BARROWS -EARLY TIME OP BRONZE. 49 



socketed celt l . From this it would appear that swords and spear- 

 heads were not manufactured immediately upon the introduction 

 or the discovery of bronze ; and that the plain axe preceded them, 

 dating, as it might seem, from the time of the earliest use of that 

 metal. This fact is quite in accordance with the inference which 

 has been drawn from the occurrence of the knife-dagger in the 

 barrows, and its absence from the hoards of swords, spear-heads, 

 socketed axes, &c. The knife-dagger and the plain axe may both 

 be considered, judging from their shape, to be early productions of 

 the age of bronze, and as neither of them has been found accom- 

 panying those weapons and implements which were certainly in 

 use during the height of that period, they may be regarded as 

 prior to such time, and as marking an epoch during the bronze 

 age, namely, its first developement. It has been mentioned already 

 that the knife-dagger and the plain axe are found in the barrows, 

 and, indeed, are the only articles of the kind which have been dis- 

 covered in connection with an interment ; but the two have been 

 met with associated together accompanying a burial, a connection 

 which seems to draw towards a single point the converging lines 

 of evidence as to the early date of the sepulchral mounds. 



The conclusion then at which we seem to arrive is, that the 

 barrows in general belong to a period before bronze was in common 

 use, and when that metal was scarce, and only manufactured into 

 articles of a comparatively small size, such as those usually found 

 in them. Indeed it is almost impossible to believe that, if the 

 burial mounds were constructed after the time when swords, spear- 

 heads, and socketed axes were abundant, none of them should have 

 been discovered in the barrows. If these weapons &c. had not 

 been plentiful, we could understand how they might never have 

 occurred in connection with burials ; but from the numbers which 

 have been found in all parts of Britain, it is evident that they were 

 very widely diffused and largely manufactured. This circumstance 

 makes it difficult, indeed almost impossible, to refer to the same 

 period the erection of the barrows and the fabrication and use of 

 the weapons and implements in question. 



1 A very valuable discovery of bronze and other articles, the whole effects in fact 

 of a family, was made in a cave, called Heathery Burn, in the county of Durham. 

 The series comprised almost every article of the bronze age which has been found else- 

 where, either as a single specimen or one of many, besides some which have been 

 met with in no other place. It forms, therefore, an index as it were to the age of 

 bronze in England, and includes sword, spear-head, knife, socketed axe, gouge, 

 chisel, &c., but neither plain axe nor knife-dagger, 



E 



