178 Stonelienge and its Barrows. 



and attained its highest development among the tribes to the south 

 of the Thames; and suggest^ though they do not prove, that the 

 use of iron for weapons oi'igiuated on the eastern coast^ as far north 

 as the present Yorkshire. The commencement of the bronze age in 

 this island is of an uncertain epoch. The introduction of iron, as 

 brought under our eyes in these interments, was certainly veiy late, 

 not earlier apparently than the first century of our era. 

 We may not be far wrong in concluding that when Britain was in- 

 vaded by Julius, and perhaps even as late as the conquest under 

 Claudius, some of the tribes were using iron weapons, others were 

 provided with none but bronze, and that others possessed both." 



Among the more important of the Bronze objects from the 

 barrows around Stonehenge which Dr. Thurnam has described, is 

 the bronze celt found in Bush Barrow, which is 6^ inches long, 2^ 

 broad, and only \ inch in greatest thickness. It has side-flanges 

 and the centre is slightly thickened. An engraving of it is on page 

 444 of Archseologia, vol. xliii. A socketed spear or javelin-head, 

 about 3^ inches long, with two very small loops at the upper third 

 of the socket, is engraved at page 447 of Archseologia, vol. xliii. 

 With scarcely an exception the large leaf-shaped and triangular 

 blades figured by Hoare are from barrows in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of Stonehenge. Two of these are stippled or pounced; 

 and a third labelled " Barrow No. 120," is also decorated in the 

 same way. A fine bronze bracelet encircling the arm of a skeleton 

 was found in a barrow (No. 27). It is a broad flat band, profusely 

 ornamented with vertical and horizontal lines, and with chevrons 

 at the ends, which overlap. With an interment by cremation 

 there were two pieces of twisted bronze wire, perhaps part of a 

 bracelet. 



tools of the Mexicans and Peruvians." — " Kenriek's Phoenicia," p. 213. " We 

 can have no hesitation in regarding Spain as the source of the tin which was 

 so early in use among the nations bordering on the Mediterranean. How long 

 it was before the Phoenicians discovered tbe far richer supply which the British 

 Islands afford, is altogether uncertain." (p. 216.) "It is by no means 

 improbable that tin which came originally from Cornwall, may have returned 

 thither from Gaul or Spain, in the form of those instruments of bronze which 

 are some of the earliest of our British antiquities in metal." (p. 221.) 



