Note 492 — Chapter IV

Professor Boyd Dawkins (Early Man in Britain, pp. 408-9) has compiled tables which show that the percentage of tin in British bronze implements varies between 5.09 and 18.31, and in French between 1.50 and 21.5. He concludes (ib., p. 410) that ‘the uniformity of the composition of the cutting implements of the Bronze Age implies that the art of compounding tin with copper was discovered in one place, from which the knowledge of it spread over ... Europe and Asia, and the greater part of the Americas. Had it spread from separate centres, this uniformity would have been impossible.’ The uniformity which subsists between 5.09 and 18.31, and between 1.50 and 21.5 is remarkable.