A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



burnt upon the site, then covered over by a pool or mere of earth, upon 

 which ' two or three hundred cartloads of earth ' had been piled. The vases, 

 with their punctured and incised chevron patterns, may have belonged to 

 the Bronze Age ; but some features of the burial are apparently very early. 



4. Classification of Localities 



Bleasdale, Broughton Hall, Broughton (Manchester), Clifton, Cliviger, 

 Darwen, Haulgh, Kenyon, Lancaster, Littleborough, Manchester (Red Bank), 

 Revidge (Blackburn), Stonyhurst, Walmsley, Warton, Wavertree, Weeton, 

 Winwick, Yealand. 



Over Sands : Aldingham,Allithwaite, Aynwine Lake, Rawcliffe, Birk- 

 rigg, Cartmel, Ireleth Mill, Knapperthaw, Roose, Scales, Stainton, Torver. 



IV. IRON IMPLEMENTS AND REMAINS OF THE LATE 



CELTIC PERIOD 



It is hardly possible to see evidence in surviving remains of an Iron Age 

 proper in Lancashire, intervening between the Bronze Age and the Roman 

 occupation. Our record of iron implements of Celtic fabric is small indeed ; 

 but to these must be added other implements or their attachments, recognized 

 by their art as belonging to the Later Celtic phase of culture. There is nothing 

 apparently which special criticism would date earlier than the first century 

 B.C. ; but in the paucity of evidence the origins of this new phase of civili- 

 zation remain obscure. The subject, however, is of special interest, and a 

 reasonable inference may be made from the condition of the county as 

 revealed when the first light of history dimly penetrates the darkness that 

 hitherto has enfolded early man in all respects, except the general characters 

 of his art in making weapons. If the account of Ptolemy is to be regarded 

 as evidence, it seems clear that there was at least one settled and organized 

 community in Lancashire at the time the observations were being made from 

 which his notes were derived. Its name, Rigodunum, which is also essen- 

 tially Celtic,' suggests the headquarters of a considerable community. There 

 is reason to believe it possible that the situation of this place was at or near 

 to Lancaster ; * and it was precisely in that vicinity that such evidence of 

 Late Celtic art as exists is mostly to be found. It must not be forgotten, 

 also, that the best bronze implements, already described, come from the same 

 region ; and that while they suggest at least an earlier Celtic settlement, there 

 is no reason to suppose they are the tokens of a purely bronze-using popu- 

 lation. Looking again at the map, and considering also the general principle 

 involved in the slow movement of culture waves and of people, it must be 

 conceded as probable that in our northern county, open as it is to the south, 

 while shut off to the north and west by its hills and the sea, the successive 

 ages merged completely, culturally and ethnologically. That, in a word, the 

 development of a full Iron Age, as technically defined, by no means eradi- 

 cated the blood and art even of the Neolithic Age, much less of the 

 first Celtic people of the Bronze Age, which was nearer and more akin. 



1 Rix rigos, a king ; Dunm, a town or fortress. — Prof. Rhys. 

 ' Lane, and Ches. Ant. Soc. vol. lii. ' On the Rigodunum of Ptolemy.' 



24.6 



