572 SCANDINAVIAN ARCHEOLOGY. 



of the iuterests of this iimseimi. On May 22, 1807, the Kiug signed a 

 resolution constituting a royal commission of which Professor Nyerup 

 was named secretary. Tliis commission was charged with forming a 

 museum for national antiquities, with watching over the preservation 

 of tlie remarkable remains still existing in the couutry, and finally 

 with making known to the public the value of ancient objects which 

 are found in the soil, in order to put an end to their dail3^ destruction. 



Under the active influence of this commission the collection originally 

 founded by the private exertions of Mr. Nyerup, became so extensive 

 that it soon gave birth to a new special science, that of pre-historic 

 archaeology. 



The historian Vedel-Simonsen was not a member at first, but he was 

 one of the most zealous collaborators ; he undertook for the commission 

 several tours into the country, in order to collect antiquities and to 

 excite interest in favor of the National Institute recently founded. In 

 this way he had many opportunities of seeiug the finds taken from the 

 soil and the tumuli. Belying upon his own experience, he was the first 

 to establish a fundamental principle for the classification and distribu- 

 tion of the chaotic mass of antiquities, the first to propose as a scientific 

 theory the division of pre-historic times into the great paleo ethnologic 

 periods, — that of stone, that of bronze, and that of iron. 



In his work entitled : Udsigt over Nationalhistoriens olclste og moir- 

 keligste Perioder (Epitome of the most ancient and most remarkable 

 periods of national history), the first volume of which was published in 

 1813, there is a chapter on the first settlement, the most ancient inhab- 

 itants, and the primitive history of the North. He discusses (pages 

 73-76) the tools and arms of the most remote times, and rejects the 

 opinion then common, that the stone objects are only sacred objects. 

 On the contrary, he pronounces them tools and arms of an epoch in 

 which metals were still unknown, and he fortifies his opinion by citing 

 for comparison the information about the savages of the present time 

 who still use stone tools, and by referring to his observations during liis 

 tours undertaken for the new museum. At page 76, he gives a resume 

 of his ideas in the following very remarkable passage : "■ The arms and 

 utensils of the most ancient Scandinavians were in the beginningof stone 

 and of wood. These Scandinavians then learned to work copper and 

 even to harden it ; so that there result copper axes found in the soil, and 

 lastly (as it seems) iron. So from this point of view the history of their 

 civiHzafion might be divided into an age of stone, an age of copper, and an 

 age of iron. These ages were not however separated from one another by 

 limits so exact that they do not encroach upon one another. Doubtless 

 among the poor they continued to use stone tools after the introduction 

 of copper ones, and copper tools after the introduction of iron ones ; the 

 same case has arisen in our day with vases of clay, of pewter, and of 

 porcelain. The arms and utensils of wood have naturally decomposed, 

 those of iron have been oxidized in the soil, those of stone and of copper 

 alone have been preserved." 



