Etruscan or even pre-Etruscan culture had long ruled and prepared the way. Many mutually corroborative discoveries from central Italy northwards across Switzerland Austria south-western Germany the Rhine-lands and to some extent the more westerly parts of north Germany prove that the wide-spread pre-Etruscan objects with their forms pictorial decorations and general workmanship must have had a considerable connexion with or influence upon the culture of the oldest Iron Age in these regions during the "Hallstat period," as it has been called.

But a comparison with the discoveries further to the north shows also that the pre-Etruscan objects reached the Scandinavian North in any case only through many intermediate stages and quite sporadically. Here it evidently had no power to expel the Bronze-Age or found a new Iron-culture in its place. Similarly the products of a later period of the fully-developed peculiar Etruscan culture, which had found their way to Switzerland central Europe and especially the Rhinelands and north Germany, come to a stop on the southern frontiers of the North (Lübeck).

To the pre-Etruscan or Etruscan influence flowing north from Italy another current joined itself after the rise of the classic civilisation in Greece. From Macedonia and from the Greek colonists of the Crimea and of Marseilles it proceeded northwards to southernmost Russia Hungary Gaul (or France) and thence right up to the British Isles. This current has left numerous traces in many regions to the south and west, especially in Hungary Bohemia Gaul (or France) and the south of England, in the frequent barbaric imitations of the

coins of Philip the Second and Alexander the Great, kings of Macedonia. It appears to have been the first to introduce silver, and was of no slight significance for the development of the peculiar so-called "Galatian" or late Gallic period of culture, which prevailed to some extent in the most central and western parts of Europe in the last centuries before and at the time of Christ's birth. This current however had no very strongly marked or general influence, and acted at most only intermediately on the far North, where the barbaric imitations of Macedonian coins are unknown. On the other hand both in north Germany and in the peninsula of Jutland-the old trade-route and line of intercourse between the South and the North-both in graves containing burnt bodies and elsewhere numerous preRoman or Gallic brooches and weapons have recently been found of the peculiar pre-Roman or Gallic form which is described as the "La Têne" type from a find in Switzerland.

Between the southern boundary of south Jutland and the Liim-fjord we can already point to six scattered finds of iron swords. In the same way corresponding pre-Roman brooches are found fairly often with. burnt bones in urns and also with smaller objects of iron in Fÿen Seeland and Lolland, but most of all in Bornholm, from which they are scattered, but more rarely, across Bohuslehn up to the extreme south of Norway, and also to the east across Öeland to the most eastern parts of Sweden. But the outskirts of Norway and Sweden they reached later than Denmark. It is impossible therefore to deny that the most southern parts at least of the North during the first beginnings

of the Iron-Age felt the continued influences of this as well as of the earlier great European currents of culture. How far its encroachments succeeded before the time of Christ's birth in completely expelling the Bronzeculture in southern Scandinavia is a question for the future to clear up.

In passing, it should be observed in this connexion. that, just as in the antecedent Age of Bronze, there is still an absence both of objects purely Greek and articles to indicate, as in central and east Germany, a livelier intercourse with and influence direct from Greece. At no time were the Greek colonists of the Crimea and the trade and influences that thence issued northwards strong enough to bring Greek antiquities and coins in any numbers along the rivers of Russia and Poland up to the most eastern coasts of the Baltic. Solitary finds of such objects, e.g., of some few Greek coins on the island of Gotland,1 are as yet either extremely doubtful or quite unimportant for the history of culture.

Thus in spite of powerful movements of culture in the centre and west of Europe, as the Iron Age there gained firmer footing, the Scandinavian North evidently remained singularly isolated during its Later BronzeAge down to the Christian era or somewhat after. Nor, so far as we now know, was this sequestered position fully forced, until the Roman classic culture had at last grown strong enough to cross the Alps and win a new empire from hitherto unknown tracts in the northern "barbarian" countries.

1 Two Macedonian coins of Philip II. and one Greek coin from Panormus have been found in Gotland.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EARLIER IRON-AGE IN THE NORTH.

(From about the time of Christ's birth to 450 A.D.)

THE remote situation of the Scandinavian lands had during the Bronze-Age withdrawn the population for centuries from the many great advantages which the Iron-culture, long established in more southern regions, brought in its train. But by way of recompense the population was enabled during an unusually long and undisturbed repose to pursue a period of rich and in many respects successful development, corresponding most closely with the great Heroic Age, which ended in Homer's times. The freedom and independence of the Bronze - Age folk remained in the high North unchallenged by the violent commotions and struggles of peoples which frequently at an early period shook the interior of Europe. While the Roman armies were crossing the Alps and in their victorious march subduing with fire and sword so many lands in the centre and west of Europe, the inhabitants of the North knew nothing of the dangers and horrors of a war of conquest. They escaped with a fright, when their German neighbours in the year 9 A.D. cut down the Roman general Varus and his legions in the Teuto

berger Wald in modern Hannover. But at a later time and in a purely peaceful way they reaped the benefits of the higher culture founded by the conquests and colonists of Rome on the Danube and in Germany Gaul and Britain.1

We have already seen that the inhabitants of the North about the time of Christ's birth must have stood outside of any close intercourse with the more highly developed races of southern Europe. This is shown more clearly by the discoveries as yet observed in the North itself and in the neighbouring lands on its southern frontiers. Down to the very close of the Bronze-Age in the North we find mingled with objects of copper and tin (or bronze) and gold only extremely feeble traces of iron zinc (which accompanied iron) silver and glass. Still more rare is it to meet with transitional bronze objects stamped with the new forms and ornaments of the Iron-Age. Even the most southern regions of the Scandinavian North can scarcely just at this time have felt any decided influence of a pre-Roman Iron-culture; though it is quite evident, at least in the last centuries before. Christ, that such must have been generally diffused in north Germany. Most probably the only exception is that part of Denmark lying nearest to foreign countries, especially the peninsula of Jutland and Bornholm. There in a peculiar kind of grave with burnt bodies— the oldest of the "Brandpletter" (places of burning)

2

1 Mommsen's statements, Band v. p. 118, need considerable modifition.

2 (Brandpletter.) Small round holes filled with charcoal burnt bones fragments of pottery &c., and usually covered with a slab just below the surface. More than 2000 have been examined in Bornholm.