Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/439

] formerly inhabited by the bronze-using peoples, have probably been introduced from that region by Mongolian tribes, along with some of the symbols in the Mongolian Calendar, and other proofs of their Asiatic origin. The variations from the normal alloy, which led Prof. Wilson to conclude that bronze was invented in many isolated centres, are easily accounted for either by imperfection in the smelting, or by the stock of tin of the bronze-founder having been exhausted. They would inevitably result from the establishment of bronze-smiths' shops in various countries, in which broken implements, weapons, and ornaments, were made into new articles. The nickel in the bronzes from western Switzerland is considered by Von Fellenberg to have been derived from the nickeliferous copper ores of the Valais, which were mixed with tin imported from abroad. There is, as we have seen, no evidence that bronze was originally invented in Europe, and the only clue to its origin is offered by the forms of the simple implements and weapons which were the first to arrive in Europe in the early Bronze age.

The numerous discoveries of the last thirty years show that while certain articles, such as the plain wedge- axe, the dagger, and the sword with a flat metal tang for the reception of plates of horn or of wood, are found in Italy, France, Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany, as well as Egypt, and while there is a general likeness between the series of implements and weapons in various European countries, there are other articles, such as brooches and swords with metal hilts, peculiar to certain districts.