LISTS OF HOARDS.

LISTS OF HOARDS.LIST I.Locality.Remarks.Reference.1. Arreton Down, Isle of Wight.Flanged celts, some ornamented, tanged spear-heads, ferrule to one, halberd? one socketed dagger.Arch., vol. xxxvi. p. 326.2. Plymstock, Devon.Flanged celts, straight chisel.Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 346;Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. iv. p. 304.3. Battlefield, Shrewsbury.Mostly melted. Flat celts, palstaves, curved objects.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii, p.251.4. Postlingford Hall, Clare, Suffolk.Flanged celts, some ornamented.Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 496;Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. i. p. 83.5. Rhosnesney, Wrexham, Denbigshire.Palstaves, all from one mould; castings for a dagger and for flanged celts of narrow form.Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. vi. p. 72.6. Broxton, Cheshire.Tanged chisel; socketed spear-head.PenesSir P. de M. G. Egerton, F.R.S.7. Sherford, Taunton, Somerset.One palstave, a defective casting.Pring, “British and Roman Taunton,” p. 76.8. Stibbard, near Fakenham, Norfolk.Castings for small palstaves and spear-heads.Arch. Inst., Norwich vol. p. xxvi.9. Quantock Hills, Somerset.Each palstave laid within torque.Arch., vol. xiv. p. 94.10. Hollingbury Hill, Brighton, Sussex.Palstave laid within a torque, bracelets around.Arch. Journ., vol. v. p. 323;Arch., vol. xxix. p. 372, &c.11. Edington Burtle, Somerset.One casting for a flat sickle; ribbed bracelet and ring.Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Proc., vol. v. (1854) pt. ii. p. 91.12. Woolmer Forest, Hants.There appears some doubt about the small torques.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. vi. p. 88; Bateman's Catal., p. 2213. West Buckland Somerset.Two-looped palstave.Arch. Journ., vol. xxxvii. p. 107.14. Blackmoor, Hants.Fragments of swords and sheaths, large and small spear-heads.White’s “Selborne,” Bell’s ed., 1877, vol. ii. p. 381.15. Fulbourn Common, Cambs.Swords broken, leaf-shaped spear-heads, broad-ended ferrules.Arch., vol. xix. p. 56.16. Pant-y-maen, Cardiganshire.Swords and leaf-shaped spear-heads, broken or damaged.Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. x. p. 221.17. Wicken Fen, Cambs.Nearly all fragmentary; fragments perhaps of two swords.In British Museum.18. Corsbie Moss, Legerwood, Berwickshire.Sword perfect.Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. iii. p. 121.19. Weymouth, Dorset.Both sword and spear-head nearly perfect.Penes Auct.20. Thrunton Farm, Whittingham, Northumberland.Spear-heads, leaf-shaped, and with lunate openings; all objects unbroken.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 429.21. Worth, Washfield, Devon.Sword and leaf-shaped spear-heads, perfect.Arch. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 120.22. Stoke Ferry, Norfolk.Swords and leaf-shaped spearheads broken, halberd.Penes Auct.;Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p.425.23. Brechin, Forfarshire.Swords, &c., unbroken.Arch. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 203;Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. pp. 181 and 224.24. Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh.Swords, spear-heads, &c., in fragments; caldron.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 132; Wilson, “Preh. Ann. of Scot.,” vol. i. p. 348.25. Point of Sleat, Isle of Skye.Sword, spear-head, and pin, perfect.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 102.26. River Wandle, Surrey.All objects nearly perfect.Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 7.27. Tarves, Aberdeenshire.Objects mostly perfect.Horæ ferales, p. 161.28. Cwm Moch, Maentwrog, Merionethshire.Objects unbroken; loops at base of blade of spear-head.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 365.29. Bloody Pool, South Brent, Devon.Spear-heads mostly barbed; all objects broken.Arch. Journ., vol. xii. p. 84; xviii. p. 160.30. Broadward, Leintwardine, Herefordshire.Spear-heads, leaf-shaped, with perforations in blade, and barbed.Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. iii. p. 345; iv. 202.LIST II.31. Mawgan, Cornwall.Rapier in high preservation.Arch., vol. xvii., p. 337.32. Wallington, Northumberland.In Sir C. Trevelyan’s Collection.33. Nottingham.Fragments of swords, and possibly of scabbard-tip.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 332.34. Nettleham, Lincolnshire.Socketed celts of peculiar types.Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 159.35. Haxey, Lincolnshire.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.36. Ambleside, Westmoreland.Swords described as broad-swords,and sharp-pointed swords.Arch., vol. v. p. 115.37. Bilton, Yorkshire.Swords broken, one spear-head ornamented.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. v. p. 349.38. Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.Found in 1726.Arch., vol. v. p. 113.39. Flixborough, Lincolnshire.Sword broken. Possibly palstaves.Arch. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 194.40. Greensborough Farm, Shenstone, Staffordshire.Swords apparently perfect.Arch., vol. xxi. p. 548.41. Wrekin Tenement, Shrewsbury.One celt, a few swords, about 150 spear-heads and fragments.Arch., vol. xxvi. p. 464.42. Llandysilio,See p. 119.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.43. Dunbar, Haddingtonshire.Uninjured.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. x. p. 440.44. Little Wenlock, Shropshire.Spear-heads mostly broken, whetstones with them. Possibly thesame hoard as No. 41.Hartshorne, “Salop. Ant.,” p. 96;Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 197.45. Winmarleigh, Garstang, Lancashire.One spear-head, large, and with lunate openings; all found in “a cist or box.”Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 158.46. Near Newark, Nottinghamshire.Two large discs in hoard.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.47. Hagbourn Hill, Berks.Bridle-bits and late Celtic buckles, said to have been found; coins also?Arch., vol. xvi. p. 348.48. Ty Mawr, Holyhead.Said to have been found in a box.Arch., vol. xxvi. p. 483.49. Heath House, Wedmore, Somerset.Amber beads found at same time; possibly palstaves and not socketed celts.Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 81.50. Wymington, Beds.About sixty celts found.Specimenspenes Auct.51. Reepham, Norfolk.Found about 1747.Arch., vol. v. p. 114.52. Yattendon, Berks.Swords in fragments, tanged chisels and knives, two socketed knives,flatcelt much worn.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vii. p. 480.53. Taunton, Somerset.Flat sickles, looped pin.Arch. Journ., vol. xxxvii. p. 94.54. Beacon Hill, Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire.Leaf-shaped spear-heads.Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. iv. p. 323.55. Ebnall, Oswestry, Salop.Two punches?Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 167.56. Exning, Suffolk.Mostly perfect?Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 3; vol. ix., p. 303.57. Melbourn, Cambs.Sword broken, a clasp.Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 294.58. Stanhope, Durham.Leaf-shaped spears, fragment of sword, broken hammer, &c.Arch. Æliana, vol. i. p. 13.59. Thorndon, Suffolk.All entire. Most of these are figured on previous pages.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 3.60. Wallingford, Berks.Entire; mostly here figured.Penes Auct.61. Whittlesea, Cambridgeshire.Entire; one celt with loop on face.In Wisbech Museum.62. Barrington, Cambs.Perfect.Penes Auct.63. Porkington, Shropshire.Point broken off sword.Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 195.65. Bo Island, Fermanagh.Sword and hammer broken.Journ. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Irel., 3rd S., vol. i. p. 164.64. Trillick, Tyrone.Perfect; two rings with cross perforations for the pin.Journ. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Irel., 3rd S., vol. i. p. 164.65. Bo Island, Fermanagh.Sword and hammer broken.Penes Auct.66. Llangwyllog, Anglesea.Connected with the other hoards by the razor and buttons.Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 74.67. Meldreth, Cambs.Most of the objects broken; socketedchisel, flat lunate knife with opening in middle, caldron ring.In British Museum.68. Hounslow, Middlesex.Oneflatcelt, swords in fragments.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 90; vol. v. p. 428.69. Hundred of Hoo, Kent.Most of the objects broken. See p. 95.Arch. Cant., vol. xi. p. 123.70. Guilsfield, Montgomeryshire.Objects for the most part broken,Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 251;Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. x. p. 214;Montg. Coll., vol. iii. p. 437.71. Wick Park, Stogursey, Somerset.Swords broken, numerous fragments of other forms.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 427.72. Chrishall, Essex.Portion of socketed knife.Neville’s “Sep. Exp.,” p. 3.73. Romford, Essex.Swords broken, socketed chisel, celts not trimmed.Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 302.74. Cumberlow, Baldock, Herts.Swords in fragments.Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 195.75. Beachy Head, Eastbourne, Sussex.Fragment of sword, four gold bracelets.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 363.75. Beachy Head, Eastbourne, Sussex.Fragment of sword, four gold bracelets.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 363.76. Burgesses’ Meadow, Oxford.An ingot 9¾ inches long.In Ashmolean Museum.77. Westow, Yorkshire.Seventeen fragments included among the celts; one chisel socketed, two tanged.Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 381;Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iii. p. 58.78. Carlton Rode, Norfolk.One tanged gouge, tanged and socketed chisels.Smith’s “Coll. Ant.,” vol. i. 105;Arch. Journ., vol. ii. 80;Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. i. p. 51;Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 494.79. Kenidjack Cliff, Cornwall.Large oval jet.Journ. Roy. Inst. of Corn., No. xxi.80. Helsdon Hall, Norfolk.Found before 1759.Arch., vol. v. p. 116.81. Worthing, Sussex.Found in an earthern vessel.Specimenspenes Auct.82. Reach Fen, Cambs.Fragments of swords and many broken objects.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxxvi., p. 56.83. Haynes Hill, Saltwood, Kent.Objects nearly all broken.Arch. Journ., vol. xxx. p. 279;Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. iii. p. 230.84. Allhallows, Hoo, Kent.Objects mostly broken, flat knife. See p. 214.Arch. Cant., vol. xi. p. 124.85. St. Hilary, Cornwall.Swords in fragments; weight altogether about 80 lbs.Arch., vol. xv. p. 120.86. Longy Common, Alderney.Socketed sickle, objects mostly broken.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iii. p. 9.87. Kingston Hill, Coombe, Surrey.Objects all fragmentary.Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 288.88. Sittingbourne, Kent.In two urns; broken sword and rings in one urn, celts, &c., in the other.Smith’s “Coll. Ant.,” vol. i. p. 101;Arch. Journ., vol. ii. p. 81.89. Martlesham, Suffolk.Fragments of swords, socketed knife.PenesCapt. Brooke.90. Lanant, Cornwall.Fragments of swords; pieces of gold in one celt.Arch., vol. xv. p. 118.91. West Halton, Lincolnshire.Fragment of sword.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 69.92. Burwell Fen, Cambs.The ring penannular and of triangular section.Penes Auct.93. Marden, Kent.Found in an earthen vessel, mostly broken.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 257.94. Kensington, Middlesex.Knives broken.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 232.95. Roseberry Topping, Yorkshire.Mostly broken.Arch. Æliana, vol. ii. p. 213;Arch. Scotica, vol. v. p. 55.96. Danesbury, Welwyn, Herts.Mostly imperfect.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 248.97. Earsley Common, Yorkshire.Nearly 100 celts found in 1735.Arch., vol. v. p. 114.98. High Roding, Essex.Some figured in previous pages.In British Museum.99. Panfield, Essex.Possibly other forms found at same time.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 428.100. Westwick Row, Hemel Hempsted, Herts.One celt broken.Penes Auct.101. Achtertyre, Morayshire.With tin. See p. 425.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 435.102. Dowris, Parsonstown, King’s County.With caldrons, trumpets, bells, &c.Wilde, “Catal. Mus. R. I. See p. 361. A.,” pp. 360, 613, 626;Proc. R. I. Ac., vol. iv. pp. 237, 423.103. Hotham Carr, Yorkshire.Palstaves almost all damaged.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.104. Beddington, Surrey.Many fragments, mould broken.Surrey Arch. Soc. Coll., vol. vi.; Anderson’s “Croydon,” p. 10.105. Isle of Harty, Kent.See p. 441.Penes Auct.106. Heathery Burn Cave, Durham.Socketed knife, large collars and discs. See p. 119, &c.Arch. Journ., vol. xix. p.358;Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 127.107. Wickham Park, Croydon, Surrey.Mould broken, other objects mostly fragmentary; list partly compiled from Anderson, and partly from originals.Anderson’s “Croydon,” p. 10; British Museum.108. Wilmington, Sussex.Said to be in the Bateman Collection. Possibly the same hoard as No. 95.Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xiv. p. 171;Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 192; vol.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., v. p. 423.109. Cleveland, Yorkshire.In an urn, mostly broken or worn.Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 166.110. Eaton, Norfolk.Spear-heads apparently broken.Arch., vol. xxii. p. 424;Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 387;Arch. Inst., Norwich vol. p. xxvi.Turning now to the lists, the following observations may be made, though they must be accepted as liable to revision under the light of future discoveries:—1. That flat celts and knife-daggers, such as have been frequently found in barrows, rarely occur in hoards, only two instances being recorded of the occurrence of flat celts.2. That flanged celts and palstaves are occasionally found together, while the latter are frequently associated with socketed celts.3. That socketed weapons are of rare occurrence in association with flanged celts, though a socketed dagger and a ferrule for a tanged spear-head or dagger were present in the Arreton Down hoard.4. That such tanged spear-heads or daggers are never found in company with socketed celts.5. That torques are more frequently associated with palstaves than with socketed celts, and are mainly confined to our western counties.6. That there are several instances of swords and scabbards, and spear-heads and ferrules being found together without either palstaves or socketed celts being with them.7. That swords, or their fragments, are not found with flanged celts.8. That socketed celts are often found with swords and spear-heads, or with the latter alone.9. That socketed celts are often accompanied by gouges, and somewhat less frequently by hammers and chisels, though even where such tools occur, spear-heads are generally present.10. That caldrons, or the rings belonging to them, have been discovered with socketed celts, both in England and Ireland.11. That where metal moulds are found in hoards they are usually those for socketed celts.12. That where lumps of copper or rough metal occur in hoards, socketed celts are, as a rule, found with them.The general inferences are much the same as have already been indicated in former chapters, viz., that two of the earliest forms of bronze weapons discovered in the British Isles are the flat and the slightly flanged celts, and the thin knife-daggers. That these are succeeded by the more distinctly flanged celts, and the tanged spear-heads, with which probably some of the thick dagger-blades found in barrows are contemporary. That subsequently the celts with a stop-ridge and the palstave form came in and remained in use to the close of the Bronze Period, though to a great extent supplanted by the socketed celt which, as has already been shown, was probably evolved from one of the forms of the palstave; and it may here be remarked that flanged celts with a stop-ridge seem rarely, if ever, to occur in the hoards. That the socketed chisels, gouges, hammers, and knives are contemporary with the socketed celts, as are also socketed spear-heads andswords. That hoards in which palstaves only, and not socketed celts, are present rarely belonged to ancient bronze-founders; but that the deposits which these artificers have left behind them almost all denote a period when the art of coring, and thereby producing socketed tools and weapons, was already well known.From this latter circumstance, and the comparative abundance of bronze-founders’ hoards, it may reasonably be inferred that in this country they belong for the most part to the close of the Bronze Period. To how recent a date bronze remained in use for cutting purposes is a question difficult of accurate solution. There are, indeed, two instances in which socketed celts are reported to have been discovered in company with ancient British coins, but in neither case is the evidence altogether satisfactory. Two uninscribed silver coins, of the type of my Plate F, No. 2[1753], are stated to have been found with a human skeleton and a bronze celt at Cann, near Shaftesbury, in 1849; but I believe that this statement would, if it were now capable of being sifted, resolve itself into the fact of the two coins, the celt, and some bones having been found near together by the same workman, without their being actually in association together. The type of the coins, though probably among the earliest in the British silver series, is one which was derived from gold coins struck some considerable time after the introduction of a gold coinage into this country, and probably belongs to the first centuryb.c.If such coins were in contemporary use with socketed celts, it is strange that none of the gold coins of earlier date have ever been found associated with bronze instruments.It is true that in the account given in the Archæologia[1754]of the antiquities discovered on Hagbourn Hill, Berks., it is stated that at the bottom of a pit about four feet from the surface of the ground was a further circular excavation, in which, together with bronze bridle-bits and buckles of Late Celtic patterns, were socketed celts, and a spear-head of bronze, and, in addition, some coins. These, however, were not seen by the writer of the account, but he was informed “that one of them was silver and the other gold, the latter of which was rather large and flat, and perhaps one of the lower empire.” Looking at the Late Celtic character of some of the objects it seems possible that Ancient British coins might have been found with them; but, on the other hand, it is evident that the particulars given of the find were all derived from theworkmen who dug up the objects, and not from personal observation; and it is possible that not only were the coins described not actually found with the bronze celts and spear-heads, but that these latter were not discovered in actual association with the Late Celtic bridle-bits. I have, however, provisionally accepted the account of their being found together, relying to some extent on the Abergele[1755]hoard, in which some buckles allied in form to those from Hagbourn Hill were present, associated with slides such as have been elsewhere found with socketed celts.Whatever may be the real state of the case in these discoveries, there is every probability of a transition having gradually taken place in this country, from the employment of bronze for cutting tools and weapons of offence to the use of iron or steel for such instruments; in other words, from a Bronze Age to an Iron Age, such as that to which the term “Late Celtic” has been applied.That this transition must have been effected, at all events in the South of Britain, prior to the Roman invasion, is shown, as has already been pointed out, by the circumstance that the Early Iron swords found in France belong in all probability to a period not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., while the southern parts of Britain had, long before Cæsar’s time, been peopled by Belgic immigrants, who either brought the knowledge of iron with them or must have received it after their arrival from their kinsmen on the continent, with whom they were in constant intercourse. In the more northern parts of Britain and in Scotland an acquaintance with iron was probably first made at a somewhat more recent period; but in the Late Celtic interments in Yorkshire no coins are present, and the iron and other objects found exhibit no traces of Roman influence. Moreover, the Roman historians, who have recorded many of the manners and customs of the northern Britons, do not in any way hint at their weapons being formed of bronze.In Ireland, perhaps, which was less accessible from the continent than Britain, the introduction of iron may have taken place considerably after the time when it was known in the sister country; but there appears to have been a sufficient intercourse between Scotland and the north of Ireland at an early period for the knowledge of so useful a metal, when once gained, to have been quickly communicated from one country to the other.On the whole I think we may fairly conclude that in the southern parts of Britain iron must have been in use not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., and that by the second or third centuryb.c.the employment of bronze for cutting instruments had there practically ceased. These dates are of course approximate only, but will at all events serve to give some idea of the latest date to which bronze weapons and tools found in England may with some degree of safety be assigned.As to the time at which such weapons and tools were here first in use, we have even less means of judging than we have as to when they fell into desuetude. It is, however, evident that the Bronze Period of the British Isles must have extended over a long period of years, probably embracing many centuries. The numerous bronze-founders’ hoards, containing fragments of tools and weapons of so many various forms, testify to the art of bronze-founding having been practised for a lengthened period; and yet in all of these the socketed celt occurs, or some other socketed instruments, which we know to have been contemporary with it, are present. It is true that the socketed celt was not originally developed in this country, but was introduced from abroad; and, as has already been pointed out, was derived from a form of palstave which is of rare occurrence in Britain. Yet the length of time requisite for the modification of the flat form of celt to that with flanges, of this latter again to that with the flanges produced into wings, and finally the transition into the palstave with the wings hammered over so as to form sockets on each side of the blade, must itself have been of very great duration.[1756]The development of the forms of palstave common to Britain and the opposite shores of the Continent must also have demanded a long lapse of years, and most of the stages in its evolution can be traced in this country. We have the flat celt, the flanged celt, and the flanged celt with a stop-ridge; and we can trace the modification of form from one stage to another until the characteristic palstave is reached, in which the stop-ridge is as it were formed in the actual body of the blade. And it is to be observed that this form of palstave had already been developed at the time represented by the earliest of the ordinary bronze-founders’ hoards, in which, moreover, the flanged celts, either with or without a stop-ridge, are hardly ever present.The Bronze Age of Britain may, therefore, be regarded as an aggregate of three stages: the first, that characterized by the flat or slightly flanged celts, and the knife-daggers frequently found in barrows associated with instruments and weapons formed of stone; the second, that characterized by the more heavy dagger-blades and the flanged celts and tanged spear-heads or daggers, such as those from Arreton Down; and the third, by palstaves and socketed celts and the many forms of tools and weapons, of which fragments are so constantly present in the hoards of the ancient bronze-founders. It is in this third stage that the bronze sword and the true socketed spear-head first make their advent. The number of these hoards, and the varieties in the forms of these swords and spear-heads, as well as in the socketed celts and other tools, would, I think, justify us in assigning a minimum duration of some four or five centuries to this last stage. The other two stages together must probably have extended over at least an equal lapse of time; so that for the total duration of the Bronze Period in Britain we cannot greatly err in attributing eight or ten centuries. This would place the beginning of the Period some 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.—a date which in many respects would seem to fit in with what we know as to the use of bronze in the southern parts of Europe.[1757]Although I have thus attempted to assign a definite chronology to our Bronze Age, I do so with all reserve, as any such attempt is founded upon what are at best imperfect data, and each of the stages I have mentioned may have been of far longer duration than I have suggested, though it is not likely that any of them should have been materially shorter.There is, it must be acknowledged, the difficulty which I have already mentioned, as to the absence of nearly all traces of the later stages of the Bronze Period in the graves and barrows that have been examined in Britain.[1758]The reason of this absence has still to be discovered; but it may perhaps have been the case that during this time the method or fashion of interring the dead underwent some change, and the practice of placing weapons and ornaments with the bodies of departed friends and relatives fell into disuse. Among the bronze-using occupants of the Yorkshire Wolds, whose burial-places have been explored by Canon Greenwell, the interments by inhumation were much in excess over thosewhich took place after cremation, but in other parts of England the proportions are reversed. Out of fourteen instances[1759]in which bronze articles were associated with an interment, it was only in two that the body had been burnt; or taking the whole number of burials, viz. 301 by inhumation and 78 after cremation, bronze articles were found with 4 per cent. of the burials of the former kind and only 2½ per cent. with those of the latter. This seems to point to a tendency towards departing from the old custom of burying weapons with the dead for use in a future life. And, indeed, if the custom of burning the dead became general, the inducement to place such objects among mere dust and ashes would be but small. An urn or a small recess in the ground would suffice to contain the mightiest warrior, and his weapons would be out of place beside the little calcined heap which was left by the purifying fire. Even the practice of raising mounds or barrows over the interments may have ceased, and “when the funeral pyre was out and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends.”It has been suggested that the absence of the later bronze forms with interments is due to a superstitious reverence for the older forms, so that the habit of burying the flat wedge-shaped axe[1760]and the dagger with the dead continued down to the later Age of Bronze; but I cannot accept this view.In Scandinavia[1761]interments with which bronze swords and other weapons are associated, have frequently been discovered; and in some instances in which coffins, hollowed out in trunks of trees, have been used, even the clothing has been preserved. In this country also coffins of the same kind have occasionally been discovered, but the bronze objects which have been placed in them are of the same character as those which are found in the barrows of the district, and never comprise socketed weapons or swords. Stone weapons are also occasionally present. Remains of clothing made of skins and of woven woollen fabric have also been found. The best-known instance of the discovery of the latter was in a barrow at Scale House,[1762]near Rylston, Yorkshire, examined by Canon Greenwell, who has recorded other instances of these tree-burials. Neither bronze nor stone were in this instance present.It is not, however, my intention to dilate upon the burial customs of our Bronze Age, as they have already been so fullydiscussed by Canon Greenwell, Dr. Thurnam, Sir John Lubbock, and others.It will now be desirable to say something as to the sources from which the use of bronze in this country was derived, though on this subject also much has already been written.The four principal views held by different authors have thus been summarized by Colonel A. Lane Fox, now General Pitt Rivers:—[1763]1. That bronze was spread from a common centre by an intruding and conquering race, or by the migration of tribes.2. That the inhabitants of each separate region in which bronze is known to have been used discovered the art independently, and made their own implements of it.3. That the art was discovered and the implements fabricated on one spot, and the implements disseminated from that place by means of commerce.4. That the art of making bronze was diffused from a common centre, but that the implements were constructed in the countries in which they were found.For a full discussion of these hypotheses I must refer the reader to General Pitt Rivers’ Paper, but I shall here make use of some of the information which he has collected, premising that in my opinion there is a certain amount of truth embodied in each of these opinions.The first view, of an intruding and conquering race having introduced the use of bronze into their country, has been held by most of the Scandinavian antiquaries, and Professor Boyd Dawkins seems to regard a Celtic invasion and conquest of the Iberic peoples in Britain as having been the means by which the knowledge of bronze was extended from Gaul to these islands. The osteological evidence in favour of the bronze-using Britons having as a rule been of a different race from the stone-using people of our Neolithic times is strongly corroborative of such a view; as is also the change which is to be noted in the burial customs of the two periods. Such an immigration or conquest must, however, have taken place at a very early period if we accept Sir John Lubbock’s[1764]view, that betweenb.c.1500 andb.c.1200 the Phœnicians were already acquainted with the mineral fields of Britain, a period at which it must not be forgotten the use of bronze had long been known in Egypt. Although it is true thatat present we have no satisfactory proof of any Phœnician influence on the people of our Bronze Age, yet if at so early a period there was an export of tin from this country, the search for that metal and the means employed for its production would almost of necessity tend to an acquaintance with copper also, even supposing, what is improbable, that those who traded for tin in order to manufacture bronze with it kept the knowledge of this latter alloy from those with whom they had commercial relations, or that the natives of Britain were not already acquainted with more metals than tin when the trade first began. But to this subject I shall recur. It may be observed by the way that the date assigned for this Phœnician intercourse corresponds in a remarkable manner with the date assigned for the earliest instances of the use of bronze in Britain, which was suggested on other grounds.The second view of the independent discovery of bronze in different regions has little or nothing to support it so far as the different countries of Europe are concerned, though there is a possibility that the discovery of copper and of the method of alloying it with tin, so as to produce bronze, may have been made independently in America. But it may even there be the case that the knowledge of bronze was imported from Asia.[1765]In Europe, however, when once the use of the metal was known, there were certain types of weapons and implements developed in different countries which in a certain sense may be regarded as instances of independent discoveries.The third view, that the art was discovered at some single spot at which subsequently implements were manufactured and disseminated by commerce must, at least to a limited extent, be true. Wherever the discovery of bronze may have been made, there is ample evidence of its use having spread over the greater part of Europe if not of Asia; and at first the spread of bronze weapons and tools was in all probability by commerce. Even subsequently there were local centres, such as Etruria, from which the manufactured products were exported into neighbouring countries, as well as to those lying to the north of the Alps. Some even of the bronze vases found in Ireland, though themselves not of Etruscan manufacture, bear marks of Etruscan influences in their form and character. In each country in Europe there may have been one or more localities in which the manufacture of bronze objects wasprincipally carried on, though it may now be impossible to identify the spots. Such large hoards of unfinished castings as those of Plénée Jugon, and other places in Brittany, prove that district, for instance, to have been at one time a kind of manufacturing centre. Indeed, a socketed celt of Breton type, unused, and still retaining the burnt clay core, has been found on our southern coast.The process of casting, as practised by the ancient bronze-founders, was, moreover, one requiring a great amount of skill; and though there appear to have been wandering founders, who, like the bell-founders of mediæval times, could practise their art at any spot where their services were required, yet there were probably fixed foundries also, where the process of manufacture could be more economically carried on, and where successive generations passed through some sort of apprenticeship to learn the art and mystery of the trade.The fourth opinion, that the use of bronze spread from some single centre, though implements were manufactured in greater or less abundance in each country where the use of bronze prevailed, is one that must commend itself to all archæologists. It does not, of course, follow that in any given district the bronze tools and weapons were all of home manufacture, and none of them imported. There is, on the contrary, evidence to be found in most countries that some, at least, of the bronze instruments found there are of foreign manufacture, and introduced either by commerce or by the foreign travel of individuals.Where the original centre was placed, from which the European use of bronze was propagated, is an enigma still under discussion, and one which will not readily be solved. Appearances at present seem to point to its having been situate in Western Asia;[1766]but the whole question of the origin and development of the Bronze civilisation has been so recently discussed by my friend Professor Boyd Dawkins, in his “Early Man in Britain,” that it appears needless here to repeat the opinions of which he has given so good an abstract. Suffice it to say, that it has been proposed to regard the bronze antiquities of Europe as belonging generally to three provinces,[1767]the boundaries of which, however, cannot be very accurately defined. These provinces are—the Uralian, comprising Russia, Siberia, and Finland; the Danubian, which consists of theHungarian, Scandinavian, and Britannic sub-divisions or regions; and the Mediterranean, composed of the Italo-Greek and Franco-Swiss sub-divisions.I must confess that I do not attach such high importance to this classification as at first sight it would seem to merit; for on a close examination it appears to me to involve several serious incongruities. Take, for instance, the Danubian province, and it will be found that the differences in type of bronze instruments belonging to the Hungarian region, when compared with those of the British, are on the whole greater than the difference presented when they are compared with the types of the Italian region, which, however, is made to belong to another province. There is, moreover, a difficulty in synchronizing the antiquities belonging to different provinces or regions, so as to be sure that any comparisons between them are of real value. Taking, for example, the Uralian province, it will at once be seen that though in Finland some Scandinavian types occur, such as swords and palstaves, yet the great majority of the bronze antiquities belonging to it, so far as at present known, consist of socketed celts, often with two loops; of daggers, with their hafts cast in one piece with the blade; and of perforated axes, sometimes with the representations of the heads of animals; in fact, of objects which evidently belong to a very late stage in the evolution of bronze, and which, as Mr. Worsaae has pointed out, not improbably show traces of Chinese influence. Such objects can hardly be satisfactorily compared with those of a province in which the whole development of bronze instruments, from the flat celt and small knife, to the socketed celt and the skilfully cast spear-head and sword, can be traced.All things considered, I think it will be better and safer to content ourselves for the present with less extensive provinces; and, so far as these are concerned, the sub-divisions already enumerated may be accepted, and are quite sufficiently large, if, indeed, they are not too extensive. In the Britannic province, a part of France is included by M. Chantre, and there are certainly close analogies between many of the types of the south of England and those of the north and north-west of France. For the purpose of the present work, though accepting M. Chantre’s boundary in the main, I shall, however, restrict the Britannic province to the British Isles.On a general examination of our British types it is satisfactory to see how complete a series of links in the chain of developmentof the bronze industry is here to be found, though many of them bear undoubted marks of foreign influence, and prove that though some of the types were of native growth, yet that others were originally imported. On general grounds, I have assigned an antiquity of 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.to the introduction of the use of bronze into this country, but it is a question whether this antiquity will meet all the necessities of the case; for we can hardly imagine the Phœnicians, or those who traded with them, landing in Britain and spontaneously discovering tin. On the contrary, it must have been from a knowledge that the inhabitants of Britain were already producers of this valuable metal that the commerce with them originated; and the probable reason that tin was sought for by the native Britons was in order to mix it with copper, a metal which occurs native in the same district as the tin. If, therefore, the Phœnician intercourse, direct or indirect, commenced about 1500b.c., the knowledge of the use of tin, and probably also of copper, dates back in Britain to a still earlier epoch.A comparison of the various British types of tools and weapons with those of Continental countries has been frequently instituted in the preceding pages, but it will be well here to recapitulate some of the principal facts. We have in Britain the flat form of celt in some abundance, though none of the specimens exhibit traces of being direct imitations of hatchets formed of stone, as would probably have been the case in any country where the use of metal for such instruments originated. And yet many of our British flat celts exhibit a certain degree of originality, inasmuch as they are decorated with hammer- or punch-marks in a manner peculiar to this country, and others in a fashion but rarely seen abroad. We can trace the development of the flanged celt from the flat variety, through specimens with almost imperceptible flanges, the result merely of hammering the sides, to those with the flanges produced in the casting. At the same time, the flanges are never so fully developed as in some of the French examples.The development of a stop-ridge between the flanges, which eventually culminated in the ordinary palstave form, can probably be better observed in the British series than in that of any other country. At the same time, the origin of the other form of palstave—that without a definite stop-ridge, and with semicircular wings bent over so as to form a kind of side-pocket—can best be traced on the Continent, and especially in the south of France. Itwas from this form of palstave that the socketed celt was developed, and although this development seems to have taken place abroad, possibly in Western Germany, the form was introduced into Britain at an early period of its existence, as is proved by the semicircular projections and curved “flanches” so common on the faces of the socketed celts of this country.Our knife-daggers may originally have been of foreign introduction, but evidently belong to a time when metal was scarce, and like the flat and slightly-flanged celts have often been found associated with stone implements. The dagger-blades of stouter make, which seem to have succeeded them, show analogies with French, Italian, and German examples; but similar blades, with a tang such as those from the Arreton Down hoard, seem to be almost peculiar to Britain. The fact, however, that the socketed blade found with them has its analogues both in Switzerland and Egypt suggests the probability of the tanged form being also of foreign, and possibly Mediterranean origin; indeed, a specimen is reported to have been found in Italy.Our halberd blades with the three rivets are nearly allied to those of northern Germany; and the type appears never to be found in France, though I have met with a solitary example in Southern Spain, and the form is not unknown in Italy, there being one from the province of Mantua in the British Museum. Socketed chisels, hammers, and gouges were probably derived from a foreign source; but tanged chisels, though not absolutely wanting in the North of France, are more abundant in the British Isles than elsewhere. Long narrow chisels with tangs were, however, present in the great Bologna hoard.Bronze socketed sickles are almost peculiar to the British Isles, though they have occasionally been found in the North of France. The flat form, from which they must have been developed, is of rare occurrence, though not unknown in Britain. Its origin is to be sought in the South of Europe, though the British examples more closely resemble German and Danish forms than those of any other country. Tanged single-edged knives are almost unknown in our islands, though so abundant in the Swiss Lake-dwellings and in the South of France. Double-edged knives with a socket are, however, almost peculiar to Britain and Ireland, though they are found in small numbers in the North of France. The tanged razor may also be regarded as one of our specialities, though not unknown in Italy. Most of the foreign varieties have a ringfor suspension at the end of the tang, a peculiarity almost unknown in Britain.Bronze swords, no doubt, originated on the Continent; and as such long thin blades required great skill in casting, it seems probable that their manufacture was to some extent localized at particular spots, and that they formed an important article of commerce. The same type has been discovered in countries wide apart, and many of those found in Scandinavia are now regarded as being of foreign origin. Still there are some British types which are rarely or never found abroad, and the discovery of moulds proves conclusively that both leaf-shaped and rapier-shaped blades were cast in these islands. The latter kind of blades are, indeed, almost exclusively confined to Britain and the north of France. Bronze scabbard-ends, as distinct from mere chapes, seem also to be confined to the same tract of country.When we turn to the spear-heads of these islands we find that though the leaf-shaped form prevails over the greater part of Europe, yet that those with loops at the side of the socket and with loops at the base of the blade are common in the British Isles, while they are extremely rare in France, and almost unknown elsewhere. The same may be said of the type with the small eyelet-holes in the blade, and of those with barbs. Those with crescent-shaped openings in the blades are also almost unknown elsewhere, though one example has been found in Russia. Our bronze shields with numerous concentric rings are also specially British.Among ornaments formed of bronze, there are few, if any, that we can claim as our own. Our torques seem more nearly connected with those of the Rhine district than of any other part of Europe. Our bracelets, which are not common, hardly present any special peculiarities, and brooches we have none.Our spheroidal caldrons seem to be of native type, but with them are vases which almost undoubtedly show an Etruscan influence in their origin.We have here then, I think, sufficient proof that Britain, though not unaffected by foreign influences, and in fact deriving many of the types of its tools and weapons from foreign sources, was, nevertheless, a local centre in which the Bronze civilisation received a special and high development; and where, had extraneous influences been entirely absent after the time when the knowledge of Bronze was first introduced, the evolution of forms would probablyhave differed in but few particulars from that which is now exhibited by the prevailing types found in this country.If we compare these British types with those of the other regions which together make up the so-called Danubian province, we shall at once be struck, not by the analogies presented, but by the marked difference in the generalfacies.Taking Scandinavia to begin with, and Mr. Worsaae’s types as giving the characteristics of that region, what do we find? The perforated axe-hammers and axes of bronze are here entirely wanting; the tanged swords and the majority of those with decorated hilts are also unknown. There is hardly a type of dagger common to this country and Scandinavia. The saws, knives, and razors are of quite another character, but there is a resemblance in the sickles to a rare British type. The flat and flanged celts of the two regions are of nearly the same kind, and in one rare instance there is a similar decoration on a reputedly Danish and on an Irish celt. The palstaves, however, are of an entirely different character, with the exception of the form with semicircular wings, which is not essentially British. The socketed celts are nearly all unlike those of this country; and though the leaf-shaped spear-heads present close analogies, the looped and eyed kinds are absent. The shields are of a different character from ours. Thetutuliand diadems are here unknown. There is but one form of torque common to this country and Denmark. Brooches, combs, and small hanging vases are never met with in Britain; and the spiral, whether formed of wire or engraved as an ornament, is conspicuous by its absence.If we take the Hungarian region, we are driven to much the same conclusions. The perforated axes and pick-axes, principally formed of copper, the semicircular sickles, the spiral ornaments, the swords with engraved hilts of bronze, and several forms of minor importance are absent in Britain, while the socketed celts and the majority of the palstaves are of markedly different types, though that with the semicircular wings hammered over is of common occurrence in Hungary.In Northern Germany the types of bronze may be regarded as intermediate between those of Hungary and Scandinavia, though in some few respects presenting closer analogies with those of Britain, with which, as will subsequently be seen, there may have been some commercial intercourse. The connection between British and German types is, however, but small, and on the whole I think that the evidence here brought forward is sufficient toprove that the British Isles can hardly be properly classified as forming part of any Danubian province of bronze.The connection between France and Britain during the Bronze Period cannot be denied, and in many respects there is an identity of character between the bronze antiquities of the North of France and those of the South of England. The North of France cannot, however, at any time since the first discovery of bronze, have been absolutely shut out from all communication with the South and East. The East must always have been affected by the habits of those who occupied what is now Western Germany; and the South can hardly have been exempt from the influence of Italy, if not, indeed, of other Mediterranean countries. I am inclined to think that these external influences acted also on the bronze industry of Britain, not so much directly as indirectly, and that some of the types in this country may be traced to an Italian or German origin as readily as to a French.It is, I think, a fact that as close a resemblance in type, so far as regards our earliest bronze instruments, may be found among Italian examples as among French. Many of the slightly flanged celts of Italy can hardly be distinguished from those of Britain, except by the faces of the latter being more frequently decorated; and there is also a great similarity between the dagger-blades of the two countries. In the later forms, such as palstaves and socketed celts, the difference between British and Italian examples is sufficiently striking. May it not be the case that at the time when first the commerce between Britain and the Mediterranean countries originated, always assuming that such a commerce took place, the flanged celt was the most advanced type of hatchet known by those who came hither to trade, and the palstave and socketed form were subsequently developed? At a later period it was the German influence that was felt in Britain, rather than the Italian, for our socketed celts appear, as already stated, to have had the cradle of their family in Western Germany; and the few flat sickles that have been found in Britain, as well as the more numerous torques, show a closer connection in type with those of Germany than with those of France or any other country. Whether this introduction of what appear to be North German types can in any way be attributed to commercial relations between the two countries, and especially to a trade in amber, is worth consideration. The abundance of amber ornaments in some of the graves of our Bronze Period shows how much that substance was in use.At the same time, the eastern shores of England might have furnished it in sufficient quantity to supply the demand, without having recourse to foreign sources. I have known amber thrown up on the beach so far south as Deal.A curious feature in the comparison of the later bronze antiquities of Britain and those of France, is the marked absence of many of the forms which abound in the remains of the Lake-dwellings of Savoy, as well as in those of Switzerland. A glance through “Rabut’s Album”[1768]or “Keller’s Lake-dwellings,” will at once show how few of the specimens there figured could pass as having been discovered in the British Isles. The large proportion of ornaments to tools and weapons is also striking. There is, indeed, as M. Chantre has pointed out, a closer connection between the bronze antiquities of the South of France and those of Switzerland and Northern Italy, than with those of Northern France.Even the character of the ornaments is in many cases essentially different. The hollowed form of bronze bracelet, made from a thin plate bent in such a manner as to show a semicircular section, is entirely wanting in Britain, and is very rarely found in the North of France.Enough has, however, now been said in favour of regarding Britain as one of those centres into which a knowledge of the use of bronze was introduced at a comparatively early date, and where a special development of the bronze industry arose, extending over a lengthened period, and modified from time to time by foreign influences. On the transition from bronze to iron, it is not necessary here further to enlarge. I have, in treating of the different forms of tools and weapons, pointed out those which I considered to belong to the close of the Bronze Period; and it is probable that these forms for some time continued in use, side by side with those made of the more serviceable metal, iron, which ultimately drove bronze from the field, except for ornamental purposes or for those uses for which a fusible metal was best adapted. It seems probable that, as was the case in Mediterranean countries, some of the socketed weapons, such as spear-heads, which were more easily cast than forged, may for some time have been made of bronze in preference to iron; but at present our knowledge of any transitional period is slight, and this question would be best treated of in a work on the Late Celtic or Early Iron Period of Britain.Among the ornaments in use in this country during the Bronze Period, are some, the history of which, if it could be traced, might throw light upon the foreign intercourse of that time, for glass and ivory were probably not of native production.[1769]Glass beads have occasionally been found in barrows of the Bronze Age, nearly always in our southern counties, and with burnt interments. They are usually small tubes of opaque glass of a light blue or green colour, with the outer surface divided into rounded segments, so as to give the appearance of a number of spheroidal beads side by side. I am not aware of any having been discovered with interments of the Bronze Age on the Continent, but it seems probable that such beads have been found, and they may eventually assist in marking out the lines of ancient commerce with this country. A few larger beads, with spiral serpent-like ornaments upon them, have likewise been found; but these, also, I am unable to compare with any Continental examples. The finding of glass, however, in tombs belonging to the early portion of our Bronze Age is suggestive of some method of intercourse, direct or indirect, with Mediterranean countries. The small quoit-like pendants, formed of a greenish vitrified material, which have been found in Sussex[1770]with burnt interments of the Bronze Age, closely resemble Egyptian porcelain, and their presence in this country corroborates this suggestion.The discovery of beads made in sets like those of glass, of a bracelet, buttons, pins, and hooks, all, in Dr. Thurnam’s opinion, formed of ivory, gives indications in the same direction; for though billiard balls have been manufactured from Scottish mammoth ivory of the Pleistocene Period, the fossil tusks found in Britain are, as a rule, too much decomposed to be any longer of service, and in this respect differ materially from the fossil mammoth tusks of Siberia, which still furnish so much of our table cutlery with handles.For the jet and amber ornaments of the Bronze Period we have not, of necessity, to go so far afield as for glass. Abundance of jet is to be obtained in our own country, and the usual type of jet necklace,[1771]with a series of flat plates, seems to be essentially British. Some of the amber plates found at Hallstatt are, however,of the same form, and perforated in the same manner, so that possibly these jet necklaces may have been made in imitation of foreign prototypes in amber. How far the amber ornaments of the Bronze Period in Britain were of native production we have no good means of judging; but the circumstance just mentioned is suggestive of Hallstatt and Britain having been supplied from a common source, which may have been on the shores of the Baltic. On the other hand, our amber ornaments differ, as a rule, from those of Scandinavia, and, as already remarked, our eastern coast would furnish an ample supply of the raw material without seeking it abroad. It must, however, be remembered that some of the forms of our bronze instruments show traces of German influence, and that in Strabo’s time both amber and ivory were among the articles exported from Celtic Gaul to Britain. The remarkable amber cup from the Hove barrow, near Brighton, I have described elsewhere.[1772]It remains for me to say a few words as to the general condition of the inhabitants of Britain during the Bronze Age; but on this subject, apart from the light thrown upon it by the tools, weapons, and ornaments which I have been describing, and by the contents of the graves of the period, we have in this country but little to guide us. Such a complete insight into the material civilisation of the period as that afforded by the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Northern Italy is nowhere vouchsafed to us in Britain. The Irish crannoges, which, in many respects, present close analogies with the pile-buildings, have remained in use until mediæval times, and in no instance has the destruction of a settlement by fire contributed to preserve for the instruction of future ages the household goods of the population. The nearest approach to a Lake-dwelling in England is that examined in Barton Mere,[1773]Suffolk, where, however, the results were comparatively meagre. A single spear-head was found, apparently of the type of Fig. 406, and the remains of various animals used for food, including the urus and the hare, which latter in Cæsar’s time the Britons did not eat.The information to be gained from the burial customs and the contents of the graves has already been gathered by the late Dr. Thurnam and by Canon Greenwell, as well as by other antiquaries, and I cannot do better than refer to the forty-third volume ofthe “Archæologia,” and to “British Barrows.”[1774]I may, however, shortly depict some of the principal features of the external conditions of the bronze-using population of these islands, taken as a whole, for no doubt the customs and condition of the people were by no means uniform throughout the whole extent of the country at any given moment of time.As to their dwellings, we seem to have no positive information, but they probably were of much the same character as those of the Swiss Lake population, except that for the most part they were placed upon the dry land, and not on platforms above the water. Their clothing was sometimes of skins, sometimes of woollen cloth, and probably of linen also, as they were acquainted with the arts of spinning and weaving. Of domesticated animals they possessed the dog, ox, sheep, goat, pig, and finally the horse. They hunted the red deer, the roe, the wild boar, the hare, and possibly some other animals. For the chase and for warfare their arrows were tipped with flint, and not with bronze: and some other stone instruments, such as scrapers, remained in use until the end of the period. At the beginning, as has already often been stated, the axe, the knife-dagger, and the awl were the only articles of bronze in use. For obtaining fire, a nodule of pyrites and a flake of flint sufficed. Some cereals were cultivated, as is shown by the bronze sickles. Pottery they had of various forms, some apparently made expressly for sepulchral purposes; but they were unacquainted with the potter’s wheel. Some vessels of amber and shale, turned in the lathe, may have been imported from abroad. Ornaments were worn in less profusion than in Switzerland; but the torque for the neck, the bracelet, the ear-ring, the pin for the dress and for the hair, were all in use, though brooches were unknown. Necklaces, or gorgets, formed of amber, jet, and bone beads were not uncommon; and the ornaments of glass and ivory, such as those lately mentioned, were probably obtained by foreign commerce. Gold, also, was often used for decorating the person, though coins, and apparently even the metal silver, were unknown. They appear to have been accomplished workers and carvers of wood and horn, and there were among them artificers who inlaid wood and amber with minute gold pins almost or quite as skilfully as the French workmen of the last century, who wrought on tortoise-shell. In castingand hammering out bronze they attained consummate skill, and their spear-heads and wrought shields could not be surpassed at the present day. The general equipment of the warrior in the shape of swords, daggers, halberds, spears, &c., and the tools of the workman, such as hatchets, chisels, gouges, hammers, &c., have, however, all been dealt with at large in previous pages. They contrast with the arms and instruments of the preceding Neolithic Age more by their greater degree of perfection than by their absolute number and variety. The material progress from one stage of civilisation to the other was no doubt great, but the interval between the two does not approach that which exists between Palæolithic man of the old River-drifts and Neolithic man of the present configuration of the surface of Western Europe.So far as the general interest attaching to the Bronze Period is concerned, it may readily be conceded that it falls short of that with which either of the two stages of the Stone Period which preceded it must be regarded. The existence of numerous tribes of men who are, or were until lately, in the same stage of culture as the occupants of Europe during the Neolithic Age, affords various points of comparison between ancient and modern savages which are of the highest interest, while there exists at the present day not a single community in which the phases of the Bronze culture can be observed. The Palæolithic Age has, moreover, a charm of mysterious eld attaching to it as connected with the antiquity of the human race which is peculiarly its own.The Bronze Age, nevertheless, from its close propinquity to the period of written history, is of the highest importance to those who would trace back the course of human progress to its earliest phases; and though in this country many of the minute details of the picture cannot be filled in, yet, taken as a whole, the broad lines of the development of this stage of civilisation may be as well traced in Britain as in any other country. It has been a pleasure to me to gather the information on which this work is based; and I close these pages with the consolatory thought that, dry as may be their contents, they may prove of some value as a hoard of collected facts for other seekers after truth.FINIS.

LISTS OF HOARDS.LIST I.Locality.Remarks.Reference.1. Arreton Down, Isle of Wight.Flanged celts, some ornamented, tanged spear-heads, ferrule to one, halberd? one socketed dagger.Arch., vol. xxxvi. p. 326.2. Plymstock, Devon.Flanged celts, straight chisel.Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 346;Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. iv. p. 304.3. Battlefield, Shrewsbury.Mostly melted. Flat celts, palstaves, curved objects.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii, p.251.4. Postlingford Hall, Clare, Suffolk.Flanged celts, some ornamented.Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 496;Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. i. p. 83.5. Rhosnesney, Wrexham, Denbigshire.Palstaves, all from one mould; castings for a dagger and for flanged celts of narrow form.Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. vi. p. 72.6. Broxton, Cheshire.Tanged chisel; socketed spear-head.PenesSir P. de M. G. Egerton, F.R.S.7. Sherford, Taunton, Somerset.One palstave, a defective casting.Pring, “British and Roman Taunton,” p. 76.8. Stibbard, near Fakenham, Norfolk.Castings for small palstaves and spear-heads.Arch. Inst., Norwich vol. p. xxvi.9. Quantock Hills, Somerset.Each palstave laid within torque.Arch., vol. xiv. p. 94.10. Hollingbury Hill, Brighton, Sussex.Palstave laid within a torque, bracelets around.Arch. Journ., vol. v. p. 323;Arch., vol. xxix. p. 372, &c.11. Edington Burtle, Somerset.One casting for a flat sickle; ribbed bracelet and ring.Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Proc., vol. v. (1854) pt. ii. p. 91.12. Woolmer Forest, Hants.There appears some doubt about the small torques.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. vi. p. 88; Bateman's Catal., p. 2213. West Buckland Somerset.Two-looped palstave.Arch. Journ., vol. xxxvii. p. 107.14. Blackmoor, Hants.Fragments of swords and sheaths, large and small spear-heads.White’s “Selborne,” Bell’s ed., 1877, vol. ii. p. 381.15. Fulbourn Common, Cambs.Swords broken, leaf-shaped spear-heads, broad-ended ferrules.Arch., vol. xix. p. 56.16. Pant-y-maen, Cardiganshire.Swords and leaf-shaped spear-heads, broken or damaged.Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. x. p. 221.17. Wicken Fen, Cambs.Nearly all fragmentary; fragments perhaps of two swords.In British Museum.18. Corsbie Moss, Legerwood, Berwickshire.Sword perfect.Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. iii. p. 121.19. Weymouth, Dorset.Both sword and spear-head nearly perfect.Penes Auct.20. Thrunton Farm, Whittingham, Northumberland.Spear-heads, leaf-shaped, and with lunate openings; all objects unbroken.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 429.21. Worth, Washfield, Devon.Sword and leaf-shaped spear-heads, perfect.Arch. Journ., vol. xxiv. p. 120.22. Stoke Ferry, Norfolk.Swords and leaf-shaped spearheads broken, halberd.Penes Auct.;Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p.425.23. Brechin, Forfarshire.Swords, &c., unbroken.Arch. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 203;Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. pp. 181 and 224.24. Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh.Swords, spear-heads, &c., in fragments; caldron.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. i. p. 132; Wilson, “Preh. Ann. of Scot.,” vol. i. p. 348.25. Point of Sleat, Isle of Skye.Sword, spear-head, and pin, perfect.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. iii. p. 102.26. River Wandle, Surrey.All objects nearly perfect.Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 7.27. Tarves, Aberdeenshire.Objects mostly perfect.Horæ ferales, p. 161.28. Cwm Moch, Maentwrog, Merionethshire.Objects unbroken; loops at base of blade of spear-head.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 365.29. Bloody Pool, South Brent, Devon.Spear-heads mostly barbed; all objects broken.Arch. Journ., vol. xii. p. 84; xviii. p. 160.30. Broadward, Leintwardine, Herefordshire.Spear-heads, leaf-shaped, with perforations in blade, and barbed.Arch. Camb., 4th S., vol. iii. p. 345; iv. 202.LIST II.31. Mawgan, Cornwall.Rapier in high preservation.Arch., vol. xvii., p. 337.32. Wallington, Northumberland.In Sir C. Trevelyan’s Collection.33. Nottingham.Fragments of swords, and possibly of scabbard-tip.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. i. p. 332.34. Nettleham, Lincolnshire.Socketed celts of peculiar types.Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 159.35. Haxey, Lincolnshire.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.36. Ambleside, Westmoreland.Swords described as broad-swords,and sharp-pointed swords.Arch., vol. v. p. 115.37. Bilton, Yorkshire.Swords broken, one spear-head ornamented.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. v. p. 349.38. Alnwick Castle, Northumberland.Found in 1726.Arch., vol. v. p. 113.39. Flixborough, Lincolnshire.Sword broken. Possibly palstaves.Arch. Journ., vol. xxix. p. 194.40. Greensborough Farm, Shenstone, Staffordshire.Swords apparently perfect.Arch., vol. xxi. p. 548.41. Wrekin Tenement, Shrewsbury.One celt, a few swords, about 150 spear-heads and fragments.Arch., vol. xxvi. p. 464.42. Llandysilio,See p. 119.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.43. Dunbar, Haddingtonshire.Uninjured.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. x. p. 440.44. Little Wenlock, Shropshire.Spear-heads mostly broken, whetstones with them. Possibly thesame hoard as No. 41.Hartshorne, “Salop. Ant.,” p. 96;Arch. Journ., vol. viii. p. 197.45. Winmarleigh, Garstang, Lancashire.One spear-head, large, and with lunate openings; all found in “a cist or box.”Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 158.46. Near Newark, Nottinghamshire.Two large discs in hoard.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.47. Hagbourn Hill, Berks.Bridle-bits and late Celtic buckles, said to have been found; coins also?Arch., vol. xvi. p. 348.48. Ty Mawr, Holyhead.Said to have been found in a box.Arch., vol. xxvi. p. 483.49. Heath House, Wedmore, Somerset.Amber beads found at same time; possibly palstaves and not socketed celts.Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 81.50. Wymington, Beds.About sixty celts found.Specimenspenes Auct.51. Reepham, Norfolk.Found about 1747.Arch., vol. v. p. 114.52. Yattendon, Berks.Swords in fragments, tanged chisels and knives, two socketed knives,flatcelt much worn.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. vii. p. 480.53. Taunton, Somerset.Flat sickles, looped pin.Arch. Journ., vol. xxxvii. p. 94.54. Beacon Hill, Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire.Leaf-shaped spear-heads.Proc. Soc. Ant., vol. iv. p. 323.55. Ebnall, Oswestry, Salop.Two punches?Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 167.56. Exning, Suffolk.Mostly perfect?Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 3; vol. ix., p. 303.57. Melbourn, Cambs.Sword broken, a clasp.Arch. Journ., vol. xi. p. 294.58. Stanhope, Durham.Leaf-shaped spears, fragment of sword, broken hammer, &c.Arch. Æliana, vol. i. p. 13.59. Thorndon, Suffolk.All entire. Most of these are figured on previous pages.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 3.60. Wallingford, Berks.Entire; mostly here figured.Penes Auct.61. Whittlesea, Cambridgeshire.Entire; one celt with loop on face.In Wisbech Museum.62. Barrington, Cambs.Perfect.Penes Auct.63. Porkington, Shropshire.Point broken off sword.Arch. Journ., vol. vii. p. 195.65. Bo Island, Fermanagh.Sword and hammer broken.Journ. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Irel., 3rd S., vol. i. p. 164.64. Trillick, Tyrone.Perfect; two rings with cross perforations for the pin.Journ. Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Irel., 3rd S., vol. i. p. 164.65. Bo Island, Fermanagh.Sword and hammer broken.Penes Auct.66. Llangwyllog, Anglesea.Connected with the other hoards by the razor and buttons.Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 74.67. Meldreth, Cambs.Most of the objects broken; socketedchisel, flat lunate knife with opening in middle, caldron ring.In British Museum.68. Hounslow, Middlesex.Oneflatcelt, swords in fragments.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 90; vol. v. p. 428.69. Hundred of Hoo, Kent.Most of the objects broken. See p. 95.Arch. Cant., vol. xi. p. 123.70. Guilsfield, Montgomeryshire.Objects for the most part broken,Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 251;Arch. Camb., 3rd S., vol. x. p. 214;Montg. Coll., vol. iii. p. 437.71. Wick Park, Stogursey, Somerset.Swords broken, numerous fragments of other forms.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 427.72. Chrishall, Essex.Portion of socketed knife.Neville’s “Sep. Exp.,” p. 3.73. Romford, Essex.Swords broken, socketed chisel, celts not trimmed.Arch. Journ., vol. ix. p. 302.74. Cumberlow, Baldock, Herts.Swords in fragments.Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. vi. p. 195.75. Beachy Head, Eastbourne, Sussex.Fragment of sword, four gold bracelets.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 363.75. Beachy Head, Eastbourne, Sussex.Fragment of sword, four gold bracelets.Arch., vol. xvi. p. 363.76. Burgesses’ Meadow, Oxford.An ingot 9¾ inches long.In Ashmolean Museum.77. Westow, Yorkshire.Seventeen fragments included among the celts; one chisel socketed, two tanged.Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 381;Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iii. p. 58.78. Carlton Rode, Norfolk.One tanged gouge, tanged and socketed chisels.Smith’s “Coll. Ant.,” vol. i. 105;Arch. Journ., vol. ii. 80;Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. i. p. 51;Arch., vol. xxxi. p. 494.79. Kenidjack Cliff, Cornwall.Large oval jet.Journ. Roy. Inst. of Corn., No. xxi.80. Helsdon Hall, Norfolk.Found before 1759.Arch., vol. v. p. 116.81. Worthing, Sussex.Found in an earthern vessel.Specimenspenes Auct.82. Reach Fen, Cambs.Fragments of swords and many broken objects.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxxvi., p. 56.83. Haynes Hill, Saltwood, Kent.Objects nearly all broken.Arch. Journ., vol. xxx. p. 279;Journ. Anth. Inst., vol. iii. p. 230.84. Allhallows, Hoo, Kent.Objects mostly broken, flat knife. See p. 214.Arch. Cant., vol. xi. p. 124.85. St. Hilary, Cornwall.Swords in fragments; weight altogether about 80 lbs.Arch., vol. xv. p. 120.86. Longy Common, Alderney.Socketed sickle, objects mostly broken.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. iii. p. 9.87. Kingston Hill, Coombe, Surrey.Objects all fragmentary.Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi. p. 288.88. Sittingbourne, Kent.In two urns; broken sword and rings in one urn, celts, &c., in the other.Smith’s “Coll. Ant.,” vol. i. p. 101;Arch. Journ., vol. ii. p. 81.89. Martlesham, Suffolk.Fragments of swords, socketed knife.PenesCapt. Brooke.90. Lanant, Cornwall.Fragments of swords; pieces of gold in one celt.Arch., vol. xv. p. 118.91. West Halton, Lincolnshire.Fragment of sword.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 69.92. Burwell Fen, Cambs.The ring penannular and of triangular section.Penes Auct.93. Marden, Kent.Found in an earthen vessel, mostly broken.Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xiv. p. 257.94. Kensington, Middlesex.Knives broken.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 232.95. Roseberry Topping, Yorkshire.Mostly broken.Arch. Æliana, vol. ii. p. 213;Arch. Scotica, vol. v. p. 55.96. Danesbury, Welwyn, Herts.Mostly imperfect.Arch. Journ., vol. x. p. 248.97. Earsley Common, Yorkshire.Nearly 100 celts found in 1735.Arch., vol. v. p. 114.98. High Roding, Essex.Some figured in previous pages.In British Museum.99. Panfield, Essex.Possibly other forms found at same time.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. v. p. 428.100. Westwick Row, Hemel Hempsted, Herts.One celt broken.Penes Auct.101. Achtertyre, Morayshire.With tin. See p. 425.Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. ix. p. 435.102. Dowris, Parsonstown, King’s County.With caldrons, trumpets, bells, &c.Wilde, “Catal. Mus. R. I. See p. 361. A.,” pp. 360, 613, 626;Proc. R. I. Ac., vol. iv. pp. 237, 423.103. Hotham Carr, Yorkshire.Palstaves almost all damaged.PenesCanon Greenwell, F.R.S.104. Beddington, Surrey.Many fragments, mould broken.Surrey Arch. Soc. Coll., vol. vi.; Anderson’s “Croydon,” p. 10.105. Isle of Harty, Kent.See p. 441.Penes Auct.106. Heathery Burn Cave, Durham.Socketed knife, large collars and discs. See p. 119, &c.Arch. Journ., vol. xix. p.358;Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. ii. p. 127.107. Wickham Park, Croydon, Surrey.Mould broken, other objects mostly fragmentary; list partly compiled from Anderson, and partly from originals.Anderson’s “Croydon,” p. 10; British Museum.108. Wilmington, Sussex.Said to be in the Bateman Collection. Possibly the same hoard as No. 95.Suss. Arch. Coll., vol. xiv. p. 171;Arch. Journ., vol. xx. p. 192; vol.Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., v. p. 423.109. Cleveland, Yorkshire.In an urn, mostly broken or worn.Arch. Journ., vol. xviii. p. 166.110. Eaton, Norfolk.Spear-heads apparently broken.Arch., vol. xxii. p. 424;Arch. Journ., vol. vi. p. 387;Arch. Inst., Norwich vol. p. xxvi.Turning now to the lists, the following observations may be made, though they must be accepted as liable to revision under the light of future discoveries:—1. That flat celts and knife-daggers, such as have been frequently found in barrows, rarely occur in hoards, only two instances being recorded of the occurrence of flat celts.2. That flanged celts and palstaves are occasionally found together, while the latter are frequently associated with socketed celts.3. That socketed weapons are of rare occurrence in association with flanged celts, though a socketed dagger and a ferrule for a tanged spear-head or dagger were present in the Arreton Down hoard.4. That such tanged spear-heads or daggers are never found in company with socketed celts.5. That torques are more frequently associated with palstaves than with socketed celts, and are mainly confined to our western counties.6. That there are several instances of swords and scabbards, and spear-heads and ferrules being found together without either palstaves or socketed celts being with them.7. That swords, or their fragments, are not found with flanged celts.8. That socketed celts are often found with swords and spear-heads, or with the latter alone.9. That socketed celts are often accompanied by gouges, and somewhat less frequently by hammers and chisels, though even where such tools occur, spear-heads are generally present.10. That caldrons, or the rings belonging to them, have been discovered with socketed celts, both in England and Ireland.11. That where metal moulds are found in hoards they are usually those for socketed celts.12. That where lumps of copper or rough metal occur in hoards, socketed celts are, as a rule, found with them.The general inferences are much the same as have already been indicated in former chapters, viz., that two of the earliest forms of bronze weapons discovered in the British Isles are the flat and the slightly flanged celts, and the thin knife-daggers. That these are succeeded by the more distinctly flanged celts, and the tanged spear-heads, with which probably some of the thick dagger-blades found in barrows are contemporary. That subsequently the celts with a stop-ridge and the palstave form came in and remained in use to the close of the Bronze Period, though to a great extent supplanted by the socketed celt which, as has already been shown, was probably evolved from one of the forms of the palstave; and it may here be remarked that flanged celts with a stop-ridge seem rarely, if ever, to occur in the hoards. That the socketed chisels, gouges, hammers, and knives are contemporary with the socketed celts, as are also socketed spear-heads andswords. That hoards in which palstaves only, and not socketed celts, are present rarely belonged to ancient bronze-founders; but that the deposits which these artificers have left behind them almost all denote a period when the art of coring, and thereby producing socketed tools and weapons, was already well known.From this latter circumstance, and the comparative abundance of bronze-founders’ hoards, it may reasonably be inferred that in this country they belong for the most part to the close of the Bronze Period. To how recent a date bronze remained in use for cutting purposes is a question difficult of accurate solution. There are, indeed, two instances in which socketed celts are reported to have been discovered in company with ancient British coins, but in neither case is the evidence altogether satisfactory. Two uninscribed silver coins, of the type of my Plate F, No. 2[1753], are stated to have been found with a human skeleton and a bronze celt at Cann, near Shaftesbury, in 1849; but I believe that this statement would, if it were now capable of being sifted, resolve itself into the fact of the two coins, the celt, and some bones having been found near together by the same workman, without their being actually in association together. The type of the coins, though probably among the earliest in the British silver series, is one which was derived from gold coins struck some considerable time after the introduction of a gold coinage into this country, and probably belongs to the first centuryb.c.If such coins were in contemporary use with socketed celts, it is strange that none of the gold coins of earlier date have ever been found associated with bronze instruments.It is true that in the account given in the Archæologia[1754]of the antiquities discovered on Hagbourn Hill, Berks., it is stated that at the bottom of a pit about four feet from the surface of the ground was a further circular excavation, in which, together with bronze bridle-bits and buckles of Late Celtic patterns, were socketed celts, and a spear-head of bronze, and, in addition, some coins. These, however, were not seen by the writer of the account, but he was informed “that one of them was silver and the other gold, the latter of which was rather large and flat, and perhaps one of the lower empire.” Looking at the Late Celtic character of some of the objects it seems possible that Ancient British coins might have been found with them; but, on the other hand, it is evident that the particulars given of the find were all derived from theworkmen who dug up the objects, and not from personal observation; and it is possible that not only were the coins described not actually found with the bronze celts and spear-heads, but that these latter were not discovered in actual association with the Late Celtic bridle-bits. I have, however, provisionally accepted the account of their being found together, relying to some extent on the Abergele[1755]hoard, in which some buckles allied in form to those from Hagbourn Hill were present, associated with slides such as have been elsewhere found with socketed celts.Whatever may be the real state of the case in these discoveries, there is every probability of a transition having gradually taken place in this country, from the employment of bronze for cutting tools and weapons of offence to the use of iron or steel for such instruments; in other words, from a Bronze Age to an Iron Age, such as that to which the term “Late Celtic” has been applied.That this transition must have been effected, at all events in the South of Britain, prior to the Roman invasion, is shown, as has already been pointed out, by the circumstance that the Early Iron swords found in France belong in all probability to a period not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., while the southern parts of Britain had, long before Cæsar’s time, been peopled by Belgic immigrants, who either brought the knowledge of iron with them or must have received it after their arrival from their kinsmen on the continent, with whom they were in constant intercourse. In the more northern parts of Britain and in Scotland an acquaintance with iron was probably first made at a somewhat more recent period; but in the Late Celtic interments in Yorkshire no coins are present, and the iron and other objects found exhibit no traces of Roman influence. Moreover, the Roman historians, who have recorded many of the manners and customs of the northern Britons, do not in any way hint at their weapons being formed of bronze.In Ireland, perhaps, which was less accessible from the continent than Britain, the introduction of iron may have taken place considerably after the time when it was known in the sister country; but there appears to have been a sufficient intercourse between Scotland and the north of Ireland at an early period for the knowledge of so useful a metal, when once gained, to have been quickly communicated from one country to the other.On the whole I think we may fairly conclude that in the southern parts of Britain iron must have been in use not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., and that by the second or third centuryb.c.the employment of bronze for cutting instruments had there practically ceased. These dates are of course approximate only, but will at all events serve to give some idea of the latest date to which bronze weapons and tools found in England may with some degree of safety be assigned.As to the time at which such weapons and tools were here first in use, we have even less means of judging than we have as to when they fell into desuetude. It is, however, evident that the Bronze Period of the British Isles must have extended over a long period of years, probably embracing many centuries. The numerous bronze-founders’ hoards, containing fragments of tools and weapons of so many various forms, testify to the art of bronze-founding having been practised for a lengthened period; and yet in all of these the socketed celt occurs, or some other socketed instruments, which we know to have been contemporary with it, are present. It is true that the socketed celt was not originally developed in this country, but was introduced from abroad; and, as has already been pointed out, was derived from a form of palstave which is of rare occurrence in Britain. Yet the length of time requisite for the modification of the flat form of celt to that with flanges, of this latter again to that with the flanges produced into wings, and finally the transition into the palstave with the wings hammered over so as to form sockets on each side of the blade, must itself have been of very great duration.[1756]The development of the forms of palstave common to Britain and the opposite shores of the Continent must also have demanded a long lapse of years, and most of the stages in its evolution can be traced in this country. We have the flat celt, the flanged celt, and the flanged celt with a stop-ridge; and we can trace the modification of form from one stage to another until the characteristic palstave is reached, in which the stop-ridge is as it were formed in the actual body of the blade. And it is to be observed that this form of palstave had already been developed at the time represented by the earliest of the ordinary bronze-founders’ hoards, in which, moreover, the flanged celts, either with or without a stop-ridge, are hardly ever present.The Bronze Age of Britain may, therefore, be regarded as an aggregate of three stages: the first, that characterized by the flat or slightly flanged celts, and the knife-daggers frequently found in barrows associated with instruments and weapons formed of stone; the second, that characterized by the more heavy dagger-blades and the flanged celts and tanged spear-heads or daggers, such as those from Arreton Down; and the third, by palstaves and socketed celts and the many forms of tools and weapons, of which fragments are so constantly present in the hoards of the ancient bronze-founders. It is in this third stage that the bronze sword and the true socketed spear-head first make their advent. The number of these hoards, and the varieties in the forms of these swords and spear-heads, as well as in the socketed celts and other tools, would, I think, justify us in assigning a minimum duration of some four or five centuries to this last stage. The other two stages together must probably have extended over at least an equal lapse of time; so that for the total duration of the Bronze Period in Britain we cannot greatly err in attributing eight or ten centuries. This would place the beginning of the Period some 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.—a date which in many respects would seem to fit in with what we know as to the use of bronze in the southern parts of Europe.[1757]Although I have thus attempted to assign a definite chronology to our Bronze Age, I do so with all reserve, as any such attempt is founded upon what are at best imperfect data, and each of the stages I have mentioned may have been of far longer duration than I have suggested, though it is not likely that any of them should have been materially shorter.There is, it must be acknowledged, the difficulty which I have already mentioned, as to the absence of nearly all traces of the later stages of the Bronze Period in the graves and barrows that have been examined in Britain.[1758]The reason of this absence has still to be discovered; but it may perhaps have been the case that during this time the method or fashion of interring the dead underwent some change, and the practice of placing weapons and ornaments with the bodies of departed friends and relatives fell into disuse. Among the bronze-using occupants of the Yorkshire Wolds, whose burial-places have been explored by Canon Greenwell, the interments by inhumation were much in excess over thosewhich took place after cremation, but in other parts of England the proportions are reversed. Out of fourteen instances[1759]in which bronze articles were associated with an interment, it was only in two that the body had been burnt; or taking the whole number of burials, viz. 301 by inhumation and 78 after cremation, bronze articles were found with 4 per cent. of the burials of the former kind and only 2½ per cent. with those of the latter. This seems to point to a tendency towards departing from the old custom of burying weapons with the dead for use in a future life. And, indeed, if the custom of burning the dead became general, the inducement to place such objects among mere dust and ashes would be but small. An urn or a small recess in the ground would suffice to contain the mightiest warrior, and his weapons would be out of place beside the little calcined heap which was left by the purifying fire. Even the practice of raising mounds or barrows over the interments may have ceased, and “when the funeral pyre was out and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends.”It has been suggested that the absence of the later bronze forms with interments is due to a superstitious reverence for the older forms, so that the habit of burying the flat wedge-shaped axe[1760]and the dagger with the dead continued down to the later Age of Bronze; but I cannot accept this view.In Scandinavia[1761]interments with which bronze swords and other weapons are associated, have frequently been discovered; and in some instances in which coffins, hollowed out in trunks of trees, have been used, even the clothing has been preserved. In this country also coffins of the same kind have occasionally been discovered, but the bronze objects which have been placed in them are of the same character as those which are found in the barrows of the district, and never comprise socketed weapons or swords. Stone weapons are also occasionally present. Remains of clothing made of skins and of woven woollen fabric have also been found. The best-known instance of the discovery of the latter was in a barrow at Scale House,[1762]near Rylston, Yorkshire, examined by Canon Greenwell, who has recorded other instances of these tree-burials. Neither bronze nor stone were in this instance present.It is not, however, my intention to dilate upon the burial customs of our Bronze Age, as they have already been so fullydiscussed by Canon Greenwell, Dr. Thurnam, Sir John Lubbock, and others.It will now be desirable to say something as to the sources from which the use of bronze in this country was derived, though on this subject also much has already been written.The four principal views held by different authors have thus been summarized by Colonel A. Lane Fox, now General Pitt Rivers:—[1763]1. That bronze was spread from a common centre by an intruding and conquering race, or by the migration of tribes.2. That the inhabitants of each separate region in which bronze is known to have been used discovered the art independently, and made their own implements of it.3. That the art was discovered and the implements fabricated on one spot, and the implements disseminated from that place by means of commerce.4. That the art of making bronze was diffused from a common centre, but that the implements were constructed in the countries in which they were found.For a full discussion of these hypotheses I must refer the reader to General Pitt Rivers’ Paper, but I shall here make use of some of the information which he has collected, premising that in my opinion there is a certain amount of truth embodied in each of these opinions.The first view, of an intruding and conquering race having introduced the use of bronze into their country, has been held by most of the Scandinavian antiquaries, and Professor Boyd Dawkins seems to regard a Celtic invasion and conquest of the Iberic peoples in Britain as having been the means by which the knowledge of bronze was extended from Gaul to these islands. The osteological evidence in favour of the bronze-using Britons having as a rule been of a different race from the stone-using people of our Neolithic times is strongly corroborative of such a view; as is also the change which is to be noted in the burial customs of the two periods. Such an immigration or conquest must, however, have taken place at a very early period if we accept Sir John Lubbock’s[1764]view, that betweenb.c.1500 andb.c.1200 the Phœnicians were already acquainted with the mineral fields of Britain, a period at which it must not be forgotten the use of bronze had long been known in Egypt. Although it is true thatat present we have no satisfactory proof of any Phœnician influence on the people of our Bronze Age, yet if at so early a period there was an export of tin from this country, the search for that metal and the means employed for its production would almost of necessity tend to an acquaintance with copper also, even supposing, what is improbable, that those who traded for tin in order to manufacture bronze with it kept the knowledge of this latter alloy from those with whom they had commercial relations, or that the natives of Britain were not already acquainted with more metals than tin when the trade first began. But to this subject I shall recur. It may be observed by the way that the date assigned for this Phœnician intercourse corresponds in a remarkable manner with the date assigned for the earliest instances of the use of bronze in Britain, which was suggested on other grounds.The second view of the independent discovery of bronze in different regions has little or nothing to support it so far as the different countries of Europe are concerned, though there is a possibility that the discovery of copper and of the method of alloying it with tin, so as to produce bronze, may have been made independently in America. But it may even there be the case that the knowledge of bronze was imported from Asia.[1765]In Europe, however, when once the use of the metal was known, there were certain types of weapons and implements developed in different countries which in a certain sense may be regarded as instances of independent discoveries.The third view, that the art was discovered at some single spot at which subsequently implements were manufactured and disseminated by commerce must, at least to a limited extent, be true. Wherever the discovery of bronze may have been made, there is ample evidence of its use having spread over the greater part of Europe if not of Asia; and at first the spread of bronze weapons and tools was in all probability by commerce. Even subsequently there were local centres, such as Etruria, from which the manufactured products were exported into neighbouring countries, as well as to those lying to the north of the Alps. Some even of the bronze vases found in Ireland, though themselves not of Etruscan manufacture, bear marks of Etruscan influences in their form and character. In each country in Europe there may have been one or more localities in which the manufacture of bronze objects wasprincipally carried on, though it may now be impossible to identify the spots. Such large hoards of unfinished castings as those of Plénée Jugon, and other places in Brittany, prove that district, for instance, to have been at one time a kind of manufacturing centre. Indeed, a socketed celt of Breton type, unused, and still retaining the burnt clay core, has been found on our southern coast.The process of casting, as practised by the ancient bronze-founders, was, moreover, one requiring a great amount of skill; and though there appear to have been wandering founders, who, like the bell-founders of mediæval times, could practise their art at any spot where their services were required, yet there were probably fixed foundries also, where the process of manufacture could be more economically carried on, and where successive generations passed through some sort of apprenticeship to learn the art and mystery of the trade.The fourth opinion, that the use of bronze spread from some single centre, though implements were manufactured in greater or less abundance in each country where the use of bronze prevailed, is one that must commend itself to all archæologists. It does not, of course, follow that in any given district the bronze tools and weapons were all of home manufacture, and none of them imported. There is, on the contrary, evidence to be found in most countries that some, at least, of the bronze instruments found there are of foreign manufacture, and introduced either by commerce or by the foreign travel of individuals.Where the original centre was placed, from which the European use of bronze was propagated, is an enigma still under discussion, and one which will not readily be solved. Appearances at present seem to point to its having been situate in Western Asia;[1766]but the whole question of the origin and development of the Bronze civilisation has been so recently discussed by my friend Professor Boyd Dawkins, in his “Early Man in Britain,” that it appears needless here to repeat the opinions of which he has given so good an abstract. Suffice it to say, that it has been proposed to regard the bronze antiquities of Europe as belonging generally to three provinces,[1767]the boundaries of which, however, cannot be very accurately defined. These provinces are—the Uralian, comprising Russia, Siberia, and Finland; the Danubian, which consists of theHungarian, Scandinavian, and Britannic sub-divisions or regions; and the Mediterranean, composed of the Italo-Greek and Franco-Swiss sub-divisions.I must confess that I do not attach such high importance to this classification as at first sight it would seem to merit; for on a close examination it appears to me to involve several serious incongruities. Take, for instance, the Danubian province, and it will be found that the differences in type of bronze instruments belonging to the Hungarian region, when compared with those of the British, are on the whole greater than the difference presented when they are compared with the types of the Italian region, which, however, is made to belong to another province. There is, moreover, a difficulty in synchronizing the antiquities belonging to different provinces or regions, so as to be sure that any comparisons between them are of real value. Taking, for example, the Uralian province, it will at once be seen that though in Finland some Scandinavian types occur, such as swords and palstaves, yet the great majority of the bronze antiquities belonging to it, so far as at present known, consist of socketed celts, often with two loops; of daggers, with their hafts cast in one piece with the blade; and of perforated axes, sometimes with the representations of the heads of animals; in fact, of objects which evidently belong to a very late stage in the evolution of bronze, and which, as Mr. Worsaae has pointed out, not improbably show traces of Chinese influence. Such objects can hardly be satisfactorily compared with those of a province in which the whole development of bronze instruments, from the flat celt and small knife, to the socketed celt and the skilfully cast spear-head and sword, can be traced.All things considered, I think it will be better and safer to content ourselves for the present with less extensive provinces; and, so far as these are concerned, the sub-divisions already enumerated may be accepted, and are quite sufficiently large, if, indeed, they are not too extensive. In the Britannic province, a part of France is included by M. Chantre, and there are certainly close analogies between many of the types of the south of England and those of the north and north-west of France. For the purpose of the present work, though accepting M. Chantre’s boundary in the main, I shall, however, restrict the Britannic province to the British Isles.On a general examination of our British types it is satisfactory to see how complete a series of links in the chain of developmentof the bronze industry is here to be found, though many of them bear undoubted marks of foreign influence, and prove that though some of the types were of native growth, yet that others were originally imported. On general grounds, I have assigned an antiquity of 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.to the introduction of the use of bronze into this country, but it is a question whether this antiquity will meet all the necessities of the case; for we can hardly imagine the Phœnicians, or those who traded with them, landing in Britain and spontaneously discovering tin. On the contrary, it must have been from a knowledge that the inhabitants of Britain were already producers of this valuable metal that the commerce with them originated; and the probable reason that tin was sought for by the native Britons was in order to mix it with copper, a metal which occurs native in the same district as the tin. If, therefore, the Phœnician intercourse, direct or indirect, commenced about 1500b.c., the knowledge of the use of tin, and probably also of copper, dates back in Britain to a still earlier epoch.A comparison of the various British types of tools and weapons with those of Continental countries has been frequently instituted in the preceding pages, but it will be well here to recapitulate some of the principal facts. We have in Britain the flat form of celt in some abundance, though none of the specimens exhibit traces of being direct imitations of hatchets formed of stone, as would probably have been the case in any country where the use of metal for such instruments originated. And yet many of our British flat celts exhibit a certain degree of originality, inasmuch as they are decorated with hammer- or punch-marks in a manner peculiar to this country, and others in a fashion but rarely seen abroad. We can trace the development of the flanged celt from the flat variety, through specimens with almost imperceptible flanges, the result merely of hammering the sides, to those with the flanges produced in the casting. At the same time, the flanges are never so fully developed as in some of the French examples.The development of a stop-ridge between the flanges, which eventually culminated in the ordinary palstave form, can probably be better observed in the British series than in that of any other country. At the same time, the origin of the other form of palstave—that without a definite stop-ridge, and with semicircular wings bent over so as to form a kind of side-pocket—can best be traced on the Continent, and especially in the south of France. Itwas from this form of palstave that the socketed celt was developed, and although this development seems to have taken place abroad, possibly in Western Germany, the form was introduced into Britain at an early period of its existence, as is proved by the semicircular projections and curved “flanches” so common on the faces of the socketed celts of this country.Our knife-daggers may originally have been of foreign introduction, but evidently belong to a time when metal was scarce, and like the flat and slightly-flanged celts have often been found associated with stone implements. The dagger-blades of stouter make, which seem to have succeeded them, show analogies with French, Italian, and German examples; but similar blades, with a tang such as those from the Arreton Down hoard, seem to be almost peculiar to Britain. The fact, however, that the socketed blade found with them has its analogues both in Switzerland and Egypt suggests the probability of the tanged form being also of foreign, and possibly Mediterranean origin; indeed, a specimen is reported to have been found in Italy.Our halberd blades with the three rivets are nearly allied to those of northern Germany; and the type appears never to be found in France, though I have met with a solitary example in Southern Spain, and the form is not unknown in Italy, there being one from the province of Mantua in the British Museum. Socketed chisels, hammers, and gouges were probably derived from a foreign source; but tanged chisels, though not absolutely wanting in the North of France, are more abundant in the British Isles than elsewhere. Long narrow chisels with tangs were, however, present in the great Bologna hoard.Bronze socketed sickles are almost peculiar to the British Isles, though they have occasionally been found in the North of France. The flat form, from which they must have been developed, is of rare occurrence, though not unknown in Britain. Its origin is to be sought in the South of Europe, though the British examples more closely resemble German and Danish forms than those of any other country. Tanged single-edged knives are almost unknown in our islands, though so abundant in the Swiss Lake-dwellings and in the South of France. Double-edged knives with a socket are, however, almost peculiar to Britain and Ireland, though they are found in small numbers in the North of France. The tanged razor may also be regarded as one of our specialities, though not unknown in Italy. Most of the foreign varieties have a ringfor suspension at the end of the tang, a peculiarity almost unknown in Britain.Bronze swords, no doubt, originated on the Continent; and as such long thin blades required great skill in casting, it seems probable that their manufacture was to some extent localized at particular spots, and that they formed an important article of commerce. The same type has been discovered in countries wide apart, and many of those found in Scandinavia are now regarded as being of foreign origin. Still there are some British types which are rarely or never found abroad, and the discovery of moulds proves conclusively that both leaf-shaped and rapier-shaped blades were cast in these islands. The latter kind of blades are, indeed, almost exclusively confined to Britain and the north of France. Bronze scabbard-ends, as distinct from mere chapes, seem also to be confined to the same tract of country.When we turn to the spear-heads of these islands we find that though the leaf-shaped form prevails over the greater part of Europe, yet that those with loops at the side of the socket and with loops at the base of the blade are common in the British Isles, while they are extremely rare in France, and almost unknown elsewhere. The same may be said of the type with the small eyelet-holes in the blade, and of those with barbs. Those with crescent-shaped openings in the blades are also almost unknown elsewhere, though one example has been found in Russia. Our bronze shields with numerous concentric rings are also specially British.Among ornaments formed of bronze, there are few, if any, that we can claim as our own. Our torques seem more nearly connected with those of the Rhine district than of any other part of Europe. Our bracelets, which are not common, hardly present any special peculiarities, and brooches we have none.Our spheroidal caldrons seem to be of native type, but with them are vases which almost undoubtedly show an Etruscan influence in their origin.We have here then, I think, sufficient proof that Britain, though not unaffected by foreign influences, and in fact deriving many of the types of its tools and weapons from foreign sources, was, nevertheless, a local centre in which the Bronze civilisation received a special and high development; and where, had extraneous influences been entirely absent after the time when the knowledge of Bronze was first introduced, the evolution of forms would probablyhave differed in but few particulars from that which is now exhibited by the prevailing types found in this country.If we compare these British types with those of the other regions which together make up the so-called Danubian province, we shall at once be struck, not by the analogies presented, but by the marked difference in the generalfacies.Taking Scandinavia to begin with, and Mr. Worsaae’s types as giving the characteristics of that region, what do we find? The perforated axe-hammers and axes of bronze are here entirely wanting; the tanged swords and the majority of those with decorated hilts are also unknown. There is hardly a type of dagger common to this country and Scandinavia. The saws, knives, and razors are of quite another character, but there is a resemblance in the sickles to a rare British type. The flat and flanged celts of the two regions are of nearly the same kind, and in one rare instance there is a similar decoration on a reputedly Danish and on an Irish celt. The palstaves, however, are of an entirely different character, with the exception of the form with semicircular wings, which is not essentially British. The socketed celts are nearly all unlike those of this country; and though the leaf-shaped spear-heads present close analogies, the looped and eyed kinds are absent. The shields are of a different character from ours. Thetutuliand diadems are here unknown. There is but one form of torque common to this country and Denmark. Brooches, combs, and small hanging vases are never met with in Britain; and the spiral, whether formed of wire or engraved as an ornament, is conspicuous by its absence.If we take the Hungarian region, we are driven to much the same conclusions. The perforated axes and pick-axes, principally formed of copper, the semicircular sickles, the spiral ornaments, the swords with engraved hilts of bronze, and several forms of minor importance are absent in Britain, while the socketed celts and the majority of the palstaves are of markedly different types, though that with the semicircular wings hammered over is of common occurrence in Hungary.In Northern Germany the types of bronze may be regarded as intermediate between those of Hungary and Scandinavia, though in some few respects presenting closer analogies with those of Britain, with which, as will subsequently be seen, there may have been some commercial intercourse. The connection between British and German types is, however, but small, and on the whole I think that the evidence here brought forward is sufficient toprove that the British Isles can hardly be properly classified as forming part of any Danubian province of bronze.The connection between France and Britain during the Bronze Period cannot be denied, and in many respects there is an identity of character between the bronze antiquities of the North of France and those of the South of England. The North of France cannot, however, at any time since the first discovery of bronze, have been absolutely shut out from all communication with the South and East. The East must always have been affected by the habits of those who occupied what is now Western Germany; and the South can hardly have been exempt from the influence of Italy, if not, indeed, of other Mediterranean countries. I am inclined to think that these external influences acted also on the bronze industry of Britain, not so much directly as indirectly, and that some of the types in this country may be traced to an Italian or German origin as readily as to a French.It is, I think, a fact that as close a resemblance in type, so far as regards our earliest bronze instruments, may be found among Italian examples as among French. Many of the slightly flanged celts of Italy can hardly be distinguished from those of Britain, except by the faces of the latter being more frequently decorated; and there is also a great similarity between the dagger-blades of the two countries. In the later forms, such as palstaves and socketed celts, the difference between British and Italian examples is sufficiently striking. May it not be the case that at the time when first the commerce between Britain and the Mediterranean countries originated, always assuming that such a commerce took place, the flanged celt was the most advanced type of hatchet known by those who came hither to trade, and the palstave and socketed form were subsequently developed? At a later period it was the German influence that was felt in Britain, rather than the Italian, for our socketed celts appear, as already stated, to have had the cradle of their family in Western Germany; and the few flat sickles that have been found in Britain, as well as the more numerous torques, show a closer connection in type with those of Germany than with those of France or any other country. Whether this introduction of what appear to be North German types can in any way be attributed to commercial relations between the two countries, and especially to a trade in amber, is worth consideration. The abundance of amber ornaments in some of the graves of our Bronze Period shows how much that substance was in use.At the same time, the eastern shores of England might have furnished it in sufficient quantity to supply the demand, without having recourse to foreign sources. I have known amber thrown up on the beach so far south as Deal.A curious feature in the comparison of the later bronze antiquities of Britain and those of France, is the marked absence of many of the forms which abound in the remains of the Lake-dwellings of Savoy, as well as in those of Switzerland. A glance through “Rabut’s Album”[1768]or “Keller’s Lake-dwellings,” will at once show how few of the specimens there figured could pass as having been discovered in the British Isles. The large proportion of ornaments to tools and weapons is also striking. There is, indeed, as M. Chantre has pointed out, a closer connection between the bronze antiquities of the South of France and those of Switzerland and Northern Italy, than with those of Northern France.Even the character of the ornaments is in many cases essentially different. The hollowed form of bronze bracelet, made from a thin plate bent in such a manner as to show a semicircular section, is entirely wanting in Britain, and is very rarely found in the North of France.Enough has, however, now been said in favour of regarding Britain as one of those centres into which a knowledge of the use of bronze was introduced at a comparatively early date, and where a special development of the bronze industry arose, extending over a lengthened period, and modified from time to time by foreign influences. On the transition from bronze to iron, it is not necessary here further to enlarge. I have, in treating of the different forms of tools and weapons, pointed out those which I considered to belong to the close of the Bronze Period; and it is probable that these forms for some time continued in use, side by side with those made of the more serviceable metal, iron, which ultimately drove bronze from the field, except for ornamental purposes or for those uses for which a fusible metal was best adapted. It seems probable that, as was the case in Mediterranean countries, some of the socketed weapons, such as spear-heads, which were more easily cast than forged, may for some time have been made of bronze in preference to iron; but at present our knowledge of any transitional period is slight, and this question would be best treated of in a work on the Late Celtic or Early Iron Period of Britain.Among the ornaments in use in this country during the Bronze Period, are some, the history of which, if it could be traced, might throw light upon the foreign intercourse of that time, for glass and ivory were probably not of native production.[1769]Glass beads have occasionally been found in barrows of the Bronze Age, nearly always in our southern counties, and with burnt interments. They are usually small tubes of opaque glass of a light blue or green colour, with the outer surface divided into rounded segments, so as to give the appearance of a number of spheroidal beads side by side. I am not aware of any having been discovered with interments of the Bronze Age on the Continent, but it seems probable that such beads have been found, and they may eventually assist in marking out the lines of ancient commerce with this country. A few larger beads, with spiral serpent-like ornaments upon them, have likewise been found; but these, also, I am unable to compare with any Continental examples. The finding of glass, however, in tombs belonging to the early portion of our Bronze Age is suggestive of some method of intercourse, direct or indirect, with Mediterranean countries. The small quoit-like pendants, formed of a greenish vitrified material, which have been found in Sussex[1770]with burnt interments of the Bronze Age, closely resemble Egyptian porcelain, and their presence in this country corroborates this suggestion.The discovery of beads made in sets like those of glass, of a bracelet, buttons, pins, and hooks, all, in Dr. Thurnam’s opinion, formed of ivory, gives indications in the same direction; for though billiard balls have been manufactured from Scottish mammoth ivory of the Pleistocene Period, the fossil tusks found in Britain are, as a rule, too much decomposed to be any longer of service, and in this respect differ materially from the fossil mammoth tusks of Siberia, which still furnish so much of our table cutlery with handles.For the jet and amber ornaments of the Bronze Period we have not, of necessity, to go so far afield as for glass. Abundance of jet is to be obtained in our own country, and the usual type of jet necklace,[1771]with a series of flat plates, seems to be essentially British. Some of the amber plates found at Hallstatt are, however,of the same form, and perforated in the same manner, so that possibly these jet necklaces may have been made in imitation of foreign prototypes in amber. How far the amber ornaments of the Bronze Period in Britain were of native production we have no good means of judging; but the circumstance just mentioned is suggestive of Hallstatt and Britain having been supplied from a common source, which may have been on the shores of the Baltic. On the other hand, our amber ornaments differ, as a rule, from those of Scandinavia, and, as already remarked, our eastern coast would furnish an ample supply of the raw material without seeking it abroad. It must, however, be remembered that some of the forms of our bronze instruments show traces of German influence, and that in Strabo’s time both amber and ivory were among the articles exported from Celtic Gaul to Britain. The remarkable amber cup from the Hove barrow, near Brighton, I have described elsewhere.[1772]It remains for me to say a few words as to the general condition of the inhabitants of Britain during the Bronze Age; but on this subject, apart from the light thrown upon it by the tools, weapons, and ornaments which I have been describing, and by the contents of the graves of the period, we have in this country but little to guide us. Such a complete insight into the material civilisation of the period as that afforded by the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Northern Italy is nowhere vouchsafed to us in Britain. The Irish crannoges, which, in many respects, present close analogies with the pile-buildings, have remained in use until mediæval times, and in no instance has the destruction of a settlement by fire contributed to preserve for the instruction of future ages the household goods of the population. The nearest approach to a Lake-dwelling in England is that examined in Barton Mere,[1773]Suffolk, where, however, the results were comparatively meagre. A single spear-head was found, apparently of the type of Fig. 406, and the remains of various animals used for food, including the urus and the hare, which latter in Cæsar’s time the Britons did not eat.The information to be gained from the burial customs and the contents of the graves has already been gathered by the late Dr. Thurnam and by Canon Greenwell, as well as by other antiquaries, and I cannot do better than refer to the forty-third volume ofthe “Archæologia,” and to “British Barrows.”[1774]I may, however, shortly depict some of the principal features of the external conditions of the bronze-using population of these islands, taken as a whole, for no doubt the customs and condition of the people were by no means uniform throughout the whole extent of the country at any given moment of time.As to their dwellings, we seem to have no positive information, but they probably were of much the same character as those of the Swiss Lake population, except that for the most part they were placed upon the dry land, and not on platforms above the water. Their clothing was sometimes of skins, sometimes of woollen cloth, and probably of linen also, as they were acquainted with the arts of spinning and weaving. Of domesticated animals they possessed the dog, ox, sheep, goat, pig, and finally the horse. They hunted the red deer, the roe, the wild boar, the hare, and possibly some other animals. For the chase and for warfare their arrows were tipped with flint, and not with bronze: and some other stone instruments, such as scrapers, remained in use until the end of the period. At the beginning, as has already often been stated, the axe, the knife-dagger, and the awl were the only articles of bronze in use. For obtaining fire, a nodule of pyrites and a flake of flint sufficed. Some cereals were cultivated, as is shown by the bronze sickles. Pottery they had of various forms, some apparently made expressly for sepulchral purposes; but they were unacquainted with the potter’s wheel. Some vessels of amber and shale, turned in the lathe, may have been imported from abroad. Ornaments were worn in less profusion than in Switzerland; but the torque for the neck, the bracelet, the ear-ring, the pin for the dress and for the hair, were all in use, though brooches were unknown. Necklaces, or gorgets, formed of amber, jet, and bone beads were not uncommon; and the ornaments of glass and ivory, such as those lately mentioned, were probably obtained by foreign commerce. Gold, also, was often used for decorating the person, though coins, and apparently even the metal silver, were unknown. They appear to have been accomplished workers and carvers of wood and horn, and there were among them artificers who inlaid wood and amber with minute gold pins almost or quite as skilfully as the French workmen of the last century, who wrought on tortoise-shell. In castingand hammering out bronze they attained consummate skill, and their spear-heads and wrought shields could not be surpassed at the present day. The general equipment of the warrior in the shape of swords, daggers, halberds, spears, &c., and the tools of the workman, such as hatchets, chisels, gouges, hammers, &c., have, however, all been dealt with at large in previous pages. They contrast with the arms and instruments of the preceding Neolithic Age more by their greater degree of perfection than by their absolute number and variety. The material progress from one stage of civilisation to the other was no doubt great, but the interval between the two does not approach that which exists between Palæolithic man of the old River-drifts and Neolithic man of the present configuration of the surface of Western Europe.So far as the general interest attaching to the Bronze Period is concerned, it may readily be conceded that it falls short of that with which either of the two stages of the Stone Period which preceded it must be regarded. The existence of numerous tribes of men who are, or were until lately, in the same stage of culture as the occupants of Europe during the Neolithic Age, affords various points of comparison between ancient and modern savages which are of the highest interest, while there exists at the present day not a single community in which the phases of the Bronze culture can be observed. The Palæolithic Age has, moreover, a charm of mysterious eld attaching to it as connected with the antiquity of the human race which is peculiarly its own.The Bronze Age, nevertheless, from its close propinquity to the period of written history, is of the highest importance to those who would trace back the course of human progress to its earliest phases; and though in this country many of the minute details of the picture cannot be filled in, yet, taken as a whole, the broad lines of the development of this stage of civilisation may be as well traced in Britain as in any other country. It has been a pleasure to me to gather the information on which this work is based; and I close these pages with the consolatory thought that, dry as may be their contents, they may prove of some value as a hoard of collected facts for other seekers after truth.FINIS.

Turning now to the lists, the following observations may be made, though they must be accepted as liable to revision under the light of future discoveries:—

1. That flat celts and knife-daggers, such as have been frequently found in barrows, rarely occur in hoards, only two instances being recorded of the occurrence of flat celts.

2. That flanged celts and palstaves are occasionally found together, while the latter are frequently associated with socketed celts.

3. That socketed weapons are of rare occurrence in association with flanged celts, though a socketed dagger and a ferrule for a tanged spear-head or dagger were present in the Arreton Down hoard.

4. That such tanged spear-heads or daggers are never found in company with socketed celts.

5. That torques are more frequently associated with palstaves than with socketed celts, and are mainly confined to our western counties.

6. That there are several instances of swords and scabbards, and spear-heads and ferrules being found together without either palstaves or socketed celts being with them.

7. That swords, or their fragments, are not found with flanged celts.

8. That socketed celts are often found with swords and spear-heads, or with the latter alone.

9. That socketed celts are often accompanied by gouges, and somewhat less frequently by hammers and chisels, though even where such tools occur, spear-heads are generally present.

10. That caldrons, or the rings belonging to them, have been discovered with socketed celts, both in England and Ireland.

11. That where metal moulds are found in hoards they are usually those for socketed celts.

12. That where lumps of copper or rough metal occur in hoards, socketed celts are, as a rule, found with them.

The general inferences are much the same as have already been indicated in former chapters, viz., that two of the earliest forms of bronze weapons discovered in the British Isles are the flat and the slightly flanged celts, and the thin knife-daggers. That these are succeeded by the more distinctly flanged celts, and the tanged spear-heads, with which probably some of the thick dagger-blades found in barrows are contemporary. That subsequently the celts with a stop-ridge and the palstave form came in and remained in use to the close of the Bronze Period, though to a great extent supplanted by the socketed celt which, as has already been shown, was probably evolved from one of the forms of the palstave; and it may here be remarked that flanged celts with a stop-ridge seem rarely, if ever, to occur in the hoards. That the socketed chisels, gouges, hammers, and knives are contemporary with the socketed celts, as are also socketed spear-heads andswords. That hoards in which palstaves only, and not socketed celts, are present rarely belonged to ancient bronze-founders; but that the deposits which these artificers have left behind them almost all denote a period when the art of coring, and thereby producing socketed tools and weapons, was already well known.

From this latter circumstance, and the comparative abundance of bronze-founders’ hoards, it may reasonably be inferred that in this country they belong for the most part to the close of the Bronze Period. To how recent a date bronze remained in use for cutting purposes is a question difficult of accurate solution. There are, indeed, two instances in which socketed celts are reported to have been discovered in company with ancient British coins, but in neither case is the evidence altogether satisfactory. Two uninscribed silver coins, of the type of my Plate F, No. 2[1753], are stated to have been found with a human skeleton and a bronze celt at Cann, near Shaftesbury, in 1849; but I believe that this statement would, if it were now capable of being sifted, resolve itself into the fact of the two coins, the celt, and some bones having been found near together by the same workman, without their being actually in association together. The type of the coins, though probably among the earliest in the British silver series, is one which was derived from gold coins struck some considerable time after the introduction of a gold coinage into this country, and probably belongs to the first centuryb.c.If such coins were in contemporary use with socketed celts, it is strange that none of the gold coins of earlier date have ever been found associated with bronze instruments.

It is true that in the account given in the Archæologia[1754]of the antiquities discovered on Hagbourn Hill, Berks., it is stated that at the bottom of a pit about four feet from the surface of the ground was a further circular excavation, in which, together with bronze bridle-bits and buckles of Late Celtic patterns, were socketed celts, and a spear-head of bronze, and, in addition, some coins. These, however, were not seen by the writer of the account, but he was informed “that one of them was silver and the other gold, the latter of which was rather large and flat, and perhaps one of the lower empire.” Looking at the Late Celtic character of some of the objects it seems possible that Ancient British coins might have been found with them; but, on the other hand, it is evident that the particulars given of the find were all derived from theworkmen who dug up the objects, and not from personal observation; and it is possible that not only were the coins described not actually found with the bronze celts and spear-heads, but that these latter were not discovered in actual association with the Late Celtic bridle-bits. I have, however, provisionally accepted the account of their being found together, relying to some extent on the Abergele[1755]hoard, in which some buckles allied in form to those from Hagbourn Hill were present, associated with slides such as have been elsewhere found with socketed celts.

Whatever may be the real state of the case in these discoveries, there is every probability of a transition having gradually taken place in this country, from the employment of bronze for cutting tools and weapons of offence to the use of iron or steel for such instruments; in other words, from a Bronze Age to an Iron Age, such as that to which the term “Late Celtic” has been applied.

That this transition must have been effected, at all events in the South of Britain, prior to the Roman invasion, is shown, as has already been pointed out, by the circumstance that the Early Iron swords found in France belong in all probability to a period not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., while the southern parts of Britain had, long before Cæsar’s time, been peopled by Belgic immigrants, who either brought the knowledge of iron with them or must have received it after their arrival from their kinsmen on the continent, with whom they were in constant intercourse. In the more northern parts of Britain and in Scotland an acquaintance with iron was probably first made at a somewhat more recent period; but in the Late Celtic interments in Yorkshire no coins are present, and the iron and other objects found exhibit no traces of Roman influence. Moreover, the Roman historians, who have recorded many of the manners and customs of the northern Britons, do not in any way hint at their weapons being formed of bronze.

In Ireland, perhaps, which was less accessible from the continent than Britain, the introduction of iron may have taken place considerably after the time when it was known in the sister country; but there appears to have been a sufficient intercourse between Scotland and the north of Ireland at an early period for the knowledge of so useful a metal, when once gained, to have been quickly communicated from one country to the other.

On the whole I think we may fairly conclude that in the southern parts of Britain iron must have been in use not later than the fourth or fifth centuryb.c., and that by the second or third centuryb.c.the employment of bronze for cutting instruments had there practically ceased. These dates are of course approximate only, but will at all events serve to give some idea of the latest date to which bronze weapons and tools found in England may with some degree of safety be assigned.

As to the time at which such weapons and tools were here first in use, we have even less means of judging than we have as to when they fell into desuetude. It is, however, evident that the Bronze Period of the British Isles must have extended over a long period of years, probably embracing many centuries. The numerous bronze-founders’ hoards, containing fragments of tools and weapons of so many various forms, testify to the art of bronze-founding having been practised for a lengthened period; and yet in all of these the socketed celt occurs, or some other socketed instruments, which we know to have been contemporary with it, are present. It is true that the socketed celt was not originally developed in this country, but was introduced from abroad; and, as has already been pointed out, was derived from a form of palstave which is of rare occurrence in Britain. Yet the length of time requisite for the modification of the flat form of celt to that with flanges, of this latter again to that with the flanges produced into wings, and finally the transition into the palstave with the wings hammered over so as to form sockets on each side of the blade, must itself have been of very great duration.[1756]The development of the forms of palstave common to Britain and the opposite shores of the Continent must also have demanded a long lapse of years, and most of the stages in its evolution can be traced in this country. We have the flat celt, the flanged celt, and the flanged celt with a stop-ridge; and we can trace the modification of form from one stage to another until the characteristic palstave is reached, in which the stop-ridge is as it were formed in the actual body of the blade. And it is to be observed that this form of palstave had already been developed at the time represented by the earliest of the ordinary bronze-founders’ hoards, in which, moreover, the flanged celts, either with or without a stop-ridge, are hardly ever present.

The Bronze Age of Britain may, therefore, be regarded as an aggregate of three stages: the first, that characterized by the flat or slightly flanged celts, and the knife-daggers frequently found in barrows associated with instruments and weapons formed of stone; the second, that characterized by the more heavy dagger-blades and the flanged celts and tanged spear-heads or daggers, such as those from Arreton Down; and the third, by palstaves and socketed celts and the many forms of tools and weapons, of which fragments are so constantly present in the hoards of the ancient bronze-founders. It is in this third stage that the bronze sword and the true socketed spear-head first make their advent. The number of these hoards, and the varieties in the forms of these swords and spear-heads, as well as in the socketed celts and other tools, would, I think, justify us in assigning a minimum duration of some four or five centuries to this last stage. The other two stages together must probably have extended over at least an equal lapse of time; so that for the total duration of the Bronze Period in Britain we cannot greatly err in attributing eight or ten centuries. This would place the beginning of the Period some 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.—a date which in many respects would seem to fit in with what we know as to the use of bronze in the southern parts of Europe.[1757]

Although I have thus attempted to assign a definite chronology to our Bronze Age, I do so with all reserve, as any such attempt is founded upon what are at best imperfect data, and each of the stages I have mentioned may have been of far longer duration than I have suggested, though it is not likely that any of them should have been materially shorter.

There is, it must be acknowledged, the difficulty which I have already mentioned, as to the absence of nearly all traces of the later stages of the Bronze Period in the graves and barrows that have been examined in Britain.[1758]The reason of this absence has still to be discovered; but it may perhaps have been the case that during this time the method or fashion of interring the dead underwent some change, and the practice of placing weapons and ornaments with the bodies of departed friends and relatives fell into disuse. Among the bronze-using occupants of the Yorkshire Wolds, whose burial-places have been explored by Canon Greenwell, the interments by inhumation were much in excess over thosewhich took place after cremation, but in other parts of England the proportions are reversed. Out of fourteen instances[1759]in which bronze articles were associated with an interment, it was only in two that the body had been burnt; or taking the whole number of burials, viz. 301 by inhumation and 78 after cremation, bronze articles were found with 4 per cent. of the burials of the former kind and only 2½ per cent. with those of the latter. This seems to point to a tendency towards departing from the old custom of burying weapons with the dead for use in a future life. And, indeed, if the custom of burning the dead became general, the inducement to place such objects among mere dust and ashes would be but small. An urn or a small recess in the ground would suffice to contain the mightiest warrior, and his weapons would be out of place beside the little calcined heap which was left by the purifying fire. Even the practice of raising mounds or barrows over the interments may have ceased, and “when the funeral pyre was out and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends.”

It has been suggested that the absence of the later bronze forms with interments is due to a superstitious reverence for the older forms, so that the habit of burying the flat wedge-shaped axe[1760]and the dagger with the dead continued down to the later Age of Bronze; but I cannot accept this view.

In Scandinavia[1761]interments with which bronze swords and other weapons are associated, have frequently been discovered; and in some instances in which coffins, hollowed out in trunks of trees, have been used, even the clothing has been preserved. In this country also coffins of the same kind have occasionally been discovered, but the bronze objects which have been placed in them are of the same character as those which are found in the barrows of the district, and never comprise socketed weapons or swords. Stone weapons are also occasionally present. Remains of clothing made of skins and of woven woollen fabric have also been found. The best-known instance of the discovery of the latter was in a barrow at Scale House,[1762]near Rylston, Yorkshire, examined by Canon Greenwell, who has recorded other instances of these tree-burials. Neither bronze nor stone were in this instance present.

It is not, however, my intention to dilate upon the burial customs of our Bronze Age, as they have already been so fullydiscussed by Canon Greenwell, Dr. Thurnam, Sir John Lubbock, and others.

It will now be desirable to say something as to the sources from which the use of bronze in this country was derived, though on this subject also much has already been written.

The four principal views held by different authors have thus been summarized by Colonel A. Lane Fox, now General Pitt Rivers:—[1763]

1. That bronze was spread from a common centre by an intruding and conquering race, or by the migration of tribes.

2. That the inhabitants of each separate region in which bronze is known to have been used discovered the art independently, and made their own implements of it.

3. That the art was discovered and the implements fabricated on one spot, and the implements disseminated from that place by means of commerce.

4. That the art of making bronze was diffused from a common centre, but that the implements were constructed in the countries in which they were found.

For a full discussion of these hypotheses I must refer the reader to General Pitt Rivers’ Paper, but I shall here make use of some of the information which he has collected, premising that in my opinion there is a certain amount of truth embodied in each of these opinions.

The first view, of an intruding and conquering race having introduced the use of bronze into their country, has been held by most of the Scandinavian antiquaries, and Professor Boyd Dawkins seems to regard a Celtic invasion and conquest of the Iberic peoples in Britain as having been the means by which the knowledge of bronze was extended from Gaul to these islands. The osteological evidence in favour of the bronze-using Britons having as a rule been of a different race from the stone-using people of our Neolithic times is strongly corroborative of such a view; as is also the change which is to be noted in the burial customs of the two periods. Such an immigration or conquest must, however, have taken place at a very early period if we accept Sir John Lubbock’s[1764]view, that betweenb.c.1500 andb.c.1200 the Phœnicians were already acquainted with the mineral fields of Britain, a period at which it must not be forgotten the use of bronze had long been known in Egypt. Although it is true thatat present we have no satisfactory proof of any Phœnician influence on the people of our Bronze Age, yet if at so early a period there was an export of tin from this country, the search for that metal and the means employed for its production would almost of necessity tend to an acquaintance with copper also, even supposing, what is improbable, that those who traded for tin in order to manufacture bronze with it kept the knowledge of this latter alloy from those with whom they had commercial relations, or that the natives of Britain were not already acquainted with more metals than tin when the trade first began. But to this subject I shall recur. It may be observed by the way that the date assigned for this Phœnician intercourse corresponds in a remarkable manner with the date assigned for the earliest instances of the use of bronze in Britain, which was suggested on other grounds.

The second view of the independent discovery of bronze in different regions has little or nothing to support it so far as the different countries of Europe are concerned, though there is a possibility that the discovery of copper and of the method of alloying it with tin, so as to produce bronze, may have been made independently in America. But it may even there be the case that the knowledge of bronze was imported from Asia.[1765]In Europe, however, when once the use of the metal was known, there were certain types of weapons and implements developed in different countries which in a certain sense may be regarded as instances of independent discoveries.

The third view, that the art was discovered at some single spot at which subsequently implements were manufactured and disseminated by commerce must, at least to a limited extent, be true. Wherever the discovery of bronze may have been made, there is ample evidence of its use having spread over the greater part of Europe if not of Asia; and at first the spread of bronze weapons and tools was in all probability by commerce. Even subsequently there were local centres, such as Etruria, from which the manufactured products were exported into neighbouring countries, as well as to those lying to the north of the Alps. Some even of the bronze vases found in Ireland, though themselves not of Etruscan manufacture, bear marks of Etruscan influences in their form and character. In each country in Europe there may have been one or more localities in which the manufacture of bronze objects wasprincipally carried on, though it may now be impossible to identify the spots. Such large hoards of unfinished castings as those of Plénée Jugon, and other places in Brittany, prove that district, for instance, to have been at one time a kind of manufacturing centre. Indeed, a socketed celt of Breton type, unused, and still retaining the burnt clay core, has been found on our southern coast.

The process of casting, as practised by the ancient bronze-founders, was, moreover, one requiring a great amount of skill; and though there appear to have been wandering founders, who, like the bell-founders of mediæval times, could practise their art at any spot where their services were required, yet there were probably fixed foundries also, where the process of manufacture could be more economically carried on, and where successive generations passed through some sort of apprenticeship to learn the art and mystery of the trade.

The fourth opinion, that the use of bronze spread from some single centre, though implements were manufactured in greater or less abundance in each country where the use of bronze prevailed, is one that must commend itself to all archæologists. It does not, of course, follow that in any given district the bronze tools and weapons were all of home manufacture, and none of them imported. There is, on the contrary, evidence to be found in most countries that some, at least, of the bronze instruments found there are of foreign manufacture, and introduced either by commerce or by the foreign travel of individuals.

Where the original centre was placed, from which the European use of bronze was propagated, is an enigma still under discussion, and one which will not readily be solved. Appearances at present seem to point to its having been situate in Western Asia;[1766]but the whole question of the origin and development of the Bronze civilisation has been so recently discussed by my friend Professor Boyd Dawkins, in his “Early Man in Britain,” that it appears needless here to repeat the opinions of which he has given so good an abstract. Suffice it to say, that it has been proposed to regard the bronze antiquities of Europe as belonging generally to three provinces,[1767]the boundaries of which, however, cannot be very accurately defined. These provinces are—the Uralian, comprising Russia, Siberia, and Finland; the Danubian, which consists of theHungarian, Scandinavian, and Britannic sub-divisions or regions; and the Mediterranean, composed of the Italo-Greek and Franco-Swiss sub-divisions.

I must confess that I do not attach such high importance to this classification as at first sight it would seem to merit; for on a close examination it appears to me to involve several serious incongruities. Take, for instance, the Danubian province, and it will be found that the differences in type of bronze instruments belonging to the Hungarian region, when compared with those of the British, are on the whole greater than the difference presented when they are compared with the types of the Italian region, which, however, is made to belong to another province. There is, moreover, a difficulty in synchronizing the antiquities belonging to different provinces or regions, so as to be sure that any comparisons between them are of real value. Taking, for example, the Uralian province, it will at once be seen that though in Finland some Scandinavian types occur, such as swords and palstaves, yet the great majority of the bronze antiquities belonging to it, so far as at present known, consist of socketed celts, often with two loops; of daggers, with their hafts cast in one piece with the blade; and of perforated axes, sometimes with the representations of the heads of animals; in fact, of objects which evidently belong to a very late stage in the evolution of bronze, and which, as Mr. Worsaae has pointed out, not improbably show traces of Chinese influence. Such objects can hardly be satisfactorily compared with those of a province in which the whole development of bronze instruments, from the flat celt and small knife, to the socketed celt and the skilfully cast spear-head and sword, can be traced.

All things considered, I think it will be better and safer to content ourselves for the present with less extensive provinces; and, so far as these are concerned, the sub-divisions already enumerated may be accepted, and are quite sufficiently large, if, indeed, they are not too extensive. In the Britannic province, a part of France is included by M. Chantre, and there are certainly close analogies between many of the types of the south of England and those of the north and north-west of France. For the purpose of the present work, though accepting M. Chantre’s boundary in the main, I shall, however, restrict the Britannic province to the British Isles.

On a general examination of our British types it is satisfactory to see how complete a series of links in the chain of developmentof the bronze industry is here to be found, though many of them bear undoubted marks of foreign influence, and prove that though some of the types were of native growth, yet that others were originally imported. On general grounds, I have assigned an antiquity of 1,200 or 1,400 yearsb.c.to the introduction of the use of bronze into this country, but it is a question whether this antiquity will meet all the necessities of the case; for we can hardly imagine the Phœnicians, or those who traded with them, landing in Britain and spontaneously discovering tin. On the contrary, it must have been from a knowledge that the inhabitants of Britain were already producers of this valuable metal that the commerce with them originated; and the probable reason that tin was sought for by the native Britons was in order to mix it with copper, a metal which occurs native in the same district as the tin. If, therefore, the Phœnician intercourse, direct or indirect, commenced about 1500b.c., the knowledge of the use of tin, and probably also of copper, dates back in Britain to a still earlier epoch.

A comparison of the various British types of tools and weapons with those of Continental countries has been frequently instituted in the preceding pages, but it will be well here to recapitulate some of the principal facts. We have in Britain the flat form of celt in some abundance, though none of the specimens exhibit traces of being direct imitations of hatchets formed of stone, as would probably have been the case in any country where the use of metal for such instruments originated. And yet many of our British flat celts exhibit a certain degree of originality, inasmuch as they are decorated with hammer- or punch-marks in a manner peculiar to this country, and others in a fashion but rarely seen abroad. We can trace the development of the flanged celt from the flat variety, through specimens with almost imperceptible flanges, the result merely of hammering the sides, to those with the flanges produced in the casting. At the same time, the flanges are never so fully developed as in some of the French examples.

The development of a stop-ridge between the flanges, which eventually culminated in the ordinary palstave form, can probably be better observed in the British series than in that of any other country. At the same time, the origin of the other form of palstave—that without a definite stop-ridge, and with semicircular wings bent over so as to form a kind of side-pocket—can best be traced on the Continent, and especially in the south of France. Itwas from this form of palstave that the socketed celt was developed, and although this development seems to have taken place abroad, possibly in Western Germany, the form was introduced into Britain at an early period of its existence, as is proved by the semicircular projections and curved “flanches” so common on the faces of the socketed celts of this country.

Our knife-daggers may originally have been of foreign introduction, but evidently belong to a time when metal was scarce, and like the flat and slightly-flanged celts have often been found associated with stone implements. The dagger-blades of stouter make, which seem to have succeeded them, show analogies with French, Italian, and German examples; but similar blades, with a tang such as those from the Arreton Down hoard, seem to be almost peculiar to Britain. The fact, however, that the socketed blade found with them has its analogues both in Switzerland and Egypt suggests the probability of the tanged form being also of foreign, and possibly Mediterranean origin; indeed, a specimen is reported to have been found in Italy.

Our halberd blades with the three rivets are nearly allied to those of northern Germany; and the type appears never to be found in France, though I have met with a solitary example in Southern Spain, and the form is not unknown in Italy, there being one from the province of Mantua in the British Museum. Socketed chisels, hammers, and gouges were probably derived from a foreign source; but tanged chisels, though not absolutely wanting in the North of France, are more abundant in the British Isles than elsewhere. Long narrow chisels with tangs were, however, present in the great Bologna hoard.

Bronze socketed sickles are almost peculiar to the British Isles, though they have occasionally been found in the North of France. The flat form, from which they must have been developed, is of rare occurrence, though not unknown in Britain. Its origin is to be sought in the South of Europe, though the British examples more closely resemble German and Danish forms than those of any other country. Tanged single-edged knives are almost unknown in our islands, though so abundant in the Swiss Lake-dwellings and in the South of France. Double-edged knives with a socket are, however, almost peculiar to Britain and Ireland, though they are found in small numbers in the North of France. The tanged razor may also be regarded as one of our specialities, though not unknown in Italy. Most of the foreign varieties have a ringfor suspension at the end of the tang, a peculiarity almost unknown in Britain.

Bronze swords, no doubt, originated on the Continent; and as such long thin blades required great skill in casting, it seems probable that their manufacture was to some extent localized at particular spots, and that they formed an important article of commerce. The same type has been discovered in countries wide apart, and many of those found in Scandinavia are now regarded as being of foreign origin. Still there are some British types which are rarely or never found abroad, and the discovery of moulds proves conclusively that both leaf-shaped and rapier-shaped blades were cast in these islands. The latter kind of blades are, indeed, almost exclusively confined to Britain and the north of France. Bronze scabbard-ends, as distinct from mere chapes, seem also to be confined to the same tract of country.

When we turn to the spear-heads of these islands we find that though the leaf-shaped form prevails over the greater part of Europe, yet that those with loops at the side of the socket and with loops at the base of the blade are common in the British Isles, while they are extremely rare in France, and almost unknown elsewhere. The same may be said of the type with the small eyelet-holes in the blade, and of those with barbs. Those with crescent-shaped openings in the blades are also almost unknown elsewhere, though one example has been found in Russia. Our bronze shields with numerous concentric rings are also specially British.

Among ornaments formed of bronze, there are few, if any, that we can claim as our own. Our torques seem more nearly connected with those of the Rhine district than of any other part of Europe. Our bracelets, which are not common, hardly present any special peculiarities, and brooches we have none.

Our spheroidal caldrons seem to be of native type, but with them are vases which almost undoubtedly show an Etruscan influence in their origin.

We have here then, I think, sufficient proof that Britain, though not unaffected by foreign influences, and in fact deriving many of the types of its tools and weapons from foreign sources, was, nevertheless, a local centre in which the Bronze civilisation received a special and high development; and where, had extraneous influences been entirely absent after the time when the knowledge of Bronze was first introduced, the evolution of forms would probablyhave differed in but few particulars from that which is now exhibited by the prevailing types found in this country.

If we compare these British types with those of the other regions which together make up the so-called Danubian province, we shall at once be struck, not by the analogies presented, but by the marked difference in the generalfacies.

Taking Scandinavia to begin with, and Mr. Worsaae’s types as giving the characteristics of that region, what do we find? The perforated axe-hammers and axes of bronze are here entirely wanting; the tanged swords and the majority of those with decorated hilts are also unknown. There is hardly a type of dagger common to this country and Scandinavia. The saws, knives, and razors are of quite another character, but there is a resemblance in the sickles to a rare British type. The flat and flanged celts of the two regions are of nearly the same kind, and in one rare instance there is a similar decoration on a reputedly Danish and on an Irish celt. The palstaves, however, are of an entirely different character, with the exception of the form with semicircular wings, which is not essentially British. The socketed celts are nearly all unlike those of this country; and though the leaf-shaped spear-heads present close analogies, the looped and eyed kinds are absent. The shields are of a different character from ours. Thetutuliand diadems are here unknown. There is but one form of torque common to this country and Denmark. Brooches, combs, and small hanging vases are never met with in Britain; and the spiral, whether formed of wire or engraved as an ornament, is conspicuous by its absence.

If we take the Hungarian region, we are driven to much the same conclusions. The perforated axes and pick-axes, principally formed of copper, the semicircular sickles, the spiral ornaments, the swords with engraved hilts of bronze, and several forms of minor importance are absent in Britain, while the socketed celts and the majority of the palstaves are of markedly different types, though that with the semicircular wings hammered over is of common occurrence in Hungary.

In Northern Germany the types of bronze may be regarded as intermediate between those of Hungary and Scandinavia, though in some few respects presenting closer analogies with those of Britain, with which, as will subsequently be seen, there may have been some commercial intercourse. The connection between British and German types is, however, but small, and on the whole I think that the evidence here brought forward is sufficient toprove that the British Isles can hardly be properly classified as forming part of any Danubian province of bronze.

The connection between France and Britain during the Bronze Period cannot be denied, and in many respects there is an identity of character between the bronze antiquities of the North of France and those of the South of England. The North of France cannot, however, at any time since the first discovery of bronze, have been absolutely shut out from all communication with the South and East. The East must always have been affected by the habits of those who occupied what is now Western Germany; and the South can hardly have been exempt from the influence of Italy, if not, indeed, of other Mediterranean countries. I am inclined to think that these external influences acted also on the bronze industry of Britain, not so much directly as indirectly, and that some of the types in this country may be traced to an Italian or German origin as readily as to a French.

It is, I think, a fact that as close a resemblance in type, so far as regards our earliest bronze instruments, may be found among Italian examples as among French. Many of the slightly flanged celts of Italy can hardly be distinguished from those of Britain, except by the faces of the latter being more frequently decorated; and there is also a great similarity between the dagger-blades of the two countries. In the later forms, such as palstaves and socketed celts, the difference between British and Italian examples is sufficiently striking. May it not be the case that at the time when first the commerce between Britain and the Mediterranean countries originated, always assuming that such a commerce took place, the flanged celt was the most advanced type of hatchet known by those who came hither to trade, and the palstave and socketed form were subsequently developed? At a later period it was the German influence that was felt in Britain, rather than the Italian, for our socketed celts appear, as already stated, to have had the cradle of their family in Western Germany; and the few flat sickles that have been found in Britain, as well as the more numerous torques, show a closer connection in type with those of Germany than with those of France or any other country. Whether this introduction of what appear to be North German types can in any way be attributed to commercial relations between the two countries, and especially to a trade in amber, is worth consideration. The abundance of amber ornaments in some of the graves of our Bronze Period shows how much that substance was in use.At the same time, the eastern shores of England might have furnished it in sufficient quantity to supply the demand, without having recourse to foreign sources. I have known amber thrown up on the beach so far south as Deal.

A curious feature in the comparison of the later bronze antiquities of Britain and those of France, is the marked absence of many of the forms which abound in the remains of the Lake-dwellings of Savoy, as well as in those of Switzerland. A glance through “Rabut’s Album”[1768]or “Keller’s Lake-dwellings,” will at once show how few of the specimens there figured could pass as having been discovered in the British Isles. The large proportion of ornaments to tools and weapons is also striking. There is, indeed, as M. Chantre has pointed out, a closer connection between the bronze antiquities of the South of France and those of Switzerland and Northern Italy, than with those of Northern France.

Even the character of the ornaments is in many cases essentially different. The hollowed form of bronze bracelet, made from a thin plate bent in such a manner as to show a semicircular section, is entirely wanting in Britain, and is very rarely found in the North of France.

Enough has, however, now been said in favour of regarding Britain as one of those centres into which a knowledge of the use of bronze was introduced at a comparatively early date, and where a special development of the bronze industry arose, extending over a lengthened period, and modified from time to time by foreign influences. On the transition from bronze to iron, it is not necessary here further to enlarge. I have, in treating of the different forms of tools and weapons, pointed out those which I considered to belong to the close of the Bronze Period; and it is probable that these forms for some time continued in use, side by side with those made of the more serviceable metal, iron, which ultimately drove bronze from the field, except for ornamental purposes or for those uses for which a fusible metal was best adapted. It seems probable that, as was the case in Mediterranean countries, some of the socketed weapons, such as spear-heads, which were more easily cast than forged, may for some time have been made of bronze in preference to iron; but at present our knowledge of any transitional period is slight, and this question would be best treated of in a work on the Late Celtic or Early Iron Period of Britain.

Among the ornaments in use in this country during the Bronze Period, are some, the history of which, if it could be traced, might throw light upon the foreign intercourse of that time, for glass and ivory were probably not of native production.[1769]Glass beads have occasionally been found in barrows of the Bronze Age, nearly always in our southern counties, and with burnt interments. They are usually small tubes of opaque glass of a light blue or green colour, with the outer surface divided into rounded segments, so as to give the appearance of a number of spheroidal beads side by side. I am not aware of any having been discovered with interments of the Bronze Age on the Continent, but it seems probable that such beads have been found, and they may eventually assist in marking out the lines of ancient commerce with this country. A few larger beads, with spiral serpent-like ornaments upon them, have likewise been found; but these, also, I am unable to compare with any Continental examples. The finding of glass, however, in tombs belonging to the early portion of our Bronze Age is suggestive of some method of intercourse, direct or indirect, with Mediterranean countries. The small quoit-like pendants, formed of a greenish vitrified material, which have been found in Sussex[1770]with burnt interments of the Bronze Age, closely resemble Egyptian porcelain, and their presence in this country corroborates this suggestion.

The discovery of beads made in sets like those of glass, of a bracelet, buttons, pins, and hooks, all, in Dr. Thurnam’s opinion, formed of ivory, gives indications in the same direction; for though billiard balls have been manufactured from Scottish mammoth ivory of the Pleistocene Period, the fossil tusks found in Britain are, as a rule, too much decomposed to be any longer of service, and in this respect differ materially from the fossil mammoth tusks of Siberia, which still furnish so much of our table cutlery with handles.

For the jet and amber ornaments of the Bronze Period we have not, of necessity, to go so far afield as for glass. Abundance of jet is to be obtained in our own country, and the usual type of jet necklace,[1771]with a series of flat plates, seems to be essentially British. Some of the amber plates found at Hallstatt are, however,of the same form, and perforated in the same manner, so that possibly these jet necklaces may have been made in imitation of foreign prototypes in amber. How far the amber ornaments of the Bronze Period in Britain were of native production we have no good means of judging; but the circumstance just mentioned is suggestive of Hallstatt and Britain having been supplied from a common source, which may have been on the shores of the Baltic. On the other hand, our amber ornaments differ, as a rule, from those of Scandinavia, and, as already remarked, our eastern coast would furnish an ample supply of the raw material without seeking it abroad. It must, however, be remembered that some of the forms of our bronze instruments show traces of German influence, and that in Strabo’s time both amber and ivory were among the articles exported from Celtic Gaul to Britain. The remarkable amber cup from the Hove barrow, near Brighton, I have described elsewhere.[1772]

It remains for me to say a few words as to the general condition of the inhabitants of Britain during the Bronze Age; but on this subject, apart from the light thrown upon it by the tools, weapons, and ornaments which I have been describing, and by the contents of the graves of the period, we have in this country but little to guide us. Such a complete insight into the material civilisation of the period as that afforded by the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, Savoy, and Northern Italy is nowhere vouchsafed to us in Britain. The Irish crannoges, which, in many respects, present close analogies with the pile-buildings, have remained in use until mediæval times, and in no instance has the destruction of a settlement by fire contributed to preserve for the instruction of future ages the household goods of the population. The nearest approach to a Lake-dwelling in England is that examined in Barton Mere,[1773]Suffolk, where, however, the results were comparatively meagre. A single spear-head was found, apparently of the type of Fig. 406, and the remains of various animals used for food, including the urus and the hare, which latter in Cæsar’s time the Britons did not eat.

The information to be gained from the burial customs and the contents of the graves has already been gathered by the late Dr. Thurnam and by Canon Greenwell, as well as by other antiquaries, and I cannot do better than refer to the forty-third volume ofthe “Archæologia,” and to “British Barrows.”[1774]I may, however, shortly depict some of the principal features of the external conditions of the bronze-using population of these islands, taken as a whole, for no doubt the customs and condition of the people were by no means uniform throughout the whole extent of the country at any given moment of time.

As to their dwellings, we seem to have no positive information, but they probably were of much the same character as those of the Swiss Lake population, except that for the most part they were placed upon the dry land, and not on platforms above the water. Their clothing was sometimes of skins, sometimes of woollen cloth, and probably of linen also, as they were acquainted with the arts of spinning and weaving. Of domesticated animals they possessed the dog, ox, sheep, goat, pig, and finally the horse. They hunted the red deer, the roe, the wild boar, the hare, and possibly some other animals. For the chase and for warfare their arrows were tipped with flint, and not with bronze: and some other stone instruments, such as scrapers, remained in use until the end of the period. At the beginning, as has already often been stated, the axe, the knife-dagger, and the awl were the only articles of bronze in use. For obtaining fire, a nodule of pyrites and a flake of flint sufficed. Some cereals were cultivated, as is shown by the bronze sickles. Pottery they had of various forms, some apparently made expressly for sepulchral purposes; but they were unacquainted with the potter’s wheel. Some vessels of amber and shale, turned in the lathe, may have been imported from abroad. Ornaments were worn in less profusion than in Switzerland; but the torque for the neck, the bracelet, the ear-ring, the pin for the dress and for the hair, were all in use, though brooches were unknown. Necklaces, or gorgets, formed of amber, jet, and bone beads were not uncommon; and the ornaments of glass and ivory, such as those lately mentioned, were probably obtained by foreign commerce. Gold, also, was often used for decorating the person, though coins, and apparently even the metal silver, were unknown. They appear to have been accomplished workers and carvers of wood and horn, and there were among them artificers who inlaid wood and amber with minute gold pins almost or quite as skilfully as the French workmen of the last century, who wrought on tortoise-shell. In castingand hammering out bronze they attained consummate skill, and their spear-heads and wrought shields could not be surpassed at the present day. The general equipment of the warrior in the shape of swords, daggers, halberds, spears, &c., and the tools of the workman, such as hatchets, chisels, gouges, hammers, &c., have, however, all been dealt with at large in previous pages. They contrast with the arms and instruments of the preceding Neolithic Age more by their greater degree of perfection than by their absolute number and variety. The material progress from one stage of civilisation to the other was no doubt great, but the interval between the two does not approach that which exists between Palæolithic man of the old River-drifts and Neolithic man of the present configuration of the surface of Western Europe.

So far as the general interest attaching to the Bronze Period is concerned, it may readily be conceded that it falls short of that with which either of the two stages of the Stone Period which preceded it must be regarded. The existence of numerous tribes of men who are, or were until lately, in the same stage of culture as the occupants of Europe during the Neolithic Age, affords various points of comparison between ancient and modern savages which are of the highest interest, while there exists at the present day not a single community in which the phases of the Bronze culture can be observed. The Palæolithic Age has, moreover, a charm of mysterious eld attaching to it as connected with the antiquity of the human race which is peculiarly its own.

The Bronze Age, nevertheless, from its close propinquity to the period of written history, is of the highest importance to those who would trace back the course of human progress to its earliest phases; and though in this country many of the minute details of the picture cannot be filled in, yet, taken as a whole, the broad lines of the development of this stage of civilisation may be as well traced in Britain as in any other country. It has been a pleasure to me to gather the information on which this work is based; and I close these pages with the consolatory thought that, dry as may be their contents, they may prove of some value as a hoard of collected facts for other seekers after truth.

FINIS.

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