On the other hand, there is a very strong presumption that the races of the later period had, towards the end of it, religious beliefs more or less definite. In this connection there is no need to call attention to the different kinds of stone implements which have been found in Cornwall and which have been identified with this—the neolithic—period. It will be useful, however, to consider, very briefly, the more striking of its monuments, found chiefly in the west and, by reason of their size, styled megalithic. They are distinguished as dolmens sometimes but incorrectly termed cromlechs, cists (stone chests), circles, menhirs or long stones, and alignments of which there are comparatively very few in the county. All belong to the same period; all appear to have been erected by the same race. They are all found in greater numbers and of larger dimensions in Brittany. The general opinion of competent archæologists is that, with the exception perhaps of the menhirs, they are all sepulchral in character and with the exception of some of the cists that they all belong to the neolithic or else to the earlier half of the Bronze Age. The dolmens, of which Chûn Quoit and Lanyon Quoit are good examples, differ only in size and detail from the cists which are abundant in Cornwall, and which have been proved to be depositories for the dead by their contents. The circles probably performed the very useful function of marking and protecting either single graves, as many of the smaller ones are still found to do, or a more or less large collection of graves like a modern churchyard wall. The fact that some of the circles no longer surround human interments, or that some cists are found without circles to protect them, presents no difficulty to those who accept this explanation, but who at the same time admit a variety of use in the disposal of the dead and who have abundant proof of a bygone vandalism which is not unknown in Cornwall to-day. Stonehenge is not only larger and more elaborate, but of later date than most of the larger circles, being the only one in England which is constructed of hewn stone, all the rest being built of undressed stone. Even of this, for which, on that account, there might have been presumed a quasi-religious origin, Sir Arthur Evans, one of the most eminent of living archæologists, can only assert that “it is one of the large series of primitive religious monuments that grew out of purely sepulchral architecture.”
Of alignments it is hardly possible to say more than this, that they are usually associated with circles and may have served as avenues to them. The menhirs, sometimes isolated and independent of other ancient remains and sometimes as, for example, at St. Buryan and Drycarn, sufficiently near to circles to suggest association with them, are even less easy to explain. Some of them are of enormous dimensions, like the Men-er-Hroeck at Locmariaquer in Brittany; some are so small as to be liable to be mistaken for the rubbing stones of cattle. The former must have required vast numbers of men to erect, and it is their weight and size which has invested both the smaller and the greater with an interest and importance which would otherwise have been lacking. It is probable that some of them served as boundary stones, some as guide posts, and others as stones of memorial, like those reared by Jacob at Bethel, Joshua at Jordan, and Samuel at Ebenezer. The isolated menhirs of the largest size, i.e. the true menhirs or great undressed stones, reared by human instrumentality, wherever no traces of burial can be found either underneath or near them, undoubtedly suggest a religious purpose. While there is nothing to connect them with nature worship,[[13]] as commonly understood, or with solar worship, it is difficult to conceive how they came to be erected unless it was either to commemorate a departed chief[[14]] or to serve as symbols or objects of religion. Reverence paid to the dead, at certain stages of human development, may and probably does imply a belief in life after death. These monuments are of the late neolithic age.
The transition from it to the Bronze Age took place in Europe, according to the best authorities, about 1800 years before Christ. Bronze gave place to iron about 900 years later. The use of bronze in Cornwall, judging from the comparatively small number of bronze implements which have been discovered in the county, and from the fact that for its manufacture both of its constituent metals are abundant, would seem to have been of shorter duration here than elsewhere. Bronze celts have been found in Lelant, St. Just-in-Penwith, St. Hilary, St. Mawgan-in-meneage, Gwinear and in a few other places, but the net result is somewhat disappointing.
It is, however, during this period that in Gaul we meet with two races, the Ligurian and Iberian, occupying lands east and west of the Rhone respectively. These races must not be identified too closely with the countries whose names they bear.
They appear to have followed different occupations, the Ligurians devoting themselves to agriculture and the Iberians to the keeping of sheep and cattle.[[15]]
It is remarkable that little evidence should have been discovered respecting the character of the religion of either race. A bronze disc from Ireland and a horse mounted on (not harnessed to) a six-wheeled curricle to one of the axles of which is affixed a disc, from Denmark, have been supposed to be emblematic of the Bronze Age sun worship of those countries. Again, the swan-shaped prow of Scandinavian boats has been recognised as a solar emblem, but the freedom with which that ancient bird has been treated for decorative purposes, leaves one somewhat in doubt as to its religious signification. No evidence of the use of either symbol has apparently been found in Britain or in Armorica.
If the distinction between Ligurian and Iberian can be sustained is it not possible that the latter if not both emblems were confined to the Ligurians and were introduced by them along with their religious associations as traders engaged in the overland amber traffic between the Baltic and the Mediterranean?
The same dearth of evidence meets us when we come to consider the cult of the bull and the sacred horns and that of the axe. Had this cult been peculiar to a pastoral people like the Iberians an irreverent mind might have been pardoned for suggesting that they hit upon a very appropriate symbolism. Unfortunately the Bronze Age of Britain and Armorica, whether Iberian or otherwise, supplies us with very few if any illustrations of it. Two bronze bulls of small size found in Morbihan have been claimed to represent it in Armorica. The bronze bull found in the Vicarage garden at St. Just, undoubtedly fashioned for a religious purpose, seems to have an equal claim; but until more evidence is forthcoming it is allowable to doubt whether the Minoan beliefs, associated with the bronze period in the Ægean, ever gained a footing in Britain. M. Déchelette has with great pains striven to show that the mythology and the metal were closely related, perhaps contemporaneous and coextensive[[16]]—at least this seems to be the general drift of his exposition. While yielding to no one in gratitude for his great work—a challenge to English archæologists—it seems to the present writer that, in dealing with the religious symbolism of the Bronze Age, so far as North-Western Europe is concerned, he has done little more than to show that the double axe (bipenne) of the Ægean has its analogue, perhaps archetype, in the single axe with handle (hache simple et emmanchée) which is found inscribed on some of the Armorican dolmens of an earlier age. Nor is it self-evident that either the sacred horns or the axe is a solar emblem, though both appear to have been received into the Minoan system.
When we leave the Bronze Age and come to the Iron, we enter upon what has been termed protohistoric archæology. Within about 300 years of its commencement we find ourselves in the presence of a race which has survived and has in a measure retained its individuality up to the present time.
The Celts, it is true, were only one of several races which from the east and north pressed westward and southward over Europe for a period of over a thousand years; but no invasion has ever been more complete or the effects of an invasion more profound and permanent. The Celts became identified with our island to a greater extent than either of their successors, the Saxons and Normans. The second body of them imparted to it its name. In the fifth century before Christ they had reached the Atlantic and had begun to invade Britain although the main body were near the Danube. In 387 B.C., they sacked Rome, and in the succeeding century a section of them crossed the Hellespont, overran Asia Minor and eventually settled in what became known as Galatia.