Whatever may be the real state of the case in these discoveries, there is every probability of a transition having gradually taken place in this country, from the employment of bronze for cutting tools and weapons of offence to the use of iron or steel for such instruments; in other words, from a Bronze Age to an Iron Age, such as that to which the term “Late Celtic” has been applied.
That this transition must have been effected, at all events in the South of Britain, prior to the Roman invasion, is shown, as has already been pointed out, by the circumstance that the Early Iron swords found in France belong in all probability to a period not later than the fourth or fifth century b.c., while the southern parts of Britain had, long before Cæsar’s time, been peopled by Belgic immigrants, who either brought the knowledge of iron with them or must have received it after their arrival from their kinsmen on the continent, with whom they were in constant intercourse. In the more northern parts of Britain and in Scotland an acquaintance with iron was probably first made at a somewhat more recent period; but in the Late Celtic interments in Yorkshire no coins are present, and the iron and other objects found exhibit no traces of Roman influence. Moreover, the Roman historians, who have recorded many of the manners and customs of the northern Britons, do not in any way hint at their weapons being formed of bronze.
In Ireland, perhaps, which was less accessible from the continent than Britain, the introduction of iron may have taken place considerably after the time when it was known in the sister country; but there appears to have been a sufficient intercourse between Scotland and the north of Ireland at an early period for the knowledge of so useful a metal, when once gained, to have been quickly communicated from one country to the other.
On the whole I think we may fairly conclude that in the southern parts of Britain iron must have been in use not later than the fourth or fifth century b.c., and that by the second or third century b.c. the employment of bronze for cutting instruments had there practically ceased. These dates are of course approximate only, but will at all events serve to give some idea of the latest date to which bronze weapons and tools found in England may with some degree of safety be assigned.
As to the time at which such weapons and tools were here first in use, we have even less means of judging than we have as to when they fell into desuetude. It is, however, evident that the Bronze Period of the British Isles must have extended over a long period of years, probably embracing many centuries. The numerous bronze-founders’ hoards, containing fragments of tools and weapons of so many various forms, testify to the art of bronze-founding having been practised for a lengthened period; and yet in all of these the socketed celt occurs, or some other socketed instruments, which we know to have been contemporary with it, are present. It is true that the socketed celt was not originally developed in this country, but was introduced from abroad; and, as has already been pointed out, was derived from a form of palstave which is of rare occurrence in Britain. Yet the length of time requisite for the modification of the flat form of celt to that with flanges, of this latter again to that with the flanges produced into wings, and finally the transition into the palstave with the wings hammered over so as to form sockets on each side of the blade, must itself have been of very great duration.[1756] The development of the forms of palstave common to Britain and the opposite shores of the Continent must also have demanded a long lapse of years, and most of the stages in its evolution can be traced in this country. We have the flat celt, the flanged celt, and the flanged celt with a stop-ridge; and we can trace the modification of form from one stage to another until the characteristic palstave is reached, in which the stop-ridge is as it were formed in the actual body of the blade. And it is to be observed that this form of palstave had already been developed at the time represented by the earliest of the ordinary bronze-founders’ hoards, in which, moreover, the flanged celts, either with or without a stop-ridge, are hardly ever present.
The Bronze Age of Britain may, therefore, be regarded as an aggregate of three stages: the first, that characterized by the flat or slightly flanged celts, and the knife-daggers frequently found in barrows associated with instruments and weapons formed of stone; the second, that characterized by the more heavy dagger-blades and the flanged celts and tanged spear-heads or daggers, such as those from Arreton Down; and the third, by palstaves and socketed celts and the many forms of tools and weapons, of which fragments are so constantly present in the hoards of the ancient bronze-founders. It is in this third stage that the bronze sword and the true socketed spear-head first make their advent. The number of these hoards, and the varieties in the forms of these swords and spear-heads, as well as in the socketed celts and other tools, would, I think, justify us in assigning a minimum duration of some four or five centuries to this last stage. The other two stages together must probably have extended over at least an equal lapse of time; so that for the total duration of the Bronze Period in Britain we cannot greatly err in attributing eight or ten centuries. This would place the beginning of the Period some 1,200 or 1,400 years b.c.—a date which in many respects would seem to fit in with what we know as to the use of bronze in the southern parts of Europe.[1757]
Although I have thus attempted to assign a definite chronology to our Bronze Age, I do so with all reserve, as any such attempt is founded upon what are at best imperfect data, and each of the stages I have mentioned may have been of far longer duration than I have suggested, though it is not likely that any of them should have been materially shorter.
There is, it must be acknowledged, the difficulty which I have already mentioned, as to the absence of nearly all traces of the later stages of the Bronze Period in the graves and barrows that have been examined in Britain.[1758] The reason of this absence has still to be discovered; but it may perhaps have been the case that during this time the method or fashion of interring the dead underwent some change, and the practice of placing weapons and ornaments with the bodies of departed friends and relatives fell into disuse. Among the bronze-using occupants of the Yorkshire Wolds, whose burial-places have been explored by Canon Greenwell, the interments by inhumation were much in excess over those which took place after cremation, but in other parts of England the proportions are reversed. Out of fourteen instances[1759] in which bronze articles were associated with an interment, it was only in two that the body had been burnt; or taking the whole number of burials, viz. 301 by inhumation and 78 after cremation, bronze articles were found with 4 per cent. of the burials of the former kind and only 2½ per cent. with those of the latter. This seems to point to a tendency towards departing from the old custom of burying weapons with the dead for use in a future life. And, indeed, if the custom of burning the dead became general, the inducement to place such objects among mere dust and ashes would be but small. An urn or a small recess in the ground would suffice to contain the mightiest warrior, and his weapons would be out of place beside the little calcined heap which was left by the purifying fire. Even the practice of raising mounds or barrows over the interments may have ceased, and “when the funeral pyre was out and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends.”