Section ÏÏ, 1889. [ 59 J Trans. Roy. Sog. Canada. 



III. — Trade and Commerce in the Stone Age. 



By Sir Daniel Wilson, LL.D., F.E.S.E., President of the University of Toronto. 



(Read May 8, 18S9.) 



The term " Stone Period" or " Stone Age" was suggested in the early years of the 

 present century by the antiquaries of Denmark as the fitting designation of that primi- 

 tive era in western Europe —with its corresponding stage among diverse peoples in widely 

 severed regions and ages, — when the use of metals was imknown. That there was 

 a period in the history of the human race, before its Tubalcains, Yulcans, Vœlands, or 

 other Smith-gods appeared, when man depended on stone, bone, ivory, shells, and wood, 

 for the raw material out of which to manufacture his implements and weapons, is now 

 universally admitted ; and is confirmed by the abundant disclosures of the drift and 

 the caves. The simple, yet highly suggestive classification, due to Thomsen of 

 Copenhagen, was the first scientific recognition of the fact, now established by evidence 

 derived from periods of vastly greater antiquity than the Neolithic age of Denmark. The 

 accumulated experience of many generations was required before men mastered the useful 

 service of fire in the smelting of ores, and the casting of metals. Nevertheless it seems 

 probable that the knowledge of fire, and its useful service on the domestic hearth, are 

 coeval with the existence of man as a rational being. The evidence of its practical appli- 

 cation to the requirements for warmth and cooking carry us back to the age of cave 

 implements, including some among the earliest known examples of man's tool-making 

 industry. In connection with this subjt^ct, Mr. John Evans draws attention to some 

 curious indications of the antiquity of the use of flint by the fire-producer.' He refers to 

 the ingenious derivation of the word silex as given by Vincent of Beauvais, in the 

 " Speculum Naturœ," " Silex est lapis durus, sic dictus eo quod ex co ignis exsiliat," and 

 he recalls a more remarkable reminiscence of the evoking of fire in the Neolithic, if not 

 in the Palœolithic period. Pliny informs us (lib. vii. cap. 56), that it was Pyrodes, the 

 son of Cilix, who first devised the way to strike fire out of flint ; " a myth," says Mr. Evans, 

 " which seems to point to the use of silex and pyrites (from ttvij) rather than of steel." 

 In reality the flint and pyrites lie together in the same lower strata of the chalk. As the 

 ancient Hint-miners sunk their pits in search of the levels where the flint abounds they 

 would meet with frequent nodules of pyrites. In the use of these as hammer-stones to 

 break up the larger flints, the first grand discovery of the fire-producer may have been 

 made. 



But whatever was the source of this all-important discovery, it dates among the 

 earliest manifestations of human intelligence. Nodules of iron pyrites have been found 



Ancient Stone Implements, p. 14. 



