CHAPTER III

. THE NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGES

119: 1. See the Osborn tables. As evidence of far earlier dates of the Neolithic in the east we may quote Sir A. J. Evans, 2, p. 721. He calculates that the earliest settlement at Knossos in Crete, which was _Neolithic_, is about 12,000 years old, for he assumes that in the western court of the palace the average rate of deposit was fairly continuous. Professor Montelius, in _L’Anthropologie_, t. XVII, p. 137, argues from the stratigraphy of finds at Susa that the beginning of the Neolithic Age in the east may be dated about 18,000 B. C.

119: 6. See the note to p. 147.

119: 15. Balkh. Balkh, in Afghanistan, was the capital of Bactria, the ancient name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Oxus, and is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated on the right bank of the Balkh River. The antiquity and greatness of the place are recognized by the native populations who speak of it as the “Mother of Cities,” and it is certain that at a very early date it was the rival of Ecbatana, Nineveh, and Babylon.

Bactria was subjugated by Cyrus and from then on formed one of the satrapies of the Persian Empire. Zaborowski, 1, p. 43, says: “After the conquests of Alexander there was founded a Greco-Bactrian kingdom ... which embraced Sogdiana, Bactria and Afghanistan. The Greco-Bactrian kings struck a quantity of coins. They bore a double legend, the one Greek, the other still called Bactrian, which is not Zend, nor even the language really spoken in Bactria. It is a popular dialect derived from Sanskrit.” Again on p. 185: “Zend has been called, and is still called, Bactrian or Old Bactrian, it may be because Bactria has been conceived as the original country or an ancient place of sojourn of the Persians; it may be because Zoroaster, a Median Magus, had, according to a legend, fled to the Bactrians where he found protection under Prince Vishtaspa. Eulogy of this prince is often incorporated in the sayings of Zoroaster.”

Later a new race appeared, tribes called Scythians by the Greeks, amongst which the Tochari, identical with the Yuë-Chih of the Chinese, were the most important. According to Chinese sources, they entered Sogdiana in 159 B. C.; in 139 they conquered Bactria, and during the next generation they had made an end to the Greek rule in eastern Iran. In the middle of the first century B. C. the whole of eastern Iran and western India belonged to the great “Indo-Scythian” Empire. In the third century the Kushan dynasty began to decline; about 320 A. D. the Gupta Empire was founded in India. In the fifth the Ephtalites, or “White Huns,” subjugated Bactria; then the Turks, about A. D. 560, overran the country north of the Oxus. In 1220 Jenghis Khan sacked Balkh and levelled all buildings capable of defence, while Timur repeated this treatment in the fourteenth century. Notwithstanding this, Marco Polo could still, in the following century, describe it as “a noble city and a great.”

See also Raphael Pumpelly, _Explorations in Turkestan_, where 10,000 years is said to be the age of the remains of early civilization. More modern authorities, however, do not accept these ancient dates.

119: 21. Osborn, 1, p. 479.

120: 1 _seq._ Osborn, 1, pp. 493–495; Ripley, pp. 486–487, and also S. Reinach, 3, and G. Sergi, 2, pp. 199–220.

120: 28 _seq._ Oman, _England before the Norman Conquest_, pp. 642 _seq._, says: “The position which he [Harold] chose is that where the road from London to Hastings emerges from the forest, on the ground named Senlac, where the village of Rattle now stands.... This hill formed the battleground.... On reaching the lower slopes of the English position the archers began to let fly their shafts, and not without effect, for as long as the shooting was at long range, there was little reply, since Harold had but few bowmen in his ranks, (the Fyrd, it is said, came to the fight with no defensive weapons but the shield, and were ill-equipped, with javelins and instruments of husbandry turned to warlike uses), and the abattis, whatever its length or height, would not give complete protection to the English. But when the advance reached closer quarters, it was met with a furious hail of missiles of all sorts—darts, lances, casting axes, and stone clubs such as William of Poictiers describes, and the Bayeux Tapestry portrays—rude weapons, more appropriate to the neolithic age.... Many a moral has been drawn from this great fight.... Neither desperate courage, nor numbers that must have been at least equal to those of the invader, could save from defeat an army which was composed in too great a proportion of untrained troops, and which was behind the times in its organization.... But the English stood by the customs of their ancestors, and, a few years before, Earl Ralph’s attempt to make the thegnhood learn cavalry tactics (see the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), had been met by sullen resistance and had no effect.”

121 : 4. See the note top. 128 : 2.

121 : 15. F. Keller, _The Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland and Other Parts of Europe_; Schenck, _La Suisse préhistorique_, pp. 533–549; G. and A. de Mortillet, _Le Préhistorique_, part 3, and Munro, _The Lake Dwellings of Europe_. The lake-dwelling, known as Pont de la Thièle, between the lakes of Bienne and Neuchâtel, according to Grilliéron’s calculations, is dated 5000 B. C. See Keller, p. 462; Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 29; Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 401; and De Mortillet, _Le Préhistorique_, p. 621.

121 : 17. Schenck, p. 190, says concerning Switzerland: “There were three [cultural] stages, stone, bronze, and iron.... On the other hand, from the anthropological point of view, this subdivision can also be made. In the first stage [Neolithic Lacustrian], we find only brachycephalic crania; in the second there are an almost equal number of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic; in the third there is a predominance of dolichocephalic” (that is, Schenck divides the Neolithic into three periods according to skulls, and the last runs into the age transitionary to bronze).

See also G. Hervé, _Les populations lacustres_, p. 140; His and Rütimeyer, _Crania Helvetica_, pp. 12, 34, etc.; and the note on p. 275 of Rice Holmes’s _Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul_. Ripley gives useful and concise discussions on pp. 120, 471, 488 and 501.

121 : 19. See both Keller and Schenck for the numbers of dwellings.

121 : 22. _There were, of course, the caves and rock shelters used during a large part of the year, but probably no other regularly constructed dwellings served as permanent, all-the-year-round places of abode prior to the lake dwellings, and it is doubtful if these were inhabited in winter. It is generally believed that the custom of building pile villages arose from considerations of safety. This protection would be absent when the lakes were frozen over, and at the same time the huts would be exposed on all sides, including the floor, to the wintry blasts sweeping the lakes. They would in this way be rendered practically uninhabitable during the winter season._

Keller declares that the same type of dwelling is found in the whole circle of countries which were formerly Celtic. (Introduction, p. 2.) The Crannoges of Scotland and Ireland continued in use until the age of iron in those countries. In Switzerland the lake dwellings disappeared about the first century (p. 7). The population was numerous (p. 432), large enough to have to depend upon cattle and agriculture (p. 479).

This type of dwelling is found from Ireland to Japan, and even in South America. Many lake dwellings exist at the present day. The Welsh, Scotch and Irish Crannoges are related in structure to the European fascine types (Keller, p. 684 and Introduction). Others are built somewhat differently, and are, of course, of independent origin. An ancient site was unearthed at Finsbury, on the outskirts of London not long since, where there used to be a marsh. The inhabitants of this lake-dwelling were native outcasts during Romano-British times.

121 : 26. See Schenck, and Keller, p. 6. On p. 140 of Keller we read: “The Pile Dwellings of eastern Switzerland ceased to exist before the bronze age or at its beginnings; those of western Switzerland came to their full development during this period.” On p. 37, describing the settlement of Mooseedorfsee Keller says: “A very striking circumstance ought to be mentioned, namely, that even heavy implements, such as stone chisels, grinding or sharpening stones, etc., were found quite high in the relic bed, while lighter objects, such as those made out of bone, were met with much deeper.” It is known that the Mooseedorfsee settlement is very old. No metal has been found here, but a bone arrowhead is described by Keller on p. 38. He remarks that the bones of very large animals were uncommonly numerous. It seems as if the earlier inhabitants were users of bone rather than of stone implements.

122 : 1. Herodotus, V, 16 describes them. He also is the source of our information regarding the keeping of cattle, although archæological finds have proved the location of stables out on the platforms between the houses. His interesting account is given herewith: “Their manner of living is the following. Platforms supported upon tall piles stand in the middle of the lake, which are approached from land by a single narrow bridge. At the first the piles which bear up the platforms were fixed in their place by the whole body of the citizens, but since that time the custom which has prevailed about fixing them is this: they are brought from a hill called Orbêlus, and every man drives in three for each wife that he marries. Now the men all have many wives apiece; and this is the way in which they live. Each has his own hut, wherein he dwells, upon one of the platforms, and each has also a trap door giving access to the lake beneath; and their wont is to tie their baby children by the foot with a string, to save them from rolling into the water. They feed their horses and their other beasts upon fish, which abound in the lake to such a degree that a man has only to open his trap door and to let down a basket by a rope into the water and then to wait a very short time, when he draws it up quite full of them. The fish are of two kinds, which they call the paprax and the tilon.”

122 : 3. In the Introduction, p. 2, and elsewhere Keller says regarding cattle: “Cattle were kept, not on land, as in the Terramara region, but on the platforms themselves, out in the lakes. Many charred remains of stables and stable refuse have been taken from the lakes, but only from certain parts of the sites, between those of the houses.” See also Schenck, p. 188.

Rice Holmes, pp. 89–90 of _Ancient Britain_, says of that country that agriculture was limited in the Neolithic, but flourished in the Bronze Age.

122 : 14. The Terramara Period. Keller, pp. 378 _seq._ As related to Switzerland, pp. 391, 393. For swamp and river bank sites, pp. 391, 397 _seq._ For bronze in Terramara settlements, p. 386. For the Upper Robenhausian, see Schenck, p. 190, and Montelius, _La civilisation primitive en Italie_. Peet, _The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy_, and Munro, _The Lake Dwellings of Europe_ and _Palæolithic Man and the Terramara Settlements_ must also be read in this connection. Schwerz, _Völkerschaften der Schweiz_, gives, for the average cranial indices of the Lake Dwellers, 79 during the Stone Age, 75.5 in the Copper Age, and 77 in the Bronze Age. Of these last 14 per cent only were brachycephalic, 20 per cent were extremely long-headed. In the Iron Age 46 per cent were brachycephalic. Consult also Deniker, 2, p. 316.

122 : 21. Ripley, pp. 502–503; Sergi, 2; Robert Munro, 2; Peet, 2.

122 : 27–123: 4. See the note to p. 117 : 18.

123 : 5. On the Kitchen Middens, see especially Madsen, Sophus Müller and others in _Affaldsdynger fra Stenaldern i Danmark_.

123 : 12. Salomon Reinach, 3 and 5; Deniker, 2, p. 314; and Peake, 2, p. 156, where we find the following: “Over the greater part of Sweden,—all, in fact, except a strip of coastline on the western side of Scania,—and all along the shore of the Baltic from the Gulf of Bothnia southwards and westwards as far as a point midway between the Vistula and the Oder, there are found abundant remains of a primitive civilization which dates from the Neolithic Age, and indeed, from early in that age. This civilization, known as the East Scandinavian or Arctic culture, extended, perhaps later, over the whole of Norway.”

Consult the notes to pp. 125: 4 _seq._ for western trade.

123 : 20. Sergi, 4; Beddoe, 4, pp. 26, 29; Fleure and James, pp. 122 _seq._

123 : 23. Paleolithic Population. Fleure and James, _Anthropological Types in Wales_, p. 120. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 380, says they were confined to the South. No Paleolithic implements were found north of Lincoln, or at least of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

123 : 26. John Munro, _The Story of the British Race_, p. 45; Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 68; and Fleure and James, pp. 40, 69–74, 122 _seq._

124 : 4. For the Alpines see pp. 134 _seq._ of this book.

124 : 9. Consult the note to p. 143 on this subject.

124 : 15. On the Nordics see pp. 167 _seq._ and 213 _seq._ On the Scandinavian blonds see the note to p. 20 : 5.

124 : 20. See the notes to pp. 168 _seq._

125 : 1. G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, especially pp. 146 and 149 _seq._; Breasted, 1, 2 and 3; Keane, _Ethnology_, pp. 72 _seq._; Sophus Müller, _L’Europe préhistorique_, p. 49; Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 3.

125 : 4. Deniker, 2, pp. 314–315: “The great trade route for amber, and perhaps tin, between Denmark and the Archipelago is well known at the present day; it passes through the valley of the Elbe, the Moldau and the Danube. The commercial relations between the north and the south explain the similarities which archæologists find between Scandinavian bronze objects and those of the Ægean district.”

See also E. H. Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_, for trade in the East, via the Vistula, Dnieper and Danube, pp. 438–446, 458, 459, 465, 493, etc.; and Déchellette, _Manuel d’Archéologie_, t. I, p. 626, and II, p. 19. Herodotus IV, 33, gives the trade route from the Hyperboreans to Delos. Félix Sartiaux, _Troie, La Guerre de Troie_, pp. 162, 181, also discusses the trade routes for amber.

125 : 7. Amber. Tacitus, _Germania_: “They [the tribes of the Æstii] ransack the sea also and are the only people who gather in the shallows and on the shore itself the amber which they call in their tongue ‘glæsum.’ Nor have they, being barbarians, inquired or learned what substance or process produces it; nay, it lay there long among the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of the sea, until Roman luxury gave it a name. To the natives it is useless; it is gathered crude, it is forwarded to Rome unshaped; they are astonished to be paid for it. Yet you may infer that it is the exudation of trees: certain creeping and even winged creatures are continually found embedded; they have been entangled in its liquid form and as the material hardens, are imprisoned. I should suppose, therefore, that, just as in the secluded places of the East, where frankincense and balsam are exuded, so in the islands and lands of the West, there are groves and glades more than ordinarily luxuriant,” etc.

Amber, if rubbed, has magnetic qualities and develops electricity. Our word “electricity” is derived from its Greek name, “electron.” Tacitus says: “If you try the qualities of amber by setting fire to it, it kindles like a torch and soon dissolves into something like pitch and resin.”

125 : 13. Gowland, _Metals in Antiquity_, pp. 236, 252 _seq._

125 : 15 _seq._ Copper. Reisner’s opinion that the pre-dynastic Egyptians invented the use of copper (_Naga-ed-Dêr_, I, p. 134) which is followed by Elliot Smith (_Ancient Egyptians_, p. 3), is not the view held by all scholars. Hall believes that the knowledge of the use of metal came to the prehistoric southern Egyptians (_Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 90), toward the end of the pre-dynastic age from the north. But he counts the Mount Sinai and Cyprus deposits as northern centres of origin from which a knowledge of the working of the metal radiated.

The mines of the Sinaitic peninsula were worked for copper at the time of Seneferu, about 3733 B. C., and probably much earlier (Gowland, p. 245, and elsewhere), “but long before the actual mining operations were carried on, how long it is impossible to say, the metal must have been obtained by primitive methods from the surface ore. It is hence not unreasonable to assume that at least as early as about 5000 B. C. the metal copper was known and in use in Egypt.” The same writer believes “that an earlier date than 5000 B. C. should be assigned to the first use of copper in the Chaldean region.” In this he bases himself on the discovery of copper figures associated with bricks and tablets bearing the name of King Ur-Nina (about 4500 B. C.), and the fact that the upper Tigris region is known to contain rich deposits of the mineral. Jastrow, Jr., assigns the date of 3000 B. C. to Ur-Nina, which may be more correct. Gowland dates copper in Cyprus at 2500 B. C., or even 3000, judging by the finds at Crete dated 2500 B. C. In the Troad he thinks it was used not later than in Cyprus. For China the date is unknown, but if we accept 2205, given in the Chinese annals as the time when the nine bronze caldrons were cast, which are often mentioned in the historical records, then copper may have been in use as early as 3000, or even earlier. De Morgan dates copper at 4400 B. C. in Egypt, where it was found in the supposed tomb of Menes.

See also Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, pp. 71–72, who gives 3730 for copper-working in Sinai, and its first appearance about 5000 B. C. Montelius, 1, p. 380, gives copper in Cyprus as about 2500 B. C., hardly 3000; and for Egypt 5000; he regards it as having been known in Babylon at about the same time. Breasted, _Ancient Times_, assigns the date of the earliest copper as at least 4000 in Egypt.

125 : 27. Eduard Meyer, 1, p. 41. But _cf._ Reisner, _Naga-ed-Dêr_, I, p. 126, note 3. Also Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 28.

126 : 1. Elliot Smith, 1, p. 8: “Most serious scholars who concern themselves with the problems of the ancient history of Egypt and Babylonia have now abandoned these inflated estimates of the lengths of the historical periods in the two empires; and it is now generally admitted that Meyer’s estimate of 3400±100 B. C. is a close approximation to the date of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt and that the blending of Semitic and Sumerian cultures in Babylonia took place shortly after the time of this event in the Nile valley.” See also Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 3.

126 : 7. Bronze. Rice Holmes, 1, p. 125: “The oldest piece of bronze that has yet been dated was found at Medûm, in Egypt, and is supposed to have been cast about 3700 B. C. But the metal may have been worked even earlier in other lands; for a bronze statuette and a bronze vase, which were made twenty-five centuries before our era have been obtained from Mesopotamia and the craft must have passed through many stages before such objects could have been produced. Yet it would be rash to infer that either the Babylonians or the Egyptians invented bronze for neither in Egypt nor in Babylonia is there any tin. The old theory that it was a result of Phœnician commerce with Britain has long been abandoned and British bronze implements are so different from those of Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Hungary, that it cannot have been derived from any of these countries. German influence was felt at a comparatively late period, but from first to last British bronze culture was closely connected with that of Gaul and through Gaul with that of Italy.”

126 : 9. Gowland, p. 243: “It has been frequently stated that the alloy used by the men of the Bronze Age generally consists of copper and tin in the proportions of 9 to 1. I have hence compared the analyses which have been published with the following results:

EARLY WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 57 ANALYSES

In 25 the tin ranges from about 8 to 11 per cent. „ 6 „ „ „ „ „ 11 „ 13 „ „ „ 26 „ „ „ „ „ 3 „ 8 „ „

LATER PALSTAVES AND SOCKETED AXES. 15 ANALYSES

In 13 the tin ranges from about 4.3 to 13.1 per cent. „ 2 „ „ was about 18.3 per cent.

SPEAR AND LANCE HEADS

In 5 the tin ranges from about 11.3 to 15.7 per cent.

STILL LATER. SWORDS. 33 ANALYSES

In 14 the tin ranges from about 8 to 11 per cent. „ 12 „ „ „ „ „ 12 „ 18 „ „ „ 7 „ „ is less than 9 per cent.

“It is obvious, therefore, that these statements do not accurately represent the facts. And if we consider the different uses to which the implements or weapons were put, it is evident that no single alloy could be equally suitable for all.... It is worthy of note that these proportions (_i. e._, different hardnesses for different implements) appear to have been frequently attained, and for this the men of the later Bronze Age are deserving of great credit as metallurgists and workers in metal.”

On the percentages of tin with copper for bronze see also Montelius, 1, pp. 448 _seq._

126 : 12. Schenck, p. 241, describes a copper axe exactly like those of polished stone, and another of bronze, of very primitive pattern, showing that these were copied from the earlier stone models.

Some authorities think that iron, in Egypt at least, came in about the same time as bronze, or even earlier. Certain peoples missed altogether one or another of these stages, as the absence of remains indicates. For instance, the central Africans had, as far as is known, no bronze age, but passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron. (See Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 123.) See the notes to p. 129 on the value of iron. Occasional implements of any material better than that ordinarily in use, which had been introduced by trade or acquired by fighting, were very highly prized. Any books on primitive peoples contain references to the value of such “foreign tools.”

126 : 24. Diodorus Siculus, V. Consult _Crania Britannica_, by Davis and Thurnam, the chapter on the “Historical Ethnology of Britain,” for evidence that the Phœnicians did have intercourse with Britain. For a full discussion of this disputed question see pp. 483–514 in Rice Holmes’s _Ancient Britain_. Herodotus and other early writers allude to the fleets of the Phœnicians, and of course the voyage of Pythias about the last half of the fourth century B. C. was undertaken to discover the source of the Phœnician tin. See Holmes’s _Britain_, pp. 217–226; D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Les premiers habitants de l’Europe_, vol. I, chap. V; Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, pp. 158, 402–403; and G. Elliot Smith, _Ancient Mariners_, on the Phœnicians.

On pp. 251–252 of _Ancient Britain_, Rice Holmes makes the suggestion that the export of tin from Britain may have died down by Roman times.

127 : 9 _seq._ G. Elliot Smith, 1, p. 178, and map 3. Deniker, 2, p. 315, says: “It is generally admitted that the ancient Bronze Age corresponds with the ‘Ægean Civilization’ which flourished among the peoples inhabiting, between the thirtieth and twentieth centuries B. C., Switzerland, the north of Italy, the basin of the Danube, the Balkan peninsula, a part of Anatolia, and lastly, Cyprus. It gave rise, between 1700 and 1100 B. C., to the ‘Mycenæan Civilization,’ of which the favorite ornamental design is the spiral.”

Myers, in _Ancient History_, pp. 134–135, states that in Crete the metal development began as early, at least, as 3000 B. C., and was at its height in the island about 1600 or 1500 B. C. Articles of Cretan handiwork found in Egypt point to intercourse with that country as early as the sixth dynasty, which he makes about 2500 B. C. See also G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 147, 179–180, and the authorities quoted on bronze.

127 : 26–128 : 1 _seq._ G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 178–180. Rice Holmes, 1, p. 123, gives in a footnote the sixth dynasty as about 3200 B. C. (_cf._ above), when Elliot Smith says the movement first began (_ibid._, pp. 169, 171). They do not agree on the date of this dynasty. See also Rice Holmes (_ibid._, p. 125), and Breasted, 3, p. 108. Montelius assigns 2100 B. C. for the small copper daggers of northern Italy.

128 : 2. The Eneolithic period. G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 20 _seq._, 37 and 163 _seq._ Professor Orsi is responsible for the introduction of this term. See T. E. Peet, _The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy_, and G. Sergi, _Italia_, pp. 240 _seq._, on the Eneolithic period in Italy.

128 : 13. Oscar Montelius, _The Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times_, and _Kulturgeschichte Schwedens von den ältesten Zeiten_; Sophus Müller, _Nordische Alterthumskunde_. The latter gives 1200 B. C. See also Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 64, 127, 424–454; Beddoe, 4, p. 15; Haddon, 3, p. 41. According to Gjerset, in his _History of the Norwegian People_, the Bronze Age in Norway began about 1500 B. C., the Iron Age at 500 B. C. Lord Avebury, pp. 71–72; Read, _Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_; and Deniker, 2, p. 315, give 1800 B. C. for Britain, and for northern Europe Avebury assigns 2500 B. C. 1800 is the generally accepted date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Britain.

128 : 16. Alpines in Ireland. Beddoe, 4, p. 15; Fleure and James, pp. 128–129, 135, 139; Rice Holmes, 1, p. 432; Ripley, pp. 302–303; Abercromby, pp. 111 _seq._; Crawford, pp. 184 _seq._ But Fleure and James say, p. 138, that other Alpines without brow ridges are to be found at the present time in considerable numbers on the east coast of Ireland. Ripley’s strong assertion that no Alpines have remained in the British Isles has been proved by more recent study to require modification.

128 : 17. See in this connection Fleure and James, p. 127.

128 : 26. _Cf._ Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 20–21, 163, 181; Peet, 2; Reisner, _Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ed-Dêr_; and Rice Holmes, 1, p. 65 _seq._

129 : 2–8. The megaliths were not erected by Alpines, for there are practically none in central Europe, according to Keane, _Ethnology_, pp. 135–136, and Dr. Robert Munro, in a discussion published in the _Jour. Roy. Anth. Inst._, 1889–1890, p. 65. On the other hand, Peet, 1, pp. 39, 64, says they are being discovered in the interior—a few in Germany. He does not mention bronze among the finds in the megaliths of France, but there was a little gold. Bronze was, however, found in Spain. Consult Fleure and James, pp. 128 _seq._; Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 8–9; and, for an exhaustive archæological study, Déchellette, _Manuel d’archéologie_, vol. I, chap. III, especially paragraph v, pp. 393 _seq._, for dolmens in Brittany. Concerning the contents of these we may quote the following:

“Polished hatchets, often enough of rare stone, beads from necklaces, and pendants of Callais or of divers materials, implements of flint, knives, arrow points which are wing-shaped, scrapers, nodules, grinding stones, pottery, vases, grains of baked earth, some rare jewels of gold, collars and bracelets, such is, in general, the composition of the contents of the neolithic dolmens of Brittany, contents different, as we shall see, from those of the sepulchres of the Bronze Age in the same region. These vast Armorican crypts belong certainly to the end of the Neolithic period, in spite of the absence of copper, the habitual forerunner of bronze objects. The smallness of the crypt, the size of the tumulus, the mixture of construction in huge blocks and in walls seem to indicate, as M. Cartailhac has observed, a more recent age than that of ordinary dolmens. In the pure Bronze Age the monolithic supports are replaced by the walls of unmortared stones.

“Moreover, we shall see that there have been found in certain covered alleys in Brittany, pottery of a very characteristic type called calciform vases, pottery belonging in the south of France and southern Europe with the first objects of copper and bronze. Jewels of gold confirm, on the other hand, these chronological determinations.” On p. 397: “The dolmen sepulchres of the Bronze Age in Brittany, and notably in Finisterre, are distinguished more often by the type of their construction from those of the Stone Age.”

“The dolmens of Normandy and Isle de France contain some stone objects, fragments of vases, and numerous debris of human skeletons.” The end of the pure Neolithic is the date of the megaliths in Armorica, as we read on p. 407. The first metals, imported from the south, penetrated into northern Gaul a little later than in the southern provinces. That is why certain typical objects of the end of the pure Neolithic in Armorica, such as Callais and the calciform vases, are associated with the first objects of copper or bronze in the funerary crypts of Provence and Portugal.

G. Elliot Smith and W. H. R. Rivers claim that there is a close connection throughout the eastern hemisphere between the distribution of megalithic monuments and either ocean or fresh-water pearls, but this appears to the author to be far-fetched. Two very recent articles dealing with megaliths are “Anthropology and Our Older Histories,” by Fleure and Winstanley, and “The Menhirs of Madagascar,” by A. L. Lewis.

129 : 8. Rice Holmes, _Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul_, p. 9.

129 : 12. Earliest iron in the north. See the notes to pp. 131 : 1 and 131 : 9 on the La Tène period. Also Montelius, 2, and Sophus Müller, 2, pp. 145 and 165 _seq._

129 : 13. Mound burials among the Vikings. Montelius, 2.

129 : 15. Iron in Egypt. Some authorities think that iron in Egypt came in about the same time as bronze, or even earlier. A piece of worked iron was found in the Great Pyramid, to which a date of about 3500 B. C. has been assigned. But, according to the archæological investigations of Professor Flinders Petrie, iron came into general use only about 800 B. C.

Myres, in _The Dawn of History_, is quoted from p. 60 for the following neat summary, although any of the authorities on Egypt, such as Petrie, Maspero, Hall, Breasted, Elliot Smith, Reisner, Meyer, etc., should be consulted as original investigators: “The presence of iron, rare though it is, as far back as the first dynasty, puts Egypt into a position which is unique among metal-using lands; for, apart from these rare, but quite indisputable finds, Egypt remains for thousands of years a bronze-using, and for long, a merely copper-using, country.... In Egypt iron was known as a rarity, worn as a charm and an ornament, and even used, when it could be gotten ready made, as an implement; and it does not seem to have been worked in the country, and probably its source was unknown to the Egyptians. In historic times they still called it the ‘metal of heaven’ as if they obtained it from meteorites; and it looks at present as though their earliest knowledge of it was from the south; for central Africa seems to have had no bronze age but direct and ancient transition from stone to iron weapons. Yet when they conquered Syria in the sixteenth century, they found it in regular use and received it in tribute. At home, however, they had no real introduction to an ‘Age of Iron’ until they met an Assyrian army in 668 B. C. and began to be exploited by Greeks from over sea.” In this connection see also Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, pp. 613–614. The same author, pp. 154 _seq._, discusses the value of iron in these early times.

Deniker, p. 315 of his _Races of Man_, says Italy had iron as early as 1200 B. C.

Montelius assigns 1100 for iron in Etruria.

129 : 19. Hallstatt iron culture. See Baron von Sacken, _Das Grabfeld von Hallstatt_; Dr. Moritz Hoernes, _Die Hallstattperiode_; Bertrand and Salomon Reinach, _Les Celts dans les vallées du Pô et du Danube_; and Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, pp. 407–480 and 594 _seq._ There is a brief summary by Ridgeway which it will serve to quote: “Everywhere else the change from iron weapons to bronze is immediate but at Hallstatt iron is seen gradually superseding bronze, first for ornament, then for edging cutting implements, then replacing fully the old bronze types and finally taking new forms of its own. There can be no doubt that the use of iron first developed in the Hallstatt area and that thence it spread southwards into Italy, Greece, the Ægean, Egypt and Asia, and northwards and westwards in Europe. At Noreia, which gave its name to Noricum, less than forty miles from Hallstatt, were the most famous iron mines of antiquity, which produced the Noric swords so prized and dreaded by the Romans. (See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXIV, 145; Horace, _Epod._, 17 : 71.) This iron needed no tempering and the Celts had found it ready smelted by nature just as the Eskimos had learned of themselves to use telluric iron embedded in basalt.... The Hallstatt culture is that of the Homeric Achæans (see Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_, pp. 407 _seq._), but as the brooch (along with iron, cremation of the dead, the round shield and the geometric ornament), passed down into Greece from central Europe, and as brooches are found in the lower town at Mycenæ, 1350 B. C., they must have been invented long before that date in central Europe. But as they are found here in the late bronze and early iron age, the early iron culture of Hallstatt must have originated long before 1350 B. C., a conclusion in accordance with the absence of silver at Hallstatt itself.”

Keller, p. 160, describes an iron sword modelled after the same pattern as those of bronze; Schenck, p. 341, mentions a copper axe exactly like those of stone, and another of bronze of very primitive pattern. These and numerous other examples show the gradual growth of each age.

The generally accepted date for Hallstatt is about 900 or 1000 B. C. Even Rice Holmes approves of this. (See 2, p. 9.) But if we believe that iron spread from Hallstatt, and it was in Etruria at 1200–1100 B. C., and in Greece, in the form of swords like those of Hallstatt, at 1400 B. C. (according to Ridgeway), together with pins and various other objects which originated in the Tyrol, it is certainly very conservative to place the appearance of iron in Austria at 1500 B. C. Iron weapons were found in the remains of Troy from the war of 1184 B. C. See Ridgeway, _op. cit._, and Lartiaux, p. 179.

We may quote from Hoernes as follows regarding the dates: “The temporal limits of the Hallstatt period are uncertain, according to the districts which one includes and the phenomena which one considers. It is now known that the Hallstatt relics for the most part belong to the first half of the last millennium B. C. But while some assign these relics as from the time of perhaps 1200 to perhaps 500, others are satisfied with the period from 900 to 400, or bring them even farther forward. It is certain that one must differentiate in these questions between the west and the east of the Hallstatt culture areas; in the one the particular Hallstatt forms would come nearer to the close than in the other. One or perhaps more centuries lie between the first appearance of the La Tène forms in Western Germany and in the eastern Alps. Also the beginning varies according to the locality and the criteria which one takes for a guide, that is to say, according to whether the phenomena of the time about 1000 B. C. are considered as belonging still in the pure Bronze Age, to a transition period, or indeed to the first Iron Age.”

129 : 26. Ridgeway, speaking of the Achæans, says: “They brought with them iron which they used for their long swords and cutting implements.... The culture of the Homeric Achæans” (these are dated about 1000 B. C., about the time of the Dorians, according to Bury, p. 57) “corresponds to a large extent with that of the early Iron Age of the Upper Danube (Hallstatt) and to the early Iron Age of Upper Italy (Villanova).”

Myres, _Dawn of History_, p. 175, says that there was a gradual introduction of iron, first for tools and then for weapons. It had been known as “precious metal” in the Ægean since the late Minoan third period, or even the late Minoan second period, which is usually dated with the XVIIIth Egyptian dynasty as about 1500–1350. Most other writers, however, including Bury, p. 57, Myers, _Anc. Hist._, p. 136, and Deniker, _Races of Man_, p. 315, ascribe the general use of iron to a much later invasion, namely that of the Dorians, about 1100 B. C.

129 : 29. Iron swords of the Nordics. Ridgeway, 1, pp. 407 _seq._: “Their chief weapon was a long iron sword; with trenchant strokes delivered by these long swords the Celts had dealt destruction to their foes on many a field. They used not the thrust, as did the Greeks and Romans of the classical period. This is put beyond doubt by Polybius (II, 30) who in his account of the great defeat suffered by the combined tribes of Transalpine Gæsatæ, Insubres, Boii and Taurisci, when they invaded Italy in 225 B. C., tells us that the Romans had the advantage in arms ‘for the Gallic sword can only deliver a cut but cannot thrust.’ Again in his account of the great victory gained over the Insubres by the Romans in 223 B. C., the same historian tells us that the defeat of the Celts was due to the fact that their long iron swords easily bent, and could only give one downward cut with any effect, but that after this the edges got so turned and the blades so bent, that unless they had time to straighten them out with the foot against the ground, they could not deliver a second blow.

“‘When the Celts had rendered their swords useless by the first blows delivered on the spears the Romans closed with them and rendered them quite helpless by preventing them from raising their hands to strike with their swords, which is their peculiar and only stroke, because their blade has no point. The Romans, on the contrary, having excellent points to their swords, used them not to cut but to thrust; and by thus repeatedly smiting the breasts and faces of the enemy, they eventually killed the greater number of them.’ (II, 33 and III.)”

Further evidence in support of our contention that iron was in use much earlier than is generally admitted, comes from an unexpected quarter. J. N. Svoronos, in a recent book on ancient Greek coinage, entitled _L’Hellénism primitif de la Macédoine, prouvé par la numismatique_, p. 171, remarks: “In the first place, indeed, it is forgotten that some of this information, that which is derived from people of ‘mythical’ times, can be referred not only to the invention of the first money struck in precious metal (gold, electrum, or silver), but even to obelisks of iron, or to cast plinths in the form of copper axes, which, of a determined weight, and legally guaranteed by the state, constituted, already before the XVth century, as we positively know at the present time, the first legal money.”

130 : 2. Keary, _The Vikings in Western Christendom_, chap. XIII; Steenstrup, _Normannerne_.

130 : 4. “Furor Normanorum.” On account of the suffering inflicted by the Vikings and other northern raiders in Europe, a special prayer, _A furore Normanorum libera nos_ was inserted in some of the litanies of the West.

130 : 5. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410 A. D., and during the forty years following the German tribes seized the greater part of the Roman provinces and established in them what are known as the Barbarian Kingdoms. Consult Villari, _The Barbarian Invasions of Italy_.

130 : 8 _seq._ See chap. XIII, pp. 242 _seq._, of this book.

130 : 13 _seq._ Ripley, pp. 125–126. The discovery of the Alpine type was the work of Von Baer.

130 : 24. The Iron Age in western Europe. Deniker, 2, p. 315, says: “So also, according to Montelius, the introduction of iron dates only from the fifth or third century B. C. in Sweden, while Italy was acquainted with this metal as far back as the twelfth century B. C. The civilization of the ‘iron age,’ distributed over two periods, according to the excavations made in the stations of Hallstatt (Austria) and La Tène (Switzerland), must have been imported from central Europe into Greece through Illyria. The importation corresponds perhaps with the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus.... The Hallstattian civilization flourished chiefly in Carinthia, southern Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, Silesia, Bosnia, the southeast of France and southern Italy (the pre-Etruscan age of Montelius). The period which followed, called the second, or iron age or the La Tène period, was prolonged until the first century B. C. in France, Bohemia and England. In Scandinavian countries the _first iron age_ lasted until the sixth century, and the _second iron age_ until the tenth century A. D.” Referring to the La Tène period in a footnote, Deniker says: “This term, first used in Germany, is accepted by almost all men of science. The La Tène period corresponds pretty nearly with the ‘Âge Marmien’ of French archæologists and the ‘Late Celtic’ of English archæologists. _Cf._ M. Hoernes, _Urgeschichte d. Mensch._, chapters VIII and IX.”

Rice Holmes, 1, p. 231, remarks: “Iron in Britain is hardly older than 500 B. C. (_i. e._ the earliest products of the British iron age were traded in. See p. 229). In Gaul the Hallstatt period is believed to have lasted from about 800 to about 400 B. C.” On p. 126: “It is certain that in the southeastern districts iron tools began to be used not later than the fourth century B. C.”

See also Sir John Evans, _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pp. 470–472. Consult especially Déchellette, _Manuel d’archéologie_, t. II, pp. 152 _seq._, on iron in western Gaul during the La Tène period.

130 : 28. La Tène Period. M. Wavre and P. Vouga, _Extrait du Musée neuchatelois_, p. 7; V. Gross, _La Tène, un oppidum helvète_; E. Vouga, _Les Helvètes à La Tène_; and F. Keller, _The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland_.

131 : 3. Montelius suggests this date. Lord Avebury, in _Prehistoric Times_, even goes so far as to suggest 1000 B. C.

131 : 5. Rice Holmes, 2, the footnote to p. 9; Déchellette, _Manuel d’archéologie_, t. II, p. 552.

131 : 9. La Tène culture and the Nordic Cymry. This is also in Britain termed the “Late Celtic period.” See Rice Holmes, 2, p. 318. For the expansion of the Celtic empire and La Tène see Jean Bruhnes, p. 779. G. Dottin, in his _Manuel celtique_, devotes a whole chapter to the Celtic empire.

Cymry. See the note to p. 174 : 22 of this book. As to the Nordic characters of these people, see Rice Holmes, 1, P. 234.

131 : 12. Nordic Gauls and Goidels as users of bronze. Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 126, 229, and elsewhere.

131 : 15. Haddon, _Wanderings of People_, p. 49.

131 : 19. S. Feist, _Europa im Lichte der Vorgeschichte_, p. 9, etc.

131 : 23. Tacitus, _Germania_.

131 : 26. Tacitus, _Germania_, 4: “Personally I associate myself with the opinion of those who hold that in the peoples of Germany there has been given to the world a race untainted by intermarriage with other races, a peculiar people and pure, like no one but themselves; whence it comes that their physique, in spite of their vast numbers, is identical;—fierce blue eyes, red hair, tall frames,” etc.

See Beddoe, 4, pp. 81–82; Fleure and James, pp. 122, 126, 151–152; and Ripley, _passim_, for remarks on the increasing brunetness of Britain and other parts of Europe which were formerly more blond.

The recent article by Parsons entitled “Anthropological Observations on German Prisoners of War,” contains an interesting reference, on p. 26, to the resurgence of Alpine types in central Europe.

##