Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/168

160 Italy and the Balkan peninsula to the British Isles; so that archæologists, who wish to study the development of the Iron Age anywhere within these limits, have to drink from the same fountain-head. I propose, therefore, to give a short description of a few of the most characteristic remains discovered on these two remarkable stations, noticing at the same time some of the analogous remains found elsewhere by way of defining their respective areas of distribution.

The Hallstatt Civilization.—The ancient necropolis known as Hallstatt lies in a narrow glen in the Noric Alps, about an hour's walk from the town of Hallstatt. Discovered in 1846, and systematically explored for several years under the superintendence of Bergmeister G. Ramsauer, the results were published by Baron von Sacken in 1868, in a quarto volume with twenty-six plates of illustrations.

One of the peculiarities of this cemetery was that it contained burials by inhumation and incineration indiscriminately dispersed over its entire area, both belonging to the same period, as was clearly proved from the perfect similarity of their respective grave-goods. The graves were thickly placed over an irregular area, some 200 yards in length and about half that in breadth, but there were no indications above ground to mark their position.

Baron von Sacken thus describes and classifies the grave-goods: