[485] Archaeologia, lvi, 1899, pp. 302-3; L. Beck, Die Gesch. des Eisens, i, 1884, pp. 593-6. As far as I can see, all that is proved by the instances which Beck has collected is—what we know already—that stone implements continued in use after the Iron Age had begun. In regard to the discovery, mentioned on p. 595, which Worsaee made in a stone chamber, may not graves of this kind have been built here and there after the Neolithic Age? See pp. 108, 109, n. 2, supra.
[486] See Man, v, 1905, No. 7, p. 13.
[487] Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxx, 1900, p. 16.
[488] J. Evans, Anc. Bronze Implements, &c., p. 25. See also p. 95.
[489] Ib., p. 23.
[490] See O. Schrader, Prehist. Ant. of the Aryan Peoples, pp. 194, 203-4, 242; Guide to the Ant. of the Bronze Age (Brit. Museum), pp. 3-4; Rev. mens. de l’École d’anthr., iii, 1893, pp. 105-6, 118, 120-2; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des ant. grecques et rom., ii, 1075; and Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie, v, 1905, col. 2143. Classical scholars will remember that Lucretius (v, 1286), in his powerful description of prehistoric times, affirmed that bronze was used before iron.
[491] See O. Schrader, Prehist. Ant. of the Aryan Peoples, pp. 192-3, Reallexicon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, 1901, pp. 200-1; and Guide to the Ant. of the Bronze Age (Brit. Museum), pp. 9-11. Dr. Schrader argues that as there are no special names for bronze in the languages of any of the ancient bronze-using peoples except the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, in whose tongue bronze, as distinct from copper (urudu), was designated by the word zabar, they must have been the inventors of bronze. See p. 494, infra.
[492] Professor Boyd Dawkins (Early Man in Britain, pp. 408-9) has compiled tables which show that the percentage of tin in British bronze implements varies between 5.09 and 18.31, and in French between 1.50 and 21.5. He concludes (ib., p. 410) that ‘the uniformity of the composition of the cutting implements of the Bronze Age implies that the art of compounding tin with copper was discovered in one place, from which the knowledge of it spread over ... Europe and Asia, and the greater part of the Americas. Had it spread from separate centres, this uniformity would have been impossible.’ The uniformity which subsists between 5.09 and 18.31, and between 1.50 and 21.5 is remarkable.
[493] See Sir John Evans’s Anc. Bronze Implements, p. 420; Rev. d’anthr., 3e sér., iii. 1888, pp. 209-10; and Lord Avebury’s Prehist. Times, 1900, pp. 53-7.
[494] L’Anthr., iv, 1893, pp. 548, 561-2, 566. M. Salomon Reinach (ib., iii, 1892, p. 280) has gone so far as to suggest that ‘les origines mêmes de la métallurgie du bronze’ should be sought in Western Europe.