Page:Prehistoric Times.djvu/89

Rh evidently the sites of dwellings or villages, there are many instances in which considerable numbers have been met with under circumstances which show that they were purposely deposited, either hidden away for future use, or perhaps, as Worsaae has maintained, as offerings to the gods. Thus at Frederickville in Illinois, 3500 disks of flint were found at a depth of about five feet ranged carefully side by side; in Ross County, Ohio, 4000 disks and pointed instruments of stone were found near some ancient mounds known as Clark's Work.

Yet the very existence of a Stone Age has till lately been denied by some eminent archæologists. Thus, Mr Wright, the learned Secretary of the Ethnological Society, while admitting that "there may have been a period when society was in so barbarous a state that sticks or stones were the only implements with which men knew how to furnish themselves," doubted "if the antiquary has yet found any evidence of such a period."

If we consider the difficulties of mining in early days, the rude implements with which men had then to work, their ignorance of the many ingenious methods by which the operations of modern miners are so much facilitated, and, finally, the difficulties of carriage either by land or water, it is obvious that bronze implements must always have been very expensive.

In addition, moreover, to the a priori probability, there is plenty of direct evidence that bronze and stone were in use at the same time. Thus Mr Bateman records thirty-seven instances of tumuli which contained objects of bronze, and in no less than twenty-nine of these stone implements also were found. At the time of the discovery of America, the Mexicans, though well acquainted with the use of bronze, still used flakes of obsidian for knives and razors, and even after the introduction of iron, stone was still used for various purposes.

There can no longer, however, be any doubt not only that there was a period "when society was in so barbarous a state that sticks or stones" (to which we must add horns