8(5 TEE BRONZE AGE. 



the stone age ; poniards, axes, spears, bows and arrows. The 

 sword and the shield seem to have been in common use ; one 

 of these now in Copenhagen was found covered with thin 

 gold. 



The simple ornaments of the stone age are replaced by 

 more varied and beautiful ones. Gold jewels and vases become 

 common and testify to the wealth of the people. In this age 

 as in the preceding age of stone, the people of the North 

 attained a greater degree of proficiency, and seem to have 

 possessed a higher degree of civilisation than the people 

 of Central and Northern Europe belonging to the same 

 period. 



The graves containing unburnt bones which belong to the 

 early period of the bronze age are very similar to those of the 

 preceding period of the stone age, they contain several skeletons 

 then finally decrease in size until they become about 7 feet 



. *> 



long, or just large enough to contain one body. 



The bodies were often not buried in stone chambers but, 

 in coffins made of the trunks of oak trees. It may be that 



.' 



at a later period the customs of burning bodies and burying 

 bodies unburnt co-existed, as will be seen in the account 

 of the iron age. The warrior was buried with his weapons 

 just as in the stone age. 



One of the most interesting graves which I have seen, be- 

 longing, probably, to the bronze age, is the Kivik cairn 

 (see p. 88), near the sea on a beautiful bay near the town of 

 Cimbrisham. This monument is the only one of its kind known 

 in the North. It shows perfect resemblance to others of the 

 bronze age, and differs only from the cairns found on the hill- 

 tops of Bohuslan in its larger size. We have looked with 

 great care at the tracings, which are not so deep as those of 

 the rock-tracings situated in the neighbourhood. The signs 

 carved on the stones are evidently symbolical, and were so 



mf 



made as to look upon the great chief that had been buried 

 there. 



The Kivik grave, like many others belonging to the bronze 

 age situated by the sea, is about 700 feet in circumference. 

 The coffin, of flat upright slabs, was discovered in 1750 ; its 

 length is fourteen feet; width, three feet. It is formed by 



