ORIGIN OF TRACTION PLOW— BISHOP 543 



lish by that method alone the age of intrusive objects (particularly 

 heavy ones) found in peat-bogs is, to say the least, extremely haz- 

 ardous. Finally, the Walle plow seems crudely constructed rather 

 than truly primitive in form — which is by no means the same thing. 

 We shall need much more convincing evidence than any as yet 

 adduced before we can accept the north of Europe, whether in the 

 fourth millennium B. C. or at any other time, as the birthplace of 

 the traction plow. 



That the latter was known, however, in the Baltic area during the 

 Bronze Age or, at latest, early in that of Iron is certain. Depicted in 

 the well-known rock-drawings of Bohuslan, in southern Sweden, are 

 plows of two types. One (pi. 2, fig. 1 ), of two pieces only, is closely similar 

 to the form shown in the Liguiian petroglyphs. The other is like it 

 save for the addition of a third member in the shape of a cross-brace 

 identical in function to that found in the later dynastic Egyptian 

 plows. 



One writer calls these Swedish petroglyphs "incontestably of the 

 Early Bronze Age."^^ Others regard them as belonging to the Mid- 

 dle Bronze Age. Sophus Mtiller says merely that they are "centuries 

 later" than their Ligurian analogues. ^^ The same scholar, while dis- 

 cussing a plow found in a bog at D0strop, in Jutland," strikingly 

 Uke the simpler of the two types seen at Bohuslan, states that it is 

 either of the Late Bronze Age or early in that of Iron.^^ In any case 

 it seems clear that the ox-drawn plow was known in Sweden by the 

 middle of the first millennium B. C. or possibly a few centuries 

 earher. 



The Swedish "plow-crook," long drawn by hand and only in com- 

 paratively recent times by mares or cows, closely resembled the two- 

 piece plow at Bohuslan. Like the latter, it consisted of only two 

 members — a combined handle and point and a beam or pole.^^ In 

 Sweden as elsewhere, what seems to have been the earlier method of 

 traction, by human power, long survived side by side with that 

 which depended upon the use of animals. 



The unmistakable resemblance between the plows shown in the 

 Ligurian and in the Swedish petroglyphs is best explained on the 

 assumption of derivation from a common source — almost certainly 

 the valley of the Danube. 



Whether the Indus civilization had the ox-drawn plow is as yet 

 uncertain." Northwestern India was, however, in active commercial 



" Jacob-Friesen, loc. cit., Natur und Volk, vol. 64, p. 84, 1934. 



" Miiller, Sophus, Urgeschichte Eiiropas, p. 147. 



51 The D0strop plow Is shown in Mems. Soc. Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, 1902, p. 21, fig. 1, in con- 

 nection with the article by Sophus Miiller cited in footnote 2. 



" The Scandinavian Iron Age appears to have begun not very far from 600 B. C. 



56 Sayce, R. U., Primitive arts and crafts, p. 115, 1933. 



" Marshall, Sir John, Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus civilization, vol. 1, p. 27; vol. 2, p. 456 and note 1; 

 1931. 



