Page 334 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

The Wide View (II) 281

established, though how stable the equilibrium is, only the future

will show.
Europe consists now of a plethora of nations. The fifteen dif­

ferent groups with sufficiently distinctive fashions in artifacts to
be designated as “cultures” by the archaeologists can be sub­
divided almost without limit. And there is little reason to believe
that even such areas as are archaeologically homogeneous were
necessarily united under a single rule. Yet there is an underlying

similarity throughout. A similar way of life—even a similar
standard of living—is found over the greater part of the continent.
Europe is in the hands of the beef barons. Aristocracies of
cattle ranchers, by now very likely riding horses where their
grandfathers drove chariots, rule the small nations, and are
probably at daggers with each other. There is still some agricul­

ture, mainly by now barley growing, along the river valleys, but
it is in the hands of the lower classes, descendants of the original
fanners. Any man with self-respect rides the range. But he is no
longer armed with the stone tomahawk of his forefathers cen­
turies ago, nor even with the flint or bronze dagger that he was

wearing when we last saw him. Now every gentleman wears a
sword, a long light cut-and-thrust weapon of bronze with inlaid
hilt and oval chased pommel. He is clean-shaven, if the number
of keen bronze razors to be found in the graves of the period are
anything to go by. And we know how he dressed, for oak coffins

in Denmark have, in favorable circumstances, preserved the
complete finery. His woolen tunic reaches to his knees and is
belted at the waist. Over it he wears a cloak, fastened at the
shoulder with a bronze toggle pin. Around his neck is a bronze
or gold necklet, and on his head a close-fitting pile cap. We

can imagine his clothes patterned in the yellows, greens, and
blues of vegetable dyes, possibly in tartan patterns.
His wife and daughters are no less striking, in a half-sleeved
blouse and an openwork skirt reaching well above the knee, a
knitted lace hair net, and a belt with a circular eight-inch

plate of ornamental bronze at the front.
These are the inheritors of the new Europe, warlike and
proud—too proud to speak the language of their subjects. For it