Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/172

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164
PREHISTORIC BRITAIN

found in Hallstatt. The absence of these metals, as well as coins, has been used as an argument in support of the opinion that the cemetery was discontinued before these metals came into general use, i.e. about the beginning of the fourth century b.c. As the most probable date of the commencement of the cemetery is about the ninth century b.c., its duration would thus extend over a period of 500 years. The collection of Hallstatt relics as a whole is thus a mere jumbling together of an assortment of objects, not only influenced by a rapidly progressing civilization, but also by a continuous importation of new materials from Eastern civilizations by way of the Adriatic.

Sepulchral remains more or less analogous to the Hallstatt antiquities have been recorded in various parts throughout Central Europe, while sporadic finds have been discovered in Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia, Moravia, South Germany, Switzerland, the Rhine district, France and the British Isles.

La Tène Civilization.—The celebrated lacustrine station called La Tene is situated at the north end of Lake Neuchâtel, close to the present artificially formed outlet of its waters (the Upper Thielle). Here is to be seen a gravelly elevation, some 200 yards long by 50 wide, which, before the "Correction des Eaux du Jura," formed the bed of a shallow part of the lake, known among the fishermen as la tène (the shallows). As early as 1858, Col. Schwab discovered that these gravels con-