's physical features. The land became insular, although the
subsidence that gave rise to the English Channel was not yet complete.
In an indirect way, the earliest peoples may be said to have passed
on the elements of their culture; for, while there was a lapse in the
continuity of social development, the Neolithic races that are next
met with in Britain became the inheritors of the culture of the ruder
hunter stages of society represented by the river-drift and cave
peoples.

The social grade of the Neolithic races was a great advance over that
of the peoples last considered. Instead of bands of nomadic wanderers,
we find a pastoral people whose migrations were doubtless periodical
and made only in search of new pastures. Hunting did not form an
important part of their lives, for their food was supplied by the
flesh of domesticated animals and the cereals that they raised for
their own needs and, in the winter season, for those of their stock.

Although caves continued to be used to some extent for dwellings,
they were not characteristic of the civilization of the times. Man had
become a home builder. The evolution from the cave dwellings is seen
in the style of houses that were first constructed. They consisted of
pits dug to a depth of seven to ten feet, and about seven feet wide at
the base. These pits were roofed over with a sort of thatch, filled in
with imperfectly burnt clay. They were built singly and in groups, and
were sometimes connected by a system of underground passages. Access
was had to these dwellings by a slanting, shaftlike entrance. A pit
village was usually stockaded to protect it against the assaults of
foes. Outside it were the arable lands and the common pasture lands
for the sheep and goats; enclosing these, the forest stretched out in
all directions.

Looking down from one of the surrounding hilltops upon such a village,
it would have presented to the eye of the observer the appearance of
a number of round hillocks but little higher than the gro