258 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Tene : the Sh-allows — where this class of antiquities first attracted 

 prominent notice. 



A threefold division of the period is now recognised into Early, 

 Middle, and' Late La Tene (or, as M. Eeinach has proposed, for brevity. 

 La Tene I., La Tene II., and La Tene III.), dated approximately : 

 Early, 400-250 b.c. ; Middle, 250-150 B.C.; Late, 150 b.c, to the 

 beginning of the Christian era.^ 



In Early La Tene the treatment of the ornament is much freer 

 than in the later periods, and the influence of classical elements, 

 especially the Greek anthemion, may be traced. In the middle and 

 late periods a progressive geometrical conventionalization is apparent, 

 until in the late period the classical elements are completely absorbed 

 or are eliminated. 



In England the Late Celtic style was submerged by Roman art, but 

 not wholly destroyed ; it reacted on Roman art locally, and re-enaerged 

 as a native style in Saxon times, reinforced from Ireland and Scotland. 

 In Ireland its history is continuous into the Christian period.^ 



It has been a habit of mind with English archaeologists to regard 

 the periods in Ireland as later than, and the styles as derived from, 

 Britain. This view was expressed in an extreme manner in a resolu- 

 tion passed by the Society of Antiquaries of London, November 28th, 

 1901, in connexion with the recent controversy over the gold 

 antiquities found at Broighter, County Londonderry. The resolution 

 contained the statement that these antiquities, which were ascribed to 

 the close of the La Tene period, were " remains of the art of the 

 ancient Britons," and had " only an accidental connexion with 

 Ireland."^ 



We need not take this attempt to make archaeology by resolution 

 seriously. The general impression, on the subject of which the reso- 



1 Tischler, " Uber Gliederung der La T^ne-Periode," in Correspondenz-Blatt 

 der deutschen Anthropologisclien Gesellschaft, 1885, pp. 157-172: Montelius: 

 Cong Prehistoriques, Paris, 1900, p. 353. Also p. 427. 



^ In Gaul important political changes appear to have occurred between La Tene 

 II. and La Tene III. Continuity of burial customs is broken, inhumation and chariot 

 burial is replaced by cremation. A similar difference has been noted in Britain. 

 The earlier class of Late Celtic interments are represented by burials such as at 

 Arras. Yorkshire, where the skeleton was laid with the chariot and horses, and the 

 later by the Late Celtic urn-field at Aylesford, Kent. See " Note sur I'oppidum 

 de Bibracte," Congres Prehist., Paris, 1900, p. 418; and Evans, "Late Celtic 

 Urn-field at Aylesford," Archseologia, vol. Hi., p. 386. "We have not yet any 

 information from Ireland on this branch of the subject. 



3 The Times, Nov. 29, 1901. 



