A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE not confine ourselves to the limits of a single county like our own. We cannot expect to find within the borders of Northamptonshire, which was a thinly inhabited district during the Neolithic and the Bronze ages, a full epitome of the life of the Bronze man. We must seek the aid of what Britain in general has yielded, the results of which are so ably set out in the works of Sir John Evans,' Canon Greenwell,' Professor Boyd Dawkins,' and others. Prehistoric Iron Age In Europe the Prehistoric Iron age contains two well defined stages of development, viz. an earlier period which has been termed the 'Hallstadt period,' from the discoveries made at Hallstadt near Salzburg, in Austria. At this place a large cemetery containing nearly i,ooo graves was opened, the contents of which show that both bronze and iron for weapons and implements were in use at the same time ; and a later stage called the ' La Tene period,' from the finds of the numerous remains at La Tene near Marin, in Switzerland. In this stage nearly all the weapons and implements are made of iron, the only bronze articles being chiefly for ornamental purposes. About fifty iron swords were found at Marin ; some of these had sheaths (also made of iron) ornamented. These swords are analogous in form to the iron swords found on the site of the ancient Alesia, where a battle was fought in B.C. 52 between the Romans under Julius Cssar and the Gauls. It has been concluded that when the iron weapons found at Marin were made the use of iron had been thoroughly established. Over a large part of western and northern Europe the Christian era was preceded by these two successive stages of culture. In Britain the introduction of iron was not a sudden innovation, but came as a transition in which it gradually supplanted bronze as the material for the manufacture of weapons and implements. Iron was probably first brought to Britain by the earlier Belgic immigrants, or obtained by them by intercourse with the Belgic Gauls. In treating of the remains of Prehistoric man from Northampton- shire belonging to the two preceding periods, we have seen that they occur in isolated instances. No remains of their dwellings or refuges have been found in our county ; nothing to show their domestic life, for our knowledge of which we have to study their remains from other parts of Britain and Europe. In the period with which we are about to deal we meet with a different state of affairs ; the conditions are reversed, isolated specimens are rare (with the exception of some coins), and we have instead a large collection from one particular site. • The Ancient Bronze Implements, fVeapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland, by John Evans, D.C.L. etc. (1881).
- British Barrovis: A Record of the Examination of Sepulchral Mounds in vanous ports of England, by
William Greenwell, F.S.A. (1877). » Early Man in Britain, by W. Boyd Dawkins, F.S.A. etc. (1880). 144
