268 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
SESS. 
its art and industrial products in these countries under the 
designation of La Tene civilisation — a name derived from the 
shallow outlet of Lake Neuchatel, where stood the Helvetian 
oppidum which yielded its most characteristic relics. That both 
these culture streams had reached our shores is proved by the 
discovery in Britain and Ireland of a number of objects whose 
origin can be clearly traced to prototypes in Hallstatt and La 
Tene. But our insular artists, in the process of imitation, so 
handled their materials as to give their works a sufficiently 
distinctive character to differentiate them from their original 
models, and hence originated the style of art known as ‘ Late 
Celtic.’ When the Romans took possession of Britain in the 
first century a.d., this native art was in a highly flourishing 
condition, but its further development in the southern portion 
of the island was cut short by the introduction of the civilisation 
of the conquerors. How long it was in existence previous to 
this event it is difficult to say, but it is safe to assume that 
some of its foreign prototypes reached the British Isles some 
three or four centuries before the Christian era- — a period which, 
however, may be equated with the early Iron Age of Central 
Europe. The presence of both the spheroidal and conical caldrons 
in Britain and Ireland during the late Bronze Age shows that 
their importation into or development in these countries was 
altogether independent of Roman influence. I am unable to 
agree with the general opinion that all these caldrons are of 
native origin, although undoubtedly such vessels were made 
at home. We are told in the Tripartite Life of St Partick 
that the saint, when a boy in slavery in Ireland, was sold to 
some mariners at the mouth of the Boyne for two caldrons of 
bronze; also that Daire gave him an aeneum mirabilem trans- 
marinum, i.e. “a wonderful brazen caldron from over the sea” 
(Joice, Social History of Ireland , vol. ii. p. 124). At any rate 
the most artistic specimens — in which category that found in the 
Kincardine Moss must be reckoned — were not only prior to the 
Roman occupation, but probably earlier than the most flourishing 
period of Late Celtic art. 
In corroboration of these views it may be observed that among 
the antiquities found in Oypidum La Tene were about a dozen 
