FIG. 25. LOOKING DOWN INTO THE GRAVE OF A LATE  STONE AGE EGYPTIAN An oval pit 4 or 5 feet deep (cf. Fig. 38, 1). The body is surrounded by pottery jars once containing food and drink. A few small ob jects of copper have been found even in the earliest of such Egyp- tian graves, which therefore belong to the end of the Late Stone Age

earliest ancestors of the brown men we see in the Delta fields. When we have dug out such a grave to the bottom, we find lying there the ancient Nile peasant, surrounded by pottery jars and stone implements (Fig. 25). There he has been lying for over six thousand years, and these stone tools, which he used so long ago, tell us of generations of Nile-dwellers who, like the Late Stone Age men of Europe, lived without the use of metal.  Barley and split wheat1 are sometimes found in the jars around the body (Fig. 25), for the dead were supplied with food by those who buried them. These and frag- ments of linen found in such graves show us from what country the first grain and flax came into Europe. These ancient Nile peasants were therefore watering their fields of flax and grain over six thousand years ago, just as the brown men whom the traveler sees from the car windows today are still doing. [NEXT]

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¹This split wheat is a variety which differs from our common wheat. The kernel is split into halves. When threshed, the two halves are still held together by the hull, and a second threshing or hard rubbing is necessary to break off this hull and get out the two half kernels. Split wheat is still raised in parts of Europe, especially for use in making starch, and is often called starch wheat.  This was the earliest variety of wheat cultivated by man. It has recently been rediscovered growing in a wild state in Palestine. Barley and split wheat were the two leading grains used by early man in the oriental world.