Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/447

] variety found in Greek and Etruskan tombs at Cumæ and Bari, Nola and Palestrina, was probably derived from Sicily. The Italian amber is believed by Prof. Capellini to have been used by the old Etruskans of Lombardy, while the Sicilian, although it is not mentioned before A.D. 1769, was known to the ancient Greeks. Among other European localities revealed by modern engineering, we must notice many of the low plains of Germany and Wallachia, where it occurs in considerable abundance. A dark red variety is met with in a deposit in the district of the Lebanon.

Amber may have been derived in ancient times from any of the above-mentioned districts, but the golden variety cast up by the waves of the sea, shining brightly in the light of the sun, would naturally be the first to attract the attention of man. The vast quantities cast up by the sea in Samland and Denmark must have rendered those two districts the two most important sources of supply known to the ancients. From these, as we shall see presently, when we deal with the trade- routes of the Mediterranean peoples, Greece and Rome obtained the greater part of their yellow amber. These districts must have benefited by the wares and the arts introduced by the traders from the beginning of this commerce.

Amber was employed for purposes of ornament in the Neolithic age in Scandinavia, France, and Britain. In the Bronze age, however, in Scandinavia and on the shores of the Baltic it was rarely used. In those countries, according to M. Stolpe, its use did not