Up and down the
creek where they live and along other creeks there lie banks of earth
which are very long and reach far back. And this is not really earth, but
is all made up of shells and bones and stone spearheads and the things
which lie about a Shell Man's place. I know, for I have dug into these
long banks myself and have seen that of which I tell. Long, very long,
must the Shell People have lived along the creeks and shores to have made
the banks of bones and shells so high."
And Old Mok was right. They talk of us as the descendants of an Aryan
race. Never from Aryan alone came the drifting, changing Western being of
to-day. But a part of him was born where bald plains were or where were
olive trees and roses. All modern science, and modern thoughtfulness, and
all later broadened intelligence are yielding to an admission of the fact
that he, though of course commingling with his visitors of the ages, was
born and changed where he now exists. The kitchen-midden--the name given
by scientists to refuse from his dwelling places--the kitchen-middens of
Denmark, as Denmark is to-day, alone, regardless of other fields, suffice
to tell a wondrous story. Imagine a kitchen-midden, that is to say the
detritus of ordinary living in different ages, accumulated along the side
of some ancient water course, having for its dimensions miles in length,
extending hundreds of yards back from the margin of this creek, of tens
and tens of thousands of years ago, and having a depth of often many feet
along this water course.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111