DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0092
56
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.
stones, probably fitted with wooden or bone handles, and used as tools
of these materials.
These were succeeded by a people having a knowledge of the use of
copper and tin, with the possession of gold, and perhaps silver. Their
principal weapons and tools were formed of a compound of the two
tirst-named metals ; and their age has consequently been called the age
of Bronze.
Both these were superseded, perhaps in historic times, by a people
] 1aving a knowledge of the properties and use of Iron. Hence their
epoch came to be distinguished by the name of that metal.
There seems no doubt but that the people of the Stone age were
generally, if not exclusively, of that great family which we now know
as the Turanian.
The race who introduced bronze seem to have been the ancestors of
the Celtic races who afterwards peopled so large a portion of Europe.
The Aryans were those who introduced the use of iron, and with it
dominated over and expelled the older races.
If any prehistoric traces of the Semitic races are to be found, they
must be looked for in Western Asia or in Africa; they certainly had
no settlements in Europe.
Eurther researches may perhaps at some future tirne enable us to
fix approximative dates to these various migrations. At present we
know that men using flint implements lived in the valleys of the
Garonne and Dordogne when the climate of the south of France was
as cold as that of Lapland, or perhaps Greenland; when the reindeer
was their principal domestic animal, and the larger animals of the
country belonged to species many of which had ceased to inhabit
those regions before the dawn of history. On the other hand, we may
assert with certainty that the climate of Egypt has not varied since
the age of the Byramid builclers ; and there is nothing in the history
of either Greece or Italy that would lead us to believe that any
remarkable alteration in the climate of these countries has taken place
in historic times.
These questions, however, hardly come within the scope of the
present work. The men of the Stone age have left nothing which can
be styled architecture, unless we include in that term the rude tumuli
of earth with which they covered the remains of their clead. It is
also extremely uncertain if we can identify any building of stone as
belonging certainly to the age of Bronze. All the rude cromlechs,
dolmens, menhirs, &c., which usher in the early dawn of civilisation
in Europe, belong, it is true to the earlier races, but seem to have been
erected by them at a time when the Aryan races had taught them the
use of iron, and they had learnt to appreciate the value of stone as a
monumental record. This, however, was at a period long subsequent to
the use of iron in Egypt and the East, ancl long after architecture had
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Part II.
stones, probably fitted with wooden or bone handles, and used as tools
of these materials.
These were succeeded by a people having a knowledge of the use of
copper and tin, with the possession of gold, and perhaps silver. Their
principal weapons and tools were formed of a compound of the two
tirst-named metals ; and their age has consequently been called the age
of Bronze.
Both these were superseded, perhaps in historic times, by a people
] 1aving a knowledge of the properties and use of Iron. Hence their
epoch came to be distinguished by the name of that metal.
There seems no doubt but that the people of the Stone age were
generally, if not exclusively, of that great family which we now know
as the Turanian.
The race who introduced bronze seem to have been the ancestors of
the Celtic races who afterwards peopled so large a portion of Europe.
The Aryans were those who introduced the use of iron, and with it
dominated over and expelled the older races.
If any prehistoric traces of the Semitic races are to be found, they
must be looked for in Western Asia or in Africa; they certainly had
no settlements in Europe.
Eurther researches may perhaps at some future tirne enable us to
fix approximative dates to these various migrations. At present we
know that men using flint implements lived in the valleys of the
Garonne and Dordogne when the climate of the south of France was
as cold as that of Lapland, or perhaps Greenland; when the reindeer
was their principal domestic animal, and the larger animals of the
country belonged to species many of which had ceased to inhabit
those regions before the dawn of history. On the other hand, we may
assert with certainty that the climate of Egypt has not varied since
the age of the Byramid builclers ; and there is nothing in the history
of either Greece or Italy that would lead us to believe that any
remarkable alteration in the climate of these countries has taken place
in historic times.
These questions, however, hardly come within the scope of the
present work. The men of the Stone age have left nothing which can
be styled architecture, unless we include in that term the rude tumuli
of earth with which they covered the remains of their clead. It is
also extremely uncertain if we can identify any building of stone as
belonging certainly to the age of Bronze. All the rude cromlechs,
dolmens, menhirs, &c., which usher in the early dawn of civilisation
in Europe, belong, it is true to the earlier races, but seem to have been
erected by them at a time when the Aryan races had taught them the
use of iron, and they had learnt to appreciate the value of stone as a
monumental record. This, however, was at a period long subsequent to
the use of iron in Egypt and the East, ancl long after architecture had