Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/407

] excepting 3 a, and 4 a and c of the fourth column, are characteristic of the Bronze age in Britain. The pottery- is very generally ornamented with a pattern rudely impressed with a cord or twisted thong, or with the point of a stick.

The new and higher civilisation introduced into Britain by the Celtic invaders gradually found its way into every part of the country, and the Neolithic manners and customs, such as the habit of burying the dead in caves or in large chambered tombs, became obsolete; the practice of inhumation, formerly invariable, was to a large extent supplanted by that of cremation, although both were carried on in the Bronze age simultaneously, as in Greece and ancient Italy. Before this new civilisation can be satisfactorily analysed, it will be necessary to examine the condition of France, Germany, and Scandinavia during the Bronze age, and to see how it is related to that of the Mediterranean peoples.

The numerous discoveries made in France and Switzerland during the last thirty years, recently collected together by M. Chantre, prove that the divisions of the Bronze age, north of the Alps and west of the Rhine, are similar to those which we have noted in Britain. They are as follow:—