THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
IRON. 603
was a great scarcity of iron among the tribes of east Germany,
for he tells us that the Fenni (Finns) used arrowheads of bone
owing to the scarcity of iron (inopia ferri). It cannot thus
be held that the Iron Age of Europe began in the North. Nor
again can it be asserted that it was from the eastern side of
upper Europe that the metal advanced, for Pausanias', writing
in the second century of our era, says that the Sarmatians
'
neither dig nor import iron,' and that their spears were tipped
with bone instead of iron.
The Iron Age therefore did not originate in the North.
Now wherever iron implements are found in Switzerland,
France, Britain, Ireland, and Italy, they may be likewise said
to have come in per saltuiii. Thus in the older Lake-dwellings
of Switzerland, bronze only
is found, but when we come to the
now famous settlement of La Tene on the north end of Lake
Neuchatel, we find a culture altogether differing from that in
the older habitations. At La Tene there are weapons of iron,
articles of ornament of a well-known and definite kind, and
in their company, gold coins. There can be little doubt that
these coins belonged to the Helvetii. Remains similar to those
at La Tene have been found in Gaulish graves in northern
France in the valleys of the Alarne and the Aube, on the
battlefields where Caesar overthrew the Helvetii and their allies
the Boii, in Savoy, in the Alpine passes, and in the Po valley-'.
In the museums of Bologna, Este, and Milaii ai'c the contents
of many warriors' graves, which show unmistakable exam])les
of the charactei'istic sw(ji-(ls and scabbards. Thei'c is an agi'eement
amongst
sctholai-s that they
ain; the I'elics of the Celtic
tribes who at one time or another occu]ied
all
these places.
])roiicrly s|i(-akiiii4 brass. Tliat tlicy do not liclont: to tin; IJroii/.c Af^'r, lint to
a time when iron was in use, is i'liithcr jn'ovrd tVoia the fact that the )iiiis
arc alwavs of iron" [Tlic
< 'irilijn lidii af Sirfdni in lliuitlicu rimt'.