which contain bronze objects with burnt corpses have a totally different arrangement; and that barrows and other tombs with iron objects are essentially different from the other barrows. Since it cannot be supposed that, in ancient times, so strict a separation of the three classes, the rich, the middle class, and the poor, can have prevailed, that each class had its peculiar mode of interment, together with weapons, tools, and trinkets, which both in form and material were totally distinct from those of the other classes, it must therefore be regarded as an undoubted fact, that the often-named division of antiquities and barrows into three ages, is founded not on probability alone, but on positive facts, and on a much firmer basis, than might have been expected when the question relates to a period which lies beyond the limits of satisfactory historical details. We therefore have no hesitation in proceeding to the further enquiry, whether it was one race only which in ancient times developed itself in a gradual manner, or whether several races have from time to time penetrated into the country, and occasioned these changes in its civilization.
Experience has shewn us that modes of interment, and all circumstances appertaining to them, are most prized and preserved by nations in an inferior degree of civilization, and are only abandoned by them, when they have been subdued by foreigners more powerful than themselves, or when they have ceased to be an independent people. In the stone-period, and in that of bronze, the funeral ceremonies and barrows were completely different; and we are therefore justified in concluding that the race who inhabited Denmark in the bronze-period was different from that, which during that of stone, laid the foundation for peopling the country. This is clearly shewn by the antiquities, since there exists no gradual transition from the simple implements and weapons of stone, to the beautifully wrought tools and arms of bronze. On the other hand, it is not decided that the people of the iron-period must have been a third race, which had immigrated at a later date
