402 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



were of Danish manufacture is proved by the discovery of moulds, 

 and in some cases of the " tags " formed in the hole through which 

 the metal was poured. 



With the Stone age we arrive at a time when the use of metal 

 was altogether unknown in Denmark. The inhabitants supported 

 themselves by hunting and fishing, and had no domestic animals, 

 except the dog, nor so far as we are aware, any knowledge of agri- 

 culture. 



Reduced thus to implements of stone, and fortunate in being able 

 to obtain excellent flint, they attained to a rare skill in this art, and 

 some of their flint spears and knives are wonderfully well made. 

 The common form of flint axe, or celt, is represented in PL VII. fig. 1. 

 These weapons though found elsewhere, are rare, except in Denmark, 

 where they occur in the barrows of the Stone period. A few have 

 been met with in England, principally in rivers, but our specimens 

 seem to be generally narrower, with sloping sides, and arched above 

 and below, while the Danish forms are flatter and with perpendicular 

 sides. They were made by a succession of blows, and then the angles 

 were ground down on sandstone blocks, several of which have been 

 discovered. In this respect they differ from the celts found in the 

 gravel beds at Amiens and Abbeville, which are always left angular. 

 Smaller hatchets of stone are common in and to all countries. Some 

 of the other objects belonging to this first great phase in the civili- 

 sation of Scandinavia are represented in PL VII. It might at first 

 be doubted whether the triangular flint flake {fig. 7) was neces- 

 sarily artificial. Similar flakes, however, either of flint or obsidian, 

 have been and are still, used by savages in various parts of the world. 

 They were made by taking an oblong stone and continually splitting 

 off the projecting edges. Many obsidian flakes and one of the pieces 

 from which they were struck may be seen in the British Museum, 

 and I have represented in PL VII. fig. 6, a similar piece of flint from 

 Denmark. The tombs of this period are chambers formed by enor- 

 mous blocks of stone, so large that it is difficult to imagine how they 

 can have been brought into position. The bodies were placed in a 

 sitting posture, with their backs resting against the stones, and their 

 knees brought up under their chins. When the tomb was intended 

 only for one or two bodies it was small and the height was determined 

 by the size of the stones forming the sides. Sometimes, however, a 

 number were buried together, the tomb having, perhaps, served as a last 

 resting place for a whole family. When this was the case the walls 

 were formed by two rows of stones, and the space enclosed was much 

 larger. In one that we visited the chamber was about 25 feet long 

 by 10 broad, and there was a passage leading from the side to the ex- 

 terior. The tomb was finally covered over by great slabs, and earth 

 was heaped upon it, so as to form a mound, and a row of stones was 

 placed round the edge. They are, therefore, quite different from the 

 Barrows of the Bronze period which " have no circles of massive 

 " stones, no stone chambers, in general no large stones on the bottom, 



