The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 113later or polished stone epoch.No bone or chipped flint or rudely cut stone implements,such as occur in the Danish middens and Belgian and French caves, havehitherto been found in the regions north of the strait formed by the great lakes.The inference is that North Scandinavia was then uninhabited, and not occupied tillthe polished stone age, objects of that epoch being the oldest there met with.The mammoth and rhinoceros, whose remains are found associated with those ofpaleolithic art in the French caverns, are also missing in the peninsula, there havingbeen no time for the men of that age to occupy it at the close of the glacial epoch.TTe do not know the precise time to which must be attributedthe remains ofthe primitive Scandinavians and their industry ; but it no doubt coincides withthe gradual withdrawal of the ice formerly covering the land, though Nilssonprobably assigns too great an antiquity to the first arrivals. Between the townsof Tstad and Trelleborg, and at Fallsterbo headland on the Baltic, there occurs asort of wide rampart running east and west, composed of gravels and sand,interrupted here and there, and divided into unequal sections, formed probably atdifferent epochs. It is called the Jaravall, or "Jara Mound," and below thegravels Nilsson has discovered arrow and lance points resting on the bed of oldpeat formations, now over 7 feet below sea-level. But the Jaravall, formerlysupposed to be of old formation, seems to be a recent coast rampart. Twoskeletons also were discovered in 1843 in the Stiingeniis peninsula near Bro, stilllying beneath horizontal strata of marine shells, now 105 feet above the sea.Butit cannot be shown that these strata are in their original position, and it isuncertain whether or not the skeletons belong to the stone age.The burial-places of the polished stone age are very numerous in Scania,Gotaland, and Bohuslan, but, like the middens, do not occur in the north.Thereare several forms : stendosar, or dolmens ; hallkistor, large graves of raised stonessurrounded by earth ;gdnggrifter, or galleries, called also jdttestugor, or giants'chambers.They are often large enough to contain upwards of twenty bodies, andare either rectangular or round, with flat roofs of granite slabs supporting earthmounds or stone heaps. A long narrow gallery leads to the funeral chamber, andnearly all face south and east. The blocks are never dressed, and the arms andimplements found with the bodies (mostly with dolichocephalous crania) all belongto the neolithic ages. At this epoch most sepultures contained necklaces and otherornaments of amber beads. To the same period may perhaps belong the numerousstones shaped into porringers, commonly known as elfstenar, or " fairy stones."Of 36,000 specimens of the stone age found in Sweden up to the year 1874,34,000 came from the southern provinces ; that is, from Gotaland. When thebronze succeeded the stone age it was here also that civilisation was chieflydeveloped, for of the 2,500 bronzes only 150 were found in Svealand, and inthewhole of Norrland 2 only. To this period belong the hieroglyphic writings, or"rock inscriptions" (hallristningar), occurring here and therein Scania, Gotaland,SwedishBohuslan, and Norwegian Smaulenene, and which represent fleets, largeboats with figure-heads of dragons, waggons, ploughs, oxen, and other animals,warriors, hunters, and seamen. Beautiful bronze vases, ornaments, diadems, now