119: 1. See the Osborn tables. As evidence of far earlier dates of the
Neolithic in the east we may quote Sir A. J. Evans, 2, p. 721. He
calculates that the earliest settlement at Knossos in Crete, which was
_Neolithic_, is about 12,000 years old, for he assumes that in the
western court of the palace the average rate of deposit was fairly
continuous. Professor Montelius, in _L’Anthropologie_, t. XVII, p. 137,
argues from the stratigraphy of finds at Susa that the beginning of the
Neolithic Age in the east may be dated about 18,000 B. C.
119: 6. See the note to p. 147.
119: 15. Balkh. Balkh, in Afghanistan, was the capital of Bactria, the
ancient name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush and the
Oxus, and is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated on the
right bank of the Balkh River. The antiquity and greatness of the place
are recognized by the native populations who speak of it as the “Mother
of Cities,” and it is certain that at a very early date it was the rival
of Ecbatana, Nineveh, and Babylon.
Bactria was subjugated by Cyrus and from then on formed one of the
satrapies of the Persian Empire. Zaborowski, 1, p. 43, says: “After the
conquests of Alexander there was founded a Greco-Bactrian kingdom ...
which embraced Sogdiana, Bactria and Afghanistan. The Greco-Bactrian
kings struck a quantity of coins. They bore a double legend, the one
Greek, the other still called Bactrian, which is not Zend, nor even the
language really spoken in Bactria. It is a popular dialect derived from
Sanskrit.” Again on p. 185: “Zend has been called, and is still called,
Bactrian or Old Bactrian, it may be because Bactria has been conceived
as the original country or an ancient place of sojourn of the Persians;
it may be because Zoroaster, a Median Magus, had, according to a legend,
fled to the Bactrians where he found protection under Prince Vishtaspa.
Eulogy of this prince is often incorporated in the sayings of
Zoroaster.”
Later a new race appeared, tribes called Scythians by the Greeks,
amongst which the Tochari, identical with the Yuë-Chih of the Chinese,
were the most important. According to Chinese sources, they entered
Sogdiana in 159 B. C.; in 139 they conquered Bactria, and during the
next generation they had made an end to the Greek rule in eastern Iran.
In the middle of the first century B. C. the whole of eastern Iran and
western India belonged to the great “Indo-Scythian” Empire. In the third
century the Kushan dynasty began to decline; about 320 A. D. the Gupta
Empire was founded in India. In the fifth the Ephtalites, or “White
Huns,” subjugated Bactria; then the Turks, about A. D. 560, overran the
country north of the Oxus. In 1220 Jenghis Khan sacked Balkh and
levelled all buildings capable of defence, while Timur repeated this
treatment in the fourteenth century. Notwithstanding this, Marco Polo
could still, in the following century, describe it as “a noble city and
a great.”
See also Raphael Pumpelly, _Explorations in Turkestan_, where 10,000
years is said to be the age of the remains of early civilization. More
modern authorities, however, do not accept these ancient dates.
119: 21. Osborn, 1, p. 479.
120: 1 _seq._ Osborn, 1, pp. 493–495; Ripley, pp. 486–487, and also S.
Reinach, 3, and G. Sergi, 2, pp. 199–220.
120: 28 _seq._ Oman, _England before the Norman Conquest_, pp. 642
_seq._, says: “The position which he [Harold] chose is that where the
road from London to Hastings emerges from the forest, on the ground
named Senlac, where the village of Rattle now stands.... This hill
formed the battleground.... On reaching the lower slopes of the English
position the archers began to let fly their shafts, and not without
effect, for as long as the shooting was at long range, there was little
reply, since Harold had but few bowmen in his ranks, (the Fyrd, it is
said, came to the fight with no defensive weapons but the shield, and
were ill-equipped, with javelins and instruments of husbandry turned to
warlike uses), and the abattis, whatever its length or height, would not
give complete protection to the English. But when the advance reached
closer quarters, it was met with a furious hail of missiles of all
sorts—darts, lances, casting axes, and stone clubs such as William of
Poictiers describes, and the Bayeux Tapestry portrays—rude weapons, more
appropriate to the neolithic age.... Many a moral has been drawn from
this great fight.... Neither desperate courage, nor numbers that must
have been at least equal to those of the invader, could save from defeat
an army which was composed in too great a proportion of untrained
troops, and which was behind the times in its organization.... But the
English stood by the customs of their ancestors, and, a few years
before, Earl Ralph’s attempt to make the thegnhood learn cavalry tactics
(see the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), had been met by sullen resistance and
had no effect.”
121 : 4. See the note top. 128 : 2.
121 : 15. F. Keller, _The Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland and Other Parts
of Europe_; Schenck, _La Suisse préhistorique_, pp. 533–549; G. and A.
de Mortillet, _Le Préhistorique_, part 3, and Munro, _The Lake Dwellings
of Europe_. The lake-dwelling, known as Pont de la Thièle, between the
lakes of Bienne and Neuchâtel, according to Grilliéron’s calculations,
is dated 5000 B. C. See Keller, p. 462; Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 29;
Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 401; and De Mortillet, _Le
Préhistorique_, p. 621.
121 : 17. Schenck, p. 190, says concerning Switzerland: “There were
three [cultural] stages, stone, bronze, and iron.... On the other hand,
from the anthropological point of view, this subdivision can also be
made. In the first stage [Neolithic Lacustrian], we find only
brachycephalic crania; in the second there are an almost equal number of
brachycephalic and dolichocephalic; in the third there is a predominance
of dolichocephalic” (that is, Schenck divides the Neolithic into three
periods according to skulls, and the last runs into the age
transitionary to bronze).
See also G. Hervé, _Les populations lacustres_, p. 140; His and
Rütimeyer, _Crania Helvetica_, pp. 12, 34, etc.; and the note on p. 275
of Rice Holmes’s _Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul_. Ripley gives useful and
concise discussions on pp. 120, 471, 488 and 501.
121 : 19. See both Keller and Schenck for the numbers of dwellings.
121 : 22. _There were, of course, the caves and rock shelters used
during a large part of the year, but probably no other regularly
constructed dwellings served as permanent, all-the-year-round places of
abode prior to the lake dwellings, and it is doubtful if these were
inhabited in winter. It is generally believed that the custom of
building pile villages arose from considerations of safety. This
protection would be absent when the lakes were frozen over, and at the
same time the huts would be exposed on all sides, including the floor,
to the wintry blasts sweeping the lakes. They would in this way be
rendered practically uninhabitable during the winter season._
Keller declares that the same type of dwelling is found in the whole
circle of countries which were formerly Celtic. (Introduction, p. 2.)
The Crannoges of Scotland and Ireland continued in use until the age of
iron in those countries. In Switzerland the lake dwellings disappeared
about the first century (p. 7). The population was numerous (p. 432),
large enough to have to depend upon cattle and agriculture (p. 479).
This type of dwelling is found from Ireland to Japan, and even in South
America. Many lake dwellings exist at the present day. The Welsh, Scotch
and Irish Crannoges are related in structure to the European fascine
types (Keller, p. 684 and Introduction). Others are built somewhat
differently, and are, of course, of independent origin. An ancient site
was unearthed at Finsbury, on the outskirts of London not long since,
where there used to be a marsh. The inhabitants of this lake-dwelling
were native outcasts during Romano-British times.
121 : 26. See Schenck, and Keller, p. 6. On p. 140 of Keller we read:
“The Pile Dwellings of eastern Switzerland ceased to exist before the
bronze age or at its beginnings; those of western Switzerland came to
their full development during this period.” On p. 37, describing the
settlement of Mooseedorfsee Keller says: “A very striking circumstance
ought to be mentioned, namely, that even heavy implements, such as stone
chisels, grinding or sharpening stones, etc., were found quite high in
the relic bed, while lighter objects, such as those made out of bone,
were met with much deeper.” It is known that the Mooseedorfsee
settlement is very old. No metal has been found here, but a bone
arrowhead is described by Keller on p. 38. He remarks that the bones of
very large animals were uncommonly numerous. It seems as if the earlier
inhabitants were users of bone rather than of stone implements.
122 : 1. Herodotus, V, 16 describes them. He also is the source of our
information regarding the keeping of cattle, although archæological
finds have proved the location of stables out on the platforms between
the houses. His interesting account is given herewith: “Their manner of
living is the following. Platforms supported upon tall piles stand in
the middle of the lake, which are approached from land by a single
narrow bridge. At the first the piles which bear up the platforms were
fixed in their place by the whole body of the citizens, but since that
time the custom which has prevailed about fixing them is this: they are
brought from a hill called Orbêlus, and every man drives in three for
each wife that he marries. Now the men all have many wives apiece; and
this is the way in which they live. Each has his own hut, wherein he
dwells, upon one of the platforms, and each has also a trap door giving
access to the lake beneath; and their wont is to tie their baby children
by the foot with a string, to save them from rolling into the water.
They feed their horses and their other beasts upon fish, which abound in
the lake to such a degree that a man has only to open his trap door and
to let down a basket by a rope into the water and then to wait a very
short time, when he draws it up quite full of them. The fish are of two
kinds, which they call the paprax and the tilon.”
122 : 3. In the Introduction, p. 2, and elsewhere Keller says regarding
cattle: “Cattle were kept, not on land, as in the Terramara region, but
on the platforms themselves, out in the lakes. Many charred remains of
stables and stable refuse have been taken from the lakes, but only from
certain parts of the sites, between those of the houses.” See also
Schenck, p. 188.
Rice Holmes, pp. 89–90 of _Ancient Britain_, says of that country that
agriculture was limited in the Neolithic, but flourished in the Bronze
Age.
122 : 14. The Terramara Period. Keller, pp. 378 _seq._ As related to
Switzerland, pp. 391, 393. For swamp and river bank sites, pp. 391, 397
_seq._ For bronze in Terramara settlements, p. 386. For the Upper
Robenhausian, see Schenck, p. 190, and Montelius, _La civilisation
primitive en Italie_. Peet, _The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy_, and
Munro, _The Lake Dwellings of Europe_ and _Palæolithic Man and the
Terramara Settlements_ must also be read in this connection. Schwerz,
_Völkerschaften der Schweiz_, gives, for the average cranial indices of
the Lake Dwellers, 79 during the Stone Age, 75.5 in the Copper Age, and
77 in the Bronze Age. Of these last 14 per cent only were
brachycephalic, 20 per cent were extremely long-headed. In the Iron Age
46 per cent were brachycephalic. Consult also Deniker, 2, p. 316.
122 : 21. Ripley, pp. 502–503; Sergi, 2; Robert Munro, 2; Peet, 2.
122 : 27–123: 4. See the note to p. 117 : 18.
123 : 5. On the Kitchen Middens, see especially Madsen, Sophus Müller
and others in _Affaldsdynger fra Stenaldern i Danmark_.
123 : 12. Salomon Reinach, 3 and 5; Deniker, 2, p. 314; and Peake, 2, p.
156, where we find the following: “Over the greater part of Sweden,—all,
in fact, except a strip of coastline on the western side of Scania,—and
all along the shore of the Baltic from the Gulf of Bothnia southwards
and westwards as far as a point midway between the Vistula and the Oder,
there are found abundant remains of a primitive civilization which dates
from the Neolithic Age, and indeed, from early in that age. This
civilization, known as the East Scandinavian or Arctic culture,
extended, perhaps later, over the whole of Norway.”
Consult the notes to pp. 125: 4 _seq._ for western trade.
123 : 20. Sergi, 4; Beddoe, 4, pp. 26, 29; Fleure and James, pp. 122
_seq._
123 : 23. Paleolithic Population. Fleure and James, _Anthropological
Types in Wales_, p. 120. Rice Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 380, says
they were confined to the South. No Paleolithic implements were found
north of Lincoln, or at least of the East Riding of Yorkshire.
123 : 26. John Munro, _The Story of the British Race_, p. 45; Rice
Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 68; and Fleure and James, pp. 40, 69–74,
122 _seq._
124 : 4. For the Alpines see pp. 134 _seq._ of this book.
124 : 9. Consult the note to p. 143 on this subject.
124 : 15. On the Nordics see pp. 167 _seq._ and 213 _seq._ On the
Scandinavian blonds see the note to p. 20 : 5.
124 : 20. See the notes to pp. 168 _seq._
125 : 1. G. Elliot Smith, _The Ancient Egyptians_, especially pp. 146
and 149 _seq._; Breasted, 1, 2 and 3; Keane, _Ethnology_, pp. 72 _seq._;
Sophus Müller, _L’Europe préhistorique_, p. 49; Hall, _Ancient History
of the Near East_, p. 3.
125 : 4. Deniker, 2, pp. 314–315: “The great trade route for amber, and
perhaps tin, between Denmark and the Archipelago is well known at the
present day; it passes through the valley of the Elbe, the Moldau and
the Danube. The commercial relations between the north and the south
explain the similarities which archæologists find between Scandinavian
bronze objects and those of the Ægean district.”
See also E. H. Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_, for trade in the East, via
the Vistula, Dnieper and Danube, pp. 438–446, 458, 459, 465, 493, etc.;
and Déchellette, _Manuel d’Archéologie_, t. I, p. 626, and II, p. 19.
Herodotus IV, 33, gives the trade route from the Hyperboreans to Delos.
Félix Sartiaux, _Troie, La Guerre de Troie_, pp. 162, 181, also
discusses the trade routes for amber.
125 : 7. Amber. Tacitus, _Germania_: “They [the tribes of the Æstii]
ransack the sea also and are the only people who gather in the shallows
and on the shore itself the amber which they call in their tongue
‘glæsum.’ Nor have they, being barbarians, inquired or learned what
substance or process produces it; nay, it lay there long among the rest
of the flotsam and jetsam of the sea, until Roman luxury gave it a name.
To the natives it is useless; it is gathered crude, it is forwarded to
Rome unshaped; they are astonished to be paid for it. Yet you may infer
that it is the exudation of trees: certain creeping and even winged
creatures are continually found embedded; they have been entangled in
its liquid form and as the material hardens, are imprisoned. I should
suppose, therefore, that, just as in the secluded places of the East,
where frankincense and balsam are exuded, so in the islands and lands of
the West, there are groves and glades more than ordinarily luxuriant,”
etc.
Amber, if rubbed, has magnetic qualities and develops electricity. Our
word “electricity” is derived from its Greek name, “electron.” Tacitus
says: “If you try the qualities of amber by setting fire to it, it
kindles like a torch and soon dissolves into something like pitch and
resin.”
125 : 13. Gowland, _Metals in Antiquity_, pp. 236, 252 _seq._
125 : 15 _seq._ Copper. Reisner’s opinion that the pre-dynastic
Egyptians invented the use of copper (_Naga-ed-Dêr_, I, p. 134) which is
followed by Elliot Smith (_Ancient Egyptians_, p. 3), is not the view
held by all scholars. Hall believes that the knowledge of the use of
metal came to the prehistoric southern Egyptians (_Ancient History of
the Near East_, p. 90), toward the end of the pre-dynastic age from the
north. But he counts the Mount Sinai and Cyprus deposits as northern
centres of origin from which a knowledge of the working of the metal
radiated.
The mines of the Sinaitic peninsula were worked for copper at the time
of Seneferu, about 3733 B. C., and probably much earlier (Gowland, p.
245, and elsewhere), “but long before the actual mining operations were
carried on, how long it is impossible to say, the metal must have been
obtained by primitive methods from the surface ore. It is hence not
unreasonable to assume that at least as early as about 5000 B. C. the
metal copper was known and in use in Egypt.” The same writer believes
“that an earlier date than 5000 B. C. should be assigned to the first
use of copper in the Chaldean region.” In this he bases himself on the
discovery of copper figures associated with bricks and tablets bearing
the name of King Ur-Nina (about 4500 B. C.), and the fact that the upper
Tigris region is known to contain rich deposits of the mineral. Jastrow,
Jr., assigns the date of 3000 B. C. to Ur-Nina, which may be more
correct. Gowland dates copper in Cyprus at 2500 B. C., or even 3000,
judging by the finds at Crete dated 2500 B. C. In the Troad he thinks it
was used not later than in Cyprus. For China the date is unknown, but if
we accept 2205, given in the Chinese annals as the time when the nine
bronze caldrons were cast, which are often mentioned in the historical
records, then copper may have been in use as early as 3000, or even
earlier. De Morgan dates copper at 4400 B. C. in Egypt, where it was
found in the supposed tomb of Menes.
See also Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, pp. 71–72, who gives 3730
for copper-working in Sinai, and its first appearance about 5000 B. C.
Montelius, 1, p. 380, gives copper in Cyprus as about 2500 B. C., hardly
3000; and for Egypt 5000; he regards it as having been known in Babylon
at about the same time. Breasted, _Ancient Times_, assigns the date of
the earliest copper as at least 4000 in Egypt.
125 : 27. Eduard Meyer, 1, p. 41. But _cf._ Reisner, _Naga-ed-Dêr_, I,
p. 126, note 3. Also Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 28.
126 : 1. Elliot Smith, 1, p. 8: “Most serious scholars who concern
themselves with the problems of the ancient history of Egypt and
Babylonia have now abandoned these inflated estimates of the lengths of
the historical periods in the two empires; and it is now generally
admitted that Meyer’s estimate of 3400±100 B. C. is a close
approximation to the date of the union of Upper and Lower Egypt and that
the blending of Semitic and Sumerian cultures in Babylonia took place
shortly after the time of this event in the Nile valley.” See also Hall,
_Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 3.
126 : 7. Bronze. Rice Holmes, 1, p. 125: “The oldest piece of bronze
that has yet been dated was found at Medûm, in Egypt, and is supposed to
have been cast about 3700 B. C. But the metal may have been worked even
earlier in other lands; for a bronze statuette and a bronze vase, which
were made twenty-five centuries before our era have been obtained from
Mesopotamia and the craft must have passed through many stages before
such objects could have been produced. Yet it would be rash to infer
that either the Babylonians or the Egyptians invented bronze for neither
in Egypt nor in Babylonia is there any tin. The old theory that it was a
result of Phœnician commerce with Britain has long been abandoned and
British bronze implements are so different from those of Norway and
Sweden, Denmark and Hungary, that it cannot have been derived from any
of these countries. German influence was felt at a comparatively late
period, but from first to last British bronze culture was closely
connected with that of Gaul and through Gaul with that of Italy.”
126 : 9. Gowland, p. 243: “It has been frequently stated that the alloy
used by the men of the Bronze Age generally consists of copper and tin
in the proportions of 9 to 1. I have hence compared the analyses which
have been published with the following results:
EARLY WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 57 ANALYSES
In 25 the tin ranges from about 8 to 11 per cent.
„ 6 „ „ „ „ „ 11 „ 13 „ „
„ 26 „ „ „ „ „ 3 „ 8 „ „
LATER PALSTAVES AND SOCKETED AXES. 15 ANALYSES
In 13 the tin ranges from about 4.3 to 13.1 per cent.
„ 2 „ „ was about 18.3 per cent.
SPEAR AND LANCE HEADS
In 5 the tin ranges from about 11.3 to 15.7 per cent.
STILL LATER. SWORDS. 33 ANALYSES
In 14 the tin ranges from about 8 to 11 per cent.
„ 12 „ „ „ „ „ 12 „ 18 „ „
„ 7 „ „ is less than 9 per cent.
“It is obvious, therefore, that these statements do not accurately
represent the facts. And if we consider the different uses to which the
implements or weapons were put, it is evident that no single alloy could
be equally suitable for all.... It is worthy of note that these
proportions (_i. e._, different hardnesses for different implements)
appear to have been frequently attained, and for this the men of the
later Bronze Age are deserving of great credit as metallurgists and
workers in metal.”
On the percentages of tin with copper for bronze see also Montelius, 1,
pp. 448 _seq._
126 : 12. Schenck, p. 241, describes a copper axe exactly like those of
polished stone, and another of bronze, of very primitive pattern,
showing that these were copied from the earlier stone models.
Some authorities think that iron, in Egypt at least, came in about the
same time as bronze, or even earlier. Certain peoples missed altogether
one or another of these stages, as the absence of remains indicates. For
instance, the central Africans had, as far as is known, no bronze age,
but passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron. (See Rice
Holmes, _Ancient Britain_, p. 123.) See the notes to p. 129 on the value
of iron. Occasional implements of any material better than that
ordinarily in use, which had been introduced by trade or acquired by
fighting, were very highly prized. Any books on primitive peoples
contain references to the value of such “foreign tools.”
126 : 24. Diodorus Siculus, V. Consult _Crania Britannica_, by Davis and
Thurnam, the chapter on the “Historical Ethnology of Britain,” for
evidence that the Phœnicians did have intercourse with Britain. For a
full discussion of this disputed question see pp. 483–514 in Rice
Holmes’s _Ancient Britain_. Herodotus and other early writers allude to
the fleets of the Phœnicians, and of course the voyage of Pythias about
the last half of the fourth century B. C. was undertaken to discover the
source of the Phœnician tin. See Holmes’s _Britain_, pp. 217–226;
D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Les premiers habitants de l’Europe_, vol. I,
chap. V; Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, pp. 158, 402–403; and
G. Elliot Smith, _Ancient Mariners_, on the Phœnicians.
On pp. 251–252 of _Ancient Britain_, Rice Holmes makes the suggestion
that the export of tin from Britain may have died down by Roman times.
127 : 9 _seq._ G. Elliot Smith, 1, p. 178, and map 3. Deniker, 2, p.
315, says: “It is generally admitted that the ancient Bronze Age
corresponds with the ‘Ægean Civilization’ which flourished among the
peoples inhabiting, between the thirtieth and twentieth centuries B. C.,
Switzerland, the north of Italy, the basin of the Danube, the Balkan
peninsula, a part of Anatolia, and lastly, Cyprus. It gave rise, between
1700 and 1100 B. C., to the ‘Mycenæan Civilization,’ of which the
favorite ornamental design is the spiral.”
Myers, in _Ancient History_, pp. 134–135, states that in Crete the metal
development began as early, at least, as 3000 B. C., and was at its
height in the island about 1600 or 1500 B. C. Articles of Cretan
handiwork found in Egypt point to intercourse with that country as early
as the sixth dynasty, which he makes about 2500 B. C. See also G. Elliot
Smith, 1, pp. 147, 179–180, and the authorities quoted on bronze.
127 : 26–128 : 1 _seq._ G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 178–180. Rice Holmes, 1,
p. 123, gives in a footnote the sixth dynasty as about 3200 B. C. (_cf._
above), when Elliot Smith says the movement first began (_ibid._, pp.
169, 171). They do not agree on the date of this dynasty. See also Rice
Holmes (_ibid._, p. 125), and Breasted, 3, p. 108. Montelius assigns
2100 B. C. for the small copper daggers of northern Italy.
128 : 2. The Eneolithic period. G. Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 20 _seq._, 37
and 163 _seq._ Professor Orsi is responsible for the introduction of
this term. See T. E. Peet, _The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy_, and G.
Sergi, _Italia_, pp. 240 _seq._, on the Eneolithic period in Italy.
128 : 13. Oscar Montelius, _The Civilization of Sweden in Heathen
Times_, and _Kulturgeschichte Schwedens von den ältesten Zeiten_; Sophus
Müller, _Nordische Alterthumskunde_. The latter gives 1200 B. C. See
also Rice Holmes, 1, pp. 64, 127, 424–454; Beddoe, 4, p. 15; Haddon, 3,
p. 41. According to Gjerset, in his _History of the Norwegian People_,
the Bronze Age in Norway began about 1500 B. C., the Iron Age at 500 B.
C. Lord Avebury, pp. 71–72; Read, _Guide to the Antiquities of the
Bronze Age_; and Deniker, 2, p. 315, give 1800 B. C. for Britain, and
for northern Europe Avebury assigns 2500 B. C. 1800 is the generally
accepted date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Britain.
128 : 16. Alpines in Ireland. Beddoe, 4, p. 15; Fleure and James, pp.
128–129, 135, 139; Rice Holmes, 1, p. 432; Ripley, pp. 302–303;
Abercromby, pp. 111 _seq._; Crawford, pp. 184 _seq._ But Fleure and
James say, p. 138, that other Alpines without brow ridges are to be
found at the present time in considerable numbers on the east coast of
Ireland. Ripley’s strong assertion that no Alpines have remained in the
British Isles has been proved by more recent study to require
modification.
128 : 17. See in this connection Fleure and James, p. 127.
128 : 26. _Cf._ Elliot Smith, 1, pp. 20–21, 163, 181; Peet, 2; Reisner,
_Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ed-Dêr_; and Rice Holmes, 1, p. 65
_seq._
129 : 2–8. The megaliths were not erected by Alpines, for there are
practically none in central Europe, according to Keane, _Ethnology_, pp.
135–136, and Dr. Robert Munro, in a discussion published in the _Jour.
Roy. Anth. Inst._, 1889–1890, p. 65. On the other hand, Peet, 1, pp. 39,
64, says they are being discovered in the interior—a few in Germany. He
does not mention bronze among the finds in the megaliths of France, but
there was a little gold. Bronze was, however, found in Spain. Consult
Fleure and James, pp. 128 _seq._; Rice Holmes, 2, pp. 8–9; and, for an
exhaustive archæological study, Déchellette, _Manuel d’archéologie_,
vol. I, chap. III, especially paragraph v, pp. 393 _seq._, for dolmens
in Brittany. Concerning the contents of these we may quote the
following:
“Polished hatchets, often enough of rare stone, beads from necklaces,
and pendants of Callais or of divers materials, implements of flint,
knives, arrow points which are wing-shaped, scrapers, nodules, grinding
stones, pottery, vases, grains of baked earth, some rare jewels of gold,
collars and bracelets, such is, in general, the composition of the
contents of the neolithic dolmens of Brittany, contents different, as we
shall see, from those of the sepulchres of the Bronze Age in the same
region. These vast Armorican crypts belong certainly to the end of the
Neolithic period, in spite of the absence of copper, the habitual
forerunner of bronze objects. The smallness of the crypt, the size of
the tumulus, the mixture of construction in huge blocks and in walls
seem to indicate, as M. Cartailhac has observed, a more recent age than
that of ordinary dolmens. In the pure Bronze Age the monolithic supports
are replaced by the walls of unmortared stones.
“Moreover, we shall see that there have been found in certain covered
alleys in Brittany, pottery of a very characteristic type called
calciform vases, pottery belonging in the south of France and southern
Europe with the first objects of copper and bronze. Jewels of gold
confirm, on the other hand, these chronological determinations.” On p.
397: “The dolmen sepulchres of the Bronze Age in Brittany, and notably
in Finisterre, are distinguished more often by the type of their
construction from those of the Stone Age.”
“The dolmens of Normandy and Isle de France contain some stone objects,
fragments of vases, and numerous debris of human skeletons.” The end of
the pure Neolithic is the date of the megaliths in Armorica, as we read
on p. 407. The first metals, imported from the south, penetrated into
northern Gaul a little later than in the southern provinces. That is why
certain typical objects of the end of the pure Neolithic in Armorica,
such as Callais and the calciform vases, are associated with the first
objects of copper or bronze in the funerary crypts of Provence and
Portugal.
G. Elliot Smith and W. H. R. Rivers claim that there is a close
connection throughout the eastern hemisphere between the distribution of
megalithic monuments and either ocean or fresh-water pearls, but this
appears to the author to be far-fetched. Two very recent articles
dealing with megaliths are “Anthropology and Our Older Histories,” by
Fleure and Winstanley, and “The Menhirs of Madagascar,” by A. L. Lewis.
129 : 8. Rice Holmes, _Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul_, p. 9.
129 : 12. Earliest iron in the north. See the notes to pp. 131 : 1 and
131 : 9 on the La Tène period. Also Montelius, 2, and Sophus Müller, 2,
pp. 145 and 165 _seq._
129 : 13. Mound burials among the Vikings. Montelius, 2.
129 : 15. Iron in Egypt. Some authorities think that iron in Egypt came
in about the same time as bronze, or even earlier. A piece of worked
iron was found in the Great Pyramid, to which a date of about 3500 B. C.
has been assigned. But, according to the archæological investigations of
Professor Flinders Petrie, iron came into general use only about 800 B.
C.
Myres, in _The Dawn of History_, is quoted from p. 60 for the following
neat summary, although any of the authorities on Egypt, such as Petrie,
Maspero, Hall, Breasted, Elliot Smith, Reisner, Meyer, etc., should be
consulted as original investigators: “The presence of iron, rare though
it is, as far back as the first dynasty, puts Egypt into a position
which is unique among metal-using lands; for, apart from these rare, but
quite indisputable finds, Egypt remains for thousands of years a
bronze-using, and for long, a merely copper-using, country.... In Egypt
iron was known as a rarity, worn as a charm and an ornament, and even
used, when it could be gotten ready made, as an implement; and it does
not seem to have been worked in the country, and probably its source was
unknown to the Egyptians. In historic times they still called it the
‘metal of heaven’ as if they obtained it from meteorites; and it looks
at present as though their earliest knowledge of it was from the south;
for central Africa seems to have had no bronze age but direct and
ancient transition from stone to iron weapons. Yet when they conquered
Syria in the sixteenth century, they found it in regular use and
received it in tribute. At home, however, they had no real introduction
to an ‘Age of Iron’ until they met an Assyrian army in 668 B. C. and
began to be exploited by Greeks from over sea.” In this connection see
also Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, pp. 613–614. The same author,
pp. 154 _seq._, discusses the value of iron in these early times.
Deniker, p. 315 of his _Races of Man_, says Italy had iron as early as
1200 B. C.
Montelius assigns 1100 for iron in Etruria.
129 : 19. Hallstatt iron culture. See Baron von Sacken, _Das Grabfeld
von Hallstatt_; Dr. Moritz Hoernes, _Die Hallstattperiode_; Bertrand and
Salomon Reinach, _Les Celts dans les vallées du Pô et du Danube_; and
Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, pp. 407–480 and 594 _seq._ There is
a brief summary by Ridgeway which it will serve to quote: “Everywhere
else the change from iron weapons to bronze is immediate but at
Hallstatt iron is seen gradually superseding bronze, first for ornament,
then for edging cutting implements, then replacing fully the old bronze
types and finally taking new forms of its own. There can be no doubt
that the use of iron first developed in the Hallstatt area and that
thence it spread southwards into Italy, Greece, the Ægean, Egypt and
Asia, and northwards and westwards in Europe. At Noreia, which gave its
name to Noricum, less than forty miles from Hallstatt, were the most
famous iron mines of antiquity, which produced the Noric swords so
prized and dreaded by the Romans. (See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXIV, 145;
Horace, _Epod._, 17 : 71.) This iron needed no tempering and the Celts
had found it ready smelted by nature just as the Eskimos had learned of
themselves to use telluric iron embedded in basalt.... The Hallstatt
culture is that of the Homeric Achæans (see Ridgeway, _Early Age of
Greece_, pp. 407 _seq._), but as the brooch (along with iron, cremation
of the dead, the round shield and the geometric ornament), passed down
into Greece from central Europe, and as brooches are found in the lower
town at Mycenæ, 1350 B. C., they must have been invented long before
that date in central Europe. But as they are found here in the late
bronze and early iron age, the early iron culture of Hallstatt must have
originated long before 1350 B. C., a conclusion in accordance with the
absence of silver at Hallstatt itself.”
Keller, p. 160, describes an iron sword modelled after the same pattern
as those of bronze; Schenck, p. 341, mentions a copper axe exactly like
those of stone, and another of bronze of very primitive pattern. These
and numerous other examples show the gradual growth of each age.
The generally accepted date for Hallstatt is about 900 or 1000 B. C.
Even Rice Holmes approves of this. (See 2, p. 9.) But if we believe that
iron spread from Hallstatt, and it was in Etruria at 1200–1100 B. C.,
and in Greece, in the form of swords like those of Hallstatt, at 1400 B.
C. (according to Ridgeway), together with pins and various other objects
which originated in the Tyrol, it is certainly very conservative to
place the appearance of iron in Austria at 1500 B. C. Iron weapons were
found in the remains of Troy from the war of 1184 B. C. See Ridgeway,
_op. cit._, and Lartiaux, p. 179.
We may quote from Hoernes as follows regarding the dates: “The temporal
limits of the Hallstatt period are uncertain, according to the districts
which one includes and the phenomena which one considers. It is now
known that the Hallstatt relics for the most part belong to the first
half of the last millennium B. C. But while some assign these relics as
from the time of perhaps 1200 to perhaps 500, others are satisfied with
the period from 900 to 400, or bring them even farther forward. It is
certain that one must differentiate in these questions between the west
and the east of the Hallstatt culture areas; in the one the particular
Hallstatt forms would come nearer to the close than in the other. One or
perhaps more centuries lie between the first appearance of the La Tène
forms in Western Germany and in the eastern Alps. Also the beginning
varies according to the locality and the criteria which one takes for a
guide, that is to say, according to whether the phenomena of the time
about 1000 B. C. are considered as belonging still in the pure Bronze
Age, to a transition period, or indeed to the first Iron Age.”
129 : 26. Ridgeway, speaking of the Achæans, says: “They brought with
them iron which they used for their long swords and cutting
implements.... The culture of the Homeric Achæans” (these are dated
about 1000 B. C., about the time of the Dorians, according to Bury, p.
57) “corresponds to a large extent with that of the early Iron Age of
the Upper Danube (Hallstatt) and to the early Iron Age of Upper Italy
(Villanova).”
Myres, _Dawn of History_, p. 175, says that there was a gradual
introduction of iron, first for tools and then for weapons. It had been
known as “precious metal” in the Ægean since the late Minoan third
period, or even the late Minoan second period, which is usually dated
with the XVIIIth Egyptian dynasty as about 1500–1350. Most other
writers, however, including Bury, p. 57, Myers, _Anc. Hist._, p. 136,
and Deniker, _Races of Man_, p. 315, ascribe the general use of iron to
a much later invasion, namely that of the Dorians, about 1100 B. C.
129 : 29. Iron swords of the Nordics. Ridgeway, 1, pp. 407 _seq._:
“Their chief weapon was a long iron sword; with trenchant strokes
delivered by these long swords the Celts had dealt destruction to their
foes on many a field. They used not the thrust, as did the Greeks and
Romans of the classical period. This is put beyond doubt by Polybius
(II, 30) who in his account of the great defeat suffered by the combined
tribes of Transalpine Gæsatæ, Insubres, Boii and Taurisci, when they
invaded Italy in 225 B. C., tells us that the Romans had the advantage
in arms ‘for the Gallic sword can only deliver a cut but cannot thrust.’
Again in his account of the great victory gained over the Insubres by
the Romans in 223 B. C., the same historian tells us that the defeat of
the Celts was due to the fact that their long iron swords easily bent,
and could only give one downward cut with any effect, but that after
this the edges got so turned and the blades so bent, that unless they
had time to straighten them out with the foot against the ground, they
could not deliver a second blow.
“‘When the Celts had rendered their swords useless by the first blows
delivered on the spears the Romans closed with them and rendered them
quite helpless by preventing them from raising their hands to strike
with their swords, which is their peculiar and only stroke, because
their blade has no point. The Romans, on the contrary, having excellent
points to their swords, used them not to cut but to thrust; and by thus
repeatedly smiting the breasts and faces of the enemy, they eventually
killed the greater number of them.’ (II, 33 and III.)”
Further evidence in support of our contention that iron was in use much
earlier than is generally admitted, comes from an unexpected quarter. J.
N. Svoronos, in a recent book on ancient Greek coinage, entitled
_L’Hellénism primitif de la Macédoine, prouvé par la numismatique_, p.
171, remarks: “In the first place, indeed, it is forgotten that some of
this information, that which is derived from people of ‘mythical’ times,
can be referred not only to the invention of the first money struck in
precious metal (gold, electrum, or silver), but even to obelisks of
iron, or to cast plinths in the form of copper axes, which, of a
determined weight, and legally guaranteed by the state, constituted,
already before the XVth century, as we positively know at the present
time, the first legal money.”
130 : 2. Keary, _The Vikings in Western Christendom_, chap. XIII;
Steenstrup, _Normannerne_.
130 : 4. “Furor Normanorum.” On account of the suffering inflicted by
the Vikings and other northern raiders in Europe, a special prayer, _A
furore Normanorum libera nos_ was inserted in some of the litanies of
the West.
130 : 5. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410 A. D., and during the forty
years following the German tribes seized the greater part of the Roman
provinces and established in them what are known as the Barbarian
Kingdoms. Consult Villari, _The Barbarian Invasions of Italy_.
130 : 8 _seq._ See chap. XIII, pp. 242 _seq._, of this book.
130 : 13 _seq._ Ripley, pp. 125–126. The discovery of the Alpine type
was the work of Von Baer.
130 : 24. The Iron Age in western Europe. Deniker, 2, p. 315, says: “So
also, according to Montelius, the introduction of iron dates only from
the fifth or third century B. C. in Sweden, while Italy was acquainted
with this metal as far back as the twelfth century B. C. The
civilization of the ‘iron age,’ distributed over two periods, according
to the excavations made in the stations of Hallstatt (Austria) and La
Tène (Switzerland), must have been imported from central Europe into
Greece through Illyria. The importation corresponds perhaps with the
Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus.... The Hallstattian civilization
flourished chiefly in Carinthia, southern Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia,
Silesia, Bosnia, the southeast of France and southern Italy (the
pre-Etruscan age of Montelius). The period which followed, called the
second, or iron age or the La Tène period, was prolonged until the first
century B. C. in France, Bohemia and England. In Scandinavian countries
the _first iron age_ lasted until the sixth century, and the _second
iron age_ until the tenth century A. D.” Referring to the La Tène period
in a footnote, Deniker says: “This term, first used in Germany, is
accepted by almost all men of science. The La Tène period corresponds
pretty nearly with the ‘Âge Marmien’ of French archæologists and the
‘Late Celtic’ of English archæologists. _Cf._ M. Hoernes, _Urgeschichte
d. Mensch._, chapters VIII and IX.”
Rice Holmes, 1, p. 231, remarks: “Iron in Britain is hardly older than
500 B. C. (_i. e._ the earliest products of the British iron age were
traded in. See p. 229). In Gaul the Hallstatt period is believed to have
lasted from about 800 to about 400 B. C.” On p. 126: “It is certain that
in the southeastern districts iron tools began to be used not later than
the fourth century B. C.”
See also Sir John Evans, _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pp. 470–472.
Consult especially Déchellette, _Manuel d’archéologie_, t. II, pp. 152
_seq._, on iron in western Gaul during the La Tène period.
130 : 28. La Tène Period. M. Wavre and P. Vouga, _Extrait du Musée
neuchatelois_, p. 7; V. Gross, _La Tène, un oppidum helvète_; E. Vouga,
_Les Helvètes à La Tène_; and F. Keller, _The Lake Dwellings of
Switzerland_.
131 : 3. Montelius suggests this date. Lord Avebury, in _Prehistoric
Times_, even goes so far as to suggest 1000 B. C.
131 : 5. Rice Holmes, 2, the footnote to p. 9; Déchellette, _Manuel
d’archéologie_, t. II, p. 552.
131 : 9. La Tène culture and the Nordic Cymry. This is also in Britain
termed the “Late Celtic period.” See Rice Holmes, 2, p. 318. For the
expansion of the Celtic empire and La Tène see Jean Bruhnes, p. 779. G.
Dottin, in his _Manuel celtique_, devotes a whole chapter to the Celtic
empire.
Cymry. See the note to p. 174 : 22 of this book. As to the Nordic
characters of these people, see Rice Holmes, 1, P. 234.
131 : 12. Nordic Gauls and Goidels as users of bronze. Rice Holmes, 1,
pp. 126, 229, and elsewhere.
131 : 15. Haddon, _Wanderings of People_, p. 49.
131 : 19. S. Feist, _Europa im Lichte der Vorgeschichte_, p. 9, etc.
131 : 23. Tacitus, _Germania_.
131 : 26. Tacitus, _Germania_, 4: “Personally I associate myself with
the opinion of those who hold that in the peoples of Germany there has
been given to the world a race untainted by intermarriage with other
races, a peculiar people and pure, like no one but themselves; whence it
comes that their physique, in spite of their vast numbers, is
identical;—fierce blue eyes, red hair, tall frames,” etc.
See Beddoe, 4, pp. 81–82; Fleure and James, pp. 122, 126, 151–152; and
Ripley, _passim_, for remarks on the increasing brunetness of Britain
and other parts of Europe which were formerly more blond.
The recent article by Parsons entitled “Anthropological Observations on
German Prisoners of War,” contains an interesting reference, on p. 26,
to the resurgence of Alpine types in central Europe.