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have been lost within the area of the excavations, and if so lost, it 
would certainly have been found together with the stone tools. 
Further, the employment of deer’s horn picks for the extensive 
excavations made in the chalk around the base of the monoliths, 
_ Nos. 55 and 56, the evidence of which I have already laid before 
_ you, also tends to support the view that bronze implements cannot 
have been in common use. If they had it would seem not un- 
reasonable to assume that they would have been employed, as they 
would have been so much more effective for such work than the 
picks of deer’s horn. 
Again, the chippings of the stones of Stonehenge in two of the 
bronze age barrows! in its neighbourhood show that it is of earlier 
date than they. 
The copper-stained stone found in Excavation V., is, in fact, the 
only evidence which the excavations have yielded that copper or 
bronze was known. It proves their existence, but it does not prove 
‘that they had then been applied to any industrial uses. 
Only a comparatively small area of the ground within Stonehenge 
was excavated (General Plan, Fig. 14), and it may be that in 
ther excavations some bronze implements may be found. 
_ Until such discovery is made, I shall hold that Stonehenge was 
erected during the latter part of the neolithic age, or the period of 
~The difficulty of giving an exact or even approximate date to 
ha early period, in the total absence of any aid from inscriptions 
r the records of ancient chronicles, will be evident to all. Yet I 
hink the task should not, on that account, be evaded, although I 
p oach it with the greatest diffidence. 
The date of the beginning of the bronze age has been computed 
y several distinguished archeologists. Sir John Evans proposes 
400 3.c. for Britain, but with some hesitation, and evidently is 


1Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Ancient History of South Wiltshire (London, 
B12,) 127; W. Stukeley, Stonehenge (London, 1740), 46. 


