Harold Peake

“ GREEK LANDS AND THE BASIS OF CHRONOLOGY WE have seen in the last chapter that different types of leaf-shaped swords have been disseminated throughout various quarters of Europe, and we have found reason for believing that in Celtic lands at least their appearance signified a hostile invasion. If, as may well be the case, the same is true of other parts of Europe, we are dealing with a series of invasions, all starting from somewhere within the Celtic cradle, and affecting almost every part of the continent. ”

“ Though after the close of Azilian times the culture of Celtic lands changed more than once and in more respects than one, we have at present no reason for suspecting the introduction of fresh racial elements before the beginning of the Bronze Age. The origin of Campignian culture, which seems to have flourished over the northern part of Celtic lands, in one form or another, from about 5000 to 3500 B.C., is still a matter of dispute, but it is doubtful whether the solution of the problem is likely to introduce a fresh element into the population of the Celtic lands. ”

“ As we have seen in some earlier chapters, distribution of certain types of bronze implements may be taken as evidence of trade, and we have to consider whether it was some form of commerce which carried the leaf-shaped swords to Ireland, Finland, Podolia and Egypt, or whether this wide distribution betokens some other form of movement. Before the days of fairly large ships and highly organised industry it is not uncommon to find implements, whether of flint or obsidian, copper or bronze, carried from country to country, without apparently any general movement of the population. ”

“ The tyrant would have welcomed a man who could put down highwaymen or lead his mercenaries to battle. He would, perhaps, have made him chief of his police or generalissimo of the town forces, and, as the hero restored law and order and kept the populace quiet, he would have promised him much reward, including perhaps his daughter’s hand. All would have gone well until the tyrant, with the instinct of the Prospector to make a bargain and to get something for nothing, endeavoured, like Laomedon of Troy, to cheat his Nordic ally or to offer him a base substitute for promises made. ”

“ If we pass across England and Wales from east to west, and the same is almost as true if we cross Scotland, we find, first of all that the population is mainly tall and fair, while as we proceed we come across elements which are darker and shorter, until in Wales and the West Highlands we find the majority of the people are small brunettes of slender build. This dark type is also to be met with in Ireland, especially in the west, the part of that island in which the Erse language has best survived. ”

“ Their robustness and long-headedness, combined with their roaming instincts and devotion to the horse, which will become clearer as we proceed, have convinced me that we are here dealing with that tall, fair, long-headed type, now dominant in northern Europe, which we term the Nordic race. ”

“ The search for amber probably induced our traders to go to this distant region, for amber, like the precious metals, was much in request in Mediterranean lands, for again it was a substance from which beads could readily be made. It was probably these traders who carried with them the news of the Irish gold-fields, and in due course other traders, starting out from the Baltic, joined the gold rush. We have already seen that a gold crescent of Irish work has been found in Denmark, we can find, too, other evidence of this trade. ”

“ The complete absence of any evidence of a movement eastward from the Hungarian plain in neolithic days, and the fact that any such movement would have been compelled to cross the area occupied by the settled Tripolje-folk, seem to be fatal to the literal acceptance of this hypothesis. ”

“ It is also becoming more common to consider Greek as having closer affinities with Persian than with Italic or Celtic, though one wonders whether this connection is not being exaggerated as the pendulum swings from the over-estimated resemblance formerly recognised between the two languages of the Classical world. ”

“ Somewhat later, before 4000 B.C., fresh waves of broad-headed immigrants seem to have arrived in Central Europe from the Armenian highlands or the Anatolian plateau, bringing with them the knowledge of grain, cultivated fruits and domestic animals, and the custom of erecting pile-dwellings in marshes or lakes, and of grinding and polishing axes of flint or other hard stone. [67] Such knowledge seems to have reached even the west of Switzerland by 4000 B.C. and to have spread later throughout the massif central of France, which was already peopled by men of the Alpine type. ”

“ But let us glance for a moment at these trading cities and their inhabitants. The original people of the Greek mainland, like the bulk of the present population, seem to have been of that eastern Alpine or Dinaric type, scarcely distinguishable from the bulk of the population of Asia Minor. These are tall dark people, with small but broad heads, which are very high and somewhat conical at the top, though sometimes the excessively flattened occiput gives the impression that the head has been sliced from the top of the forehead to the back of the neck. ”

“ In Germany the fair colouring of the Nordic element seems to be a dominant character over the relatively dark pigmentation of the Alpine; so we meet with a majority of people having broad Alpine heads but fair Nordic colouration. In France, on the other hand, there is a large Mediterranean element, surviving from neolithic days, and the brunette colouring of this race is more dominant than the blondness of the Nordic. As all three types have mingled in France, fair hair is less frequently found among those with broad heads. ”

“ Type G, as we have seen, has been found at the famous cemetery at Hallstatt, in some of the older graves. This cemetery is believed to date, at the earliest, from 900 B.C., but iron was found in most of the graves, and the bronze swords were few in number, and from graves in which no iron was found. We may safely conclude that these swords belong to the very beginning of this period, and had been in use for some time previously.
It is always a difficult matter to determine how long a given type of implement or weapon remained in use. ”

“ He contended that the original undivided Wiros were not a small clan, but must have been a numerous, nomad pastoral people, inhabiting an extensive steppe region. For the evolution of the parent tongue with its elaborate grammar a long period, several thousands of years, must have been needed, and during this time the Wiros must have moved freely over the area of the cradle, having frequent intercourse with one another, but little or none with outsiders. These conditions, he thought, could only be obtained on a vast plain, undivided by lofty mountain barriers or impassable forests ”

“ We must now take up again the tale of the bronze-using Q-speaking Celts, the story of fresh Gaelic movements, but this time a story of flight rather than of invasion. This was not a question only of Gaelic lords, for the Alpine peasants, who doubtless spoke a Celtic dialect and called themselves Celts, were also involved in this ruin. They fled by divers routes to the north and the west. ”

“ It is not so easy to follow the group which passed north of the Carpathians, but they seem to have followed the line of sandy heaths across Galicia into Silesia, then some, probably, entered Hungary through the Moravian gate, while others pushed into Bohemia. These last found there people who were either refugees from the Tripolje area or folk closely allied to them. These people, who had been accustomed to a type of cord vase, had found in Bohemia bell-beakers, which had arrived there via Italy from Spain. From a combination of both types of ware they had evolved the northern beaker. ”

“ It is about this time that the Nordic steppe-folk of Hungary demanded larger and larger daggers, until at length the earliest leaf-shaped sword was evolved about 1500 B.C. During the following years a few adventurers passed into the Friuli and the Venetian lands, perhaps to trade, or perhaps to settle. Others, few in number, seem to have visited the amber coast of the Baltic, and one, at least, died there and was buried in Schleswig-Holstein. About 1450 B.C. Type B was evolved and spread over the mountain zone. It was carried by traders or invaders towards the Baltic, especially to Denmark. ”

“ The original supporters of the Aryan hypothesis fell so in love with the languages and with the people who originally developed them, that they grew to believe that these Wiros were superior creatures, with a superior tongue, which they had imposed upon an inferior world. ”

“ Wace’s arguments are all against the arrival of a fresh people at this time, for there is no introduction of new styles of pottery; on the other hand, there is nothing in his evidence antagonistic to the view that a few northern heroes, coming unaccompanied by men-at-arms, succeeded in making themselves masters of the cities of pre-Hellenic Greece. It is possible that in this case, as in many others, nineteenth century scholarship has been too clever and too critical, and that the legends as they have come down to us are nearer to the truth than the amendments which have been suggested. ”

“ Now, if we compare the copper and bronze axes found throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to Spain, and those found along the west of Europe from Spain to Brittany, we find a gradual change in form from the triangular axes of Cyprus to the western type, with semi-circular butt and widely splayed edge. The earliest types are found only in the east, the more developed only in the west, for in the east they followed a different line of development. ”

“ We have seen that the Tripolje people had departed from the Ukraine and Galicia, driven away by drought or by the invading steppe-folk. Traces of pottery, bearing some resemblances of that of the Tripolje culture, have been found in various places to the south, just those places where we find that our steppe-folk had settled. This suggests that the steppe-folk had conquered these people, and taken captive some of their women, [245] who in all primitive tribes are the potters. ”

“ But the art of polishing hard stone spread further than the people who were responsible for its introduction, and during the next few centuries this art had become well known throughout the Celtic lands of the west; the need for more efficient tools to fight the encroaching woodland must have encouraged this art. How far the elements of agriculture had travelled with the art of grinding axes seems uncertain, for few, if any, unquestionable neolithic dwelling sites of this time within this area have been found or thoroughly explored. ”

“ Those who went westward seem to have destroyed the Tripolje culture and driven off its people, unless, indeed, they had already been driven away by the drought. The bands of steppe-folk divided, some passing north of the Carpathians and some going south by the shores of the Euxine. This last group crossed the Danube, and skirting the Balkan mountains arrived at the east end of Thrace. Here they divided, one band passing to the west by the shores of the Ægean and then southwards to Thessaly, where they frightened the inhabitants, who termed them Centaurs. ”

“ Further, a certain type of man, whom we term the Prospector, is found living in no small numbers in most of these megalithic areas, as well as becoming a successful merchant at many of the sea-port towns of Europe. Lastly we have seen that this trade, then in the hands of Babylonians, had reached the Mediterranean by 2800 B.C., was in touch with Malta, Sicily and Spain between 2600 and 2300 B.C., and scarcely later had reached Brittany, Ireland and the Baltic. ”

“ No wonder, then, that bronze implements of the earliest type have been found almost more abundantly in that island than in any other part of Europe, while the number of gold objects found there is unsurpassed elsewhere. Doubtless the natives worked the gold fields sometimes on their own account, and they seem also to have tried to supply themselves with home-made metal axes. There are veins of copper ore in various parts of the island, which they seem to have discovered, but tin is to all intents and purposes absent. ”

“ But this drought, even could we be sure that it affected a small upland steppe like that of Hungary, occurred somewhat too early for our purpose. There is also the alternative theory that too heavy a rainfall in the mountain regions might have made life unpleasant. [385] But this would have left a more marked effect upon the mountain zone than on the plain. There may, indeed, have been an exodus, in fact, we shall find reason for believing that this was so, but it is unlikely that the rich Hungarian plain was left long uninhabited. ”

“ For the next fifty years the hypothesis grew at a great pace. The world was anxious for a scientific classification of its peoples, especially of the peoples of Europe. Men were also enquiring what had happened in this continent before early Greek legend and literature began to lift the veil. The sciences of anthropology and prehistoric archæology were in their infancy, and unable to provide answers to these questions, and the comparative [Pg 133] philologists, from the evidence of language alone, were prepared to give full and most detailed explanations. ”

“ In the Ægean and in Greek lands we find other types, which seem to be derived from swords of Asiatic origin, and which had an independent development in Mesopotamia or Egypt; some, too, may have been derived from the copper daggers of Cyprus.
But there is one type or group which stands apart from the others. In many examples the blade narrows rapidly near the butt, then expands slowly till it reaches its greatest breadth about two-thirds of the way down the blade; then it narrows more rapidly, then very quickly to the point. ”