CHAP, xii.] INTRODUCTION OF IRON INTO EUROPE. 425 



the days of Csesar, 1 was sufficient for the needs of the 

 inhabitants, as it was in Gaul, and his statement that the 

 Britons of his day used iron rings, or bars of a certain 

 weight, in place of money, while their bronze articles 

 were imported from abroad, expresses the relation of the 

 two metals to one another in Britain in the Prehistoric 

 Iron age with the greatest accuracy. It was sufficiently 

 abundant, not merely for the manufacture of weapons, 

 but for making tires for the wheels and other fittings for 

 the chariots. 



The historic evidence that iron gradually supplanted 

 bronze is confirmed by numerous discoveries in various 

 parts of Europe. A bronze socketed celt, with a thin 

 edge of iron let into it, has been met with in an ancient 

 Etruskan tomb at Villanova, near Bologna ; 2 and bronze 

 axes have been discovered in Scandinavia with their 

 edges formed in the same way. Bronze swords have 

 been discovered in Switzerland in the lake-dwellings, at 

 Moeringen, and elsewhere, with the hilts inlaid with iron, 

 and in association with iron swords of the leaf-shaped 

 type so characteristic of the Bronze age. In Britain also, 

 iron and bronze swords 3 have been found together of the 

 same leaf-shaped pattern; and a spear-head found in 

 Scotland consists of an iron core 4 covered with the 

 harder and more brittle bronze. It may therefore be 

 concluded that iron was introduced into these countries 

 first of all in small quantities, that it was highly esteemed, 

 and that it gradually supplanted bronze. 



1 v. c. 10. 



2 Gozzadini, Intorno Agli Scavi Archeologia fatti dal Sig. Arnoaldi Veil, 

 presso Bologna, 4to, 1877. Congr. Int. Archeol. Prthist., Bologna vol., 

 1871, 242. Burton, Etruscan Bologna, 1876, p. 65. 



3 Wilson, Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. Second edition, ii. p. 129. 



4 Wilson, op. cit. ii. pp. 12, 13. 



