Outstanding features of the New Stone Age are the Swiss and other
lake-dwellings, the Danish peat-beds with their varied contents, the
shell-mounds occurring on the seaboard in many parts of the world.
In the more civilized regions, such as Egypt, Babylonia, parts of Asia
Minor, and the Ægean lands, the Stone Ages were at an early date
followed by a period vaguely designated as “prehistoric,” during which
stone as the material of human implements was gradually replaced by the
metals, first copper, then various copper alloys (arsenic, sulphur,
nickel, cobalt, zinc, and especially tin) generally called bronze,
lastly iron.
[Illustration: 1 to 29.--Implements of the Stone Age. 30 to
48.--Implements of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. 49 to 60.--Implements
of the Late Iron Age.]
Thus were constituted the so-called Metal Ages, during which, however,
overlappings were everywhere so frequent that in many localities it is
quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing lines between the
successive metal periods. Indeed a direct transition from Stone to Iron
may be suspected in some places, and in any case the pure copper period
appears to have nowhere been of long duration except in America, where
there was no iron and little bronze.