Chapter VIII.
THE BRONZE AGE IN EUROPE.
There exist in Europe the evidences of three different ages of human development:
1. The Stone Age, which dates back to a vast antiquity. It is subdivided into two periods: an age of rough stone implements; and a later age, when these implements were ground smooth and made in improved forms.
2. The Bronze Age, when the great mass of implements were manufactured of a compound metal, consisting of about nine parts of copper and one part of tin.
3. An age when iron superseded bronze for weapons and cutting tools, although bronze still remained in use for ornaments. This age continued down to what we call the Historical Period, and embraces our present civilization; its more ancient remains are mixed with coins of the Gauls, Greeks, and Romans.
The Bronze Period has been one of the perplexing problems of European scientists. Articles of bronze are found over nearly all that continent, but in especial abundance in Ireland and Scandinavia. They indicate very considerable refinement and civilization upon the part of the people who made them; and a wide diversity of opinion has prevailed as to who that people were and where they dwelt.
In the first place, it was observed that the age of bronze (a compound of copper and tin) must, in the natural order of things, have been preceded by an age when copper and tin were used separately, before the ancient metallurgists had dis-
