me, what shall we say is to the antiquity
demanded to explain the origin of cultivated grain from the wild grasses
of their first form?

We learn, in the second place, that the cultivated plants are all
immigrants from the south-east--their native home being in South-eastern
Europe and Asia Minor. We shall afterward see that this is true of the
domestic animals also. There can be but one explanation for this. The
ancient inhabitants of Europe must have come from that direction, and
brought with them the plants they had cultivated in their eastern
homes, and the animals they had reduced to their service. The traces of
agriculture thus found in Switzerland are by no means confined to that
country. In other countries of Europe, such as England and France, we
also find proofs that men cultivated the earth. In localities where
we do not find the grain itself, we find their rude mills, or mealing
stones, which as plainly indicate a knowledge of the agricultural art as
the presence of the cereals themselves.<23>

As we have stated, Neolithic man in Europe possessed domestic animals.
He was not only a cultivator of the soil, but he was a herdsman as well;
and he kept herds of oxen, sheep, and goats. Droves of hogs fattened on
the nuts of the forest, and the dog associated with man in keeping
and protecting these domestic animals. We know that the Swiss Lake
inhabitants built little stalls by the sides of their houses, in which
they kept their cattle at night. But these domestic animals were not
descendants of the wild animals that roamed the forests of Europe.
Like the plants, they are immigrants from the south-east. Our best
authorities consider they were brought into Europe by the invading
Neolithic tribes.

The knowledge of husbandry, though rude, and the possession of domestic
animals, though of a few species only, strikingly indicate the advance
over the Paleolithic tribes. They also had fixed places of living.
This culture spread all over Europe. That it was substantially the same
everywhere there is no doubt. Certain refuse heaps in Denmark, Scotland,
and indeed in all the sea-coast countries, have been thought to support
a different conclusion. Those of Denmark have been very carefully
studied, and so we will refer to them. All along the Baltic coast, but
especially in Denmark, have been discovered great numbers of mounds,
which were found to consist "almost entirely of shells, especially of
the oyster, broken bones