And the American red men, though they were still in the Stone Age, were
beginning to learn the use of one metal--copper.
And the people of the shell mounds--how do we know about them? In
Denmark to-day you may see shell mounds. They are the old hunting and
fishing villages. They are of different sizes; some are a quarter of a
mile long and half as wide. They are built up of things that the
hunters and fishermen threw away: oyster and mussel and periwinkle
shells; bones of the wolf, the hyena, the dog; of wild duck, swan, and
grouse; of cod, herring, flounder, and other deep-sea fish. Many of
the bones had been split open for the purpose of extracting the marrow.
Besides bones, there are also pieces of burnt wood; and there is sea
plant, which may have given salt.
[Illustration: A bone awl; found in a cave in England]
The stone tools and weapons found in the heaps are axes, knives,
hammers, awls, lance heads, and sling stones--all of rude make. There
are also bits of rude pottery, which show that these men knew a little
more than the cave men; they knew how to bake clay. They were ahead of
the cave men also in having one tamed animal--the dog. No bones were
found of any tamed animal except the dog, and this seems to show that
it was the earliest animal tamed by man.
Mounds like those in Denmark are found in many other countries: in our
own land where the red men lived; in Africa, the land of the black man;
and in Asia, where the brown man lives.
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