Fig. 197.—Iron Axe with portion of Wooden Handle (1⁄3).
Iron objects have also been occasionally found on a few stations in the Lake of Geneva, as at Plongeon and Morges; from the latter of which Dr. Forel records a number of sickles of various forms, some of which were like those of La Tène. In Lake Bourget a knife with a bronze handle and an iron blade (International Congress, Paris, p. 266), and a piece of pottery with the name Severinus stamped on it. (B. 176, p. 24.) In the Museum of Chambery there is a large spear-head of iron encrusted with broad lines of copper or bronze from this lake ([Fig. 198]) which is very similar to one found near the Pont de la Thiele.
Fig. 198.—Iron Spear ornamented with Bronze (about 1⁄3).
But in all these instances the occurrence of iron is so exceptional that only probable deductions can be founded on them. Most of the iron objects have undoubtedly the same origin as those of La Tène. The rare bronze objects with encrusted iron bands, such as a few bracelets (Moeringen, Auvernier, Cortaillod, and Corcelettes), and one or two swords (Moeringen), need not cause surprise when we remember the extent to which commercial intercourse seems to have been carried on by the lake-dwellers with eastern nations; and that both iron and bronze were in use in Greece at least 1,200 years before the Christian era, while in Egypt and Central Asia these metals were known some 1,500 years earlier. Between those objects in which iron is used as an ornament (all of which are of the same style as the bronze objects), and the La Tène weapons, there is a wide gap which is not bridged over by any relics found in the lake-dwellings. In short, the evolutionary stage between the smelting of bronze and the forging of iron is here represented by a corresponding hiatus between the styles of art of the two periods more striking than that which distinguishes the neolithic from palæolithic industrial remains.
So far as I have looked into these matters I can only conclude that, with the introduction of iron into general use in Switzerland, we have a new people who conquered and subjugated the lake-dwellers and gave the death-blow to their system of lake-villages. Henceforth these villages fell into decay, and in the general destruction which ensued these La Tène implements might have been introduced by the invaders. In Roman times there remained only the ruins of a few stations. One thing is clearly established, that the conquerors of the lake-dwellers had a full knowledge of the working of iron in all its phases. The important point here is not the date of the discovery of this metal, but that of its application to the manufacture of all weapons and cutting implements. It is not likely that an art so complicated and requiring so much metallurgical and technical skill as that of the smelting and forging of iron had a sudden origin; and consequently we must look for its birthplace and evolutionary stages elsewhere. The remarkable collection of weapons, implements, and ornaments found at La Tène, to which I specially directed attention in a previous lecture, gives us a striking picture of the metallurgical skill to which their owners had attained prior to any influences from Roman art. So important are these antiquities considered by archæologists that the name La Tène has now become a generic expression, and represents a special group which, both in form and style of ornamentation, cannot be confounded with any other, either Greek, Roman, Etruscan or Phœnician. Who were these new comers into Switzerland who so suddenly intruded themselves on the peaceful lake-dwellers? To this question there is no response from the skulls and other portions of human skeletons found at La Tène. Out of ten skulls submitted to Professor Virchow he found that five were brachycephalic and two dolichocephalic, while the other three had intermediate cranial indices. We must therefore fall back on the character of the antiquities; and for this purpose I place before you some typical examples of this remarkable group ([Fig. 199]) culled from various sources for the purpose of showing their complete identity with those from the oppidum La Tène. Having satisfied ourselves on this point I proceed to glance rapidly over the geographical area in which such objects are found, with the view of showing to what people they belonged.
In the course of making the high-road from Berne to the bridge of Tiefenau in 1849-50 the workmen came upon a large quantity of weapons and implements of iron which, though very much rusted and decayed, can be clearly identified as belonging to the La Tène group. These objects, now preserved in the Museum at Berne, consist of the débris of arms, coats of mail, chariots, bridle-bits, bones of horses, pottery fine and coarse, some thirty pieces of money (massaliotes et celtiques), glass beads, iron and bronze buttons, sickles, knives, hatchets, etc. These objects, which were all mixed together in a miscellaneous manner, some two or three feet below the surface, had no appearance of ordinary burial, and are therefore considered to be the huddled up débris of a battle-field. The objects, so far as they can be made out, are described and figured by Baron de Bonstetten in his "Supplément au Recueil d'Antiquités Suisses, 1860," and "Notice sur les Armes et Chariots de Guerre découverts à Tiefenau, 1851."