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II. 



lEISH COPPEE HALBEEDS. 

 By GEOEGE COFFEY. 



-Read November 11. Ordered for publication November 13,1907. Published January 20, 1908. 



Plates I.-III. 



In a x^aper on the Copper Celts found in Ireland, published in the Journal of 

 the Anthropological Institute for 1901,^ I have put forward a body of evidence 

 which, in my opinion, establishes the existence of a Copper Period in Ireland 

 — a time transitional between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, in which, 

 although stone was still in use, copper was gradually displacing stone for 

 cutting implements generally throughout the island, and bronze had nof as 

 yet come into use. 



I may briefly summarize the chief points of the argument : — - 



(1) Copper celts have been found in all parts of the country,^ 



(2) The word ' copper ' is used in the sense of unrefined copper — called by 

 smelters " coarse copper " — and includes as impurities small percentages of 

 tin, antimony, arsenic, lead, iron, silver, gold, more rarely zinc and nickel. 

 These impurities when in small quantities are to be referred to the ore, and 

 must be accepted as such in the absence of evidence to the contrary, and not 

 assumed as is usually the case — especially in the case of tin, antimony, and 

 arsenic — to have been intentionally added. 



The percentage of tin in thirteen specimens analysed does not exceed 

 I'lO, and in the majority of cases (nine) does not exceed 0'5. 



This is well within what may be expected from ore treated by a primitive 

 process of smelting, and is much exceeded in the case of ores known as tinny 

 ores, such as from Cornwall, Saxony, and Bohemia. The low temperature of 

 primitive smelting, which failed to extract more than 50 or 60 per cent, of 

 the metal from the ore, favoured the retention of the tin in the copper.^ 



1 Vol. xxxi., p. 265. 



2 To tbe list of counties from -whicli copper celts are recorded sbould be added Dublin, making 

 eighteen counties so far. 



2 The question of tin and other impurities may be said to be finally disposed of by Professor 

 ."W. Gotland's experiments on primitive smelting : Presidential Address, " Copper and its Alloys in 

 Prehistoric Times," Journal of Anthropological Institute, 1906, vol. xxxvi. 



