Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/416

388 rudimentary form of brooch, or that of "the safety-pin." Five similar brooches have been discovered in lake- dwellings of the bronze age in Switzerland, and are to be seen in the museums of Berne, Zurich, and Bienne. Some of the clasps are highly ornamented, and present a pattern in waved lines and dots, which was widely spread throughout the Continent in the Bronze age. Simple torques with turned-up ends, and either twisted or adorned with chevrons, pins, various pendants, chains, and rings, complete the list of the more important ornaments.

All the articles described in the preceding pages, from the hoards both of the merchant and the bronze-smith, occur in the lake-dwellings of France and Switzerland, assigned by M. Desor to "La Belle Age du Bronze en Suisse," and referred by M. Chantre to the Rhodanian age. They are found also in those considered by M. Chantre to belong to the transition of the age of Bronze to the age of Iron. Bronze swords occur at Moeringen, with hilts inlaid with iron, side by side with bronze-hilted iron swords, and bronze bracelets inlaid with iron. This association of iron with bronze is particularly important, occurring as it does here in the middle of the characteristic ornaments and weapons of the late Bronze age. Other articles before unknown in France or Switzerland also appear along with the new metal; such, for example, as the peculiar brooch made of twisted wire, of the "safety pin" kind, so abundant in the Etruskan tombs of Bologna, and horses' bits also of Etruskan design.