Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/138

The Stone Age in Greece. 117 of metals, through their large dealings with Africa and Asia, at so distant a period that no remembrance was preserved of a time when they were deprived of this resource.^ The march of progress becomes more and more rapid as it advances. Hence we may take it for granted that fewer centuries were required to bring to perfection the art of dressing stone than had been the case in the preceding age. Whilst admitting all this, it cannot be denied that the sustained effort of many generations, implying a lengthy period, was necessary to obtain the complete command of the materials employed, when extreme dexterity of hand would make up for all deficiencies, whether of materials or tools. We have not, and probably never shall have, any data to help us to estimate, even roughly, the distance which parts us from the beginning of an industry allied to the beginnings of agriculture and the domestication of species which man bound to his career. In a general way we know the probable data of the introduction of metal, by different routes, among the nations of Central and Northern Europe. It was brought to the valleys of the Danube and Rhine, the Garonne and Seine, long before it reached the shores of the Baltic. Towards the opening years of our era, the revolution if not complete had been prepared, and copper, bronze, and iron replaced or were beginning to replace stone and bone. The substitution was effected more or less rapidly, according to localities ; but henceforth even in those European districts most obstinately wedded to ancient habits, unmistakable signs announced the closing of the neolithic period, the end of a special culture, which notwithstanding its limited means knew how to cope with exigencies ever on the increase, and provided, not too clumsily, for the first wants of a settled and polite existence. In the New and Old World alike, this industry, whose most insignificant result implies very considerable and prolonged ^ The oldest Grecian poetry and myths alike ahvays imply knowledge and use of metal. Lucretius' brilliant hypotheses, though they can hardly be taken as serious interpreters of tradition, are confirmed by the discoveries of modem science, and show that their author, through sheer poetical insight, had a clear and just notion of a humanity long deprived of metal — Arma antiqua manus, ungues dentesque fuerunt, Et lapides, et item sylvanim fragmina rami, Et fiamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum. Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta.