# Prehistoric Britain/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
EARLY IRON AGE—HALLSTATT—LA TÈNE—LATE CELTIC
The art of making bronze was probably an Egyptian invention, but its introduction into Britain was, in the first instance, in the form of finished objects of the earliest types, such as the small hand daggers, awls, pins, ​etc., which found their way almost simultaneously into the other European countries. But by-and-by these different nationalities began to manufacture bronze objects themselves, as is proved by the discovery of the moulds in which the various articles were cast. Hence, in the course of time, a great development in the bronze industry took place, especially in countries at some distance from the Adriatic, such as Hungary, Switzerland, North Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles. On the other hand, in Greece, Italy, South Austria and the valley of the Rhone, the bronze industry was cut short by the discovery of another metal, viz. iron, which gradually supplanted bronze in the manufacture of cutting implements. Although iron was known in Egypt about 1500 b.c. it was not utilized to any great extent for industrial purposes in Europe till about the ninth century b.c., by which time the Greeks, Italians, Etruscans, Illyrians and Phœnicians were settling down in their historic homes. No iron objects occur among the relics from the prehistoric cities of Troy, Tiryns and Mycenæ
During the initiatory stages of the competition between iron and bronze it is probable that the result of the struggle depended on the comparative expense of the production of the respective metals, the former being possibly the dearer of the two. It cannot, however, be supposed that, in the face of the abundance and wide distribution of iron ores. ​the economic problem would have long stood in the way had there been no other difficulty to be surmounted. It seems to me that the real hindrance to the adoption of iron in the manufacture of cutting implements was the softness of the metal itself, as, until the method of tempering it, by suddenly plunging it when heated into cold water, became known, tools and weapons made of it would be actually inferior to those of bronze. Polybius (Book II, c. 33) incidentally records a striking instance of the comparative uselessness of untempered blades. In describing the victory of Flaminius over the Insubres, inhabiting Cisalpine Gaul, he informs us that the Romans are thought to have shown uncommon skill in this battle by instructing their troops how they were to conduct themselves. Having learned that the Gallic tribes could only give one downward cut with their long pointless swords (as after this the edges got so turned and the blade so bent that unless they had time to straighten them with the foot against the ground they could not deliver a second blow), the Roman soldiers were instructed to meet the first onset of the Celts with their spears and then use their swords. The result was that, "when the Celts had rendered their swords useless by the first blows delivered on the spears, the Romans closed with them and rendered them quite helpless by preventing them from raising their hands to strike with their swords, which is their peculiar and only stroke, because their blade has no point. ​The Romans, on the contrary, having excellent points to their swords, used them not to cut but to thrust; and by thus repeatedly hitting the breasts and faces of the enemy, they eventually killed the greater number of them."
Those who deny the existence of a Bronze Age, as distinct from that of Iron, are in the habit of accounting for the entire absence of iron relics in graves and early habitations by the theory that they have disappeared in consequence of the natural law of decomposition, it being well known that iron is more liable to oxidation than copper or bronze. But this is not an adequate explanation of the facts, as there are many natural conditions in which iron may for a long time resist atmospheric action. It is difficult to believe that steel implements, in such a dry climate as that of Egypt, could have been in use from the earliest times without having left some traces of their existence.
Whatever may have been the causes which kept this useful metal so long in the background, there are indications that on its first introduction into European civilization it was a scarce commodity, and only used in small encrusted bands to decorate bronze objects. It was thus occasionally used among the Swiss lake-dwellers at the stations of Moeringen, Cortaillod, Auvernier and Corcelettes, to ornament bronze swords and bracelets. From these considerations it is evident that the mere knowledge of iron as a metal is not to be regarded as contemporaneous ​with its general introduction into the arts and industries of human civilization.
During the Homeric Age iron was known in Greece as a rare and expensive commodity, but in the time of Hesiod it came largely into general use, as we find this author assigning to Hercules, besides armour of gold and greaves of bronze, a helmet of steel and a sword of iron; and to Saturn a steel reaping-hook (Ilios, p. 252). As the knowledge of the new metal slowly spread to the outlying districts in the north and west of Europe, partly through commerce and partly through immigrants, and probably through warlike expeditions, it is but natural to expect that antiquarian remains of the period found in Central Europe would disclose the metallurgical changes which had been effected in consequence of the substitution of iron for bronze in their manufacture. On this score archæologists have not been disappointed. Two localities in particular have been discovered which have yielded relics so instructive and characteristic of this transition stage that their names are now universally used not only as generic expressions for the civilizations they respectively represent, but also as standards of comparison for contemporary antiquities. These are the cemetery of Hallstatt, in Austria, and the Oppidum La Tène, in Switzerland. Antiquities similar to those found in both these stations due to the same primary influences, had a wide area of distribution, extending broadly from North ​Italy and the Balkan peninsula to the British Isles; so that archæologists, who wish to study the development of the Iron Age anywhere within these limits, have to drink from the same fountain-head. I propose, therefore, to give a short description of a few of the most characteristic remains discovered on these two remarkable stations, noticing at the same time some of the analogous remains found elsewhere by way of defining their respective areas of distribution.
The Hallstatt Civilization.—The ancient necropolis known as Hallstatt lies in a narrow glen in the Noric Alps, about an hour's walk from the town of Hallstatt. Discovered in 1846, and systematically explored for several years under the superintendence of Bergmeister G. Ramsauer, the results were published by Baron von Sacken in 1868, in a quarto volume with twenty-six plates of illustrations.
One of the peculiarities of this cemetery was that it contained burials by inhumation and incineration indiscriminately dispersed over its entire area, both belonging to the same period, as was clearly proved from the perfect similarity of their respective grave-goods. The graves were thickly placed over an irregular area, some 200 yards in length and about half that in breadth, but there were no indications above ground to mark their position.
Baron von Sacken thus describes and classifies the grave-goods:
​1. Armour.—Swords, daggers, lances, arrow-points, battle-axes, helmets and shields.
2. Ornaments and Dress.—Girdles, pendants, fibulæ, clasps, pins, bracelets, finger-rings, ear-rings, hair-rings, spirals, chains, beads of gold, amber and bronze, buttons, various ornamented mountings, amulets and symbols.
3. Utensils.—Knives, files, anvils, forceps, fish-hooks, needles, bodkins, nails, whetstones, and polishing stones.
4. Vessels.—Caldrons, urns, cups and ladles of bronze; pots, cups and plates of earthenware, and a few vessels of glass.
5. Diverse Objects.—Worked stones, clay discs, lumps of bronze and slag, shells, bones of animals, etc.
Many of the weapons though made of iron retained Bronze Age forms, but all the arrow-points were of bronze, most of them with wings and a few triangularly shaped. Arms of defence, such as helmets and shields, were very rare, only two of the former, one with a double crest and the other plain, having been found. Of shields there were only a few fragments of conical bosses. The swords and daggers had sheaths made of beaten bronze, or of wood bound with bronze bands, which were more or less ornamented. Some of the iron swords were of a novel character. The blade of the most remarkable weapon was double-edged, nearly three feet in length, almost of uniform breadth throughout its whole length, and ended abruptly in a point with two short slanting edges. It was riveted ​to a handle of bone encrusted with ivory or amber, and terminated in a gilded pommel of large dimensions. Of nine specimens, eight were in graves containing cremated bodies, and associated with them were one or more bronze vases. Other swords, some of iron and some of bronze, especially the latter, were not unlike the leaf-shaped bronze blades so common in the British Isles towards the end of the Bronze Age. There were also iron daggers, with handles of bronze terminating at the hilt in two horn-like projections, and knife-like blades of unusual size, not unlike a butcher's cleaver. The spear-heads were all socketed and mostly made of iron. Like the swords they show a combination of Bronze Age types together with a few new patterns, some of which closely resembled formes prevalent in La Tène.
Among articles of dress, fibulæ were conspicuous both as regards numbers and variety of form. Some were adorned with amber beads, and others had attached to them by chains a number of pendants in the shape of discs, crosses, wheels, miniature axes, and various kinds of animals reminding one of ducks or swans. The spiral fibula, with two or four discs, goes under the name of the "Hallstatt fibula," as it is seldom met with in North Italy, although common south of the Apennines. Bracelets—solid hollow, or in bands with or without knobs—were very common. One found in a Yorkshire barrow, at Cowlam, and figured by Canon Greenwell, ​(British Barrows, p. 210) is almost a facsimile of some of the Hallstatt types.
But perhaps the most remarkable objects were the mountings of some girdle bands and a number of large vessels made of bronze. The latter were adorned with geometrical patterns, animal, figures, either engraved or in repoussé work, involving a great variety of art elements—points, zigzag lines, concentric circles, spirals, triangles, crosses, stars, wheels, as well as the forms of plants, beasts and human beings. Some of the vessels had round bottoms and others were like pails (situlæ), either cylindrical or bulging upwards, and again contracting a little towards the mouth. They had generally one or two movable handles attached to the top like a modern water-pitcher, or small handles fixed to the sides of the vessel. The larger specimens were made of beaten bronze riveted together, and when found they were either empty or contained only bones of animals. The lid of one of the situlæ was ornamented with a group of fantastic animals which strongly remind one of the winged animals of Assyria. The cylindrical cists—ciste a cordoni of Italian archæologists—have a series of parallel ridges or cordons running round the body. These vessels, which spread over Central and Western Europe to the number of some fifty, but did not reach Britain, were in some places used as cinerary urns.
It may be noted, as a point of some significance, that neither silver nor lead has been ​found in Hallstatt. The absence of these metals, as well as coins, has been used as an argument in support of the opinion that the cemetery was discontinued before these metals came into general use, i.e. about the beginning of the fourth century b.c. As the most probable date of the commencement of the cemetery is about the ninth century b.c., its duration would thus extend over a period of 500 years. The collection of Hallstatt relics as a whole is thus a mere jumbling together of an assortment of objects, not only influenced by a rapidly progressing civilization, but also by a continuous importation of new materials from Eastern civilizations by way of the Adriatic.
Sepulchral remains more or less analogous to the Hallstatt antiquities have been recorded in various parts throughout Central Europe, while sporadic finds have been discovered in Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia, Moravia, South Germany, Switzerland, the Rhine district, France and the British Isles.
La Tène Civilization.—The celebrated lacustrine station called La Tene is situated at the north end of Lake Neuchâtel, close to the present artificially formed outlet of its waters (the Upper Thielle). Here is to be seen a gravelly elevation, some 200 yards long by 50 wide, which, before the "Correction des Eaux du Jura," formed the bed of a shallow part of the lake, known among the fishermen as la tène (the shallows). As early as 1858, Col. Schwab discovered that these gravels ​contained numerous antiquities—swords, spears and other objects of iron—totally different from those found on the Pfahlbauten, then so prominently before the archæological world; and of these he made a goodly collection. Subsequently Professor Desor directed his attention to the same field of research, and he also collected a large number of objects, among them being Gallic coins and an iron sword-sheath ornamented with three fantastic horses, which at the time excited much interest among archæologists. Further discoveries in the same locality were made by a number of investigators at various times, among them being MM. Dardel-Thorens, E. Vouga, Borel, Wavre, etc.
As the relics found on La Tène were associated with piles, the locality was regarded by local antiquaries as the site of an ordinary pile-structure of the Iron Age; and as such it has been described by Dr. Keller and Professor Desor. In face of the facts disclosed by later researches this opinion can no longer be maintained. As a place of habitation it consisted of a series of rectangular wooden buildings, erected on both margins of an ancient outlet of the lake, and connected by a wooden bridge the piles of which have been traced for a considerable distance. The submergence of the locality, such as it was when its archæological treasures first attracted attention, was due to a gradual accumulation of mud and peat along the bed of the sluggish channel which carried, and ​still carries, its surplus waters to Lake Bienne. The geographical position of the site, commanding the great highway between Constance and Geneva, and the vast preponderance of weapons of war among the relics found on it, unmistakably point to its having been a military station. Nor is there evidence a wanting to suggest that its end was a tragic catastrophe. The quantity of human bones, representing some thirty or forty individuals, with skulls said to have sword-cuts on their top; the number of abandoned swords, about half of which were unsheathed; the incongruous medley of relics found by M. E. Vouga at the bottom of the ancient river-bed, comprising swords, lances, axes, chains, razors, various wooden implements, fragments of a large vase, an entire wheel and other parts of a wagon, together with the bones of horses and oxen—all indicate that the onslaught was sudden and successful. The discovery of characteristic Roman remains, such as coins, tiles, pottery, bricks (one with the mark of the 21st legion, "Rapax"), on and around the site of La Tène leaves little doubt that the captors of the Oppidum were the Romans.
The La Tène culture, having its centre of development considerably to the west of Hallstatt, spread far and wide on the Continent, reaching Scandinavia on the north, the British Isles on the west and Bosnia on the east.
A mere glance at the Hallstatt and La Tène groups of antiquities shows that a gradual ​transformation in the relative use of bronze and iron had taken place prior to the occupation of the Oppidum La Tène, i.e. some time during the first century b.c. The prevailing forms of the Bronze Age were still retained in iron in Hailstatt, while in La Tène they entirely disappeared. In Hailstatt the Bronze Age sword was replaced by a sword only the blade of which was made of iron, while in La Tène both blade and sheath were made of iron, there being only one bronze sheath, so far as known to me, in the whole of the La Tène collections. During the latter period the small bronze dagger, the pioneer weapon of the early Bronze Age in Western Europe, was no longer met with. The leaf-shaped bronze sword, with its flat tongue and rivetholes, gave place to a tanged iron blade, generally with parallel edges and blunt point. Even the great iron sword of Hallstatt had apparently disappeared from the armamentary of Western Europe. Shields and helmets of iron became then parts of military costume of the day. The superabundance of personal ornaments in the form of iron fibulæ, beads and bracelets of glass, the use of coral as a setting, and ultimately the invention of enamel, etc., show that amber and bronze had then become less necessary. In decorative art geometrical designs gave way to various symmetrical combinations of curves, spirals, involutes and figures of fantastic animals. But the greatest innovation of all was the appearance of the new metal, silver as well ​as Gaulish coins, at first imitating those of Greek origin.
Late Celtic Period in Britain.—We now proceed to investigate the archæological phenomena of the early Iron Age, as disclosed by the antiquities discovered within the British Isles. This subject becomes comparatively easy in light of what we have seen as to the sources from which their inhabitants derived the models and art motives which inspired the artistic productions of the inhabitants. The effect of these foreign influences on British civilization was to develop a new school of art, which, though retaining the primary features of its Continental prototypes, presented so many deviations, both in design and execution, that it is now regarded as a third and final stage in the evolution of the Celtic art of Europe. Among the first to clearly define this unique group of antiquities in Britain was Sir A. W. Franks, who, as one of the editors of Kemble's Horæ Ferales, named it "Late Celtic"—an expression which has since become common in archæological literature. His description of the principal objects, in that group, so far as they were then known to him, is prefaced by the following remarks:
"In the peculiar class of antiquities now to be considered, the British Islands stand unrivalled; a few ancient objects, analogous in design, may be found in various parts of the Continent, and more extended researches in local museums may bring many others to ​light, but the foreign contributions to this section are scanty when compared with those of our own country.
"The antiquities under consideration consist of shields, swords, and daggers, horse-furniture, personal ornaments, and a number of miscellaneous objects, some of iron, some of bronze, and frequently decorated with enamel. All these antiquities exhibit a style of decoration remarkable for its peculiar and varied forms, and testify to an extraordinary skill in working metals." (Horæ Ferales, p. 172.)
On finishing his descriptive details of the objects in question—the more perfect and highly decorated being delineated on seven plates of beautiful illustrations—he proceeds to show that their original owners could be no other than the Celts.
Since 1864, when Sir A. W. Franks wrote his description of the "Late Celtic" antiquities of the British Isles, a large number of similarly decorated objects have been discovered throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Some have been incidentally found as stray relics in fields, peat-bogs, the beds of rivers, etc.; others were among the contents of hoards or hidden treasures, graves and inhabited sites, associated with other objects which gave a clue to their date.
Among sepulchral sites the following may be mentioned, as examples of burials by inhumation which have yielded relics of this ​special style of art: Arras, Cowlam, Grimthorpe, "Danes' Graves," near Kilham, and Scarborough Park, near Beverley (all in Yorkshire); Barlaston and Alstonfield (Staffordshire); Middleton Moor and Benty Grange (Derbyshire); the Cotteswold Hills, near Gloucester; Trelan Bahow, Parish of St. Keverne (Cornwall); Mount Batten, near Plymouth; Bigberry Hill, in Kent, etc. The Urn-field (cemetery) at Aylesford (Kent), described by Sir Arthur Evans, deserves special notice. Among the relics disinterred from this locality was a wooden pail or situla, having the upper of three bronze bands which surrounded the vessel, decorated with the forms of fantastic animals and scrolls in repoussé work, in the characteristic style of Late Celtic art. The relics also included a jug, a long-handled patella or pan and a couple of fibulæ of late La Tène types—all of bronze. The fibulæ and some cremated bones were inside the situla, while the jug, patella and a number of earthenware urns were placed close up to its outside. "We have here," writes the author, "for the first time a native example of an 'urn-field' belonging to the period that preceded the Roman invasion, the immediate antecedents of which are to be sought in the Belgic parts of Gaul."
Another remarkable bucket, which evidently belongs to the same class and period as that of Aylesford, was found near Marlborough about the year 1807, the remains of which are now preserved in the Devizes Museum, When ​found it contained burnt bones. Its wooden body, like that of Aylesford, was surrounded by three zones of bronze on which were represented, in repoussé, weird human heads, and fantastic horses like those on the famous sword-sheath from La Tène.
This fanciful style of art was rather Gaulish than British, and may be paralleled with the Gundestrup silver bowl discovered, in 1891, in a peat-bog in Jutland, Denmark—the most magnificent work of Celtic art hitherto found in Europe. The plates of which this very remarkable sacrificial bowl had been constructed represented divinities, processions of warriors and oriental designs—elephants, griffins, ram-headed serpent, a man astride a dolphin—together with the symbol of the boar, the triquetra, torques, crested helmets and oblong shields, forming an unmistakable assemblage of the most characteristic elements of Celtic art.
An important find of Late Celtic antiquities in connection with cremated interments was also made at Welwyn, Herts, which, according to Sir Arthur Evans, is a, complete parallel to those of Aylesford, both as to date (50 b.c.) and character of the relics. These antiquities are now in the British Museum (Proc. Soc. Ant. London, 1912, p. 5).
Chief among inhabited sites of the preRoman period which have yielded Late Celtic remains are Hunsbury Camp, near Northampton; an earthen entrenchment at Stanwick (Yorkshire); and Mount Caburn, near Lewes.
​From the débris of a series of refuse pits on the first mentioned were dug up 150 querns (hand-mills), charred corn, glass beads, bronze fibulæ and rings, a bronze swordsheath, spindle-whorls, long-handled combs, loom-weights, bone and horn needles, human and animal bones, etc.
The fine collection of Late Celtic objects from Stanwick includes bridle-bits, horsetrappings, fragments of repoussé work, portions of iron chain-mail, a sword-sheath, bronze fragments with traces of enamel on them, tyres of chariot wheels, etc.
Mount Caburn, described by General Pitt-Rivers as a Late Celtic entrenchment of pre-Roman times, contained, in addition to a number of relics similar to those from Hunsbury Camp, three ancient British coins of tin.
Very significant are some implements and weapons of war found on the crannog of Lisnacroghera, Ireland. Here the entire military equipments of at least four men, consisting of shields, iron swords with bronze sheaths, lances with long wooden handles and bronze mountings, and other objects—all beautifully decorated with Late Celtic designs and workmanship—were by some unknown fate associated in a peat-bog with the usual promiscuous objects of an Irish crannog.
In 1865 a remarkable discovery was made in one of the chambered cairns on the Loughcrew Hills, Co. Meath, which has puzzled ​many antiquaries. This consisted of a large quantity of flat polished pieces of bone, among which were fragments of combs, and some plaques ornamented with incised circles, spirals, volutes and dots in the Late Celtic style. They were in conjunction with a heterogeneous assortment of objects of stone, bronze and iron, beads of glass and amber, sea-shells, etc.—among them being a pair of iron compasses. (See Ollamh Fodhla, by Eugène A. Conwell.)
Remains of Late Celtic work have also been found in peat-bogs, surface soil, on Roman stations in England, and in the débris of some of the crannogs, Pictish brochs, underground dwellings and hill-forts of Scotland.
But among recent discoveries the most important is the Lake-village of Glastonbury, which, having a chronological range of continued occupancy from about 100 b.c. to 50 a.d., has yielded a promiscuous assortment of the ordinary débris of village life during the early Iron Age, among which are some characteristic objects of Late Celtic art such as ornamented hand-mirrors, La Tène fibulæ, bronze bracelets, a few articles of harness mountings, pottery, weaving combs, etc.
A number of massive bronze armlets of a remarkable type, and peculiar to Scotland, have been found in different parts of the country. They consist of a solid casting of bronze, smooth on the inner surface and embossed on the outer by running scrolls in high relief. They are penannular and more or ​less oval in shape, with ends rounded, slightly expanded, and perforated with a circular opening for an enamel disc. The decoration usually takes the form of three convex and parallel bands ornamented with trumpet-shaped elevations and connected by oblique ridges, (See Scotland in Pagan Times, by Dr. J. Anderson.)
From what we have said it will be seen that the distribution of Late Celtic antiquities embraces a large portion of Great Britain and Ireland. South Britain, however, being its primary home, has proved to be richer in examples of its best style of workmanship, such as the two magnificent shields found in the rivers Thames and Witham, various enamelled horse-trappings, mirrors, brooches, bracelets, torques, etc. From the fact that no settlements or cemeteries of the period have, as yet, been found in Britain north of Yorkshire, nor in any part of Wales or Ireland, it has been suggested that the products of this special art first reached these regions by means of commercial intercourse, rather than by an immigration of new settlers. At the same time, there is evidence to show that it continued to be practised both in Scotland and Ireland, without any break of continuity, till the introduction of Christianity into these regions. There the adherents of the new faith utilized its designs, in conjunction with interlacements and fret-work, to ornament their illuminated manuscripts, sculptured stones, and metal-work. On the other hand, the ​people of South Britain, having lost their native art, owing to the rapid spread of Roman influence in that part of the country, had subsequently to borrow its details from the books and writings of the early Christians of Scotland and Ireland.
In discussing some of the archæological problems arising out of the mass of relics found on the site of the Glastonbury Lake-village, I wrote as follows in regard to one or two points which come within the scope of the present chapter:
"The absence of objects ornamented with enamel among the Lake-village relics may have some significance, although it would be hazardous, or at least premature, to draw a definite conclusion from negative premises. That enamel working was practised by the Gauls, prior to the Roman conquest of their country, is proved by excavations made on the site of Bibracte. Here crude enamels, but only of one colour (red), were found in various stages of manufacture, in workshops furnished with furnaces, crucibles, moulds, polishing stones, and other tools used in this industry. Champlevé was the first kind of enamelling practised in Britain, the artists using only one colour, a brilliant red, with which they filled the trumpet-shaped spaces of their Late Celtic designs; but this was long after these designs were invented. Many of the specimens of British enamel have been found in association with Roman remains; ​while the rest, being mostly sporadic finds, are of no chronological value, so that the precise date when enamel began to be used by British artists is absolutely unknown. We know, however, that during the Roman occupation of Britain the working of enamel was successfully prosecuted. Much has been made of the historical evidence of Philostratus, that the 'barbarians who live in the ocean pour these colours on heated brass, that they adhere, become hard as stone and preserve the designs that have been made in them.' But this was written at the beginning of the third century a.d., and evidently refers to a time when enamel work had made great progress, especially by the adoption of a variety of colours.
"The same reasoning applies to hand-mirrors, the chronology of which is also an unknown factor, as none of the Late Celtic mirrors discovered in Britain, outside the Glastonbury Lake-village, have been shown to be older than Romano-British times. It would, however, be unwise to push these arguments further in the meantime, as the exploration of the Meare Lake-village, the discovery of which has been recently announced, may supply materials which will throw additional light on the various points here raised." (Glastonbury Lake-Village, Vol. I, p. 31.)
In casting a retrospective glance over the sources of Late Celtic art, as developed within ​the British Isles, it may be observed that the industrial and art products of Hallstatt are somewhat more pronounced in France than in Britain, probably because the former was nearer their eastern sources of distribution. Since these influences first reached French soil there is no reason to suppose that the new developments they engendered suffered any break in continuity till the advent of the Romans. Many of the tumuli, especially in the Marne district, such as that of La Gorge Meillet and Berru, disclosing burials of chiefs clad in full armour and laid alongside of their horses and chariots, must be placed much earlier than the date of the Oppidum La Tène; and it is probably to an extension of this custom to Britain that the analogous interments in Yorkshire must be assigned. It was during the La Tène civilization that the iron industry first reached Denmark, so that the Hallstatt period was but feebly represented in Scandinavian lands. This is quite in keeping with the opinion that the bronze industry reached these shores by way of the lower Danube, Hungary, and the southern shore of the Baltic—a route little affected by the Hallstatt civilization.
The same remarks apply to the lake-dwellings of Western Switzerland, many of which were in the full Bronze Age, till their termination during the La Tène period. Thus, while the Bronze Age was flourishing in the north of Europe, other culture currents, emanating from Ægean islands and the mainland of ​Greece, long after the Mycenean culture had passed its zenith, spread into Central Europe by way of the Adriatic, and ultimately extended as far as the British Isles.
That the influence of the Hallstatt civilization had not entirely spent itself short of our shores is amply proved by the existence, in the museums of Britain and Ireland, of a number of objects whose origin can be clearly traced to common types in Central Europe. These continental culture and art elements were, however, so handled by the "barbarians in the ocean" as to produce within the British Isles a new school of art, known as Late Celtic, whose products can be readily differentiated from those of all other contemporary phases of European civilization. The most characteristic specimen of this art is the enamelled bronze shield found in the bed of the Thames at Battersea, now in the British Museum, and of which an excellent representation is figured in the Museum Guide.