332 GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHEOLOGY. 



island of Fyen, with a great quantity of various objects of the first 

 age of iron, but also with some Eoman coins of the two first centuries 

 of our era. 



Finally, the museum of antiquities of the south, at Copenhagen, 

 contains bronze vases brought from Italy, which combine the characters 

 of the specimens of Greechwyl with those of the vases of Mayence, of 

 Hanover, and of Himlingceie. We find on them the same animals 

 well executed ; human figures less skillfully drawn though expressive, 

 the Greek helmet, the Etruscan palm-leaf, and the corresponding 

 ornaments. 



It seems, therefore, that the first age of iron in Switzerland and in 

 the North is connected with the epoch of civilization in Greece which 

 preceded the times of Roman splendor. 



Human races. — The great subject of ancient human races is not 

 yet much advanced in Switzerland. Scarcely anybody but M. Troyon 

 has gathered materials for its solution. On examining his collection, 

 which contained specimens from the first age of iron inclusive to the 

 fifteenth century of our era, M. Retzius has grouped the skulls into 

 several series, each of which represents a separate people. Thus there 

 were found among them Etruscans, Celts, Goths, Sclaves, and Huns. 

 The Goths, with whom are included the Burgundians, are about 

 equal in number to the Celts and Romans. The Celts are more 

 numerous than the Romans. The Etruscans, the Sclaves, and the 

 Huns are merely exceptional. These races are precisely those 

 which Mr. Troyon had already discovered to have formerly inhabited 

 the country, merely by examining the remains of their industry, and 

 without any reference to their skulls. 1 



Since the visit of Mr. Retzius in 1857, the collection of M. Troyon 

 has been augmented by some skulls of the age of bronze, found in the 

 neighborhood of Aigle and Sion. They represent the rounded type of 

 the age of stone. But, on the other hand, the discovery in the same 

 localities of numerous cubical tombs 2 so characteristic of the age of 

 stone, and containing, nevertheless, an abundance of bronze, had 

 Drought Mr. Troyon to the conclusion that at these points of the valley 

 of the Rhone the primitive race of stone had continued to subsist 

 during the age of bronze, whose civilization it adopted, saving what 

 concerned the religious usages of burial. 3 



With the introduction of iron into Switzerland seems to correspond 

 the arrival of this same race, which must have brought the civilization 

 of the age of iron into the North. This is more or less indicated by the 

 remarkable analogy of style above alluded to between the objects of 

 the ante-Roman epoch of iron in Switzerland and those of the North. 

 Moreover, a well preserved human skull, taken from a grave of the 

 Tiefenau and plainly characterized by the articles found with it as 



1 Communicated by Mr. Troyon. 



2 Tombs of unwrought flag-stones, with an interior hollow two or three feet in length, 

 and about the same in width and height, and in which the body has been placed in a bent 

 position, say sitting. 



3 Troyon. Statistics of the Antiquities of Western Switzerland, fourth article. Guide to 

 the History and Antiquities of Switzerland, Zurich, March, 1856. 



