Page:Prehistoric Times.djvu/29

Rh Conversely, as bronze weapons are entirely absent from the great "finds" of the Iron Age, so are iron weapons altogether wanting in those instances where, as for instance at Nidau, on the Lake of Bienne, and Estavayer, on that of Neufchâtel, large quantities of bronze tools and weapons have been found together.

To sum up this argument, though the discoveries of bronze and of iron weapons have been very numerous, yet there is hardly a single case in which swords, axes, daggers, or other weapons of these two different metals have been found together; nor are bronze weapons found associated with inscriptions, or with coins, pottery, or other relics of Roman origin.

So, also, though no doubt stone weapons were used during the Bronze Age, there are many cases in which large numbers of stone implements and weapons have been found without any of metal.

In illustration of this argument, I must call attention to the following table. Objects found singly teach us comparatively little, but when numbers occur together they become much more instructive. The first ten localities are some of the Swiss lake-villages, which will be described in Chapter VI.; to which I have added the Nydam find just alluded to, and two of the great French bronze finds.

Now from the ancient lake-village in the peat moss of Moosseedorf we have a list comprising 75 flint nuclei, 25 arrow-heads, 12 spear-heads, 90 scrapers, 30 saws, 96 axes, 310 long flakes and about 2000 small ones, 25 hammers, 45 grindstones, etc., 71 awls of bone, 12 pointed ribs, 160 bone chisels, 18 sharpened boar's teeth, 8 perforated boar's teeth, 2 perforated bear's teeth, 5 harpoons of horn, 8 chisels and 4 awls of horn, besides 30 axe-handles or sockets, without a trace of metal. The result, so far as six stations are concerned, is shown in the following table (p. 16).

If, for instance, we commence with the remains discovered at Wangen, on the Lake of Constance, we have an even more remarkable case. M. Löhle has found