HE DAWN OF MBTALLURGY. 283 
there was in this part of Spain an indigenous copper metal- 
lurgy, visitors from other districts more highly cultured 
introduced the ornaments, bracelets, beads, and rings, &c., 
and may possibly have taught the people the use of their 
copper ores. 
Cremation as well as ordinary burial was practised at this 
time, showing a foreign influence at work amongst the 
Neolithic peoples; but ordinary burial was in use at the 
same period, and it has been suggested that the honours of 
cremation may have been reserved for the men, as no weapons 
or implements are found in the graves with unburnt skeletons, 
but only ornaments, which appear to denote that the bodies 
were those of females. A similar practice, with a probably 
similar interpretation prevailed, it has been pointed out, in 
Switzerland ; the Moraine of §S. Prex contained regularly- 
interred bodies with bronze ornaments, and alternating with 
the skeletons were urns filled with a black substance sur- 
rounded by cinders. 
MM. Siret, in calling attention to the fact that there is no 
tin in the district which they explored, also point out that 
certain carnelian beads found in the graves are of foreign 
origin, and they suggest that the art of metallurgy was pro- 
bably introduced into the locality by strangers who were 
acquainted with bronze and its production, but could not 
impart the art, having no tin; all that they could do would 
be to instruct this Neolithic people how to smelt their copper 
ores, and they probably also taught them an improved mode 
of constructing their houses. 
Let us now approach the question as to the original source 
of the bronze manufacture. We find it im general use in 
Europe at the close of the Neolithic age, the late Stone and 
the Metal ages overlapping one another; but as far as we can 
judge, the first bronze workers did not make the discovery of - 
this material in Europe, but introduced it from some other 
region of the world, and the workers in bronze were them- 
selves of a different race to those amongst whom they first 
came. Copper may have been known and used in certain 
districts where it occurs plentifully even before the coming of 
this race, as the characteristic properties of the native metal 
are easily discovered, but, as far as we know, there is as yet 
no direct evidence that the metal was used before the foreign 
visitors made their appearance with the more perfected forms 
of metallurgical art. 
What we want to know, in order to solve some of the 
questions as to the origin of metallurgy in HKurope, is whence 
