The Arctic Home in the Vedas c4.26

c4.26

Another method of determining which of these four races represented the primitive Aryans in Europe is to compare the grades of civilisation attained by the undivided Aryans, as ascertained from linguistic palæontology, with those attained by the Neolithic races as disclosed by the remains found in their dwellings. As for the Palæolithic man his social condition appears to have been far below that of the undivided Aryans; and Dr. Schrader considers it as indubitably either non-Indo-European or pre-Indo-European in character. The Palæolithic man used stone hatchets and bone needles, and had attained some proficiency in the art of sculpture and drawing, as exhibited by outlines of various animals carved on bones &c. ; but he was clearly unacquainted with the potter's art and the use of metals. It is only in the Neolithic period that we meet with pottery in the piled villages of lake-dwellers in Switzerland. But even the oldest lake-dwellers seem to have been unacquainted with the use of metals and waggons, both of which were familiar to the undivided Aryans. No trace of woollen cloth is again found in these lake-dwellings, even when sheep had become numerous in the Bronze age. But with these exceptions the culture of the Swiss lake-dwellings is considered by Dr. Schrader to be practically of the same character as the culture common to the European members of the Indo-Germanic family, and he, therefore, ventures to suggest, though cautiously, that "from this point of view there is nothing to prevent our assuming that the most ancient inhabitants of Switzerland were a branch of the European division" of the Aryan race.¹