>I don't know
Me neither. I was just off on a tangent inspired by a pal of mine who's a shipwright. When the mood takes him, he has been known to pontificate at length on the origins of shipbuilding (He'd robably love that book). Combined with the temporal dislocation of the introduction of metals to different parts of the continent, it just seems very likely that sea going folk could have been responsible for spreading the new technology. They would have likely been traders, and a metal object would have had an element of that 'prestige goods' thing. Anyway, I digress.
Scandanavian boat carvings.
I'm still catching up and digesting this thread, but in the meantime, is this:
http://uk.geocities.com/hobsonish/copenhagen_w1.jpg
is a representation of a boat?
I seem to recall it was billed as such by the panel on the museum wall, but it's a bit of a strange looking boat. Unless perhaps, you interpreted it as the internal frame of a hide/wood/bone construction. Mebbe.
