een smelted together in an
experimental way by many prehistoric metallurgists, and bronze was the
alloy that rewarded the combination of tin with copper. There is
evidence of a more or less definite Bronze Age in Egypt and Babylonia,
Greece and Europe.

It is not clear why iron should not have been the earliest metal to be
used by man, but the Iron Age dates from about the middle of the second
millennium B.C. From Egypt the usage spread through the Mediterranean
region to North Europe, or it may have been that discoveries made in
Central Europe, so rich in iron-mines, saturated southwards, following
for instance, the route of the amber trade from the Baltic. Compared
with stone, the metals afforded much greater possibilities of
implements, instruments, and weapons, and their discovery and usage had
undoubtedly great influence on the Ascent of Man. Occasionally, however,
on his descent.

Retrospect

Looking backwards, we discern the following stages: (1) The setting
apart of a Primate stock, marked off from other mammals by a tendency to
big brains, a free hand, gregariousness, and good-humoured
talkativeness. (2) The divergence of marmosets and New World monkeys and
Old World monkeys, leaving a stock--an anthropoid stock--common to the
present-day and extinct apes and to mankind. (3) From this common stock
the Anthropoid apes diverged, far from ignoble creatures, and a humanoid
stock was set apart. (4) From the latter (we follow Sir Arthur Keith and
other authorities) there arose what may be called, without
disparagement, tentative or experimental men, indicated by
Pithecanthropus "the Erect," the Heidelberg man, the Neanderthalers,
and, best of all, the early men of the Sussex Weald--hinted at by the
Piltdown skull. It matters little whether particular items are
corroborated or disproved--e.g. whether the Heidelberg man came before
or after the Neanderthalers--the general trend of evolution remains
clear. (5) In any case, the result was the evolution of _Homo sapiens,
the man we are_--a quite different fellow from the Neanderthaler. (6)
Then arose various stocks of primitive men, proving everything and
holding fast to that which is good. There were the Palaeolithic peoples,
with rude stone implements, a strong vigorous race, but probably, in
most cases, supplanted by fresh experiments. These may have arisen as
shoots from the growing point of the old race, or as a fresh offshoot
from more generalised members at a