The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE IRON SWORD 125
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.*' 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-dweUing culture, which had existed from early neohthic 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.*^ It is also significant that some centuries
later it was revived.*^ 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.^° These people with the Type G swords must have been refugees from the
invasion of the iron sword people. Dechelette Jias given us a map showing their progress
in France, and on the same map he indicates the progress of the iron sword men.^'
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.
'7 D&helette (1908-14) ii. 114. 30 Crawford (1922) 33, 34.
»8 Dechelette (1908-14) ii. 114. 3' Dechelette (1908-14) map ii., in ii. pt. 2.
»9 D6chelette (1908-14) ii. 935-941-