We have already seen, in speaking of the implements of the s_The Evolution of Culture, and Other Essays

a gradual improvement in form and fabrication, developing itself in

proportion as the wild animals which were contemporaneous with the

first traces of man in Europe became extinct, partly, no doubt, through

the efforts of man himself in exterminating them, and partly, as

there seems reason to suppose, owing to an alteration of temperature,

rendering the climate unsuited to the constitution and habits of

those animals, which therefore migrated by degrees, and the majority

of which are now found chiefly, though not exclusively, in arctic

regions. Thither they have been accompanied by races of men whose

arts and implements show them to be very nearly in a corresponding

stage of civilization to the early races, the relics of which are

found associated with the same animals in Europe. The simultaneous

migration of races of men in the hunting stage of civilization, with

the animals, the pursuit of which forms the almost sole occupation of

their lives, is well shown in the case of the North American Indians,

whose geographical distribution is now almost identical with that of

the buffalo. This forms a strong point in the arguments of those who

are disposed to attribute all the changes in the world’s civilization

to the influx and extermination of antagonistic races. But it must

be remembered that progress advances in an increasing ratio, and the

phenomenon now seen in America and Australia of a highly civilized

race constantly fed by steam-communication from the Old World, driving

before it and rapidly exterminating other races so vastly its inferior

as the Australians and American Indians, is one which could have had no

parallel at the early period of which I am now speaking. We must here

look for a slower process, though doubtless the operating causes may,

to a great extent, have been the same.

The fabrication of stone implements would of itself lead by degrees

to a knowledge of the metals which are contained in stones. Thus, for

example, I have here a specimen of a stone mace-head from Central

America, figure 2, Plate XIX, composed of a nodule of haematite

partially coated with micaceous iron ore, the particles of which are

distinctly visible on its glittering surface. The weight of this

implement, being nearly double that of a mace-head composed of ordinary

stone, would at once attract the notice of the savage fabricator, and

lead him to investigate the uses of metal.

But, as a general rule, races engaged exclusively in hunting, who

rarely turn their attention to the ground except to examine a trail

or to search for water, would have little opportunity of profiting by

the mineral wealth of the soil over which they roamed. Witness the

Australians, who have continued for ages in ignorance of the gold and

other mines which are now so attractive to Europeans; or the North and

South American Indians, and the Esquimaux, amongst whom the art of

smelting metal has never been found associated with those races who are

in a purely hunting stage of existence; the wrought metals used by such

races to point their weapons being invariably derived from civilized

sources.

From hunting wild animals, the savage, in the natural sequence of

progress, would turn his attention to their capture and domestication,

and thus he creeps gradually into the pastoral life; and as the bones

of animals under domestication, through want of exercise and good

living, become smoother and of finer texture, the experienced anatomist

is thereby afforded the means of distinguishing, amongst the vestiges

of antiquity, the remains of domesticated animals from those derived

from the chase, and of observing to what extent the domestication

of animals was contemporaneous with other changes in the social

condition of the people.[188] Still, however, in the pastoral state,

the barbarian is not necessarily brought in contact with metals; and

hence we should expect in many cases to find the traces of domesticated

animals associated with people who are still in the stone age. This was

notably the case amongst the ancient inhabitants of the Swiss lakes,

where the sheep and horse have been found at Moosseedorf, and other

lake habitations which are proved to belong to the stone age, though

not in such abundance as in the settlements belonging to the bronze

age.[189]

From the pastoral life, the barbarian, hampered by his flocks and

herds, and no longer obliged to wander in search of food, settles down

to a more stationary life, and by degrees takes to agriculture. Then,

for the first time, he digs into the soil, and becomes acquainted

with its mineral treasures. It has been proved by the discovery of

quantities of carbonized grains of wheat, lumped together, in the Swiss

lake-habitations of the stone age, together with the materials for

preparing it for food, that a knowledge of agriculture preceded the

general employment of bronze in that region,[190] whilst in Britain,

and in Denmark also, bronze is almost invariably associated with

evidence of domestication and agriculture.

The metals first employed would be those that are most attractive.

Copper, in Europe, from the bright colour of its ores, would be noticed

more readily than iron, which is often scarcely distinguishable from

the soil, and requires greater temperature and more skilled labour to

render it available than could be expected of a people emerging out

of the savage state. It is not, therefore, surprising that in Europe,

copper first, and subsequently its alloy, bronze, should have been

employed before iron as a material for weapons. But in those countries

where iron is found upon the surface in an attractive form, and in a

condition to be easily wrought, we must for the same reason suppose

that it would be used instead of copper in the earliest ages of

metallurgy.

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.

DEVELOPMENT OF FORM IN CELTS OF COPPER, BRONZE AND IRON.]

It is natural to suppose that, in the ordinary course of development,

an age of pure copper must have intervened between the ages of stone

and bronze. But implements of pure copper are comparatively rare,

bronze being the metal almost invariably found following immediately

upon the age of stone.[191] Notwithstanding the comparative rarity of

copper tools, however, there is reason to believe that this metal was

used in a pure state before the discovery of the alloy. According

to Professor Max Müller, copper was the metal spoken of by Hesiod

and Homer as the material generally employed for weapons in their

time.[192] Mr. Rawlinson, in his _Five Ancient Monarchies_, says that

the metallurgy of the early Chaldeans was of a very rude character,

indicating a nation but just emerging from an almost barbaric

simplicity, and that copper often occurs pure.[193] Copper implements,

of a very early form, beaten into shape, occur not unfrequently in

Ireland, as may be seen by specimens represented in Class A, Plate

XVIII. They have also been found in Mecklenburg and in Denmark, and

Klemm[194] says that they occur in Greece, Italy, Spain, Egypt, and

Hindustan. At Maurach, in Switzerland, a copper celt was found in a

lake dwelling, which Dr. Keller, notwithstanding this circumstance,

attributes to the stone age.[195] In the lake dwelling of Peschiera,

on the lake of Garda, several copper implements were discovered,[196]

and in certain localities in Hungary copper implements are said to

be as plentiful as those of bronze.[197] An axe of pure copper was

discovered in Ratho Bog, near Edinburgh, under 20 feet of stratified

sand and clay, and Dr. Wilson mentions that others have been found in

Scotland.[198] Copper implements occur in Peru, to prove that, in the

central parts of America also, the manufacture of bronze was preceded

by the use of copper in a pure state; and in the ancient mines of Lake

Superior we have distinct evidence of a stage of early metallurgy in

which copper was used simply as a malleable stone, and beaten out into

the form of implements without the aid of any alloy or a knowledge of

the process of casting.[199] (See Plate XIX, figures 3, 4, 5, and 6.)

When it is considered that without the admixture of a small portion

of alloy of zinc or tin, copper is very difficult to melt, and can

only be used by a laborious process of beating into form, and also

what a great superiority bronze has over copper as a cutting material,

whilst at the same time the process of fabrication is actually in some

degree facilitated by the addition of tin, it is not surprising that

on the first discovery of the advantages of this mixture, all the old

implements of copper, wherever procurable, should have been taken to

the melting-pot for conversion into bronze, and we should thus be left

with such scanty evidence of the existence of an age of copper.

Up to this point we meet with no difficulty in supposing that

the use of metal may have been at first adopted by many nations

independently, without intercourse one with another. But when we find

in both hemispheres of the globe a very wide diffusion of weapons of

bronze, consisting of a mixture of the same metals, which, though

varying slightly in its proportions, as we shall afterwards see,

is nevertheless, for the most part, constant in its adherence to a

standard of about nine parts copper to one of tin in all parts of the

world, the question arises whether the knowledge of this mixed metal

could have been arrived at independently in different countries, or

whether it must have been diffused all over the universe from a common

source. It is true that copper and tin materials are sometimes found

in the same locality, as, for instance, in Cornwall, the locality

which, from the remotest time up to the present, has afforded the

most plentiful supply of both metals perhaps in the world. We have

evidence, also, that in ancient copper mines fire was employed by the

miners for softening the metal and detaching it from the matrix,[200]

and it is, therefore, highly probable that the admixture of the two

metals occurring so close together, and a knowledge of the advantages

accruing therefrom, may have been brought about accidentally in the

process of mining.[201] But this connexion of the metals in a state

of nature is not common, and in those countries, such as Denmark and

Scandinavia, where bronze implements occur, and in which neither metal

is found native, it is most improbable that the inhabitants should have

discovered the merits of these particular ingredients, unless they had

derived the knowledge of them from without.

Hence we find archaeologists as much divided in their opinions upon

what I may call the monogenesis or polygenesis of bronze, as biologists

and anatomists are upon the monogenesis or polygenesis of the human

race. The same question repeats itself again and again in dealing

with the vestiges of the early history of man, and we may therefore

divide the consideration of this question of the origin of bronze under

pretty nearly the same heads to which I have adverted when speaking

of the distribution of races, and of the age of stone (pp. 147-54).

The questions to be considered may be numbered as follows:--(1) that

bronze was spread from a common centre by an intruding and conquering

race, or by the migration of tribes; (2) that the inhabitants of each

separate region in which bronze is known to have been used discovered

the art independently, and made their implements of it; (3) that the

art was discovered, and the implements fabricated, on one spot, and

the implements disseminated from that place by means of commerce; (4)

that the art of making bronze was diffused from a common centre, but

that the implements were constructed in the countries in which they are

found.

Amongst the advocates for the first hypothesis, viz. introduction by

the intrusion of fresh races, are to be found chiefly the Scandinavian

archaeologists, amongst whom may be especially mentioned Professors

Worsaae, of Copenhagen[202], and Nilsson, of Stockholm. Both metals

are foreign to the soil of Denmark, and must, therefore, have been

imported. In the graves, bronze weapons are in Denmark invariably

found with burials by cremation, while those of the stone age are

by inhumation, the former being recognized, in an early stage of

civilization, as a later process than burial by inhumation. Bronze is

here markedly associated with traces of agriculture, the evidence

of which is wanting in the stone age. The age of bronze, it is

asserted by these antiquaries, was ushered in in Denmark by the

employment of implements showing the highest perfection of art, and

at a later period, when they are associated with weapons of iron,

they are inferior in the quality of their workmanship. The weapons of

bronze have remarkably small handles, denoting a smaller race, and

hypothetically an eastern origin, small handles being to this day the

characteristic of weapons from India. Some of the bronze spear-heads in

Denmark have been found with nails driven into them, a practice which

still exists in India, each nail denoting a victim; and in the Asiatic

islands the custom of boring a hole in the weapon for each victim is

found to the present time.[203] The peculiar ornamentation so often

found on the bronze swords of Denmark, known as the spiral ornament,

is said, though I think erroneously, to be of Phoenician origin. To

these and other arguments for the introduction by intruding races,

Professor Nilsson adds, that in the countries of the north, where

bronze implements are found in greatest abundance, the graves in which

they occur are usually situated in groups, proving that bronze was

introduced, not by isolated individuals, merchants, or travellers, but

by tribes or colonies more or less numerous, occupying especial tracts

of country.

The theory of race-origin is also not without its adherents in this

country. Dr. Thurnam, who has excavated a large number of barrows in

the south of England, divides them--as, indeed, they have been divided

by former antiquaries--into several classes, amongst which we may

chiefly distinguish two principal types, viz. the long and the round

barrows. The former he attributes to the stone age, containing usually

implements of that material, whilst implements of bronze are almost

invariably found in the round barrows. He also gives it as the result

of his researches, extending over some years of exploration--and Canon

Greenwell, in so far as his experience of long barrows in the north

of England goes, confirms the statement--that the long barrows are

generally associated with dolichocephalic, or long skulls, whilst in

the round barrows brachycephalic, or round skulls, are found, thus

leading to the supposition that the long-headed people of the stone

age who erected the long barrows may have been succeeded by another

race with round heads importing bronze, and burying their dead in

round barrows. But after having heard Dr. Thurnam’s last papers

on this subject, read before the Society of Antiquaries and other

societies[204], I confess, although he has no doubt established a

sequence, that he does not appear to me to have determined a clear

line of separation between the two classes of interments; the long

barrows pass by intermediate links into the round ones, and the long

skull, although no doubt it may be considered characteristic of an

earlier period, and therefore connected with an earlier form of

barrow, also passes by gradations into the round skull, the variations

of form being considerable. Then, with respect to the implements,

although the absence of bronze in the long barrows of the earlier

period appears to be determined, yet it is notorious to all those who

have paid attention to the subject--and is not by any means denied

by the learned antiquaries whose names I have mentioned--that the

transition from stone to bronze in this country was gradual, and

extended over a long period, flint weapons being found in nearly all

the barrows of the bronze age in such positions as to show they were

used contemporaneously by the same people; and from discoveries which

have been made both by myself and others[205], there seems good reason

to suppose that flint weapons continued to be used by some of the

inhabitants of this country even during the Roman era. This distinction

of long heads in long barrows, and round heads in round barrows, is

one so easily remembered, that it is liable on this account, perhaps,

to receive greater attention than it really deserves as a criterion

of race. The difficulty of distinguishing in all cases the primary

from the secondary interments in the barrows--it being an established

fact that these barrows were used as places of burial by successive

generations, and even perhaps by successive races, including also

the Anglo-Saxons--the possible distortion of some of the crania by

time and pressure, and the other facts of the case, as I believe I

have correctly stated them, are, I think, sufficient to justify us in

withholding for the present our entire acceptance of the theory of the

introduction of bronze into this country by intruding races, as drawn

from any evidence derived from the graves.

From amongst those who have advocated the totally independent origin

of bronze, the opinion of Professor Daniel Wilson may be selected,

as affording a most ingenious argument derived from an analysis of

the metals.[206] He quotes some experiments conducted by Dr. George

Pearson, and communicated by him to the Royal Society of London

in 1796, to ascertain the results of various proportions of the

ingredients of tin and copper in bronze. ‘Having fused these metals

in various united proportions, commencing with 1 part of tin to 20

parts of copper, which produced a dark-coloured bronze, he reduced

the proportion gradually to 15 parts of copper to 1 of tin, when the

colour was materially affected, and the red copper hue was no longer

seen, but an alloy of greater strength was produced. The experiments

were continued with 12, 10, 9, 8, and 7 parts of copper to 1 of

tin, and when the last fusion of the metals was tested, increased

hardness and brittleness of the metals became very apparent. The same

characteristics were still more marked on successively reducing the

proportions of copper to 6, 5, 4, and 3; and when alloy was made of 2

parts of copper to 1 of tin, it was, according to Dr. Pearson’s report,

as brittle as glass.’

From the result of these experiments we see that the best average

proportions, of about 9 parts of copper to 1 of tin, would invariably

show itself by a practical experience in the use of these ingredients,

and it is therefore unnecessary to assume that these particular

proportions, when found in the bronzes of different countries, must

necessarily have been communicated.

Dr. Wilson then proceeds to give the results of analyses of ancient

bronzes discovered in Europe, America, and elsewhere, contained in the

accompanying tables. And he concludes his observations on the subject

as follows:--

‘From the varied results which so many independent analyses disclose,

varying, as they do, from 79 to 94 per cent, of copper, or more than

the total amount of the supposed constant ratio of tin, besides the

variations in the nature, as well as the quantity of their ingredients’

(a proportion of lead will be seen in some of the analyses of European

bronzes, the small proportion of iron being probably accidental), ‘it

is abundantly obvious that no greater uniformity is traceable than

such as might be expected to result from the experience of isolated

and independent metallurgists, very partially acquainted with the

chemical properties of the standard alloy, and guided for the most

part by practical experience derived from successive results of their

manufacture.’ The comparison of the two tables here given, from

Professor Wilson’s work, also shows a smaller average amount of tin in

the American bronze (Table I) than in that of ancient Europe (Table II).

TABLE I.--ANALYSES OF ANCIENT AMERICAN BRONZES

--------------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-----+-----+

--------------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-----+-----+

4 Knife | | Ditto |96.0 |4.0 | |

6 Knife |Amaro |Dr. H. Croft |95.664 |3.965|0.371|

7 Perforated Axe | | Ditto |96.0 |4.0 | |

9 Bodkin from Female Grave| | Ditto |96.70 |3.30 | |

--------------------------+---------+-----------------+-------+-----+-----+

TABLE II.--ANALYSES OF ANCIENT EUROPEAN BRONZES

----------------+--------------+----------------+-------+-----+-----+-----

----------------+--------------+----------------+-------+-----+-----+-----

2 Anglo-Roman | | Ditto ditto | 86.0 |14.0 | |

3 Spear-Head | | Ditto ditto | 86.0 |14.0 | |

7 Axe-Head | | Ditto ditto | 88.0 |12.0 | |

| | M.D. | | | |

10 Caldron |Berwickshire |G. Wilson, M.D.,| 92.89 | 5.15| 1.78|

11 Sword |Duddingstone | Ditto ditto | 88.51 | 9.30| 2.30|

12 Kettle |Berwickshire | Ditto ditto | 88.22 | 5.63| 5.88|

13 Axe-Head |Mid-Lothian | Ditto ditto | 88.5 |11.12| 0.78|

14 Caldron |Duddingstone | Ditto ditto | 84.8 | 7.19| 8.53|

15 Palstave |Fifeshire | Ditto ditto | 81.19 |18.31| 0.75|

16 Sword |Ireland |Professor Davy, | 88.63 | 8.54| 2.83|

17 Sword | | Ditto ditto | 83.50 | 5.15| 8.35| 3.0

18 Sword |Thames |J. A. Phillips, | 89.69 | 9.58| | 0.33

19 Sword |Ireland | Ditto | 85.62 |10.02| | 0.44

20 Celt | | Ditto | 90.68 | 7.43| 1.28|

21 Axe-Head | | | 90.18 | 9.81| |

22 Axe-Head | | Ditto | 89.33 | 9.19| | 0.33

23 Celt | | Ditto | 83.61 |10.79| 3.20| 0.58

24 Celt |King’s County,|Dr. Donovan, | 85.23 |13.11| 1.14|

25 Drinking-Horn| | | 79.34 |10.87| 9.11|

27 Wedge | | Ditto | 94.0 | 5.9 | | 0.1

----------------+--------------+----------------+-------+-----+-----+-----

We have already seen, in speaking of the implements of the stone age,