32 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or shell heaps, of Jutland, for which the region is most notable, as 

 described by Steenstrup, abound in stone implements. They all 

 represent man in the neolithic age. Polished stones are as abundant 

 as the rudely hammered ones are rare. From the absence of all the 

 very early stone implements, and from the sudden appearance of 

 others of a far more finished type, the possibility of a gradual evolu- 

 tion of culture about Scandinavia in situ is denied on all hands. The 

 art of working stone has surely been introduced from some more 

 favored region. The only place to look for the source of this culture 

 is to the south. 



Tardy in its human occupation and its stone culture, Scandinavia 

 was still more backward, as compared with the rest of Europe, in its 

 transition to the age of bronze. This is all the more remarkable in 

 view of the rich store of raw materials on every hand. !Nowhere else 

 in Europe does the pure stone age seem to have been so unduly pro- 

 tracted. A necessary consequence of this was 

 that stone-working reached a higher stage of evo- 



i'l.iM l>Ai.i:i;i:. 

 From Moiitelius, 1895 b.) 



Stonk Axe. 

 (From Moiitelius, 1895 b.) 



r)i:ii>/.i. Axe. 

 (From Moiitelius, 1895 b.> 



lution here than anywhere else in the world save in America. In 

 other parts of Europe the discovery of metal-working, of course, im- 

 mediately put an end to all progress in this direction. The ultimate 

 degree of skill to which they attained is represented in the accompany- 

 ing cuts. The first, a flint poniard, shows the possibilities, both in the 

 line of form and finish, of manufacture by the chipping process. To 

 equal this example one must look to the most skillful of the American 



