EXPLANATOEY AND INTRODUCTORY. 7 



beginning or to its end. There must have been a 

 time when the Iron Age was fully established on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, while yet in the inland 

 arid northern nations the Age of Bronze coexisted 

 with the earlier Age of Stone, and in some places the 

 Iron Age must have come abruptly into conflict with 

 that of Stone, without the intervention of the Age of 

 Bronze, as it has done in America. 



This last Age, that of Stone, in the South of Europe, 

 antedates all written history. In the many-sided 

 East, however, we find cutting instruments of stone in 

 use in Egypt and Syria long after the dawn of lite- 

 rature, and intruding themselves into Europe in some 

 of the detachments which joined the army of Xerxes ; 

 while in remote corners of the North of Europe 

 some uses of stone weapons reached almost into the 

 Middle Ages. The earlier Stone folk are known to 

 us only by their graves, and remains of their habi- 

 tations and implements. The ancient barrows and 

 cromlechs of Britain and France, and the gallery 

 tombs of Scandinavia, contain the bones of the name- 

 less warriors of this Age buried with their flint 

 arrows and stone hatchets. The curious lake habi- 

 tations of Switzerland, built by unknown tribes on 

 piles over the water, also afford their remains, though 

 some of these strange dwellings reach up to the time 

 of Bronze and Iron. The shell-heaps of the primitive 

 fishermen of the coast of Denmark, and the peat-bogs 

 of various districts of Europe, afford additional re- 

 mains of the people of this Age. 



