Where then were the Cassiterides? M. Reinach struck at the heart of the problem when he asked, "In what western European island is tin found?" Those writers who have favoured the group of islands off the north-western coast of Spain are confronted by the difficulty that these have failed to yield traces of tin, while those writers who favour Cornwall and the Scilly Islands cannot ignore the precise statements that the "tin islands" were farther distant from the Continent than Britain, and that in the time of Pytheas tin was carried from Mictis, which was six days' sail from Britain. The fact that traces of tin, copper, and lead have been found in the Hebrides is therefore of special interest. Copper, too, has been found in Shetland, and lead and zinc in Orkney. Withal there are Gaelic place-names in which staoin (tin) is referred to, in Islay, Jura (where there are traces of old mine-workings), in Iona, and on the mainland of Ross-shire. Traces of tin are said to have been found in Lewis where the great stone circle of Callernish in a semi-barren area indicates the presence at one time in its area of a considerable population. The Hebrides may well have been the Œstrymnides of Himilco and the Cassiterides of classical writers. Jura or Iona may have been the Mictis of Pytheas. Tin-stone has been found in Ireland too, near Dublin, in Wicklow, and in Killarney.
The short dark people in the Hebrides and Orkney may well be, like the Silurians of Wales, the descendants of the ancient mine workers. They have been referred to by some as descendants of the crews of wrecked ships of the Spanish Armada, and by others as remnants of the Lost Ten Tribes.
In Irish Gaelic literature, however, there is evidence that the dark people were in ancient times believed to be the descendants of the Fir-bolgs (men with sacks), the Fir-domnann (the men who dug the ground), and the Galioin (Gauls). Campbell in his West Highland Tales has in a note referred to the dark Hebrideans. "Behind the fire", he wrote, "sat a girl with one of those strange faces which are occasionally to be seen in the Western Isles, a face which reminded me of the Nineveh sculptures, and of faces seen in San Sebastian. Her hair was black as night, and her clear dark eyes glittered through the peat smoke. Her complexion was dark, and her features so unlike those who sat about her that I asked if she were a native of the island (of Barra), and learned that she was a Highland girl." It may be that the dark Eastern people were those who introduced the Eastern and non-Celtic, non-Teutonic prejudice against pork as food into Scotland. In Ireland the Celtic people apparently obliterated the "taboo" at an early period.
It was during the Archæological Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages that the Celtic artistic patterns reached England. These betray affinities with Ægean motifs, and they were afterwards developed in Ireland and Scotland. In both countries they were fused with symbols of Egyptian and Anatolian origin.
Like the Celts and the pre-Hellenic people of Greece and Crete, the Britons and the Irish wore breeches. The Roman poet, Martial,[87] satirizes a life "as loose as the old breeches of a British pauper". Claudian, the poet, pictures Britannia with her cheeks tattoed and wearing a sea-coloured cloak and a cap of bear-skin. The fact that the Caledonians fought with scanty clothing, as did the Greeks, and as did the Highlanders in historic times, must not be taken as proof that they could not manufacture cloth. According to Rhys, Briton means a "cloth clad"[88] person. The bronze fibulæ found at Bronze Age sites could not have been used to fasten heavy skins.
When the Romans reached Britain, the natives, like the heroes of Homer, used chariots, and had weapons of bronze and iron. The archæology of the ancient Irish stories is of similar character.
In the Bronze Age the swords were pointed and apparently used chiefly for thrusting. The conquerors who introduced the unpointed iron swords were able to shatter the brittle bronze weapons. These iron swords were in turn superseded by the pointed and well-tempered swords of the Romans. But it was not only their superior weapons, their discipline, and their knowledge of military strategy that brought the Romans success. England was broken up into a number of petty kingdoms. "Our greatest advantage", Tacitus confessed, "in dealing with such powerful people is that they cannot act in concert; it is seldom that even two or three tribes will join in meeting a common danger; and so while each fights for himself they are all conquered together."[89]
When the Britons, under Agricola, began to adopt Roman civilization they "rose superior", Tacitus says, "by the forces of their natural genius, to the attainments of the Gauls". In time they adopted the Roman dress,[90] which may have been the prototype of the kilt. The Roman language supplanted the Celtic dialects in certain parts of England.