Man in the New Stone Age
Outstanding features of the New Stone Age are the Swiss and other lake-dwellings, the Danish peat-beds with their varied contents, the shell-mounds occurring on the seaboard in many parts of the world.
In the more civilized regions, such as Egypt, Babylonia, parts of Asia Minor, and the Ægean lands, the Stone Ages were at an early date followed by a period vaguely designated as “prehistoric,” during which stone as the material of human implements was gradually replaced by the metals, first copper, then various copper alloys (arsenic, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, zinc, and especially tin) generally called bronze, lastly iron.
1 to 29.—Implements of the Stone Age. 30 to 48.—Implements of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. 49 to 60.— Implements of the Late Iron Age.
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Thus were constituted the so-called Metal Ages, during which, however, overlappings were everywhere so frequent that in many localities it is quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing lines between the successive metal periods. Indeed a direct transition from Stone to Iron may be suspected in some places, and in any case the pure copper period appears to have nowhere been of long duration except in America, where there was no iron and little bronze.