Part 22 (1/2)

”As an additional corroboration of my ideas, I will mention a curious fact which I ascertained to exist in two sepulchres of this kind which I searched; the significance of this fact can only be explained by a hypothesis which any one may readily develop.

”Each of them contained one long polished hatchet, broken in two in the middle; the other portion of which was not found in the sepulchre.

”One is now in the Museum at Cluny, where I deposited it; the other is still in my own possession. It is beyond all dispute that they were thus broken at the time of the interment.

”Numerous hatchets broken in a similar way have been found by M. A.

Forgeais in the bed of the Seine at Paris, and also in various other spots; all of them were broken in the middle, and I have always been of opinion that they proceeded from sepulchres of a like kind, which, having been placed on the edge of the river, had been washed away by the flow of water which during long ages had eaten away the banks.”

At a subsequent period, that is, during the bronze epoch, dead bodies were often, as we shall see, reduced to ashes either wholly or in part, and the ashes were enclosed in urns.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Alexandre Bertrand's 'Les Monuments Primitifs de la Gaule.'

[27] 'Des Sepultures a l'Age de la Pierre,' pp. 15, 16. 1865.

[28] 'Le Danemark a l'Exposition Universelle de 1867.' Paris. 1868.

THE AGE OF METALS.

I.

THE BRONZE EPOCH.

CHAPTER I.

The Discovery of Metals--Various Reasons suggested for explaining the Origin of Bronze in the West--The Invention of Bronze--A Foundry during the Bronze Epoch--Permanent and Itinerant Foundries existing during the Bronze Epoch--Did the knowledge of Metals take its rise in Europe owing to the Progress of Civilisation, or was it a Foreign Importation?

The acquisition and employment of metals is one of the greatest facts in our social history. Thenard, the chemist, has a.s.serted that we may judge of the state of civilisation of any nation by the degree of perfection at which it has arrived in the workmans.h.i.+p of iron. Looking at the matter in a more general point of view, we may safely say that if man had never become acquainted with metals he would have remained for ever in his originally savage state.

There can be no doubt that the free use of, or privation from, metals is a question of life and death for any nation. When we take into account the important part that is played by metals in all modern communities, we cannot fail to be convinced that, without metals civilisation would have been impossible. That astonis.h.i.+ng scientific and industrial movement which this nineteenth century presents to us in its most remarkable form--the material comfort which existing generations are enjoying--all our mechanical appliances, manufactures of such diverse kinds, books and arts--not one of all these benefits for man, in the absence of metals, could ever have come into existence. Without the help of metal, man would have been condemned to live in great discomfort; but, aided by this irresistible lever, his powers have been increased a hundredfold, and man's empire has been gradually extended over the whole of nature.

In all probability, gold, among all the metals, is the first with which man became acquainted. Gold, in a metallic state, is drifted down by the waters of many a river, and its glittering brightness would naturally point it out to primitive peoples. Savages are like children; they love everything that s.h.i.+nes brightly. Gold, therefore, must, in very early days, have found its way into the possession of the primitive inhabitants of our globe.

Gold is still often met with in the Ural mountains; and thence, perhaps, it originally spread all over the north of Europe. The streams and the rivers of some of the central countries of Europe, such as Switzerland, France, and Germany, might also have furnished a small quant.i.ty.

After gold, copper must have been the next metal which attracted the attention of men; in the first place, because this metal is sometimes found in a native state, and also because cupriferous ores, and especially copper pyrites, are very widely distributed. Nevertheless, the extraction of copper from the ores is an operation of such a delicate character, that it must have been beyond the reach of the metallurgic appliances at the disposal of men during the early pre-historic period.

The knowledge of tin also dates back to a very high antiquity. Still, although men might become acquainted with tin ores, a long interval must have elapsed before they could have succeeded in extracting the pure metal.

Silver did not become known to men until a much later date; for this metal is very seldom met with in the _tumuli_ of the bronze epoch. The fact is, that silver is seldom found in a pure state, and scarcely ever except in combination with lead ores; lead, however, was not known until after iron.

Bronze, as every one knows, is an alloy of copper and tin (nine parts of copper and one of tin). Now it is precisely this alloy, namely bronze, which was the first metallic substance used in Europe; indeed the sole substance used, to the exclusion of copper. We have, therefore, to explain the somewhat singular circ.u.mstance that an alloy and not a pure metal was the metallic substance that was earliest used in Europe; and we must also inquire how it was that bronze could have been composed by the nations which succeeded those of the polished-stone epoch.