546 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
has gone even further and determined three well-defined stages in 
the final retreat of the Wiirm glaciation. The stages correspond to 
temporary advances during the period of retreat. Such stages have 
left their traces so distinctly in the region about Innsbruck that local 
names have been applied to them—Biihl, from Kirchbiihl, at an ele- 
vation of 500 meters; Gschnitz at 1,200 meters; and Daun at 1,600 
meters, the latter, of course, being the most recent. 
The barbaric races with which the Romans had to contend had a 
knowledge of iron. It is estimated that the bronze age had its 
beginning some 3,500 years ago. The Alps were then either in- 
habited or visited throughout their extent by man. We find, for 
example, bronze weapons in the Fliiela pass of the upper Engadine. 
The Fliiela pass was invaded by ice of the Daun stage. The latter, 
therefore, antedates the bronze age. Prehistoric copper mines have 
been discovered at two localities in the Austrian Alps. One of these 
lies at the southern foot of the Ubergossene Alp, near Salzburg, at a 
height of 1,500 meters. Neolithic implements were found in the old 
shafts. Now this locality (Mitterberg) is near the timber line, and a 
shght depression of this would render it difficult to establish smelters 
there. The other copper mine is southeast of Kitzbiihel in the Tyrol, 
at a height of 1,900 meters. This mine also must have been occu- 
pied later than the Daun stage, at which time the region lay very 
near the snow line and was uninhabitable. 
Even the whole neolithic period in Switzerland is younger than 
the Daun stage, whose snow-line lay 300 meters lower than to-day. 
The minimum time, therefore, that separates us from the Daun 
stage must be at least 7,000 years. 
A very long interval of time separates us from the closing epoch 
(Magdalenian) of the paleolithic period. For we find on the borders 
of Lakes Constance and Geneva animal remains of the Magdalenian 
epoch in terraces that are 20 to 30 meters above the present level of 
these lakes. Magdalenian industry is found in Switzerland well 
within the area covered by the Wiirm glaciation. But such stations 
have not yet been found within that covered by the Biihl stage. It 
may be taken for granted, therefore, that the Magdalenian industry 
is not older than, but may be contemporaneous with, the Biihl stage, 
which corresponds, by the way, to the Champlain stage in North 
America. . 
The rock-shelter of Schweizersbild was occupied by paleolithie man 
after the Wiirm glaciation had retreated across the Rhine from Can- 
ton Schaffhausen. Here 25,000 stone implements have been found 
by Niiesch; also many bone implements and some engravings, one 
being of the mammoth. The paleolithic layers were covered in turn 
by successive deposits belonging to the neolithic bronze and Roman 
periods. Taking the thickness of the deposit left since Roman times 
