THE BRONZE AGE IN SWEDEN. 



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different composition from that which prevailed then. " To this 

 age belong only weapons and edge-tools made of bronze, and such 

 vessels and ornaments as are usually found with them." 



Different opinions have been put forward as to the manner in 

 which the Bronze age began in the North. " Some have supposed 

 that it was due to the immigration of a Celtic race, others to a 

 Teutonic immigration. Prof. Mlsson has endeavored to show 

 that the North is indebted to Phoenician colonists for the earliest 

 knowledge of metals ; while Herr Wiberg, in Gefle, regarded the 

 Bronze age as having begun in the North through the influence 

 of the Etruscans." Prof. Lindenschmit, of Mainz, who has views 

 of his own respecting the reality of a Northern Bronze age, re- 

 gards most of the bronze works in question as Etruscan. Dr. 

 Montelius's view is that the beginning of the Bronze age in Scan- 

 dinavia was not connected with any great immigration of a new 

 race, but that the people of the North learned 

 the art of working in bronze by intercourse 

 with other nations. The " Bronze culture," he 

 thinks, gradually spread itself over the con- 

 tinent of Europe in a northerly and north- 

 westerly direction, until at last it reached the 

 coasts of the Baltic. The end of the Bronze 

 age proper in Scandinavia, when it gave way 

 to the " Iron age," is fixed in the fifth century 

 before the Christian era, when it had lasted 

 about a thousand years. It has been divided 

 into six successive periods. Dr. Montelius does 

 not attempt to distinguish between and de- 

 scribe all of these, but simply makes two gen- 

 eral divisions — the earlier and the later Bronze 

 ages. 



The works of the earlier age are decorated 

 with fine spiral ornaments and zigzag lines, 

 some of which are seen in the axe (Fig. 1), and 

 are associated with the remains of unburned 

 bodies They are distinguished by artistic 

 forms, and point to a highly developed taste, 

 in which they generally surpass the relics of 

 the Bronze age found in other European coun- 

 tries. The works of the later age, of which an 

 illustration is given in the knife (Fig. 2), are 

 characterized by a very different taste and style 

 of ornamentation. Instead of spirals engraved 

 or stamped in the body of the implement, we find the ends of the 

 articles often rolled up in spiral volutes. During this period the 

 dead were always burned. The relative antiquity of burned and 



Fig. 1. — Massive Bronze 

 Axe, with Haft-Hole. 



