CHAP. XL] LOCAL CENTEES OF BRONZE INDUSTRY. 415 



it is important for our enquiry only because it proves 

 that the civilisation of the Bronze age was not derived 

 from central or southern Russia. The Danubian is 

 further subdivided by M. Chantre into two closely con- 

 nected provinces, the Scandinavian and the Hungarian. 

 The Scandinavian bronze swords, l with metal hilts 

 elaborately adorned with spirals and chevrons, are so 

 closely allied in their style to those of the Hungarian 

 province, that it is very probable that their designs 

 were originally obtained, as well as the metal, from that 

 quarter. The third group consists of the provinces of 

 Greece, Italy, and France and Switzerland. Into the 

 last of these, in M. Chantre's opinion, bronze was intro- 

 duced from Italy, and not by way of the Danube. The 

 poverty of the British Isles in works of art belonging to 

 the Bronze age renders it very difficult to classify them 

 either with the Danubian or the Mediterranean group, 

 for they are just as likely to have derived their types from 

 France as from the Danube or the Valley of the Ehine. 

 They may be more satisfactorily classified with the former 

 than with the latter, since the knowledge of bronze was 

 introduced, as we have seen in the last chapter, by a 

 Celtic race after the conquest of the neighbouring parts 

 of France. The peculiarities (such for example as the 

 holes on either side of the mid rib of the spear-heads) 

 which lead some writers to look upon Britain 2 as an 

 independent province, seem to me to be the necessary 

 result of the country being fenced off from the Continent 

 by a barrier of sea. 



1 Montelius, Sitr les Poigntes des fip&s, Congr. Int. Archdol. Pre"hist., 

 Stockholm vol., 1874, p. 883. 



2 According to Waldemar Schmidt, Great Britain is to be looked upon 

 as a " zone speciale," to the exclusion of Ireland. Etudes sur VAge de Bronze, 

 Assoc. Fran. 1878. 



