In its earlier prehistory northwestern Europe was by
no means such a
laggard. Its record in the Upper Palaeolithic was quite as impressive
as that of any other part of the world, and not just because it has
been better studied. The region did not invent farming or metalworking
for itself, but its adoption of these techniques was rapid by the
standards of the time. One example is the spread of farming over the
loess soils from Hungary to Belgium within a period of a couple of
centuries in the sixth millennium B.C. Much as in the Near East, we
have no evidence of hunter-gatherers in Europe in historical times.
Another example is the arrival of iron metallurgy in Britain by the
fifth century B.C., only two or three centuries after it had become
established in Italy. Indeed, as preliterate cultures go, those of
northwestern Europe were marked by considerable sophistication. But
civilizations they were not.
