128 EVlbENCE OF MAX IN GUERNSEY. 



cultivated for a longer period than either Jersey, or Alderney ; 

 we have not had the same extent of waste land broken up for 

 cultivation, as they have, in recent years, consequently there 

 have not been the same opportunities for the discovery of 

 bronze implements as in the sister islands. Bronze, we must 

 also remember was an article of value easily remelted, hence it 

 differs from stone, from which Neolithic man made his stone 

 axes, an imperishable article, of no value commercially, but of 

 a certain superstitious value to our forefathers. Hence a stone 

 axe when found was thrown away, or kept as a charm, to be 

 rediscovered in recent times to enrich the shelves of our 

 museums. Bronze on the other hand was sold and remeltea 

 and so lost to us. 



The first metal known to man was copper, which is found 

 in some localities in a comparatively pure state. When, or where, 

 it was first discovered that by heating anrl hammering copper 

 it was possible to produce a much more serviceable implement 

 for the use of man than the old stone axe is unknown, but 

 once the disco very was made the knowledge of metal spread 

 widely and civilisation began to advance with great rapidity. 

 Recent discoveries show us that the knowledge of working 

 copper already existed in the iEgean, in Crete and Elam shortly 

 after 3,000 B.C., where the earliest forms of copper implements 

 are found on sites that had been inhabited for long ages by a 

 people in a Neolithic state of culture, people who were in a far 

 more advanced state of civilisation than the inhabitants of 

 Northern Europe, who already traded with each other, as well 

 as with Egypt, Italy, Sardinia, and even with Spain. This is 

 proved by the existence of numerous objects of identical form 

 or design in these widely separated countries. Three great 

 trade routes from the iEgean to the North already existed at the 

 end of the Neolithic period, or were soon after developed. 

 The first by the Balkans and Black Sea up the valley of the 

 Danube ; the second from the head of the Adriatic over the 

 lower passes of the Alps to the Rhine valley — the great amber 

 route ; the third by Spain along the western coast of France on 

 to Britain. Spain, so rich in metal, played an all-important 

 part in imparting the knowledge of copper and bronze to the 

 west in the earliest days of metal. Later it was by the Danube 

 valley and over the lower passes of the Alps that the rapidly 

 advancing culture of the East became known to the northern 

 and western races. Spain ceased to exercise any influence on 

 the advance of western civilization by the middle of the Bronze 

 Age, and the knowledge of more perfected methods of casting 

 bronze, and of newer forms of weapons and implements, came 

 by the Rhine valley to Eastern France, and thence penetrated to 

 the west and to Britain. But while it is true that we have to 

 look to the East, to the iEgean, as the proto-mother of the 



