CHAPTER X. 







THE IRON AGE. 



The ihrec historic asies overlap each other Division of the iron a<je by 

 archaeologists Gradual development in the mode of burial during this 

 three ages Appearance of silver, lead, and glass Greek and 1 toman 

 objects Cinerary deposits Cremation The Kannikegaard cemetery- 

 1'rimitive kettle-shaped graves Intentional destruction of weapons and 

 armour in graves Cinerary urns Symbolic signs Ornaments of the 

 iron age. 



IN the iron age, when the knowledge of all the metals was 

 known, and weapons were made of iron, bones were still sonic- 

 times used for arrow-heads ; this age gradually merges into 

 the historic period. It is impossible to assign definite limits 

 of time to the three prehistoric ages ; they run by degrees 

 into each other ; the classification specifies no division of time, 

 but marks degrees of development in man. 



Northern archaeologists divide the iron age in the North 

 into the earlier, middle, and later iron age, in the same 

 manner as they have divided the preceding stone and bronze 

 ages ; and it may safely be said that in all these ages the. 

 North surpasses other countries in the beauty and number 

 of its objects. All the antiquities, as well as the Eddas and 

 Sagas, plainly show that the people who inhabited the eastern 

 and southern shores of the present Scandinavia 1 , the islands 

 of the I'altic, and the southern shores of that sea, to a certain 

 distance inland, which now comprise Northern Germany, were 

 of the same origin and belonged to the same race; and the 



1 During the stone and bronze ages becomes more thickly settled, and ;ip- 



the population of Norway was not as 

 sjreat as that of Sweden, Denmark, and 



proximates somewhat in its population 



to the neighbouring countries: bron/< 



the islands of tin 1 Baltic. It is only finds have occurred in Norway ns far 

 the iron a<_M> that that country north as 66 10' N. latitude. 



