FIG. 23.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF TYPE G SWORDS IN FRANCE.
FIG. 24.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF IRON SWORDS IN FRANCE.
We have seen that in the mountain zone the pile-dwelling civilisation continued throughout the bronze age. This type of culture, introduced by the early Alpines from Asia Minor, was adopted in Central Europe by the Nordic intruders, who had made themselves lords over the Alpine peasants. That they were still retaining their race exclusiveness is clear from the fact that long and broad-headed skulls are still found side by side.[410] In the plain, however, where we have no evidence of Alpine settlement, all signs of pile-dwellings are absent.
It is a striking fact that with the arrival of iron swords into the mountain zone this pile-dwelling culture, which had existed from early neolithic days till the close of the bronze age, came suddenly to an end. This cannot be merely an accident, for the same thing occurred all over Central Europe.[411] It is also significant that some centuries later it was revived.[412] Some important revolution must have taken place to end so abruptly a custom which had lasted for thousands of years, and to end it with equal suddenness in all parts of the mountain zone. I can only account for it in one way, by supposing that the men of the plain, who had never occupied this type of dwelling, had swept over the mountain zone, carrying fire and the iron sword throughout the villages of their neighbours.
This I am inclined to think must have been the case, and such an invasion would account for the widespread exodus of people with the Type G swords, which we have found scattered over many areas in France, over parts of North Germany, and stretching even to Scandinavia and Finland, and which reached the British Isles, with much other culture belonging to the Swiss lake-dwellings, as Crawford has recently shown us.[413] These people with the Type G swords must have been refugees from the invasion of the iron sword people. Déchelette has given us a map showing their progress in France, and on the same map he indicates the progress of the iron sword men.[414] The latter followed the refugees in almost every direction, and it was only in the Seine valley that the exiles escaped pursuit. This is a point to which I shall have to refer in a later chapter.