The Bronze Age and the Celtic World

een termed megalithic monuments.[126] These consist of burial chambers, either a simple slab or capstone supported on four or more uprights, or a similar but more comp

rs have a restricted range. One type of elaborate temple is found only in Malta and in the adjacent island of Gozo.[127] Such monuments

e association is not so clearly established. Such are bee-hive huts, round towers, and dry walls with polygonal masonry. These are ofte

at there are reasons why we cannot attribute the origin of these structures to the inhabitants of the Nile Valley, and that the resemblances may better be explained by supposing that the idea of the former

ers, was carried to all these places simultaneously or even within the same millennium, nor is it asserted that the people who introduced it to these widely scattered regions were of necessity the same. The idea may, I think, be better expressed by saying that a cult or religion became widely disseminated at an early date, that it developed many varieties in the regions in which it took root, and that these regions often became in time fresh centre

eatures, however, of this interesting thesis is that the people, whoever they were, who spread the cult of megalithic monuments and allied practices, were

son, published in 1872,[133] and which represents far less accurately the distribution of these monuments than does that published by Colonel A. Lane-Fox in 1869.[134] Neither of these maps, however, gives us a really reliable summary of the facts. Much work has been done on this subject since these maps were produced, many fresh areas have been added, and

been worked in early days; the megalithic areas of the Baltic coincide fairly well with the coasts producing amber. Nevertheless there are many spots, rich in metals, and which are known or suspected to have been worked in early days, where megaliths, hav

Isles we find that the megaliths in the main coincide with the metalliferous areas, though in some cases more closely with lead ores than with the metals previously mentioned. As lead does not seem to have been used in north-west Europe before 1000 B.C., these monuments must, if any connection be implied, date from a much later period than that which we are discussing. But a large number of megalithic structures are found in the region surrounding Salisbury Plain and in ce

hambered long barrows represented a stage in the evolution from the dolmens to the chambered barrows (sépultures à galerie) of Denmark and Sweden. The stone circles, which are conspicuous in the Salisbury plain area, are absent in France, and seem to have originated by the Bal

epartment to the Mediterranean coast near Narbonne.[138] The occurrence of so many megaliths in Finistère and the adjoining departments may be due to the need of the early traders to take refuge in the inlets of that region, while

u midi. This seems to indicate that a land route through the pass was in use at this time, as a safer alternative to rounding the Iberian peni

m was afterwards to the Ph?nician and Greek merchants. Here, and perhaps too at Syracuse, they may well have had dep?ts, but from the wealth of its megalithic monuments we may well believe that Malta was the base of operations for the western and northern trade. Here we have a small island, very isolated and with excellent ports, with a population primitive and docile;

avia and Brittany of the discovery of copper tools and gold beads in these tombs.[140] Further south the evidence of metal in association with them is clearer, but in Malta the only bronze implements discovered, the hoard found in 1915 i

h funeral. For centuries and millennia it had been customary to bury with the corpse weapons of stone for use in the next world; what kind of a reception would the deceased have had on his arrival with a metal instrument? It would have been a great risk, which was seldom if ever taken. In matters of burial and religion, which are in fact one, the older course is safer, and so these people, even after metal was known, continued to bury stone implements with their dead, just as Joshua

seems, from his plans, to have been somewhat in the nature of an antechamber. He further shows that such primitive dolmens are derived from cave tombs, found in the neighbouring region, and in these caves the antechamber seems more apparent. More recently[145] he has compared these early dolmens with

eriod belong the rock-cut tombs at Castellucio, in one of which was found several pieces of carved ivory, which closely resemble a piece found in Hissarlik II[148]. This city was founded about 2500 B.C., or perhaps some centuries earlier, and seems to have been sacked about 2225 B.C.[149] The trade then which we are discussing must have taken place during the latter half of the third millennium B.C., and in the light of the Babylonian tablet already quoted may well have begun some centuries ear

r, developed in Egypt,[151] but of this I do not feel confident. It may well have been introduced into that land from the north-east by his Giza folk. If these may be identified, as I think they may, with Newberry's people, who introduced wheat and the

broad-faced, strong and square jawed men characteristic of the Ardudwy coast, the south Glamorgan coast, the Newquay district (Cardiganshire), Pencaer in north Pembrokeshire, and other places."[154] He states in another place; "We found our dark, stalwart, broad-headed men on certain coastal patches, often curiously associated with megaliths in

wn is that in some way these people were connected with the ancient trade we have been discussing.[157] Though I cannot find that he has published the fact, Fleure ha

ere evidently well-off. Early in 1914 I noted the same type in Alexandria, especially common among the successful Greek cotton merchants. Both these occurrences puzzled me until in 1916 Fleure's paper seemed to offer an explanation. I then r

ge, for such equations would inevitably lead to confusion, nor with any place or country, for its place of origin was uncertain. Since the distribution of the type seemed to be in maritime trading centres, or else in those areas which were connected with ancient mining or trade, it was

ermediate between that of the Mediterranean and of the Alpine, and suggests a cross, but the great stature which is sometimes, though not invariably, found among them suggested that the cross was probably between the Mediterranean and the eastern Alpine or Anatolian type, rather than with the

t population and in the fifteenth century portraits. A glance at some of the pictures on the Etruscan tombs,[159] and

uscans arrived from Asia Minor, probably in the eleventh century B.C., or perhaps a little later.[160] About 800 B.C. we have arch?ological evidence of the arrival of another people from the north, who settled near Bologna, where they developed a culture known as that of Villa-Nova. The Etru

s view. The Prospectors, wherever we meet them, are merchants and business men, and not the kind of men to lead warlike expeditions, or to bring all Italy within their empire. On the other hand, as I hope to show in subseq

-dress. This man is totally unlike the Etruscus obesus of most of the other tomb paintings, and seems to be of that fair Nordic type, which, as I hope to show, formed the ruling caste, at any rate, of the Villa-Nova people. It seems probable, too, that the bodies buried in the Regulini-Galassi and other warrior tombs were

til after 1100 B.C., when such erections were in most places obsolete. Some of the earliest of the Etruscan tombs, however, look as though they had developed from the dolmen form,[164] though they are made of well-wro

ke the Etruscans, lived in city states; the Sumerians were governed by priestly magistrates known as Patesi, while the Etruscans had similar officials called Lucumons; lastly both peoples were addicted to the practice of hepatoscopy, or th

by M. de Morgan from Susa,[169] show us heads which bear a close resemblance to those found on the Etruscan alabaster sarcophagi. It is a far cry from Etruria to Sumer, but tradition brings the Etruscans from Asia Minor, and Boghaz Keui may have been an intermediate station, though probably not the only one. But we have seen that the Bab

our hypothesis. As we have seen it seems likely that the dolmen is derived from the rock-cut tomb, and such tombs, and dolmens too, occur in Syria. As yet we know little about the tombs of Mesopotamia before 3000 B.C.,

sailors, yet sailors must have accompanied these expeditions, and perhaps skilled miners also in some cases. It may be that the cult of the dolmen, or the rock-cut tomb which preceded it, belonged to one or other of these humbler peoples, perhaps recruited from the coast of Syria. Or it may be, again, that the Prospector, being unable to bury his dead after the fashion customary by the Persia

, to which they came in search of precious ores, started originally from the Persian Gulf, or whether, indeed they were but sojourners in southern Mesopotamia, having arrived th

does the fact that megalithic monuments are found associated with all the sites whence these commodities could be obtained, as well as upon the land routes connecting them. Further, a certain type of man, whom we term the Prospector, is found living in no small numbers in most of these megalithic areas, as well as b

n allied to Etruscan or to Sumerian. But judging from their cosmopolitan habits, one may surmise that they were polyglot, and adopted the language of the country in which they sett