Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

Otago Witness, Issue 1581, 11 March 1882, Page 29

Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

Stone, Prehistotio archaeology advances rapidly. It Is not so very long ago since Worsaae's epoch* making book first firmly esvjn linhed the primitive division of the early bun >m past into the three ages of stone, of broiz*, and of iron. Then cam 3 the discoveries of Boucher de Pertheß and others, systematised by Lyell, whioh resulted in the recognition of that still earlier stone period described by Sir John Lubbock as paleolithic. Since that date the archteologißts of France and England have advanced to a regular clasbitication in order of time of the vast heterogenous collection of human remains belonging to the elder stone age; but the result of their researches has hardly yet obtained sufficient general recognition outside the restricted Bcientitic circle. It is probable that most cultivated people still continue mentally to divide the prehistoric period into three ages of stone, bronze, and iron, to subdivide the first-named age into a paleolithic neolithic epoch. In reality, such a division, th^b practically convenient, is grotesquely dispJpbrtionate. The so-called Btone ago ie. maudjo extend over an enormous lapao of time, and to include portions of the geological tertiary period, tho wholo of the quaternary, ana part of the recent; while the small reiu-inder of the recent period is handed over to the bonze and iron'agas. This scheuie is almost as absurd m a division of English history into the Victorian, the Georgian, and the pre Georgian epochs, the last named being subdivided once more into the Anglo-Saxon and Elizabethan periods. French archaeologists have far more Correctly rectgnised six main o'iviaionß «f prehistoric time, the first tive being equivalent to what wo ordinarily describe as the paleolithic age, and the sixth comprising the neolithic, bronze, andiron age 3of the recent period qf the? geologists. It is only by such a stricter and more chronologically accurate subdivision tbat we can properly appreciate the great olownre3 of human evolution iv its earlier stages, and the vast lapse of time covered by the so-called paleolithic period.—Pall Mall Gazette.