CHAPTER I

THE CONTINENTAL CELTS AND HOW THEY CAME TO BRITAIN

THE CELTS A BRANCH OF THE ARYAN FAMILY OF NATIONS

All the nations at present inhabiting Europe, with the exception of the Turks, the Finns, the Magyars, and the Basques, speak Aryan languages, and are to a large extent of Aryan descent,[11] although their blood has been mixed from time to time with that of the Neolithic non-Aryan aborigines. The Celts, therefore, belong to the Aryan group of nations, and came from the same cradle of the race in Central Asia as did the ancestors of the Greeks, Italians, Teutons, Slavs, Armenians, Persians, and the chief peoples of Hindustan.

[11] The fallacy that identity of language or of culture necessarily implies identity of race must be carefully guarded against.

It has been the fashion amongst persons holding what they suppose to be advanced views to dispute the fact that the cradle of the Aryans was in Central Asia, but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the question. It is sufficient for our purpose to note that the successive waves of Aryan conquest entered Europe from the east, and that their general direction was towards the west.

THE CELT AS DESCRIBED BY GREEK AND ROMAN AUTHORS

The Celts make their first appearance in history at the end of the sixth century B.C., when, however, they are referred to not by their name as a people but by the name of the country they occupied. Thus, Hecatæus of Miletus, writing about 509 B.C., mentions Marseilles as being a Ligurian city near the Celtic region.[12]

Herodotus, writing half a century later, is the first historian who uses the word κελτός (Celt) as distinguished from κελτική (the Celtic region). In the two passages[13] in which the Celts are mentioned, Herodotus says that they inhabited the part of Europe where the Danube has its source, and that the only other people to the westward were the Cynetes or Dog-Men. Both Herodotus and Aristotle erroneously supposed that the source of the Danube was situated in the Pyrenees.

Aristotle[14] describes the country of the Celts as being so cold that the ass is unable to reproduce his species there.

Plato, who lived sixty years after the time of Herodotus, classes the Celts with the Scythians, Persians, Carthaginians, Iberians, and Thracians, as being warlike nations who like wine, and drink it to excess.[15]

[12] Μασσαλία πόλις τῆς Διγμστικῆς κατὰ τὴν κελτικήν (C. and T. Muellerus, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, Paris, 1841, vol. i., p. 2, fragm. 22).

[13] Bk. ii., chap, xxxiii.; and Bk. iv., chap. xlix.

[14] _De Generatione Animalium._

[15] _De Legibus._

Pytheas (_circa_ B.C. 300) is the first author who includes the part of Europe which was afterwards the Gaul of Cæsar within the Celtic territory.[16]

According to the earlier historians, the parts of Europe occupied by the Celts at the end of the fourth century B.C. were the coast of the Adriatic from Rimini to Venice, Istria and the neighbourhood of the Ionian Gulf, and the left bank of the Rhone from the Lake of Geneva to the source of the Danube.[17]

Polybius (B.C. 205-123) gives more definite and satisfactory information about the Celts than the somewhat vague references made to them by previous writers. From him we learn[18]

[16] C. Elton’s _Origins of English History_, p. 25.

[17] A. Bertrand and S. Reinach’s _Les Celtes_, p. 19.

[18] _Ibid._, p. 27.

(1) That the Celts of upper Italy did not come from the Gaul of Cæsar, but from the valley of the Danube, and more particularly from the countries which border upon the northern slopes of the Julian Alps of Noricum.

(2) That these peoples were primarily divided into Cisalpine Celts and Transalpine Celts, that is to say, into the Celts of the Alps and of the north of the Alps. In the third century B.C. these latter were already called, more particularly by Polybius, by the name of Galati.

(3) That the Cisalpine Celts, who from a remote period long before the fourth century B.C. inhabited the wide plains of Lombardy from the Alps to the river Pô, were, for the most part, an agricultural and sedentary race living in luxury and in a state of civilisation without any doubt greatly superior to that which could have existed in Gaul at that time.

(4) That the Galati, on the contrary, the Transalpine Celts, although kinsmen to the former mountaineers, still half nomads, shepherds and warriors chiefly, always ready to run the risk of a raid, armed from the fourth century with an iron sword, an iron-headed spear and a shield, lived under the régime of a sort of military aristocracy, as proud as they were poor, such as the inhabitants of the Caucasus were not half a century ago.

The people who were called _Celtæ_ by the earlier historians, and _Galatæ_ by the more recent writers, were also known to the Romans as _Galli_; but these three separate appellations do not seem to indicate any difference of race, and indeed they all have the same meaning, viz. a warrior. The Gauls of Cæsar’s time preferred to call themselves by the name which he wrote, _Celtæ_.[19]

All the Classical authorities are agreed as to the physical characteristics of the Celts with whom they were acquainted. The Celts are invariably described as being tall, muscular men, with a fair skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair tending towards red.[20] Such were the Gauls who conquered the Etruscans of northern Italy in B.C. 396, took Rome under Brennus six years later, sacked Delphi in B.C. 279, and gave their name to Galatia in Asia Minor.

[19] Prof. J. Rhys’ _Celtic Britain_, p. 2.

[20] C. Elton’s _Origins of English History_, p. 113.

It may well be asked what has become of the tall, fair-haired Celts who in the fourth century B.C. were the terror of Europe? The answer seems to be that being numerically inferior to the races which they conquered, but did not exterminate, they after a time became absorbed by the small, dark Iberians, who were the aborigines of France and Spain in the later Stone Age. In Great Britain the once warlike Celt at last became so effete that he fell an easy prey to the Picts, the Scots, the Angles, and the Saxons.

THE CELTS AS REPRESENTED IN GREEK AND ROMAN ART

The physical type of the Celt in Classical Sculpture was fixed by the artists of Pergamos, who were commissioned to perpetuate the victories of Attalus I. (B.C. 241-197) and Eumenes II. (B.C. 197-159) over the Galatians of Asia Minor.[21] The originals of the statues executed at this period to decorate the acropolis at Pergamon and at Athens have since been popularised by means of numerous copies. The statue most familiar to everyone is that wrongly called the Dying Gladiator,[22] but which is really a Gaulish warrior mortally wounded, as may be seen by the twisted torque round his neck, and the shape of his shield and trumpet. The other statues of the same class are the group formerly known as Arria and Paetus[23] (representing a Gaul committing suicide after having killed his wife) and the figures of an old man with a young man dead[24] and a young man wounded[25] from the defeat of the Gauls by Attalus.

In all these works of art the Gaulish type is the same, the men being tall and muscular, with abundant unkempt locks, and an energetic, almost brutal, physiognomy, the very opposite of the intellectual beauty of the ideal Greek. The type thus fixed by eminent artists was handed down from generation to generation, until the last years of the Roman empire. It may be recognised on the Triumphal Arch at Orange[26] (Vaucluse), in the south of France, and at the sarcophagus of Ammendola[27] in the museum of the Capitol at Rome, both of which have derived their inspiration from the works of art of the time of the kings of Pergamon. Latterly the Gaulish type became that of barbarians generally.[28]

[21] _Les Celtes_, p. 37; H. B. Walters’ _Greek Art_, p. 91; and Dr. A. S. Murray’s _History of Greek Sculpture_, vol. ii., p. 376.

[22] In the Museum of the Capitol at Rome; cast in the South Kensington Museum.

[23] Prof. Ernest Gardner’s _Handbook of Greek Sculpture_, pt. ii., p. 456; and A. Baumeister’s _Denkmäler_, p. 1237.

[24] At Venice.

[25] In the Louvre.

[26] A. de Caumont’s _Abécédaire d’Archéologie_ (Ère Gallo-Romaine), Second edition, p. 194.

[27] S. Reinach’s _Les Gaulois dans l’art antique_.

[28] S. Reinach’s _Les Celtes_, p. 38.

THE CELT AS REVEALED BY ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH

From an archæological point of view the Celtic civilisation which existed in Central Europe, certainly as far back as 400 B.C., and very probably three or four centuries earlier, was that of the Iron Age. The Continental antiquaries divide the Iron Age in this part of Europe into two periods marked by differences in culture. The culture of the Early Iron Age is prehistoric, and is called that of “Hallstatt,” after the great Alpine cemetery near Salzburg in Austria.

The culture of the Later Iron Age comes after the time when the Celts first make their appearance in history, and is known to Swiss and German archæologists as that of “La Tène,” from the Gaulish Oppidum at the north end of the Lake of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The La Tène culture in the form it occurs in France is called “Marnian,” and corresponds with the “Late-Celtic” culture of Great Britain.

Hallstatt, from which the Celtic civilisation of the earlier Iron Age takes its name, is situated thirty miles S.E. of Salzburg in Austria, amongst the mountains forming the southern boundary of the valley of the Danube. It was a place of great commercial importance in ancient times, in consequence of the salt mines in the neighbourhood, and because it lay on the great trade route by which amber was brought from the mouth of the Elbe to Hatria, at the head of the Adriatic.[29]

[29] C. Elton’s _Origins of English History_, pp. 46 and 62, and Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins’ _Early Man in Britain_, pp. 417, 466, and 473.

The pre-Roman necropolis of Hallstatt was discovered in 1846, and excavations have been going on there at intervals ever since. In 1864 M. de Sacken, curator of the collection of antiquities in the Vienna Museum, published a monograph on the subject, which still remains the best book of reference. M. de Sacken did not superintend the excavations personally, that task having fallen to the lot of George Ramsauer. Copies in MS. of Ramsauer’s notes on the contents of the tombs, and sketches of the antiquities discovered in them exist in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and in the national museums at Saint-Germain and at Vienna.

The Hallstatt finds show very clearly the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age in Central Europe.

M. Salomon Reinach thus summarises, in his _Les Celtes dans les Vallées du Pô et du Danube_ (p. 129), the conclusions arrived at by M. de Sacken:—

(1) Two distinct races have been buried at Hallstatt; one of which cremated the bodies and the other which practised inhumation; the former showing themselves to have been much richer than the latter.

(2) The people, as represented by their grave-goods, must have supported themselves, besides working the salt mines (their chief industry), by breeding cattle. The number of bones and teeth of animals found in the tombs show that they possessed herds. Their agricultural pursuits are proved by the presence of numerous scythes and sickles in the graves. Slag and moulds from founderies indicate that they were metallurgists.

(3) Amongst the individuals who had been burnt the greater part of the men and women displayed a relative luxuriousness of toilet appliances, a luxuriousness which was ministered to by foreign commerce supplying amber from the Baltic, Phœnician glass, ivory, embroidery in gold thread and stamped gold-leaf of oriental workmanship, used in the decoration of the sword-hilts and scabbards.

(4) On the bronze vessels, side by side with the old geometrical ornament, common to them and to the Cisalpine vases, are to be seen new combinations of symbolical designs which recur on the Celtic coinage of Gaul.

Amongst the objects most characteristic of the Hallstatt culture are:—

(1) Daggers, or short swords, with a pointed blade of iron and a bronze handle having two little projections at the top terminating in round knobs and resembling the antennæ of an insect.

(2) Long double-edged swords with an iron blade made in imitation of the leaf-shaped swords of the Bronze Age, having the edges slightly curved outwards in the middle, but not having so sharp a point as the Bronze Age sword, and being much longer. The hilts have a massive pommel encrusted with ivory and amber, and ornamented with gold-leaf.

(3) Pails, or situlæ, of thin bronze plates ornamented with figure subjects executed in repoussé work, and exhibiting a peculiar style of art which Dr. Arthur Evans thinks the Celts borrowed from the Veneti, the ancient Illyrian inhabitants of the north of the Adriatic, who, in their turn, had come under Hellenic influence whilst the amber trade route between Greece and the Baltic passed through Hatria.

[Illustration: The Hallstatt Sword]

[Illustration: GRAVE OF A GAULISH WARRIOR AT SESTO-CALENDE, ITALY]

[Illustration: BRONZE FIBULA OF LA TÈNE TYPE, FROM THE CEMETERIES OF THE MARNE]

[Illustration: BRONZE FIBULA OF LA TÈNE TYPE, FROM THE CEMETERIES OF THE MARNE]

Dr. Arthur Evans[30] divides the Hallstatt remains into an earlier and a later group, the former dating from about 750 to 550 B.C. During the later period, from 550 B.C., he thinks there was a tendency for the typically Gaulish or Late-Celtic culture to overlap that of the Early Iron Age. The Gallo-Italian tomb of a Celtic chieftain, found in 1867 at Sesto-Calende,[31] at the south end of Lago Maggiore, illustrates the transition from the Hallstatt to the La Tène culture. Amongst the grave-goods were a situla with figure subjects in repoussé metalwork and a short pointed iron sword having a handle furnished with antennæ, like those from Hallstatt.

[30] Rhind Lectures on the “Origins of Celtic Art,” Lecture II., as reported in the _Scotsman_ for December 12th, 1895.

[31] S. Reinach’s _Les Celtes_, p. 49.

In addition, there were the remains of a chariot, horse-trappings, a bronze war-trumpet, helmet and greaves, and iron lance-head, such as we should expect to find buried with a Celtic warrior in the Iron Age in Gaul or Britain.

La Tène (which gives its name to the modified and later form of Hallstatt culture as it existed in Central Europe from about 400 B.C., when the name of the Gaul superseded that of the Celt, to the time of Cæsar’s conquest) is a military stronghold, or oppidum, situated at the N.E. end of the Lake of Neuchâtel, commanding an important pass between the upper Rhone and the Rhine. The remains at La Tène were first explored by Colonel Schwab in 1858, and subsequently by E. Vouga in 1880. The objects derived from this remarkable site are to be seen in the public museums at Bienne, Neuchâtel, and Berne; and in the private collections of Colonel Schwab, Professor Desor, E. Vouga, Dardel Thorens, and Dr. Gross.[32]

According to Dr. Arthur Evans, the date of the culminating epoch of Gaulish civilisation, as represented by the antiquities from La Tène, is probably the third century B.C. It was at this period that the earlier foreign elements derived from Hallstatt, and even from countries further afield, became thoroughly assimilated, and the style of art called Late-Celtic began to take definite shape.

The typical arms found at La Tène are:—

(1) A long sword with a double-edged iron blade having a blunt point. The length and flexibility of the blade made it useless for thrusting in the way which was possible with the shorter and more rigid leaf-shaped sword of the Bronze Age, so the pointed end was abandoned.

(2) Lances with an iron point often of a peculiar curved form.[33]

(3) An oval shield of thin bronze plates ornamented with bosses.

(4) A horned helmet of bronze.

[32] The remains are fully described in Dr. F. Keller’s _Lake-Dwellings_; Dr. R. Munro’s _Lake-Dwellings of Europe_; E. Vouga’s _Les Helvètes à la Tène_; and Dr. Gross’ _La Tène un Oppidum Helvète_.

[33] With flame-like undulating-edges “so as to break the flesh all in pieces” (C. Elton’s _Origins of English History_, p. 116).

The characteristic La Tène ornament is found chiefly on the sword-sheaths, the helmets, and the shields. The La Tène fibulæ are derivatives of the “safety-pin,” and usually have the tail end bent backwards, as in the Marnian fibulæ in France and the Late-Celtic fibulæ in England.

[Illustration: BRONZE ARMLET OF THE LA TÈNE PERIOD FROM GERMANY]

[Illustration: BRONZE ARMLET OF THE LA TÈNE PERIOD FROM LONGIROD (VAUD)]

[Illustration: BRONZE ARMLET OF THE LA TÈNE PERIOD FROM THE CEMETERIES OF THE MARNE]

The Gaulish culture in France corresponding with that of La Tène in Switzerland has been called “Marnian” by the French archæologists because the principal remains of this period have been found in the cemeteries of the Department of the Marne. A list of seventy-two such Marnian cemeteries (some of which contained as many as 450 graves) is given by A. Bertrand in his _Archéologie Celtique et Gauloise_, p. 358. The objects obtained from these cemeteries are fully illustrated in the _Dictionnaire Archéologique de la Gaule_, and in Léon Morel’s _La Champagne souterraine_ (_Album_). The best collections are those in the Museum of Saint-Germain and the British Museum. M. Bertrand fixes the date of the Marnian cemeteries at from 350 to 200 B.C., the period between the time when bronze weapons ceased to be used, and the introduction of a national coinage into Gaul.

[Illustration: Ornament on Bronze Sword-sheath from La Tène]

From the point of view of art, two of the most interesting burials discovered in the Departement du Marne are those at Berru[34] and Gorge-Meillet[35] of warriors interred with their chariots, horses, and complete military equipment, including two bronze helmets, which show the kind of decoration prevalent at the period, and afford a link between the Marnian style in Gaul and the Late-Celtic style in Britain. The burials at Berru and Gorge-Meillet correspond very nearly with those at Arras, Danes’ Graves, and elsewhere, in the portion of Yorkshire occupied by the Celtic tribe of the Parisi.

[34] A. Bertrand’s _Archéologie Celtique et Gauloise_, p. 356.

[35] E. Fourdriguier’s _Double Sépulture Gauloise de la Gorge-Meillet_.

[Illustration: Gaulish Helmet of Bronze from Gorge-Meillet]

[Illustration: CASQUE DE BERRU. (MARNE.) dé couvert dans la Creuere Gaulois.

GAULISH HELMET OF BRONZE FROM BERRU (MARNE)]

The Marnian cemeteries belong to the second Iron Age of Central Europe after 400 B.C., but in the commune of Magny Lambert (Côte-d’or), near the source of the river Seine, tumuli have been opened containing long iron swords and bronze situlæ of distinctly Hallstatt type.

Dr. Arthur Evans thinks that the older, or Hallstatt, culture of Central Europe was gradually modified and transformed into the La Tène, Marnian, and Late-Celtic stages of culture, in consequence of the foreign influence exercised by the continual flow of Greek commerce into eastern Gaul from the sixth century B.C. onwards. Ample evidence of this commercial intercourse is afforded by the discovery of tripods, hydrias, œnochœs, and painted vases of Greek workmanship associated with Gaulish burials,[36] as at Grækwyl, near Berne in Switzerland, at Somme-Bionne (Marne), at Rodenbach in Bavaria, and at Courcelles-et-Montagne (Haute-Marne).

[36] A. Bertrand’s _Archéologie Celtique et Gauloise_, pp. 328 to 347; see also L. Lindenschmit’s _Die Alterthümer unserer heidnischen Vorzeit_, Mainz, 1858, etc.

The great difficulty in understanding the evolution of Celtic art lies in the fact that although the Celts never seem to have invented any new ideas, they professed an extraordinary aptitude for picking up ideas from the different peoples with whom war or commerce brought them into contact. And once the Celt had borrowed an idea from his neighbour, he was able to give it such a strong Celtic tinge that it soon became something so different from what it was originally as to be almost unrecognisable.

Polybius gives the following picture of the Cisalpine Gauls:—

“These people camp out in villages without walls, and are absolutely ignorant of the thousand things that make life worth living. Knowing no other bed than straw, only eating flesh, they live in a half-wild state. Strangers to everything which is not connected with war or agricultural labour, they possess neither art nor science of any description.”

The tendency of the Celt to copy rather than invent is brought out most clearly in their coinage. M. A. Bertrand[37] says:—

“Were they settled in Macedonia they imitated with more or less success the tetradrachms of Philip and of Audoleon, king of Paeonia; did they advance towards Thrace, they copied the tetradrachms of Thasos. The Senones of Rimini took for their model the Roman and Italian _aes grave_; in the north of Italy, finding themselves in contact with nations who used the monetary system of the drachm and its multiples and divisions, the Gauls copied them until the time they were driven back on the Danube. In Liguria they copied the drachms of Massalia. Were they encamped on the banks of the Danube in Noricum, or in Rhaetia, they again copied the monetary systems of their neighbours. The tetradrachms of the Boii on which are inscribed the name of ‘BIATEC,’ one of their chiefs, reproduced the type of the last Roman of the family of Fufia struck between the years 62 and 59 B.C. In a word, the same habit of imitation is found everywhere in the cradle of Gaulish numismatics properly so-called; on the left bank of the Rhine, it was the gold staters of Philip which served as the model for gold pieces and sometimes for silver; in Aquitaine, it was the coins of Emporia, Rhoda, and Massalia. Armorica and the frontier countries were the first who adopted for their coinage types which can be called national, although still reflecting those imitated from the Macedonian staters. Let it be noticed that we are in one of the most Celtic parts of Gaul: it is therefore natural that the difference in genius between the two races of Celts and Gauls should manifest itself most clearly.”

[37] _Archéologie Celtique et Gauloise_, p. 387.

INVASION OF BRITAIN BY GOIDELIC CELTS IN THE BRONZE AGE

The aborigines of Europe, who were driven westward by the successive waves of Aryan conquest, appear to have been in the Neolithic stage of culture, and they are identified by Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins with the Iberians mentioned by Strabo. Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins gives a map in his _Early Man in Britain_ (p. 318) showing the relative distribution of the Iberic, Celtic, and Belgic races in the historic period. In this map the Iberians occupy the north of Africa, the west of Spain and France, the country round Marseilles, the whole of Wales, and the south-west of Ireland. The Celts follow behind to the eastward, pressing the Iberians towards the Atlantic.

In the opening address of the Antiquarian Section at the meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute at Scarborough in 1895, Prof. Dawkins said:—[38]

[38] _Archæological Journal_, vol. lii., p. 342.

“The theory that the Neolithic inhabitants of the British Isles are represented by the Basques and small, dark Iberic population of Europe generally, has stood the test of twenty-five years’ criticism, and still holds the field. From the side of philology it is supported by the fact pointed out by Inchauspé that the Basque word _aitz_ for stone is the root from which the present names of pick, knife, and scissors made of iron are derived. This of itself shows that the ancestors of the Basques were in the Neolithic stage of culture. The name of Ireland, according to Rhys,[39] is derived from Iber-land (Hibernia), the land of the Iberians, or sons of Iber. The evidence seems to be clear: 1. That the Iberians were the original inhabitants of France and Spain in the Neolithic age, and the only inhabitants of the British Isles; 2. That they were driven out of the south-eastern parts of France and Spain in the Neolithic age; (3) That they are now amply represented by the small dark peoples in the Iberian Peninsula, and in the island which bears their name, and in various other places in Western Europe, where they constitute, as Broca happily phrases it, ‘ethnological islands.’ The small, dark, long-headed Yorkshiremen form one of these islands.”

[39] _Celtic Britain_, p. 262.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the stage of culture attained by the Neolithic aborigines of Britain whom the Celts found here on their first arrival. The houses in which Neolithic man lived are of two kinds: (1) pit dwellings dug to a depth of from seven to ten feet deep in the chalk, like those at Highfield,[40] near Salisbury, explored by Mr. Adlam in 1866; and (2) hut-circles like those at Carn Brê near Camborne,[41] in Cornwall, excavated by Mr. Thurstan C. Peter, and on Dartmoor,[42] excavated by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould and Mr. R. Burnard. In many cases the villages are fortified by a wall of rubble stone, as at Grimspound, on Dartmoor. Neolithic dwellings have also been explored by Mr. George Clinch, at Keston, in Kent.[43]

Neolithic man supported himself by the chase and by fishing, and also was a farmer in a small way, growing wheat and cultivating flax. He had domesticated the sheep, goat, ox, hog, and dog. He could spin, weave, mine flint, chip and polish stone implements and make rude pottery.

[40] W. Boyd Dawkins’ _Early Man in Britain_, p. 267; and E. T. Stevens’ _Flint Chips_, p. 57.

[41] R. Burnard in _Trans. of Plymouth Inst._, 1895-6; and T. C. Peter in _Jour. R. Inst. of Cornwall_, No. 42.

[42] Reports of Dartmoor Exploration Committee in the _Trans. of Devonshire Assoc. for Advancement of Science_.

[43] _Proc. Soc. Ant. Lond._, ser 2, vol. xii., p. 258, and vol. xvii., p. 216.

He buried his dead in long barrows, chambered cairns, and dolmens. Cremation was not practised, and it was usual to inter a large number of bodies in a chamber constructed of huge stones.

Such was the aboriginal inhabitant with whom the first Celtic invader had to contend. I say _first_ Celtic invader advisedly, for there was a second Celtic invasion at a later period. The vanguard of the Celtic conquerors are called by Prof. J. Rhys, in his _Celtic Britain_ (p. 3), “Goidels,” to distinguish them from the “Brythons,” who constituted the second set of invaders. The modern representatives of the Goidels are the Gaelic-speaking population of the Highlands of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man; whilst the descendants of the Brythons now inhabit Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. At the time of the Roman occupation the Brythonic tribes inhabited the whole of England with the exception of the districts now occupied by Cumberland, Westmoreland, Devon, and Cornwall. The most important of these Brythonic tribes were the Brigantes and Parisi of Yorkshire, the Catuvelauni of the Midland Counties, the Eceni of the eastern counties, the Attrebates of the Thames Valley, and the Belgæ, Regni, and Cantion in the south. The south of Scotland was in possession of the Dumnoni and Otadini, who were Brythons, as were also the Ordovices of Central Wales. The Ivernians still held their own in the north of Scotland. The remainder of Great Britain was inhabited either by pure Goidels or by Goidels who had mixed their blood with the Ivernian aborigines.

As Prof. J. Rhys has pointed out in his _Celtic Britain_ (p. 211), the soundest distinction between the Goidels and the Brythons rests on a peculiarity of pronunciation in their respective languages. In the corresponding words in each language where the Brythons use the letter P, the Goidels use Qv. Hence they have been termed the “P and Q Celts.” The most familiar instance of this is where the Welsh use the word _ap_ to mean _son of_, and the Gaels use _mac_. The older form of _mac_ found on the Ogam-inscribed monuments of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the West of England is _maqvi_, as in the bi-literal and bi-lingual inscribed stone at St. Dogmael’s, in Pembrokeshire, where the Latin “SAGRANI FILI CVNOTAMI” has as an equivalent in Ogams “SAGRAMNI MAQVI CYNATAMI.” In modern Welsh _map_, or _mab_, has been shortened by dropping the _m_, and in Gaelic the _v_ of _maqvi_ has been dropped, and the _q_ made into _c_.

So much for the philological differences between the Goidel and the Brython. They can also be distinguished archæologically, the former as being in the Bronze Age stage of culture, and the latter in the Early Iron Age when he arrived in Britain. In a subsequent chapter we shall have to deal with the Brythonic Celt, but at present we are concerned exclusively with the Goidel.

The Neolithic inhabitants of this country, whom the Goidelic Celts found here on their arrival, were ethnologically a small dark-haired, black-eyed race, with long skulls of a type which is still to be seen amongst the Silurians of South Wales.[44] The ethnological characteristics of the Goidels were entirely different: they were tall, fair-haired, round-headed, with high cheek-bones, a large mouth, and aquiline nose. In studying the past much must necessarily be more or less conjectural, and we can never hope to see otherwise than “as in a glass darkly.” As far, however, as it is possible to ascertain the facts, it appears probable that the advancing wave of Goidelic Celts did not entirely overwhelm the aborigines or drive them before it. Most likely the big Goidels made the small Iberians “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” and in time either absorbed them or themselves became absorbed.

[44] Boyd Dawkins’ _Early Man in Britain_, chapter ix.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BRONZE AGE IN EUROPE

Actual dates in years can only be ascertained by means of historical documents, and therefore no chronology of the ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron is possible except where contact can be established between the prehistoric (or non-historic) races living in those stages of culture in Northern and Central Europe, and the more advanced civilisations on the shores of the Mediterranean and in Asia. Long before direct contact took place between the northern barbarians and the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, Greeks, Romans, and other great nations of antiquity, through invasions or immigrations, a more indirect contact must have existed for centuries, owing to the trade in such things as amber, gold, bronze, and tin. Dates have been fixed approximately by the finding of imported objects in different countries, and by studying their geographical distribution. Other almost untouched fields of investigation which would help to solve many of the problems of prehistoric chronology, are the migration of symbols and patterns and comparative ornament.

The attempts that have been made to fix the duration of the Ages of Stone and Bronze in actual years are at the best mere guesses, but it may be worth while stating the conclusions arrived at by some of the leading European archæologists, so as to give a rough idea of the time at which bronze was in use for the manufacture of implements and weapons in different countries.

Egypt during the greater part of its existence as a civilised nation was in the Bronze Age. The copper mines of the Sinaitic peninsula were worked as early as the Fourth Dynasty, as is proved by the rock inscriptions of Sneferu (B.C. 3998-3969) at Wady Maghera.[45] Bronze was certainly used by the ancient Egyptians in the fourteenth century B.C., and in the tomb of Queen Aah Hotep, although bronze weapons were found, iron was conspicuous by its absence, indicating that the latter metal had not come into general use in the fifteenth century B.C.

The Mycenæan civilisation in the Ægean was of the Bronze Age, and Prof. Flinders Petrie places its flourishing period at about 1400 B.C.[46] Bronze continued in use in Greece until the time of the Dorian invasion, B.C. 800.

In dealing with the local centres of the bronze industry, Prof. Boyd Dawkins[47] recognises three distinct local centres in Europe.

(1) The Uralian, or Eastern—Russia. (2) The Danubian, or Northern and Central—Scandinavia, Hungary. (3) The Mediterranean, or Southern—Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland.

Dr. Oscar Montelius[48] gives the following tentative dates for the duration of the Bronze Age in these areas:—

[45] Petrie’s _Hist. of Egypt_, vol. i., p. 31. Article on “The Age of Bronze in Egypt,” in _L’Anthropologie_ for January, 1890, translated in the _Smithsonian Report_ for 1890, p. 499.

[46] _Jour. of Hellenic Studies_, vol. xii., p. 203.

[47] _Early Man in Britain_, p. 414.

[48] _Matériaux pour l’histoire primitive de l’homme_, pp. 108-113.

_The Caucasus._—The Massagete were, according to Herodotus, still using bronze in the sixth century B.C.

_Greece._—Bronze Age civilisation of Mycenæ, 1400 to 1000 B.C.

_Italy._—Terramare of Bronze Age, twelfth century B.C. Iron introduced in ninth or eighth century B.C.

_Scandinavia and Germany._—Bronze Age begun in fifteenth century B.C., and ended in fifth century B.C.

Worsaae[49] places the beginning of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia five centuries later than Montelius, _i.e._ 1000 B.C.

Dr. Naue[50] dates the Bronze Age in Upper Bavaria from 1400 B.C. to 900 B.C.

[49] _The Industrial Arts of Denmark_, p. 41.

[50] Dr. Arthur Evans’ review of Dr. Julius Naue’s _Die Bronzezeit in Obayern_ in the _Academy_ for April 27th, 1895.

As regards Great Britain, there is no reason for supposing that the Brythonic Celts of the Early Iron Age arrived in this country much before B.C. 300, which date would terminate the Bronze Age, at all events in southern England. The date of the beginning of the Bronze Age in Britain can only be surmised. If, as we hope to be able to prove, much of the art of that period here can be traced to a Mycenæan origin there is no reason why the Bronze Age in Britain should not have commenced shortly after the spiral motive patterns were transferred from ancient Egypt to the Ægean, say, about 1400 B.C., and thence to Hungary, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe. It is not impossible, nay, it is even probable, that the Bronze Age may have lasted a thousand years in Britain, beginning B.C. 1300, and ending B.C. 300.