Macaustkr — Tciuuir Breg: Remains and Traditions of Turn. 391 



and therefore he teaches them as little as possible. On the other hand, if he 

 finds among them an art or accomplishment which appears to him desirable, 

 he will take steps to acquire it. It follow.- bhal when a trade-route between 

 two communities of different degrees of culture becomes a channel of civilization 

 the culture passes as a ride from the less civilized to the more civilized. The 

 principle doubtless sounds paradoxical, and it lias a host of exceptions — such 

 as, for example, the acquisition of guns by modem savages. It does not 

 run counter to the principle laid down by Rivers 1 that a small community of 

 settlers of high culture can revolutionize the life of a large body of aborigines 

 of low culture. The question of a colonization does not here come in at all. 

 Only the brief periodical visits of traders, whose business is to take as much 

 and to give as little as possible, are contemplated. In such cases the aborigines 

 derive no advantage, except when competition among the traders themselves 

 leads them to give more than they otherwise would, in order to outbid rivals. It 

 .is this competition that has introduced firearms, brandy, and other blessings of 

 civilization among modern savages. We cannot therefore state the principle 

 absolutely, but must qualify it by the interjected words " as a rule." Still, it 

 should never be forgotten, when we are concerned with the study of the 

 influence of ancient trade-routes. 



I do not, however, believe that New Grange set a fashion copied by the 

 builders of the Mycenaean tombs. Rather do they appear to me indications 

 of a common culture, universal over Europe at the beginning of the Bronze 

 Age. New Grange comes down to us right out of the heart of this early 

 stage of civilization, with all its barbarism : the Mycenaean tombs are an 

 artistic development of the model, refined by generations of local civilization. 

 On this view of the case, the civilization that centred in Greh is only a local 

 manifestation of the general culture of Europe during the Bronze Age. Crete 

 and Egypt, neighbouring countries which early developed intercourse with 

 one another, advanced each other mutually to a pre-eminent position in 

 culture. But Cretan culture is not the parent of European culture ; rather is 

 it a brother, hypertrophied owing to a favourable geographical position. 



If this be so, other analogies should present themselves. We have not far 

 to go in our search for such analogies. If we leave the chamber of New 

 Grange, and come outside, we lind a great circle of standing stones surrounding 

 the mound. This might merely he a fence, delimiting the sacred ground 

 belonging to the sepulchre. But if such were its only purpose, a ring-mound of 

 earth would have been more practical — such a mound as was actually built 



1 The Contact of Peoples in Essays and Stiidie* Pivtenttd to Willian R 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C. [53] 



