and its consequent civilization, were first regularly established. Among these races there were in the west the above-named Celts. The inhabitants of Denmark, and the west of Europe, in the stone-period, are therefore to be designated as forming the transition between the most ancient nomadic races, and the more recent agricultural and civilized nameless tribe.
It has been said, that it would be rendering little service to historical knowledge, to introduce such a nameless, and hitherto unknown, people into the history of Europe. A mere name is certainly of scarcely any importance. The principal thing is, that we have, by means of this people, discovered the way in which Europe was inhabited in the earliest time, a point upon which historical records do not furnish us with any account. We have seen quite a new step of civilization, and that is the first and important discovery made through the study of the primeval antiquities of Europe. It seems highly probable that this aboriginal people have not disappeared at once, but that they have been subdued by a new invading race, and by them, after the manner of other conquerors, reduced to slavery. The slaves in the North in pagan times, are described in the oldest traditions, as being entirely different in appearance from the other classes.
It mil at once be seen that the stone-period must be of extraordinary antiquity. If the Celts possessed settled abodes in the west of Europe, more than two thousand years ago, how much more ancient must be the population which preceded the arrival of the Celts. A great number of years must pass away before a people, like the Celts, could spread themselves over the west of Europe, and render the land productive; it is therefore no exaggeration if we attribute to the stone-period an antiquity of, at least, three thousand years. There are also geological reasons for believing that the bronze-period must have prevailed in Denmark, five or six hundred years before the birth of Christ.
