On the three periods known as the Iron, the Bronze, and the Stone Ages / by Professor Rolleston.

  • Rolleston, George, 1829-1881.
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the three periods known as the Iron, the Bronze, and the Stone Ages / by Professor Rolleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    enough, and side by side, at no greater distance than Conawall, those particular deposits had not then been utilized for the inami- facture in question. Let ns now pass to the Stone Age. I have not the knowledge requisite for sub-dividing the Bronze Age into distinct periods ; and looking at the question in the light which played over the Somer- setshire hills, when I was employed, as just now stated, upon them, I doubt whether any sub-division of it, as it was in England, can be justified. A Cop}>er Age, no doubt, must have existed, and did exist, in America, antecedently to the Age of co])per, alloyed with tin ; but there is no evidence that it ever existed in England, at least. More may be said, on the authoi'ity of Polybius and on other evidence, for the sub-division of the Iron Age into two periods, one of which, the earlier of course, had not learnt the art of tempering iron, whilst to it a second, “ the age of steel succeeded then.” But as regards the Stone Age we have no need to have recom-se to mere probable ai-guments and a ])riori evidence. There is no doubt what- CA’er that the Stone Age is divisible into two great periods upon several principles, which, however, make their several sections in the same plane. We can look at a stone weapon and ask ourselves one or other of these three que.stions ; firstly, w^s it intended to be used in the hand, or used as hafted 1 Secondly, has it been polished and gi’ound up, or has it been left .simply chipped over with conchoi- dal. fractures 1 Thirdly, was it found in company with pottery, liowever rude, or was it found in some river-gi-avelbed, in company with no other evidence of human handiwork, but with the bones of mammoth and iliinoceros 1 If a stone weapon is so fashioned that we can see that it was intended to be stuck into a handle or haft, and if it is polished, we may be sure tliat it belonged to a later than the mammoth period in this countiy, and that it may l»e spoken of as Neolithic in contra-distinction to the Palfeolithic weajions. It is true that in the great factory for flint wea2>ons, which has been described by Major-General Lane Fox (Journal Anth. Inst.,v 3, 187G), at Cis.sbury, an im})lement, or implements, which could only be used as held in the naked hand, came out during the period of the excavations carried on tliere, and amongst