FINDS OF THE BRONZE AGE. 11 



There are many cases on record of iron swords with bronze 

 handles or scabbards, but scarcely any instances of the 

 reverse. 



Conversely, as bronze weapons are entirely absent from the 

 great " finds" of the Iron age, so iron weapons are equally 

 wanting in those instances where, as for instance at Nidau, 

 on the Lake of Bienne, and Estavayer, on that of Neufchatel, 

 large quantities of bronze tools and weapons have been found 

 together. 



To sum up this argument, though the discoveries of bronze 

 and iron weapons have been very numerous, yet there is 

 hardly a single case in which swords, axes, daggers, or other 

 weapons of these two different metals, have been found to- 

 gether ; nor are bronze weapons ever found associated with 

 coins, pottery, or other relics of Roman origin. The value of 

 this evidence will better be appreciated after reading the fol- 

 lowing extract from Mr. Wright's Essays on Archaeology : * 



"All the sites of ruined Roman towns with which I am 

 acquainted present to the excavator a numerous collection of 

 objects, ranging through a period which ends abruptly with 

 what we call the close of the Roman period, and attended 

 with circumstances which cannot leave any doubt that this 

 was the period of destruction. Otherwise, surely we should 

 find some objects which would remind us of the subsequent 

 periods. I will only mention one class of articles which are 

 generally found in considerable numbers, the coins. "We in- 

 variably find these presenting a more or less complete series 

 of Roman coins, ending at latest with the Emperors who 

 reigned in the first half of the fifth century. This is not 

 the case with Roman towns which have continued to exist 

 after that period, for then, on the contrary, we find relics 

 which speak of the subsequent inhabitants, early Saxon and 

 Mediaeval. I will only, for want of space, give one example, 

 * Essays on Archaeology, p. 105. 



