EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

HISTORI

t regions of the globe. At the beginning of historic times, however, civilization was confined within a narrow area-the river valleys of western Asia and Egypt. The uncounted centuries before the dawn of history make up the prehistoric period, when savagery and barbarism prevail

the left side, with knees drawn up and hands raised to the head.

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rials used for tools and weapons, into the Age of Stone and the Age of Metals. The

STON

he first stone implements were so rude in shape that it is difficult to believe them of human workmanship. They may have been made several hundred thousand years ago. After countless centuries of slow advance, savages learned to fasten wooden handles to their stone tools and weapons and also to us

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ably used without a helv

s have been found all o

tra

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om Europe, Africa,

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not much before the dawn of history. The earliest civilized peoples, the Babylonians and Egyptians, when w

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rly date they were working the copper mines on the peninsula of Sinai. The Babylonians probably obtained their copper from the same r

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roduced a new metal-bronze-harder than the old, yet capable of being molded into a variety of forms. At least as early as 3000 B.C. we find bronze taking the place of copper i

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meteorites. In the Greek Homeric poems, composed about 900 B.C. or later, we find iron considered so valuable that a lump of it is one of the chief prizes at athletic games. In the first five books of the Bible iron is mentioned only thirteen times, though copp

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difficulty, he began to take the first steps toward civilization. The tools and weapons which he left behind him afford some evide