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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    perhaps, as the improbability of their similarly stumbling into the discovery of bronze. Coming in the second place to the Bronze Age, and facing the discussions hereinafter to be bibliographized, I have to say that as against all ipiotations from old and modern authoi’s and as against all records by whomsoever recorded of the discovery of iron weapons in Bronze Age Tumuli, I am as confident as I can be of anything in Anthropology that no iron will be, though bronze not rarely is, found in Tumuli of the Bronze Period and Round Shape in this country at least. I have been present and assisted in more ways than one at the examination of many “ Round,” “ Bell,” “ Bowl,” “ Cone ” shaped Barrows, and in the inimary interment in such Barrows I have never seen any other metal than bronze. It is common enough to find a Saxon burial with iron and bronze both in the superficial layers of such barrows, but the superficial position of such burials shows their posteriority in point of date. The cen- tral interment at the bottom of the barrow on or sunk into the natural soil, may or may not contain a bronze dagger, may or may not contain weapons of flint, survivals from, and religious or cere- monial reminiscences of, the Stone Age, may or may not contain vessels of i>ottery, may contain a skeleton in the contracted position* or burnt bones either in an urn, or in a case of bark, or simply naked in the earth (I have seen all these cases), but it has never contained any shred of iron within my experience, nor, as I believe, within that of any person who can be trusted to distinguish between a primaiy and a secondary interment. It will be said by some in answer to this that iron is oxidizable and perishable in an eminent degree, and that it would disapj^ear whilst the bronze would remain. This suggestion I will not characterize as one of the study as opposed to one of the Barrow, but as one of the laboratory, and the laboratory with its strong reagents supports it in a way that the slow and weak or wholly inert chemistry of the deep sand, or rubble, or gravel-filled grave does uot. Of course, if you conceive a stream of water, acidulated even slightly with nitric acid, to pass constantly over an iron c