owing to her great richness
in gold; Irish gold ornaments have been found both on the Continent
and in Scandinavia; while Scandinavian amber has been found in
Ireland. As will be seen on p. 81, the Bronze-Age people were
acquainted with the art of weaving; and fine ornaments of horse-hair
were sometimes used. The art of making pottery by hand was carried to
a high degree of excellence. Shaving must have been fairly common,
judging by the number of bronze razors found. We shall find evidence
further on in this work to show that corn was probably grown and
agriculture fairly advanced.

[5] "New Grange and other Incised Tumuli in Ireland," p. 62.

The great tumuli at New Grange and the lesser ones at Carrowkeel show
that the art of building was well developed, and that the religious
ideals of the people had attained a certain fixed form. What the
actual dwellings occupied by the people were we cannot say; but it is
probable that many of the promontory-forts and some at least of the
larger cashels and ring-forts date back to this period. There remain,
however, many questions which, as we have said, must be kept over for
future investigations.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE IRISH BRONZE AGE

Some discussion as to the absolute chronology of the Bronze Age in
Ireland will, no doubt, be expected, though any attempts to give
actual dates can only be approximate; the succession of types is
really of considerably more importance than the actual date, as such
a succession enables objects, finds, and interments to be arranged
in a progressive series, and shows the general trend of advance and
culture. The doyen of prehistoric archaeology, Dr. Oscar Montelius,
of Stockholm, has been the pioneer of the study of the prehistoric
chronology of Europe, his chronology of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia
having been published as far back as 1885. Since then he has published
the results of his studies of the Bronze-Age chronologies of Greece
and Italy, and of France, Belgium, South Germany, and Switzerland.
More recently (1908) he has put forward the chronology of the British
Islands in a notable memoir published in Archaeologia. It may be
mentioned that Dr. Montelius visited Ireland some years ago, and
speaks with the greater authority as having personally examined the
actual Irish evidence.

In this memoir Dr. Montelius divides the Bronze Age of Great Britain
and Ireland into five periods, and includes in his first period the
transitional t