The Bronze Age and the Celtic World

er considerable areas in search of game, and the inhabitants of different regions frequently met and mingled with one another. As the forest conditions arose during the close of the Magdalenian p

, and the communities became more specialised, both

n a region where flint or other suitable material was abundant, or who had become skilled in the fashioning of some advanced type of implement, sometimes bartered their

an goods, for they held a monopoly of that excellent volcanic glass in the ?gean region[78]. It seems likely, too, that the people of the Lipari islands traded in the same material with south Italy, Sicily and Malta.[79] Some of the natives of the French department of Indre-et-Loire, finding themselves possessed of great quantities of beautiful honey-coloured flint in the neighbourhood of Le Grand-Pressigny, exported implements, both fin

became necessary. To carry goods from one island to a neighbouring isle or to the mainland requires a ship and a crew, besides some representatives of the makers to effect the sales. When the ship has been equipped it is economical to provide a full cargo, and this would be more than one small community would need or could afford to purchase. This

trading settlements. With the introduction of metal these features increased rapidly, and, as we shall see, before the bronze age had been in existence for many centuries, an extensive trade had grown up, mainly by sea, but sometimes by land as well, so that bronze became known and used over mo

discovery. Professor Elliot Smith has made interesting suggestions in both cases. He believes that somewhere on the African shore of the Red Sea a cult arose which involved the use of the cowry shell as an amulet for fertility; such cults are well-known and widely spread.[82] For some reason the shells did no

ofessor Elliot Smith suggests that an Egyptian grinding his lump of malachite on his decorated slate palate, one day met with an unusually hard lump, which he could not grind satisfactorily. In a fit of temper he threw the offending morsel into the fire, doubtless with words of objurgation; later on in the ashes he found a small red bead of copper. A repetition of this action, no doubt with the same formula, produced an identical result, and so the discovery of the redu

ld readily be drilled, and stringing them upon a thread or wire to make necklaces or bracelets for the adornment of their persons. Such customs carry us back a long way. The old Grimaldi woman from the Grotte des enfants wore two bracelets composed of perforated shells, while her son, if indeed he were her son, had worn on his head a chaplet of the same materials.[85] The Alpine inhabitants of the North Italian lake-dwellings used the vertebr? of pike for the same pu

ells and the vertebr? of fish are easily damaged, and store would have been set by perforated stones, which would have been much more durable. Pebbles of c

ace. Walking down to a clear stream, perhaps to wash, though more probably to drink or to fish, he noticed in its bed a brilliant yellow stone of quite exceptional beauty. Picking it up and examining it he found he could bend it where it was thin, so that wi

of its natural lustre, it could well take second place, and being less rare it soon came to be used freely for decorative purposes. At first it was obtained only in a native state, and was hammered, not melted, as was the case until recent times ar

, since the two cultures must to some extent have overlapped, it seems possible that the knowledge of this metal was introduced into Egypt by the second pre-dynastic people. It has been suggested recently that these people, with a copper culture, bringi

tainty between 3500 and 3000 B.C. Small foundation figures, cast solid in copper, have been found which date from the time of Ur-Nina, about 3000 B.C.[93], while Mr. Raphael Pumpelly, describing his excavations at Anau in Turkestan, states that he found copper implements in a deposit, which on other grounds he dates between 8000 and 7000 B.C.[94] While there is no doubt that copper was found in the lowest layer

t its discovery preceded that of copper by any considerable period. Objects of gold have been found in graves of the second pre-d

ledge was carried into Egypt with an invading people. So far, then, there is no evidence of organised trade, for the gold, silver and lead, which have been found in the pre-dynastic tombs, may have arrived in the same way. Gold, it is true, was found in quartz veins in the granite mountains by the shores of the Red Sea, and in the Wadi Foakhir,[

chronology we are using, about 3200 B.C. He found on this gold object a red crust, which he stated was antimoniate of gold. Now it appears that antimony will only combine with gold in the presence of tellurium, and Professor Petrie tells me that he has been advised that there is no known source of this ore, telluride of

see here evidence for an organised sea commerce. Not that I would imply a direct sea traffic from the Danube to the Nile, but that some intermediate people, probably some islanders in the ?gean, the people perhaps of Melos or Crete, traded on the one hand with settlements near the mouth of the Danub

ibility of making copper nails and wire, must have given a great impetus to ship building, which must at this stage have passed from the use of rafts and dug-outs to that o

less serviceable than stone ones, as the metal is soft and its edge easily turned. It is true that many men, particularly those who wished to display their wealth, preferred copper daggers to those made of flint, for th

m chipped or turned, and which could have their edges quickly renewed by hammering or grinding did such an accident happen, the days of copper came quickly to an end, and the traffic in flint implements, even

e reign of Sargon of Akkad, whose date has now been finally fixed at 2800 B.C. It is a geographical description of that monarch's empire, giving a list of the provinces, at the close of which it is said that his conquests had extended "from the lands of the setting sun to the lands of the rising sun, namely to the tinland (Ku-Ki) and Kaptara (Crete) countries beyond the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean)." At first there was a

rhaps mean no more than that some of his subjects had a trading post there. What seems important is that the discovery of the value of tin and bronze had been made before 2800 B.C., somewhere in western Asia, though at what sites is at present uncertain. Copper mines, which are known to have been worked at an early date, exist south of Trebizonde, near Erzeroum, in Armenia and at

eastern Mediterranean region before 2800 B.C., and that this included a new and important featur

eninsula. At present it is uncertain who these traders were, but they seem to have been in touch with Crete, the Cyclades and the second city of Hissarlik, and perhaps too with Cyprus. Though we have no evidence that these traders were from th

me to prove conclusively that the early settlements of El Argar had direct or indirect trade relations with Hissarlik II., and the discovery throughout the Spanish peninsula of

n elsewhere,[107] there is evidence that while it lasted, and certainly before 2000 B.C., the eastern traders not only passed through the Pillars of Hercules and discovered the tin fields in the north-west of the peninsula, but learned also that both tin and gold were to

butt and widely splayed edge. The earliest types are found only in the east, the more developed only in the west, for in the east they followed a different line of development. It is true, however, in a general way that the type develops as we pass westward and northward, two

la in South Italy and Monteracello in Sicily,[109] and with other types from Malta,[110] Spain, Brittany and the west, we shall find the type gradually narrowing at the butt

r to the north-west as the centuries pass. At present we must be content with an outline of the movement, but if illustrations of all the specimens f

establish the early working of these deposits. The wealth of gold ornaments of this period found in the island, most of which have passed into the melting pot, but hundreds of which are still in the National Museum at Dublin,[112] would alone be sufficient evidence; but we know also that certain ornaments, known as lunul? or crescents, were exported and reached Brittany, Denmark and Ger

an types.[115] The search for amber probably induced our traders to go to this distant region, for amber, like the precious metals, was much in request in Mediterranean lands, for again it was a substance from which beads could readily be made. It was probably these trader

striking features. Where the chalk lands or limestone hills exist these finds are fairly numerous and generally distributed, for, as Crawford showed, these areas were open grass lands. But throughout the rest of the country these sit

Evesham, and the Severn at Bevere Island above Worcester. Thence it passed up the west side of the valley, crossing the river again below Shrewsbury. Its course across north Shropshire seems to have lain on the watershed between the Tern and the Perry, if we may judge from evidence of a later date,[117] thence passing from Ebnal towards Llanarmon-dyffryn-Ceiriog, it crossed over to the Dee Valley, where

Aire gap also turned south towards the same spot. Near Warrington a number of flat axes have been found,[120] some on the north and some to the south. The northern settlement was in the parish of Winwick, and among the things found there and dating from this time is a battle-axe of the so-called boat-axe or batyx type.[121] This type and the flint of which it is made both indicate Denmark as the place of origin. The fact that both these trade routes run to Warrington, which seems then to have been an island i

Scotland on their way from France and the Baltic.[123] These traders would have needed provisions for the journey, and for these would have bartered bronze axes to the people settled on the chalk downs and limestone hills. The journey across the Midland plain was through a densely wooded and pro

nsurpassed elsewhere. Doubtless the natives worked the gold fields sometimes on their own account, and they seem also to have tried to supply themselves with home-made metal axes. There are veins of copper ore in various parts of the island, which they seem to have discovered, but tin is to all intents and purposes absent.[125] It

ould require more space than is at my disposal; nor is the time yet ripe for more detailed treatment. This outline will serve to show that fo