The Bronze Age in Ireland

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 time when copper was in use (Copper Period), which he places at from the middle of the third to the beginning of the second millennium B.C. Now, though the division of the Irish Bronze Age into five periods may be accepted, we should hardly care to place the first period as early as Dr. Montelius suggests; and without going into the question of the time at which the period commenced, we might take the period of its ending at from about 2000-1800 B.C. In this period would be included the flat copper celts of early form, copied from the stone celts of the preceding Neolithic Period, some few small, flat knife-daggers of copper, an