The Bronze Age and the Celtic World

by Harold Peake

But the art of polishing hard stone spread further than the people who were responsible for its introduction, and during the next few centuries this art had become well known throughout the Celtic lands of the west; the need for more efficient tools to fight the encroaching woodland must have encouraged this art. How far the elements of agriculture had travelled with the art of grinding axes seems uncertain, for few, if any, unquestionable neolithic dwelling sites of this time within this area have been found or thoroughly explored. The scanty evidence at our disposal seems to show, however, that the people of the west were possessed of some domesticated animals, so that the inhabitants of Celtic lands had passed from a purely hunting stage before 3,000 B.C.

There is one other culture, introduced into Europe perhaps by another race, which I must not omit to mention, as it may have provided another element, albeit a small one, in the early population of Celtic lands. At Mullerup, in the peat moss of Maglemose, in the west of the island of Zealand, there was found in 1900 an important dwelling site with a very distinct culture, including harpoons and other implements of horn and bone, which is known to Scandinavian archæologists as the Mullerup, but to English-speaking students as the Maglemose culture.[68] More recently, in 1917, another settlement, exhibiting what appears to be the same culture, was discovered at Sværdborg, in the south of the same island.[69]

No skulls or skeletons have been found associated with this culture, and there has been much speculation as to the race which was responsible for it. Owing to the presence of harpoons it was first assumed that this culture was a direct derivation from the Azilian and Magdalenian, though it has been pointed out that the Maglemose harpoons are very different in form from the Azilian, and resemble more nearly some found in eastern Russia.[70] Still the majority of authorities treat this culture as of Azilian origin. Others, relying largely on the resemblances of certain elements of culture to those found at some very late Aurignacian sites in South Poland, believe the people and the culture to have arrived from that region.[71] Recently I have suggested another explanation.[72] Noticing the resemblance between the Magiemose culture and a slightly later civilisation known as East Scandinavian or Arctic, which has been found at several sites associated with skulls of Mongoloid type, I have suggested that in the Maglemose people we may perhaps see the first arrival in Europe of that Mongoloid race, which now peoples a large part of the north-east of the continent. My suggestion has not been well received in Scandinavian circles, and M. Nordmann has submitted it to very searching though courteous criticism.[73] While duly appreciating the value of all the evidence he has cited, I am still of opinion that my view, though far from proved, meets the existing evidence as well as, if not better than, its rivals.

The importance of the Maglemose problem for our purpose lies in the fact that certain sites in the British Isles have produced an industry which has been claimed, and perhaps rightly, to be akin to that of Mullerup and Sværdborg. Certain discoveries in the caves at Oban and on a raised beach on the island of Oronsay, are claimed to be of this or of Azilian culture,[74] while other finds at Holderness are said to resemble more closely still the Maglemose culture.[75] More recently still Mr. O. G. S. Crawford has suggested that certain implements, which he and I discovered last year at an early occupation site on the Newbury Sewage outfall works at Thatcham, Berks., bear close resemblances to some found at Sværdborg.[76]

It is too soon yet to appraise the value of these resemblances. Some of these sites, notably those at Oronsay and Thatcham, appear on some grounds to be somewhat later than the settlements at Mullerup and Sværdborg. This does not, of course, disprove their cultural connection. It is unwise, at present, to draw any positive conclusions from such evidence, but we may note that it is possible that during late Azilian times, or perhaps later still, fresh elements entered the British Isles from the Baltic region, and that it is at least possible that these elements may have been of the Mongoloid race.

People showing slight Mongoloid traits may be found sporadically throughout Wales, though, as far as I can ascertain, this type has not been noted as prevalent in any particular areas; how far it may be noted in the west of Scotland or in Ireland I am uncertain. But we cannot be sure that the introduction of this Mongoloid strain dates from so early a time, as it is quite possible that the type may have been introduced much later by the Vikings, who may perhaps sometimes have carried Finns with them in their forays.

Though after the close of Azilian times the culture of Celtic lands changed more than once and in more respects than one, we have at present no reason for suspecting the introduction of fresh racial elements before the beginning of the Bronze Age. The origin of Campignian culture, which seems to have flourished over the northern part of Celtic lands, in one form or another, from about 5000 to 3500 B.C., is still a matter of dispute, but it is doubtful whether the solution of the problem is likely to introduce a fresh element into the population of the Celtic lands.

The vast mass of the population of this area about 3000 B.C. were the descendants of the long-headed populations of Europe and North Africa in the upper palæolithic period. In some parts of the south the Cromagnon type may have persisted, in a pure or mixed form, as did the Combe Capelle type further north, while a modified form of the Grimaldi type was found from Portugal to Wales, especially in fishing villages. The prevailing type seems to have been that which came latest from Africa, and which most truly deserves the name of the Mediterranean race, though it may be well to realise that this term, as commonly used, seems to include all the varieties before mentioned, as well as a modified mixture of all these long-headed types.

In Central France, and to a less extent elsewhere, the Alpine type had penetrated, though it is doubtful whether it had, as yet, reached the British Isles. And we must realise that it is just possible that some Mongoloid peoples, from the Baltic and ultimately from Siberia, may have made a few settlements in this country, though their numbers are not likely to have been great.[77]