490 OKKHNAL ARTICLES. 



tianity into Denmark. The men of this period had long heads, and 

 were, as well as the domestic animals, apparently more powerful than 

 those of the preceding epoch. "With the Bronze age we get beyond 

 the reach of history and even of tradition. At first it appears re- 

 markable that bronze should have been discovered before iron : but 

 copper itself is found native, its ores are strongly coloured, and have 

 a metallic appearance, while those of tin are black, very heavy, and 

 easily smelted. On the other hand, iron ore, though very common, is 

 not peculiar either in colour or in weight, and its reduction requires 

 a very high temperature. 



Before arriving, however, at a knowledge of bronze, it is 

 evident that mankind must have passed through an age of cop- 

 per, and the absence in Northern Europe of any evidence of such 

 a fact (though a very few hatchets of copper have been found) 

 is one among several reasons for regarding the acquisition of 

 bronze, not as a discovery made by the men of the Stone period, but 

 rather as introduced into Northern Europe by a new race. In fact, 

 while mankind, during the earlier part, if not the whole, of the 

 Stone period, appear (in Denmark, at least) to have been exclu- 

 sively hunters and fishermen, with the Bronze age we find evidences 

 of a pastoral and agricultural life, in the presence of domestic oxen, 

 pigs, and sheep. It is probable that the men of the Stone period 

 were conquered and partly replaced, by a more civilized race 

 coining from the East. It is not only the introduction of bronze 

 and of domestic animals which points to such a conclusion. The 

 new people burned their dead and collected the bones in funeral 

 urns. While, therefore, we have many skulls belonging to the Stone 

 age, there is scarcely one, well authenticated, as appertaining to the 

 Bronze : and though this custom of burning the dead deprives us of 

 the assistance of osteology, it is in itself some indication of Eastern 

 origin. The small size of the knife handles belonging to this period 

 shows that, like the Hindoos of the present day, the men had small 

 hands ;* and, indeed, they appear to have been decidedly inferior to 

 the Iron race which succeeded them. 



On the other hand it must be confessed that the antiquities 

 of Norway and Sweden, of Switzerland and of Ireland, indicate a 

 different progress of civilization in these countries. Thus domestic 

 animals were already known in Switzerland during the Stone age ; 

 in Northern Scandinavia bronze appears to have been much rarer 

 and iron to have been discovered earlier, than in Denmark ; while in 

 Ireland the custom of burning the dead coexisted, according to "Wilde, 

 (though upon this point the evidence is not quite satisfactory), with 

 the practice of interment and belonged to various periods, although 

 in Denmark it appears to be confined to the Bronze and perhaps 

 the commencement of the Iron age. These differences however will 



* Mr. Wilde however suggests that these swords may have heen used rather as 

 daggers, and have been held by only three fingers. (Catalogue of Antiquities, p. 455.) 



