This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
v

England, and Mr. Parker had undertaken the publication. But since its publication I have had an opportunity of picking up a good deal of new information by examining the national antiquities of several foreign countries, and last year I published some of the results at which I had recently arrived in another book[1]. Both Mr. Thoms and Mr. Parker agreed with me, that it would be desirable that the English edition should be corrected and enlarged with some of my new observations. I have therefore made a good many alterations, and additions, particularly in the general historical review. I have brought in more information about the connection between the antiquities of our country with those of Germany, Switzerland, France, &c., which, as I hope, will be found to possess some interest. It is only through a comparison of the national antiquities of the different European countries that we shall be enabled to trace the large historical results.

British Archæology has suffered very much from the want of a fixed nomenclature. This has caused a great deal of confusion. The same names and terms have been used for the most different remains. Mr. Thoms and myself have been anxious to give more fixed names. For instance, in the following work the term cromlech has only been applied to the monuments of the stone-period; and the name celt has not, as before, been given alike to stone hatchets, stone hammers, and to two different sorts of bronze hatchets, but only to one sort of bronze hatchet which is commonly called so on the continent, &c. I think that antiquaries can scarcely pay too much attention to the introduction of a fixed terminology.

  1. Blekingske Mindesmærker fra Hedenold. Kjöbenham, 1846. 4to. It has lately appeared in a German translation in "Zur Alterthumskunde des Nordens von J. J. A. Worsaae. Leipzig 1847." 4to.