Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/372

344 lead to warfare, and as the Celtic peoples to the east and south of Gaul would be likely to benefit first by the discovery, they would be the first to use the new weapons in their wars against their hereditary enemies the Iberic tribes of the west.

The use of bronze did not immediately drive out the use of polished stone in this country. In the tumulus, for example, at Upton Lovel, Wilts, four flint celts, a perforated hammer-axe, numerous bone implements, and a bronze pin, were found along with the unburnt bones of the dead. In three barrows in Yorkshire also, the Rev. W. Greenwell has discovered polished stone axes, in two cases along with the ashes of the dead, and with vases; and in a third under conditions which did not necessarily imply that it was connected with an interment. That these stone implements really belong to the Bronze age is proved by the practice of cremation and the presence of the characteristic pottery, un- known in this country before. While the chiefs and the rich possessed bronze implements and weapons, the poorer classes would naturally continue to use those of stone, and bronze could only have come into universal use when it became cheap.

The Bronze age in Britain is divided by Mr. Evans into an early and a late stage, the first of which was a period of transition, when the use of bronze was superseding that of stone, and is characterised by the presence of bronze daggers (Figs. 114, 115) and plain