348 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. x. 



These two divisions are represented also in Ireland, 

 and to the latter of them we may refer many of the 

 simpler forms of gold ornaments which have been found 

 from time to time in that country, as well as hoards of 

 the kind discovered in Dowris bog (see p. 363). 



The early and late divisions of the Bronze age 

 shade off into one another, and may have been the 

 result of the gradual development of commerce. The 

 absence of the higher forms from the burial-grounds 

 may have been caused by the practice of burying the 

 simpler forms with the dead, although both may have 

 been, in use at the same time. On the one hand it may 

 be argued that the lower must have preceded the higher 

 in point of time, and, on the other, that this only 

 applies to the evolution of form in general, and that it 

 does not afford ground for the view, that in any given 

 country the two may not have been introduced from 

 some other region at approximately the same time. 

 The knowledge of bronze was undoubtedly introduced 

 into Britain from without, and in the natural course of 

 events the simpler forms 'would be the first to arrive. 

 On taking into consideration the light thrown on this 

 point by the discoveries on the Continent, it is very 

 probable that the wedge-shaped axe and the dagger, 

 and. personal ornaments, were the first articles of 

 bronze known among the Neolithic peoples of the 

 north, and it is very likely that the habit of burying 

 them continued down to the later age of Bronze. 

 The people in those days must have buried their 

 dead, and if the above hypothesis be not held, it is 

 impossible to explain the exceeding rarity of the higher 

 forms in their tumuli. Two socketed spear-heads, 1 one 



1 Crawford, Lanark, Journ. Brit. Archceol. Assoc. x. 7, xvii. 110; 

 Wilsford, Wilts, Archceologia, xliii. 163. 



