Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/26

16 The native origin of those of Switzerland is settled by the analyses of Prof, von Fallenberg; for, whereas the metal of Phœnicia, Egypt, and the East generally, contains lead in considerable quantities, that of Switzerland is of tin and copper only. So much artistic taste and mechanical skill are shown in these various articles—needles, rings, armlets, etc.—that many of them might be used by modern ladies without discredit to their work-boxes or toilets. But, in singular contrast to the Stone age, there is no relic of any portrayal of man or beast or plant. We meet, for the first time, with pottery turned on the lathe and well burned. Instead of dolmens we now have mounds, in which the dead are laid at full length, with weapon* and ornaments by their side. Some localities offer indications that the burning of the dead was practised. Here belong the so-called Celtic mounds, and the Terremare or Emilian mounds near Parma abound in relics of this age. Rütimeyer and others show that, although the characteristic animals of this and the preceding age are identical as to their species, in this age the domesticated animals predominate, another evidence of advancing culture.

We may ascribe the introduction of bronze manufacture into Europe to a great race immigrant from Asia some 6,000 years ago, called Aryas or Aryans. And this Bronze age reaches to and overlaps the beginning of the historic period in some countries, and so includes the great epochs of the Assyrian and Egyptian Empires ( circa 1500), and the earlier eras of the next succeeding Age of Iron. —The nearer we approach the present, with its rapid growths and changes, the shorter become the several ages into which we divide the history of man as to his physical surroundings and peculiarities, and the successive grades of spiritual and social development through which he has passed.

Last of the prehistoric eras is the Age of Iron, represented in some of the pile-dwellings and their contents, but best, and with least admixture from earlier and later times, in the station of La Têne on Lake Neuchâtel. This age considerably overlaps the historic period of several countries. We can but mention some peculiarities of its earlier portions.

In the determination of its initial and terminal points we must remember that the civilization of the East preceded that of the West by several centuries. There are many proofs that a considerable degree of culture existed at its very beginning. Mounds were still used for burial. Bronze, also, was yet in use, but iron as well. Pottery was now not only shaped on the lathe, but burned a good red. Manufactures in glass, gold, and silver, are found for the first time. In lonely mountain-places are yet found dross and the remains of iron-furnaces of the time. To be sure, this dross is sometimes ascribed to volcanic action, but it is met with where volcanoes never could have existed.