Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/515

] tin, but in gold, silver, iron, corn, and cattle, peltry, slaves, and hunting-dogs; the imports being, according to Diodorus Siculus, ivory bracelets, necklaces, amber, bronze wares, glass vessels, and "such like mean merchandise" from Gaul. This trade was sufficiently important to be taxed by Cæsar. British pearls also were known in Rome, and a breastplate inlaid with them, presented by Cæsar to Venus Genetrix, was preserved in Rome in her temple. Coracles, and boats made of osiers covered with hides, were employed in navigation, as well as wooden boats and ships; and in these the hardy natives of the west were in the habit of crossing over into Ireland. The tribes inhabiting Ireland were, as might be expected from their remoteness from the Continent, more rude and barbarous than those of Britain, although they belonged to the same races. Their ignorance of coins marks their lower position in the social scale.

Three, if not more, distinct peoples were in the British Isles at the time of the Roman conquest—(1) the small dark Iberians in the west, the remnants of the Neolithic aborigines; (2) their Celtic conquerors, who introduced a new civilisation from the Continent in the Bronze age, occupying by far the larger portion of the island; and (3) the Caledonians in the north, large-limbed, and with red hair, considered by Tacitus to be of Germanic origin. The last are identified by Dr. Beddoe with the tall red-haired population in the east in Athole and Mar. They probably arrived in Scotland