EARLY USE OF BRONZE. 13 



From these and similar discoveries, it appears evident that 

 the use of bronze weapons had been discontinued in the North 

 before, probably long before, the commencement of our era. 

 Erom the ease with which bronze could be worked, this metal 

 was still used for brooches and ornaments ; but in the manu- 

 facture of swords, axes, and similar implements, it had been 

 entirely superseded by iron. There are many cases on record 

 of iron swords with bronze handles or scabbards, but scarcely 

 an instance of the reverse. 



Conversely, as bronze weapons are entirely absent from the 

 great "finds" of the Iron Age, so are iron weapons altogether 

 wanting in those instances where, as for instance at Nidau, 

 on the Lake of Bienne, and Estavayer, on that of Neufchatel, 

 large quantities of bronze tools and weapons have been found 

 together. 



To sum up this argument, though the discoveries of bronze 

 and of iron weapons have been very numerous, yet there 

 is hardly a single case in which swords, axes, daggers, or 

 other weapons of these two different metals have been found 

 together ; nor are bronze weapons found associated with in- 

 scriptions, or with coins, pottery, or other relics of Eoman 

 origin. 



So, also, though no doubt stone weapons were used during 

 the Bronze Age, there are many cases in which large numbers 

 of stone implements and weapons have been found without 

 any of metal. 



In illustration of this argument, I must call attention to 

 the following table. Objects found singly teach us compara- 

 tively little, but when numbers occur together they become 

 much more instructive. The first ten localities are some of 

 the Swiss lake- villages, which will be described in Chapter VI. ; 

 to which I have added the Nydam find just alluded to, and 

 two of the great French bronze finds. 



Now from the ancient lake -village in the peat moss of 



