FIG. 18.—DEVEREL-RIMBURY URNS.
It will be necessary for us, therefore, to determine whether these swords, which have penetrated nearly the whole of Europe except the Iberian peninsula, were carried by trade, by some other form of peaceful penetration, or by conquest. The great suddenness with which some of the types spread, apparently within the space of a few years, for there is little if any modification of form, from the central region to places many hundreds of miles distant, precludes the second of these alternatives, for peaceful penetration by land is a slow process, and we should expect progressive variation of type the farther we pass from the centre. It seems, on the face of it, unlikely that a people, especially a sporting and warlike people like our steppe-folk, would engage in a trade which would provide their neighbours with a weapon, superior to all others available, which they had produced for themselves after generations of experiment; nor is it likely that they would permit their Alpine subjects to do so, even if the fear of the unknown and the dislike of adventure had not been sufficient to prevent these home-loving people from setting out on so adventurous a task, involving, as it sometimes did, the passage across northern seas. Such a practice, then, seems at first sight unlikely, but if the other alternative, the hostile invasion, were true, we should expect to find evidence of the arrival of fresh people in the presence of new types of pottery and fresh burial customs.
If we examine the British evidence, we shall find reason to believe that the leaf-shaped swords arrived with a new culture and a fresh element in the population. In a recent paper Mr. O. G. S. Crawford has dealt with this subject, and pointed out that the leaf-shaped bronze swords of the Hallstatt period, our Type G, arrived with an invasion of people who came from Central Europe.[348] Crawford seems to include in this movement all bronze leaf-shaped swords of whatever type, but the evidence on which he depends is only applicable to Type G. It will be well, therefore, for the moment to postpone consideration of the arrival of the Type E swords.
FIG. 19.—URN OF TYPE 3.
Crawford has shown that not only did these swords arrive in considerable numbers, but with them came a number of other objects, such as razors, sickles, and other tools, which have been found at various occupied sites, such as Llyn Fawr, South Lodge Camp, and “Old England” at Brentford. Near the last-named site were found some skulls which Sir Arthur Keith[349] has pronounced to be typical Alpines of the Swiss lake-dwelling type. Now at most of the sites where this lake-dwelling culture has been found, there occurs also, as Crawford has shown, a type of pottery, which he calls “finger-tip ware,” that is to say pottery ornamented with raised ribs of clay and finger-tip impressions. Now such pottery is found, it is true, in the neolithic age in this country, but it died out about the time of the arrival of the Beaker-folk, when cord-ornamented pottery came into fashion. On the other hand in Central Europe, and especially in the region where the mountain zone blends with the plain, such pottery remained in use continuously from the neolithic, through the bronze, to the early iron age.
That such pottery came to this country with a fresh people is clear from the foregoing evidence, and that they entered armed and by force is equally clear from the presence of the numerous swords of this date which have been found. That they came in considerable numbers and came to stay is also shown from the number of settlements, and from the later occurrence of this finger-tip ware at such sites as All Cannings Cross[350] in Wiltshire, where this culture lasted until well after 500 B.C.
Some of the best examples of this finger-tip pottery are the urns found in Wessex, which are called the Deverel-Rimbury type, and which are dated by Lord Abercromby[351] as lasting from 950 to 650 B.C. Crawford, following Déchelette, brings in his invasion about 800 B.C., or rather later, and, though we may find grounds for believing that their arrival may have been earlier it looks as though the finger-tip pottery of the Deverel-Rimbury type may have been here before the coming of the people with the Type G Swords. Be that as it may, we learn from Lord Abercromby that in the south of England several types of pottery preceded the Deverel-Rimbury type, the one immediately preceding it being his Type 3, which he believes to have been in use between 1150 and 950 B.C., if not earlier.[352] Many of these, such as those from Wiltshire, Nos. 373, 374 and 379, exhibit the characteristic ornament of this finger-tip ware. If Lord Abercromby’s chronology is even approximately correct, and it is in these cases vouched for by a series of excellent synchronisms, the pottery characteristic of Central Europe had been introduced into the south of England some centuries before the arrival of the people who introduced the Type G swords. This leads us to suspect that the Type E swords were also brought by an invading people, fairly early in the Type E period, as a certain number of Type D swords have also occurred.