Early European History Part 6

1. THE STUDY OF HISTORY

SUBJECT MATTER OF HISTORY

History is the narrative of what civilized man has done. It deals with those social groups called states and nations. Just as biography describes the life of individuals, so history relates the rise, progress, and decline of human societies.

Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS AND BOOKS

History cannot go back of written records. These alone will preserve a full and accurate account of man's achievements. Ma.n.u.scripts and books form one cla.s.s of written records. The old Babylonians used tablets of soft clay, on which signs were impressed with a metal instrument. The tablets were then baked hard in an oven. The Egyptians made a kind of paper out of the papyrus, a plant native to the Nile valley. The Greeks and Romans at first used papyrus, but later they employed the more lasting parchment prepared from sheepskin. Paper seems to have been a Chinese invention. It was introduced into Europe by the Arabs during the twelfth century of our era.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DISK OF PHAESTUS Found in 1908 A.D. in the palace at Phaestus, Crete. The disk is of refined clay on which the figures were stamped in relief with punches.

Both sides of the disk are covered with characters. The side seen in the ill.u.s.tration contains 31 sign groups (123 signs) separated from one another by incised lines. The other side contains 30 sign groups (118 signs). The inscription dates from about 1800 B.C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PAPYRUS Ma.n.u.sCRIPT The pith of the papyrus, a plant native to the Nile valley, was cut into slices, which were then pressed together and dried in the sun. Several of the paper sheets thus formed were glued together at their edges to form a roll. From _papyros_ and _byblos_, the two Greek names of this plant, have come our own words, "paper" and "Bible." The ill.u.s.tration shows a ma.n.u.script discovered in Egypt in 1890 A.D. It is supposed to be a treatise, hitherto lost, on the Athenian const.i.tution by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.]

INSCRIPTIONS AND REMAINS

A second cla.s.s of written records consists of inscriptions. These are usually cut in stone, but sometimes we find them painted over the surface of a wall, stamped on coins, or impressed upon metal tablets. The historian also makes use of remains, such as statues, ornaments, weapons, tools, and utensils. Monuments of various sorts, including palaces, tombs, fortresses, bridges, temples, and churches, form a very important cla.s.s of remains.

BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY

History, based on written records, begins in different countries at varying dates. A few ma.n.u.scripts and inscriptions found in Egypt date back three or four thousand years before Christ. The annals of Babylonia are scarcely less ancient. Trustworthy records in China and India do not extend beyond 1000 B.C. For the Greeks and Romans the commencement of the historic period must be placed about 750 B.C. The inhabitants of northern Europe did not come into the light of history until about the opening of the Christian era.

2. PREHISTORIC PEOPLES

THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD

In studying the historic period our chief concern is with those peoples whose ideas or whose deeds have aided human progress and the spread of civilization. Six-sevenths of the earth's inhabitants now belong to civilized countries, and these countries include the best and largest regions of the globe. At the beginning of historic times, however, civilization was confined within a narrow area--the river valleys of western Asia and Egypt. The uncounted centuries before the dawn of history make up the prehistoric period, when savagery and barbarism prevailed throughout the world. Our knowledge of it is derived from the examination of the objects found in caves, refuse mounds, graves, and other sites.

Various European countries, including England, France, Denmark, Switzerland, and Italy, are particularly rich in prehistoric remains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PREHISTORIC EGYPTIAN GRAVE The skeleton lay on the left side, with knees drawn up and hands raised to the head. About it were various articles of food and vessels of pottery.]

THE TWO AGES

The prehistoric period is commonly divided, according to the character of the materials used for tools and weapons, into the Age of Stone and the Age of Metals. The one is the age of savagery; the other is the age of barbarism or semicivilization.

THE STONE AGE

Man's earliest implements were those that lay ready to his hand. A branch from a tree served as a spear; a thick stick in his strong arms became a powerful club. Later, perhaps, came the use of a hard stone such as flint, which could be chipped into the forms of arrowheads, axes, and spear tips.

The first stone implements were so rude in shape that it is difficult to believe them of human workmans.h.i.+p. They may have been made several hundred thousand years ago. After countless centuries of slow advance, savages learned to fasten wooden handles to their stone tools and weapons and also to use such materials as jade and granite, which could be ground and polished into a variety of forms. Stone implements continued to be made during the greater part of the prehistoric period. Every region of the world has had a Stone Age. [1] Its length is reckoned, not by centuries, but by milleniums.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A HATCHET OF THE EARLY STONE AGE A hatchet of flint, probably used without a helve and intended to fit the hand. Similar implements have been found all over the world, except in Australia.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARROWHEADS OF THE LATER STONE AGE Different forms from Europe, Africa, and North America.]

THE AGE OF METALS

The Age of Metals, compared with its predecessor, covers a brief expanse of time. The use of metals came in not much before the dawn of history.

The earliest civilized peoples, the Babylonians and Egyptians, when we first become acquainted with them, appear to be pa.s.sing from the use of stone implements to those of metal.

COPPER

Copper was the first metal in common use. The credit for the invention of copper tools seems to belong to the Egyptians. At a very early date they were working the copper mines on the peninsula of Sinai. The Babylonians probably obtained their copper from the same region. Another source of this metal was the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. The Greek name of the island means "copper."

BRONZE

But copper tools were soft and would not keep an edge. Some ancient smith, more ingenious than his fellows, discovered that the addition of a small part of tin to the copper produced a new metal--bronze--harder than the old, yet capable of being molded into a variety of forms. At least as early as 3000 B.C. we find bronze taking the place of copper in both Egypt and Babylonia. Somewhat later bronze was introduced into the island of Crete, then along the eastern coast of Greece, and afterwards into other European countries.

IRON

The introduction of iron occurred in comparatively recent times. At first it was a scarce, and therefore a very precious, metal. The Egyptians seem to have made little use of iron before 1500 B.C. They called it "the metal of heaven," as if they obtained it from meteorites. In the Greek Homeric poems, composed about 900 B.C. or later, we find iron considered so valuable that a lump of it is one of the chief prizes at athletic games.

In the first five books of the Bible iron is mentioned only thirteen times, though copper and bronze are referred to forty-four times. Iron is more difficult to work than either copper or bronze, but it is vastly superior to those metals in hardness and durability. Hence it gradually displaced them throughout the greater part of the Old World. [2]

FIRST STEPS TOWARD CIVILIZATION

During the prehistoric period early man came to be widely scattered throughout the world. Here and there, slowly, and with utmost difficulty, he began to take the first steps toward civilization. The tools and weapons which he left behind him afford some evidence of his advance. We may now single out some of his other great achievements and follow their development to the dawn of history.

3. DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS

HUNTING AND FIs.h.i.+NG STAGE

Prehistoric man lived at first chiefly on wild berries, nuts, roots, and herbs. As his implements improved and his skill increased, he became hunter, trapper, and fisher. A tribe of hunters, however, requires an extensive territory and a constant supply of game. When the wild animals are all killed or seriously reduced in number, privation and hards.h.i.+p result. It was a forward step, therefore, when man began to tame animals as well as to kill them.

DOMESTICATION OF THE DOG

The dog was man's first conquest over the animal kingdom. As early as the Age of Metals various breeds appear, such as deerhounds, sheep dogs, and mastiffs. The dog soon showed how useful he could be. He tracked game, guarded the camp, and later, in the pastoral stage, protected flocks and herds against their enemies.

THE COW

The cow also was domesticated at a remote period. No other animal has been more useful to mankind. The cow's flesh and milk supply food: the skin provides clothing; the sinews, bones, and horns yield materials for implements. The ox was early trained to bear the yoke and draw the plow, as we may learn from ancient Egyptian paintings. [3] Cattle have also been commonly used as a kind of money. The early Greeks, whose wealth consisted chiefly of their herds, priced a slave at twenty oxen, a suit of armor at one hundred oxen, and so on. The early Romans reckoned values in cattle (one ox being equivalent to ten sheep). Our English word "pecuniary" goes back to the Latin _pecus_, or "herd" of cattle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY ROMAN BAR MONEY A bar of copper marked with the figure of a bull. Dates from the fourth century B.C.]

THE HORSE

The domestication of the horse came much later than that of the cow. In the early Stone Age the horse ran wild over western Europe and formed an important source of food for primitive men. This prehistoric horse, as some ancient drawings show, [4] was a small animal with a s.h.a.ggy mane and tail. It resembled the wild pony still found on the steppes of Mongolia.

The domesticated horse does not appear in Egypt and western Asia much before 1500 B.C. For a long time after the horse was tamed, the more manageable ox continued to be used as the beast of burden. The horse was kept for chariots of war, as among the Egyptians, or ridden bareback in races, as by the early Greeks.

OTHER ANIMALS DOMESTICATED

At the close of prehistoric times in the Old World nearly all the domestic animals of to-day were known. Besides those just mentioned, the goat, sheep, a.s.s, and hog had become man's useful servants. [5]

PASTORAL STAGE

The domestication of animals made possible an advance from the hunting and fis.h.i.+ng stage to the pastoral stage. Herds of cattle and sheep would now furnish more certain and abundant supplies of food than the chase could ever yield. We find in some parts of the world, as on the great Asiatic plains, the herdsman succeeding the hunter and fisher. But even in this stage much land for grazing is required. With the exhaustion of the pasturage the sheep or cattle must be driven to new fields. Hence pastoral peoples, as well as hunting and fis.h.i.+ng folk, remained nomads without fixed homes. Before permanent settlements were possible, another onward step became necessary. This was the domestication of plants.

AGRICULTURAL STAGE