cial conditions of his forbears as to
entitle him, in the estimate of his remote descendants, to be considered
as putting savagery behind him and as entering upon the Lower Status of
Barbarism. The discovery in question had to do with the practice of the
art of making pottery (see CERAMICS). Hitherto man had been possessed of
no permanent utensils that could withstand the action of fire. He could
not readily boil water except by some such cumbersome method as the
dropping of heated stones into a wooden or skin receptacle. The effect
upon his dietary of having at hand earthen vessels in which meat and
herbs could be boiled over a fire must have been momentous. Various
meats and many vegetables become highly palatable when boiled that are
almost or quite inedible when merely roasted before a fire. Bones,
sinews and even hides may be made to give up a modicum of nutriment in
this way; and doubtless barbaric man, before whom starvation always
loomed threateningly, found the crude pot an almost perennial refuge.
And of course its use as a cooking utensil was only one of many ways in
which the newly discovered mechanism exerted a civilizing influence.

Domestic animals.

The next great progressive movement, which carried man into the Middle
Status of Barbarism, is associated with the domestication of animals in
the Eastern hemisphere, and with the use of irrigation in cultivating
the soil and of adobe bricks and stone in architecture in the Western
hemisphere. The dog was probably the first animal to be domesticated,
but the sheep, the ox, the camel and the horse were doubtless added in
relatively rapid succession, so soon as the idea that captive animals
could be of service had been clearly conceived. Man now became a
herdsman, no longer dependent for food upon the precarious chase of wild
animals. Milk, procurable at all seasons, made a highly important
addition to his dietary. With the aid of camel and horse he could
traverse wide areas hitherto impassable, and come in contact with
distant peoples. Thus commerce came to play an extended role in the
dissemination of both commodities and ideas. In particular the nascent
civilization of the Mediterranean region fell heir to numerous products
of farther Asia,--gums, spices, oils, and most important of all, the
cereals. The cultivation of the latter gave the finishing touch to a
comprehensive and varied diet, while emphasizing the value of a fixed
abode. For the first time