bronze has been discovered.[601] The late epoch of the introduction of flax into this region excludes the hypothesis that the inhabitants of Switzerland received it from Eastern Europe, from which, moreover, they were separated by immense forests. Since the ingenious observations of the Zürich _savant_, a flax has been discovered which was employed by the prehistoric inhabitants of the peat-mosses of Lagozza, in Lombardy; and Sordelli has shown that it was the same as that of Robenhausen, _L. angustifolium_.[602] This ancient people was ignorant of the use of hemp and of metals, but they possessed the same cereals as the Swiss lake-dwellers of the stone age, and ate like them the acorns of _Quercus robur_, var. _sessiliflora_. There was, therefore, a civilization which had reached a certain development on both sides of the Alps, before metals, even bronze, were in common use, and before hemp and the domestic fowl were known.[603] It was probably before the arrival of the Aryans in Europe, or soon after that event.[604] The common names of the flax in ancient European languages may throw some light on this question. The name _lin_, _llin_, _linu_, _linon_, _linum_, _lein_, _lan_, exists in all the European languages of Aryan origin of the centre and south of Europe, Keltic, Slavonic, Greek, or Latin. This name is, however, not common to the Aryan languages of India; consequently, as Pictet[605] justly says, the cultivation must have been begun by the western Aryans, and before their arrival in Europe. Another idea occurred to me which led me into further researches, but they were unproductive. I thought that, since this flax was cultivated by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy before the arrival of the Aryan peoples, it was probably also grown by the Iberians, who then occupied Spain and Gaul; and perhaps some special name for it has remained among the Basques, the supposed descendants of the Iberians. Now, according to several dictionaries of their language,[606] _liho_, _lino_, or _li_, according to the dialects, signifies flax, which agrees with the name diffused throughout Southern Europe. The Basques seem, therefore, to have received flax from peoples of Aryan origin, or perhaps they have lost the ancient name and substituted that of the Kelts and Romans. The name _flachs_ or _flax_ of the Teutonic languages comes from the Old German _flahs_. There are also special names in the north-west of Europe—_pellawa_, _aiwina_, in Finnish;[607] _hor_, _härr_, _hor_, in Danish;[608] _hor_ and _tone_ in ancient Gothic.[609] _Haar_ exists in the German of Salzburg.[610] This word may be in the ordinary sense of the German for thread or hair, as the name _li_ may be connected with the same root as _ligare_, to bind, and as _hör_, in the plural _hörvar_, is connected by philologists[611] with _harva_, the German root for _Flachs_; but it is, nevertheless, a fact that in Scandinavian countries and in Finland terms have been used