44 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



inclined to think his estimate too low. Montelius gives 2000 B.C. 

 for northern Italy. These dates are those of the first use of a 

 copper or bronze weapon. But in all countries where ores of 

 copper, and especially ores of tin, as in England, were abundant 

 and cropped out at the surface of the ground, and native copper 

 may have been occasionally met with, there must have been a long 

 period during which neolithic men were merely acquainted with 

 these metals but unable to make any practical use of them. And 

 there can be no question that the progression from a mere knowledge 

 of metals, to their general application to the manufacture of im- 

 plements, was extremely slow and must be measured probably by 

 centuries. 



So that, in my opinion, the date when copper or bronze was first 

 known in Britain is a very remote one, as no country in the world 

 presented greater facilities for their discovery. The beginning of 

 their application to practical uses should, T think, be placed at least 

 as far back as 1800 B.C., and that date I am inclined to give, until 

 further evidence is forthcoming, as the approximate date of the 

 erection of Stonehenge, 



In this connection, I may cite the results of an important in- 

 vestigation recently made by Sir Norman Lockyer and Mr. Penrose 

 with a view to the determination of the age of Stonehenge from 

 astronomical data. 



Their argument rests upon the assumption of the monument 

 having been a solar temple. 



They observed the point of the rising of the midsummer sun in 

 the direction of a line traversing the middle of the avenue from a 

 point lying midway between the the piers of the central trilithon. 

 From their observations they arrived at 1680 B.C. ; + 200 years as 

 the date of the monument, a date in close agreement with that I 

 have ventured to propose on entirely different grounds. 



Purpose and Origin of Stonehenge. 



The purpose for which Stonehenge was erected, space will not 

 permit me to discuss at length, yet it cannot be passed over in 

 silence. 



