nent. After
this process had taken place, a third race appeared, which must have
crossed the sea in rafts or canoes, and which took the place of the
Palaeolithic men. They are known as Neolithic, or men of the new stone
age, because their stone implements were of a newer kind, being
polished and more efficient than those of their predecessors. They
had, therefore, the advantage of superior weapons, and perhaps of
superior strength, and were able to overpower those whom they found in
the island. With their stone axes they made clearings in the woods in
which to place their settlements. They brought with them domestic
animals, sheep and goats, dogs and pigs. They spun thread with spindle
and distaff, and wove it into cloth upon a loom. They grew corn and
manufactured a rude kind of pottery. Each tribe lived in a state of
war with its neighbours. A tribe when attacked in force took shelter
on the hills in places of refuge, which were surrounded by lofty
mounds and ditches. Many of these places of refuge are still to be
seen, as, for instance, the one which bears the name of Maiden Castle,
near Dorchester. On the open hills, too, are still to be found the
long barrows which the Neolithic men raised over the dead. There is
little doubt that these men, whose way of life was so superior to that
of their Eskimo-like predecessors, were of the race now known as
Iberian, which at one time inhabited a great part of Western Europe,
but which has since mingled with other races. The Basques of the
Pyrenees are the only Iberians who still preserve anything like purity
of descent, though even the Basques have in them blood the origin of
which is not Iberian.

[Illustration: Early British Pottery.]

4. =Celts and Iberians.=--The Iberians were followed by a swarm of
new-comers called Celts. The Celts belong to a group of races
sometimes known as the Aryan group, to which also belong Teutons,
Slavonians, Italians, Greeks, and the chief ancient races of Persia
and India. The Celts were the first to arrive in the West, where they
seized upon lands in Spain, in Gaul, and in Britain, which the
Iberians had occupied before them. They did not, however, destroy the
Iberians altogether. However careful a conquering tribe maybe to
preserve the purity of its blood, it rarely succeeds in doing so. The
conquerors are sure to preserve some of the men of the conquered race
as slaves, and a still larger number of young and comely women who
become the