170 SIR JOHN EVANS THE STONE AGE 



I believe tliat during the past year there has been no event in 

 the proceedings of the Society of sufficient importance to require 

 mention by me, and I will now, therefore, address a few words 

 to you on the subject of the Stone Age in Hertfordshire, — and the 

 consideration of the Stone Age in Hertfordshire involves that of 

 the Stone Age in many other parts of the world. 



The last time that I had the honour of addressing the Society, 

 about fifteen months ago, I spoke with regard to the Bronze Age, 

 and I then pointed out that the history and progress of human 

 civilization had been divided into three great periods, namely the 

 Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. There was a 

 period during which mankind was entirely unacquainted with the 

 use of metals, and to that period the name of the Stone Age has 

 been given, inasmuch as for those ordinary purposes to which 

 metal is now applied, stone implements were used instead of those 

 of metal. But after a time it was found that bronze, a metal 

 consisting of a mixture of copper and tin, the origin of the 

 manufacture of which was probably due to the previous use of 

 copper only, was more durable and more effective for tools 

 than stone, though stone implements continued in use during the 

 Bronze Period for certain purposes, especially for pointing arrows, 

 wliich were readily lost, and of which it was therefore desirable 

 that the intrinsic value should be but small. 



The Bronze Age was succeeded by the Iron Age, and it is known 

 that at all events for three or four centuries before our era iron was 

 in use among the Gaulish, and therefore probably among the British, 

 tribes. When I last addressed you I suggested that bronze came 

 into use in this country about 1,000 or 1,200 years B.C., but I added 

 that before that time there must have heen a lengthened period 

 during which stone alone was the material in use for cutting-instru- ■ 



ments. The period which immediately preceded the Bronze Age was 

 characterized by tools and weapons of a fairly civilized kind, that 

 is to say their edges were in many cases ground, and as much care 

 was taken in fashioning them as if they had been made of metal. 

 But behind that age — the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period — there 

 lay a far earlier period, separated fi'om it by a gap which no one 

 has been able to measure, but which carries the traces of man back 

 to an almost incalculable antiquity. 



I purpose on the present occasion to treat first of the Neolithic 

 or Surface Stone Period, a period during which the surface con- 

 figuration of the country had assumed very much the same 

 appearance as that which it now shows ; and then to treat of 

 the Palfeolithic or Early Stone Period, a period which carries us 



