The third of these we shall discuss in the chapter on the Iron age. The other two are the exact equivalents of those of Britain. The association in tombs and sepulchral caves of the ordinary Neolithic implements with bronze articles and with bronze ornaments, characterises the first of these divisions (see Table, p. 346), which is named from the great number of interments of this sort in the region of the Cévennes. In the Second or the Rhodanian age, named from the many discoveries in the valley of the Rhone, bronze is no longer rare, but it has become a necessary in every-day life, and smiths' shops have sprung up in various regions in which the broken implements and ornaments were worked up into new forms. These two subdivisions shade off one into another, and are not more clearly defined in France than in Britain.
The Age of Transition, or the Early Bronze Age.
If we examine the table of the contents of 147 chambered tombs in the Cévennes (p. 346), compiled from the work of M. Chantre, it will be observed that the principal difference between tombs of the Bronze and those of the Neolithic age consists in the addition of articles of bronze and glass. Daggers are comparatively abundant, lances are rare, and only one bronze axe of the simple wedge-shaped type is met with. All the bronze articles are small, and capable of being easily carried, and most of them are intended for personal ornament. Pins, bracelets, and rings are far more common than knives
