PHYSICAL CONDITIONS— POSTGLACIAL. 537 



lands. Pine forests grew here and there upon the low grounds 

 of Central Scotland, and the same appears to have been the case 

 in Denmark, as we infer from the presence of the capercailzie 

 in the Danish kitchen-middens. But the prevailing character 

 of this period was the great destruction of the forests and their 

 entombment in growing peat. Thus the geological evidence 

 would lead us, in opposition to the views of some archaeologists, 

 to assign the Danish kitchen-middens to a comparatively late 

 part of the Neolithic period. They are certainly of much more 

 recent age than the Neolithic relics which have come from our 

 oldest submarine peat-beds, and from the lowest forest-layer of 

 our deepest inland bogs. 



After this cold and wet epoch had passed away it was 

 succeeded by more genial conditions, during which wide areas 

 of marsh-land became dry, and were overrun by a new forest- 

 growth, consisting in the British Islands largely of pine — at 

 all events in Ireland, Northern England, and Scotland, and the 

 same was the case in the Scandinavian peninsula. The sea had 

 now retreated upon our shores to a somewhat lower level than 

 the present, and it was probably at or about . this time, or 

 possibly even sooner, that a knowledge of bronze was intro- 

 duced to Britain. On the Continent that knowledge would 

 appear to have been earlier acquired, but the geological evidence 

 is too slight and incomplete to enable us to say at what par- 

 ticular stage of the Postglacial and Recent period the Bronze 

 Age commenced in Europe. If we may judge from the evidence 

 furnished by the Danish peat, that commencement may date 

 back to the close of the genial postglacial epoch — to a time 

 when oak forests still covered wide areas in those maritime 

 districts of North-western Europe, which at a later period 

 became in large measure bared of trees, and overspread with 

 boggy wastes. 



The second Age of Forests, represented by the upper forest- 

 layer of our peat-bogs, was followed by a relapse to colder and 

 wetter conditions, when broad areas of tree-covered districts 

 were converted into marshes. To this date must be assigned 



