tianity into Denmark. The men of this period had long heads, and were, as well as the domestic animals, apparently more powerful than those of the preceding epoch. With the Bronze age we get beyond the reach of history and even of tradition. At first it appears remarkable that bronze should have been discovered before iron: but copper itself is found native, its ores are strongly coloured, and have a metallic appearance, while those of tin are black, very heavy, and easily smelted. On the other hand, iron ore, though very common, is not peculiar either in colour or in weight, and its reduction requires a very high temperature.
Before arriving, however, at a knowledge of bronze, it is evident that mankind must have passed through an age of copper, and the absence in Northern Europe of any evidence of such a fact (though a very few hatchets of copper have been found) is one among several reasons for regarding the acquisition of bronze, not as a discovery made by the men of the Stone period, but rather as introduced into Northern Europe by a new race. In fact, while mankind, during the earlier part, if not the whole, of the Stone period, appear (in Denmark, at least) to have been exclusively hunters and fishermen, with the Bronze age we find evidences of a pastoral and agricultural life, in the presence of domestic oxen, pigs, and sheep. It is probable that the men of the Stone period were conquered and partly replaced, by a more civilized race coming from the East. It is not only the introduction of bronze and of domestic animals which points to such a conclusion. The new people burned their dead and collected the bones in funeral urns. While, therefore, we have many skulls belonging to the Stone age, there is scarcely one, well authenticated, as appertaining to the Bronze: and though this custom of burning the dead deprives us of the assistance of osteology, it is in itself some indication of Eastern origin. The small size of the knife handles belonging to this period shows that, like the Hindoos of the present day, the men had small hands;[1] and, indeed, they appear to have been decidedly inferior to the Iron race which succeeded them.
On the other hand it must be confessed that the antiquities of Norway and Sweden, of Switzerland and of Ireland, indicate a different progress of civilization in these countries. Thus domestic animals were already known in Switzerland during the Stone age; in Northern Scandinavia bronze appears to have been much rarer and iron to have been discovered earlier, than in Denmark; while in Ireland the custom of burning the dead coexisted, according to Wilde, (though upon this point the evidence is not quite satisfactory), with the practice of interment and belonged to various periods, although in Denmark it appears to be confined to the Bronze and perhaps the commencement of the Iron age. These differences however will
