While the Iron Age religions of the Mediterranean, Near East, India and China are well attested, much of Iron Age Europe, from the period of about 700 BCE down to the Great Migrations falls within the prehistoric period. There are scarce accounts of non-Mediterranean religious customs in the records of Hellenistic and Roman era ethnography. A pyre is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite or execution. As a form of cremation, a body is placed upon or under the pyre, which is then set on fire. The Iron Age is the period in cultural development succeeding the Bronze Age characterized by the introduction of iron metallurgy. Although not as hard or durable as bronze, iron is a more abundant resource, and the Iron Age saw a rapid expansion of metalworking wherever the technology was introduced. "Primitive Man" by Louis Figuier, 1871.