"In many ways the simplicity, directness, and, detachment of a later Palaeolithic rock-painter appeal more to modern sympathies than does the state of mind of these Neolithic men, full of the fear of some ancient Old Man who had developed into a tribal God obsessed by ideas of sacrificial propitiations mutilations, and magic murder. No doubt the reindeer hunter was a ruthless hunter and a combative and passionate creature, but be killed for reasons we can still understand; Neolithic man, under the sway of talk and a confused thought process, killed on theory, he killed for monstrous and now incredible ideas, he killed those he loved through fear and under direction. Those Neolithic men not only made human sacrifices at seedtime there is every reason to suppose they sacrificed wives and slaves at the burial of their chieftains; they killed men, women, and children whenever they were under adversity and thought the gods were athirst. They practised infanticide. All these things passed on into the, Bronze Age. Hitherto a social consciousness had been asleep and not even dreaming in human history. Before it awakened it produced nightmares."
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The Outline of History
The Outline of History : Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (1920) is a work by H. G. Wells in which he summarized much which was known or believed in his time about the courses of the world's history. (Chapter titles from which quotes are taken are given separate sections, but not all chapters are quoted.)
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