weapons, while those less wealthy possessed the superior, iron. Beside, we meet with fewer trinkets, and in particular far fewer large gold ornaments, with the bronze ornaments than with those of iron; with the bronze objects, silver trinkets, and Cufic, or East Roman, coins are never found. Again, if we assume that iron objects were the property of the rich, and those of bronze of persons less wealthy, in short, of the poor, this supposition is alike improbable, since in this case there can scarcely have been poor men in all Norway and Sweden! With reference to the stone objects, or those assigned to the very poor, it is proper to observe that they are usually found in the large Cromlechs and Giants' chambers. But the Cromlechs and Giants' chambers are much larger and more splendid monuments than the barrows which contain the objects of bronze; one would therefore be driven to the conclusion that the rich were buried in a mere mound of earth, thrown up over an unimportant heap of stones, while the poor, on the other hand, were interred in chambers of stone, which from their size and their careful style of building, often excite the admiration of the present age. This, of course, is wholly incredible. Again, if the objects of bronze and of iron belonged to one and the same period, it would be highly probable that they would be wrought in the same fashion, or that, even when the metal was different, their forms and ornaments would exhibit some resemblance, however slight. But the bronze antiquities betray in their form, ornaments, and workmanship in general, a totally different character from that which is exhibited on objects of iron. Finally, if the different kinds of antiquities were really cotemporaneous, one must at any rate expect that our barrows, which must be regarded as cotemporaneous also, would possess as their chief characteristic, and particularly with reference to their modes of interment, a certain similarity to each other, which might easily be recognised. But we know that the large Cromlechs and Giants' chambers contain objects of stone and unhurnt corpses; that those barrows
