SCANDINAVIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. 575 



containiug also some memoirs treating of etUnographic subjects. To 

 render the most important works accessible also to foreigners a series 

 was printed in French : Memoires de la SocieteEoyale des Antiquaires du 

 Nord (Memoirs of the Koyal Society of Antiquaries of the North), 

 1840-'60, in all three volumes. 



Under the direction of Mr. Thomsen a number of young men began 

 then to devote themselves to the study of pre-historic antiquities, work- 

 ing at the museum and undertaking excavations in the country, for 

 example Sorter up Strunk Herbst, but before all Worsaae (1821-'85). By 

 an excellent little book, Danmarks oldtid oplynt ved Oldsager og Grav 

 hfie (the Antiquity of Denmark, elucidated by the tumuli and finds), 

 which ai^peared in 1842, he places himself immediately at the head of 

 the arch.Tological authorities of Denmark. It is a statement compris- 

 ing some conclusions possible to be drawn from the materials amassed 

 and from the facts established up to that time. This book showed the 

 public at once how this new science of pre-historic antiquities could 

 extend and had already extended the horizon of our knowledge. For 

 more than forty years Mr. Worsaae continued to be the chief of the 

 Danish archneologists ; he has enriched the science with numerous 

 archaeological and archaeologico-historical works, and he has opened to 

 the studies new paths. 



Prehistoric studies in Denmark made a very considerable stride for- 

 Avard by the discovery of the 1g(j>k]cenm^ddiHgs (heaps of kitchen refuse). 

 It is the illustrious zoologist Japetus Steeustrup, (of whose last memoir 

 the Bevlse d/Anthropologie gave an account in its last number,) who has 

 the honor of haviugdiscovered, examined exactly, and interpreted ingen- 

 iously these remarkable relics of the earliest antiquity of Denmark. It 

 was in 1837, that he observed, in some heaps of oyster and other shells 

 which were found in the elevated places of the Danish coasts, some 

 evident products of human industry, incontestable proofs that the for- 

 mation of these heaps must have taken place after the habitation of the 

 country. As some bones of animals were also found in these heaps, he 

 came to include these formations in the circle of his special studies upon 

 the ancient flora and fauna of the country. It was by examining the 

 turf-pits of Denmark that he discovered that the flora of the country for- 

 merly had been altogether different from that of our day, and that he 

 there established the existence of several successive periods of vegeta- 

 tion. Some bones of animals found in the different layers of these turf- 

 pits had also furnished him with the materials for the history of the 

 fauna of the country. Upon the initiative of Mr. Steenstrup, the Royal 

 Academy of Copenhagen in 1848, appointed a committee crmposed of 

 Mr. Forchliammer as geologist, Mr. Worsaae as archaeologist, and Mr. 

 Steenstrup himself as zoologist, to examine these shell heaps. This 

 last gentleman in reality took charge of the labors of the committee. 

 In the reports of the Academy of Copenhagen he gave (1848-'55) a 

 series of famous memoirs upon his admirable studies. The true nature 



