. The eastern nations and Greece. were probably erectedto preserve the memory of great events lands the historic development grew directly out of this Stone Ageculture. It thus formed the basis of the civilizations of all the greatpeoples of the ancient world. 6. The Age of Metals. Finally the long ages of stone passed intothe Age of Metals. This age falls into three subdivisions — the Ageof Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron. Some peoples,like the African negroes, passed directly from the use of stone to theuse of iron ; but in most of the countries of the Orient and of Europethe
. The eastern nations and Greece. were probably erectedto preserve the memory of great events lands the historic development grew directly out of this Stone Ageculture. It thus formed the basis of the civilizations of all the greatpeoples of the ancient world. 6. The Age of Metals. Finally the long ages of stone passed intothe Age of Metals. This age falls into three subdivisions — the Ageof Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron. Some peoples,like the African negroes, passed directly from the use of stone to theuse of iron ; but in most of the countries of the Orient and of Europethe three metals came into use one after the other and in the ordernamed. Speaking broadly, we may say that the Age of Metals began 8 PREHISTORIC TIMES L§6 for the more advanced peoples of the ancient world between 3000and 4000 ^ The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civili-zation. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate theirimportance to man. Man could do very little with stone implements. Fig. 8. A of Swiss Lake Dwellings of the Later StoneAge. (From Keller, Lake Dwellings) This mode of building on piles in the shallow water of lakes, begun (as a means of protection against enemies) by the men of Neolithic times, was continued far into the Bronze Age, as proved by the bronze objects found in the mud on the sites of ancient pile-villages in Switzerland and elsewhere compared with what he could do with metal implements. It was a greatlabor for primitive man, even with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with astone ax and to hollow out the trunk for a boat. He was hampered 1 The limited use of copper seems to have begun among the peoples of the Orientsome centuries before this date — in Egypt about 3500 But copper is a soft metal,and tools and weapons made of it were not so greatly superior to the stone ones then inuse as to put them out of service. But either by accident or through experiment it wasdiscovered that by mi
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