FIG. 22.
SWORD FROM
ZAVADYNTSE.
The evidence which I have cited in the foregoing pages can best be explained by believing that about 1150 B.C. some of the steppe-folk from the Hungarian plain departed, probably through the Moravian gate, to seek fresh pastures. While some may have gone northwards, the majority passed along the open sandy heaths of Galicia, across Podolia, where a sword was lost at Zavadyntse, and so on to the grassy plains by the banks of the Koban river. Here they settled for a time, and during their wanderings some came into contact with the humble iron-using people on the southern slopes of the Caucasus. Whether they approached these people to trade or to acquire some commodity in which they themselves were lacking, or whether they sought them to obtain their daughters for wives, we know not; all we can be sure is that some intercourse took place. It seems clear, too, that it was from their humble neighbours that the Koban-folk learned of the existence of iron or steel, and how to work that metal. It was not small knives they needed, but better blades for their trusty swords. Thus, I believe, the use of iron was first learned by the peoples of Europe.
This discovery must have been made by 1100 B.C. at the latest probably some years earlier. The Koban-folk realised that steel blades were far superior to those of bronze, and doubtless were anxious to show off their new acquisition before the old folks at home. They may, too, have remembered that the stone from which their neighbours extracted the metal was plentiful in some parts of the old country. Whatever the cause, I believe that some of them returned to Hungary with their new discovery, before bronze swords of Type F had been evolved or at any rate had come into general use.
Iron ore, which could easily be worked by primitive methods, occurs in Transylvania, at Gyalar,[395] and it seems likely that it was in this neighbourhood that they first settled. It is also possible that about this time some of them occupied Thrace, for in early days Thracian swords had a great reputation.[396] By degrees they pushed up the Danube, at any rate as far as its junction with the Save. Before 1000 B.C. a large number of them advanced up the Morava and down the Vardar and soon afterwards entered Thessaly, whence they started on that series of conquests known as the return of the Heraclids, or the Dorian invasion of Greece.[397]
Many of these Koban-folk settled on the southern bank of the Danube and the Save, and in the hill country behind; various cemeteries of this time have been discovered in this region, the most famous of which is that at Glasinatz in Bosnia.[398] Others pushed up the Save, which runs through mountains of an easily worked iron ore; evidence of early workings have been found on the banks of the Mur in Styria and on the upper Drave in Carinthia.[399]
A little later, between 1000 and 900 B.C., some of these people passed over into Italy. They may have crossed the Adriatic, as did in all probability the men of the leaf-shaped sword, but it is tempting to think that they crossed the Predil pass and settled at Santa Lucia Tolmino, near the head waters of the Isonzo. Here a cemetery was found in 1885,[400] much of the grave furniture from which is, or was in 1914 in the Trieste Museum, while the remainder is in Vienna. More than 1000 graves were found and the cemetery must have been in existence for several centuries; but it is usually believed that the earliest graves date only from the eighth century. Others of the same party crossed the mountains into the rich Friuli plain and settled at Dernazacco, near Cividale,[401] and gradually spread thence over the Veneto.
We come across further evidence of their advance at Este,[402] and as they crossed the Po valley they destroyed the terremare, which had existed there since early in the bronze age and dispersed their inhabitants.[403] There is evidence that about this time some of the terramara-folk arrived in Etruria,[404] others are found settling in the neighbourhood of Taranto,[405] while Dr. Hooton has shown that there are strong reasons for believing that the earliest settlement on the Palatine Hill at Rome was due to these people.[406] The invaders seem to have occupied all the plain of Italy north-east of the Apeninnes, the area known later as Ombrice[407] or Etruria Circumpadana,[408] but the most important spots at which their remains have been found are in and around Bologna. From one of the best-known sites in that city their culture has been called that of Villanova.[409] That at one time they conquered Etruria has been suggested in chapter [ IV.], and doubtless it was they who extended the Etruscan rule from the Alps to the south of Naples; but, as has already been explained, it would be a mistake to confuse them with the real Etruscans.
