EARLY MAN 



In this period we reach a point in the condition of the early 

 inhabitants of Britain which is marked by the introduction of iron and 

 by the appearance of a high development of an art which can be traced 

 back to some of the oldest forms of art in the classical world. It is 

 during this period that Sir John Evans considers the first coinage in 

 Britain made its appearance. As in the case of the Stone age extending 

 into and overlapping the Bronze age, so we find the use of bronze 

 reaching into the Early Iron age. The weapons and implements that 

 formerly were made of bronze were in this period manufactured of 

 iron, but the use of bronze was retained for ornamental purposes and 

 was applied to many objects of personal adornment, to horse trappings, 

 scabbards of swords, etc. The later part of the Prehistoric Iron age 

 corresponds with the Late Celtic period of the late Sir A. W. Franks, 

 formerly keeper of British and medieval antiquities in the British 

 Museum. It is considered that this age was not nearly so long as the 

 preceding one of bronze or the Neolithic age. In the year 1863 was 

 published a work called Horn Ferales, or Studies in the Archaology of the 

 Northern Nations. This was written mainly by Mr. J. M. Kemble, a 

 well known archsologist, in the middle of the last century, and edited 

 after his death in 1857 by Dr. R. G. Latham and Sir A. W. Franks. 

 In this book is a series of objects described by Sir A. W. Franks under 

 the title of ' Antiquities of the Late Celtic Period.' These consist of 

 bronze shields, diadems, collars, pins, rings, horse-trappings (some 

 bearing traces of enamel), iron spearheads, swords and daggers with 

 sheaths of bronze, tyres of chariot wheels and a number of objects of 

 different use. On many of these is a style of decoration which, as 

 Sir A. W. Franks writes, ' is remarkable for its peculiar and varied 

 forms,' and differing from that of either the Romans, Saxons or Danes, 

 The chief forms of this new art are the recurrent spiral and the trumpet- 

 shaped pattern. ' Their Celtic origin,* he states, ' is shown by the 

 employment of coral, by the use of the boar as a symbol, by the presence 

 of enamelled decorations, by the discovery of war chariots, the length 

 and material of their swords and by the presence of chain mail.' He 

 claims no very remote antiquity for these remains. ' They are probably,' 

 he says, ' not more ancient than the introduction of coinage into Britain 

 from 200 to 100 years before Christ, and not much later than the close 

 of the first century after Christ,' when the Roman dominion in this 

 country was firmly established. 



Since this work was published many other remains which can be 

 classed as belonging to this period have come to light, notably a burying- 

 place at Aylesford in Kent which was investigated by Mr. Arthur 

 Evans. The discovery of this ' urnfield,' as it is called by Mr. Evans, 

 with a description of the various objects from it, forms the subject of a 

 most interesting and valuable paper by him, published in Archaologia, 

 vol. lii. The manner in which he traces the new style of pottery found 

 at Aylesford back through eastern Gaul across the north of Italy to 

 its prototypes of bronze whose home was the Adriatic province is most 



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