dispersed through the North of Europe, 381 



Professor Eschricht, as the erectors and occupants of those ancient tombs- 

 Some remains found in Britain give reason to suspect that the Celtic in- 

 habitants of this country had, in early times, something of the Mongolian 

 or Turanian form of the head. However this may have been, we recog- 

 nise in both countries remains belonging to two successive periods : I 

 mean those of the stone and of the copper age, in the phraseology adopted 

 by Professor Eschricht.* 



The comparison of the sepulchral remains found in Denmark, and spread 

 in great abundance through some parts of Holland, and over Sweden and 

 Norway, with those of our own country, would open a field of most in- 

 teresting research. It is evident, from the preceding observations, that 

 the " Jettehoie," or oldest sepulchral mounds of Denmark, are very simi- 

 lar in construction, and contain relics of a similar kind, with the greater 

 part of our long barrows, and perhaps with most of the old sepulchral 

 mounds spread through the south of England, and in various parts of 

 Wales and Ireland. In most of the mounds examined by the late Sir 

 R. C. Hoare, the remains of ancient art were similar to those above de- 

 scribed : they belonged to a people in a corresponding state of society, 

 probably to the same people. Implements and weapons of stone belong 

 to each ; only amber is not found, as far as I know, in British barrows, 

 that material having been abundant only near the Baltic ; ornaments of 

 bone seem to have held the place of amber. Only in a few barrows, ac- 

 cording to Sir R. C. Hoare, are ornaments of gold found, weapons of 

 brass and golden rings have been more frequently seen in Ireland. These 

 relics of copper or brazen ornaments are evidently of a later date than 

 that long series of ages which raised the great majority of the numerous 

 mounds and barrows which are spread both in the British isles and in the 

 northern regions of Europe, but all the barrows where implements of iron 

 are still entirely awanting, probably belonged to a period anterior to the 

 entrance of the German nations. It is, on the whole, probable that they 

 were raised by the Celtic tribes, of which the Cimbri were the last remains 

 on the northern continent. For the Celts were long ignorant of the use of 

 iron, if we may draw an inference from the British barrows. It is true 

 that the Britons used iron in Caesar's time for some purposes, namely, iron 

 rings for money, and probably the scythes of chariots were of iron, for 

 what else could be used, unless it were brass. But the use of iron may 

 have been confined to the Belgse in South Britain, who introduced it from 

 Gaul. It must have been unknown during many ages to the Britons, as 

 we have inferred from the contents of the barrows, which were the old 

 sepulchres. 



* The three heads described are very small, though they appear to have be- 

 longed to adults : the circumference measures only about sixteen inches. Heads 

 BO small, as the author observes, are seldom seen among the modem Danes. This, 

 however, may be an individual, rather than a national, character. 



VOL. XXXI. NO. LXII.— .OCTOBER 184:1. B b 



