The indigenous evolution vs. imported revolution: Debating the origins of the European bronze age

“ I am at present concerned with the Stone Age, and if, as all agree, there was a time when the use of iron or of bronze, or of both together, first became known to the barbarous nations of the West of Europe, then it is evident that before that time they were unacquainted with the use of those metals, and were therefore in that stage of civilization which has been characterized as the Stone Age. ”

“ A new civilization is indicated not only by the mere presence of bronze bronze hair-pins. but by the beauty and variety of the articles made from it. We find not only, as before, during the Stone Age, axes, arrows, and knives, but, in addition, swords, lances, sickles, fish-hooks, ear-rings, bracelets, pins, rings, and a variety of other articles. ”

“ But the invention of bronze, or, in other words, the introduction of hard metal, was really perhaps the very greatest epoch of all, the most distinct turning-point in the whole history of humanity. True, some beginnings of civilisation were already found in the Newer Stone Age. Man did not then live by slaughter alone. Hand-made pottery and rude tissues of flax are found in neolithic lake dwellings in Switzerland. Agriculture was already practised in a feeble way on small open clearings, cautiously cleaved with fire or hewn with the tomahawk in the native forests. ”

“ And there really is no ground in the nature of things for supposing that such men of practical genius may not have turned up, independently in more races than one.
The capacity of the population of Europe for independent progress while in the copper and early bronze stage—the "palæometallic" stage, as it might be called—appears to me to be demonstrated in a remarkable manner by the remains of their architecture. From the crannog to the elaborate pile-dwelling, and from the rudest inclosure to the complex fortification of the terramare, there is an advance which is obviously a native product. ”

“ Bronze is an artificial product, the formation of which implies a knowledge of copper; and it is certain that copper was, at a very early period, smelted out of the native ores, by the people of central Europe who used it. When they learned that the hardness and toughness of their metal were immensely improved by alloying it with a small quantity of tin, they forsook copper for bronze and gradually attained a-wonderful skill in bronze-work. ”

“ We will find the knowledge of bronze wherever the colonies of Atlantis extended, and nowhere else; and Plato tells us that the people of Atlantis possessed and used that metal.
The indications are that the Bronze Age represents the coming in of a new people—a civilized people. With that era, it is believed, appears in Europe for the first time the domesticated animals—the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and the hog. ”

“ The appearance of a definite compound such as bronze implies that it has been introduced into Europe from some other area, in which we may suppose that the ingenuity of man was at work for a long period in finding out, by continual experiments, the properties both of copper and of tin, ultimately combining them together in the proportions which are so generally observed in the implements and weapons of the Bronze age. ”

“ The Paleolithic Age was apparently terminated in Europe by the cold of the last glacial epoch. No such natural course put an end to the Neolithic Age, but as the strong have an advantage over the weak, the young over the old, so does a race young, undeveloped, or in the early maturity of its powers, have an advantage over the older and more fixed civilization with which it comes in contact. To understand the causes which introduced into Europe the Bronze Age, we must refer to the Aryan race and to Asia. ”

“ Whether we regard the bronze implements of Britain and the North of Europe as concomitant with the intrusion of new races, or only as proofs of the discovery or introduction of a new art pregnant with many civilising and elevating tendencies, they constitute an important element in primitive ethnology. ”

“ Copper came into use in Ireland, we may suppose, in no sudden or violent manner. On the contrary, the transition from stone was probably of some duration. The use of copper made its way up through Europe, spreading from the lands of the eastern Mediterranean along the old trade routes of Neolithic times, influenced by the search for new deposits of ore. Though at first implements of copper, and even, perhaps, the metal, might be carried a considerable distance, an early use of the local ores seems to explain the case better. ”

“ Irish copper celts agree among themselves, and substantially with those from other countries, the small quantities of tin, antimony, arsenic, &c., which are found being due to impurities in the ore. The celts may be taken to be of copper, and not of poor bronze. [9] The earliest copper celts resemble the stone celts from which they are derived; some of them are small. A development takes place throughout the series, the celts becoming larger and the edges thinner as they approach the bronze forms. No trace of a stop-ridge is ever found on copper celts. ”

“ Moulds for casting celts in this way have been found in Ireland. It is also extremely interesting to notice that some stone celts betray the influence of metal types by their form. It may be well here to meet an objection that has been raised against a special use of copper in Ireland. It has been urged that the large number of flat copper celts may have been due to a scarcity of tin, and that as copper cannot be cast in closed moulds, casters who could cast advanced forms of bronze celts were obliged to return to the primitive form necessary for casting in an open mould. ”

“ Until, however, we get into the Bronze Age, there has been no trace of a stop-ridge. When we get into the true Bronze Age, we find a complete and probably fairly rapid evolution of type from the flat celt to the final socketed form. Analyses of Irish celts on a large scale have not been made ”

“ So far as I am aware, every raw material employed in Europe up to the palæo-metallic stage is to be found within the limits of Europe; and there is no proof that the old races of domesticated animals and plants could not have been developed within these limits. If any one chose to maintain that the use of bronze in Europe originated among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated thence along the already established lines of traffic to all parts of Europe, I do not see that his contention could be upset. ”

“ Let us now see what change in the home life, in the culture of the people, would be brought about by the use of bronze. We must reflect that we are not to deal with some new race, but with the same race that inhabited Europe at the close of Neolithic times. The people who had triumphed over nature with their implements of stone were now put in possession of weapons and implements of greatly increased efficiency. ”

“ The nickel in the bronzes from western Switzerland is considered by Von Fellenberg [29] to have been derived from the nickeliferous copper ores of the Valais, which were mixed with tin imported from abroad. There is, as we have seen, no evidence that bronze was originally invented in Europe, and the only clue to its origin is offered by the forms of the simple implements and weapons which were the first to arrive in Europe in the early Bronze age. ”

“ But a knowledge of metals is altogether different. It is wonder enough that one community should have hit on the invention of bronze. The chance would be against its independent discovery in widely separated areas. They would be more apt to chance on the production of some other metal. Thus; tribes in the interior of Africa are said to have passed direct from the Stone to the Iron Age, a knowledge of bronze not having been carried to them. ”

“ The alloy of copper and tin, when destined for practical use in manufacture, is found to possess the most serviceable qualities when composed of about ninety per cent. of copper to ten of tin; and so near is the approximation to this theoretical standard among the bronze relics of the ancient world, that the archæologists of Europe have been divided in opinion as to whether they should assume a Phœnician or other common origin for the weapons, implements, and personal ornaments of that metal found over the whole continent ”

“ The uniformity of the composition of the cutting implements of the Bronze age implies that the art of compounding tin with copper was discovered in one place, from which the knowledge of it spread over nearly the whole of Europe and Asia, and the greater part of the Americas. ”

“ For a Bronze Age almost necessarily implies a brief preceding age of copper; and there is no proof of pure copper implements ever having been largely used in Europe, while there is ample proof of their having been used to a very considerable extent in Asia. Hence we may reasonably infer that the art of bronze-making was developed in Asia by a copper-using people, and that when metallurgy was first introduced into Europe the method of mixing the copper with tin had already been perfected. The abundance of tin in the south-eastern islands of Asia renders this view probable ”

“ No Copper Age in Europe.
Cutting implements of bronze gradually supplanted those of stone, not only in the area north of the Alps and Pyrenees, but also, as is proved by many discoveries, in Greece and Italy, without any sign of an intervening period when copper alone was used. Copper celts have been met with in Ireland, Hungary, and France, but most of them belong to well-known and highly-advanced types in bronze, and more particularly so in Hungary. ”

“ Is it in the barbaric depths of that Asia out of whose uncivilized tribes all civilization is said to have issued? By no means. Again we are compelled to turn to the West. In America, from Bolivia to Lake Superior, we find everywhere the traces of a long-enduring Copper Age; bronze existed, it is true, in Mexico, but it held the same relation to the copper as the copper held to the bronze in Europe—it was the exception as against the rule. And among the Chippeways of the shores of Lake Superior, and among them alone, we find any traditions of the origin of the manufacture of copper implements ”

“ The fact that there was in Europe, Asia, or Africa no copper or tin age prior to the Bronze Age, is conclusive testimony that the manufacture of bronze was an importation into those continents from some foreign country.
4. The fact that in America alone of all the world is found the Copper Age, which must necessarily have preceded the Bronze Age, teaches us to look to the westward of Europe and beyond the sea for that foreign country.
5. We find many similarities in forms of implements between the Bronze Age of Europe and the Copper Age of America. ”

“ Thousands of years ago Europe emerged from the {2} glacial ice. Off its western coast lay islands. The largest was close to the continent, and whatever peoples made their way into Europe had no great difficulty in crossing the narrow water. Migration must have followed migration, as continental tribes, more progressive than the islanders, came with superior weapons and skill to conquer and colonize. Bronze drove out flint and iron overcame bronze. Settlements of invaders assimilated with the subject natives and themselves became natives to the next foreign exploiter. ”

“ We have seen that in general terms the Bronze Age coincided with the arrival and spread of the Celts, though the earlier Celts were still Neolithic. The use of iron could scarcely have been inaugurated before the innumerable hordes of the Germanic tribes, probably driven from their Asiatic homes by the presence of invading people, were on the march. The world has, perhaps, never witnessed such a movement of people as convulsed Europe for several hundred years, beginning the second century before Christ and continuing until the fall of the Western Empire of Rome. ”

“ In fact, the Bronze Age clearly marks for us the period when trade routes extended in every direction from the Mediterranean, north and south, and when the world began to be commercially solidified by a primitive theory of foreign exchange. ”

“ Ægean and Scandinavian influences can be detected in the great tumuli of the New Grange group [5] ; and Iberian influence is discernible in some of the later types of bronze implements. Ireland, as will be shown in the chapters dealing directly with the gold objects, was, during the Bronze Age, a kind of western El Dorado, owing to her great richness in gold; Irish gold ornaments have been found both on the Continent and in Scandinavia; while Scandinavian amber has been found in Ireland. As will be seen on p. 81, the Bronze-Age people were acquainted with the art of weaving ”

“ We have seen in the last four chapters that there is reason for believing that one part of Europe was in the Bronze age while another was in the Neolithic age, and that iron gradually penetrated northwards, until it arrived in Denmark at the beginning of the Christian era; and it has been impossible for us to shut our eyes to the traces of civilisation coming in from the Mediterranean area. Egypt, Assyria, [1] Etruria, Greece, and Phœnicia were the seats of a high civilisation for many centuries before Christ, and when the written record began were not in the Bronze but in the Iron age. ”

“ It is very probable that a large portion of northern Europe was in the Neolithic age while the scribes were compiling their records in the great cities on the banks of the Nile, and that the Neolithic civilisation lingered in remote regions while the voice of Perikles was heard in Athens, or the name of Hannibal was a terror in Italy.
↑ In the early Chaldaean Empire (Sayce, Contemporary Review, Dec. 1878, p. 71) bronze was more commonly used than iron. ”

“ From the absence of all the very early stone implements, and from the sudden appearance of others of a far more finished type, the possibility of a gradual evolution of culture about Scandinavia in situ is denied on all hands. The art of working stone has surely been introduced from some more favored region. The only place to look for the source of this culture is to the south.
Tardy in its human occupation and its stone culture, Scandinavia was still more backward, as compared with the rest of Europe, in its transition to the age of bronze. ”

“ PREHISTORIC TIMES IN SCANDINAVIA The Swedes and Norwegians, together with their kinsmen, the Danes, probably settled in Scandinavia long before the beginning of the Christian era. During the earlier part of the prehistoric period the inhabitants were still in the Stone Age, but the use of bronze, and then of iron, was gradually introduced. Excavations in ancient grave mounds have revealed implements of the finest polished stone, beautiful bronze swords, and coats of iron ring mail, besides gold and silver ornaments which may have been imported from southern Europe. ”

“ The Earliest Bronze Implements in Europe.
The bronze articles which are most widely distributed are the simple wedge-shaped axe, and the simple dagger. These are found in Egypt, in the ruins of Hissarlik, in the island of Termia, in Cyprus, and over the whole of Europe as far north as Sweden. The wedge-axe is found in India (Gungeria) , in Mexico, and Peru. These two forms appear together in the early Bronze age of Scandinavia, Britain, and France, and they are therefore probably the first metal implements which found their way into the hands of the Neolithic inhabitants of Europe. ”

“ When the natives had once learned the art of reducing it from its ores, they would no longer be dependent upon distant sources of supply for the materials for making implements and weapons, as they were in the Bronze age. ”