Iron-working was of course familiar to the people of the Mediterranean and even to the continental Celts long before it was introduced into Britain;[966] but, it need scarcely be said, everywhere until the Middle Ages, the metal was not cast, but only wrought. Not far from Hallstatt, the only place in Europe where the gradual transition from the use of bronze to that of iron can be traced, were the iron mines of Noreia, which were certainly worked at a very early period, and from which, some archaeologists still insist, the use of iron spread to all European lands.[967] Since iron tools and weapons of the later Hallstatt type, ranging from about the beginning of the sixth to the end of the fifth century before the Christian era, are almost entirely wanting in Britain, the earliest products of our Iron Age can hardly be older than the later of these dates. Were they introduced by immigrants or in the ordinary course of trade? Among the round barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds are two, situated in the parish of Cowlam, each of which contained the skeleton of a woman. The appearance of these mounds was not different from that of many others, most of which belonged to the Bronze Age and a few perhaps to that of stone: the skeletons were interred in the contracted position which had been common for many centuries; and the pottery exactly resembled the domestic pottery which is associated with bronze. The practised explorer who opened the barrows confessed that but for the presence of a brooch and certain ornaments of the Iron Age he would unhesitatingly have assigned them to the older period; and he accordingly concluded that no new people had come in with iron.[968] But the conclusion is not warranted except perhaps for the particular district to which these graves belong. The use of iron might have spread by barter to Yorkshire after it had been introduced by new-comers into lands nearer Gaul; and the prevalent opinion is that it was introduced about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ by Gallic invaders who spoke a Brythonic dialect.[969]
[Sidenote: The Belgae preceded by other Brythons, who began to arrive about 400 B.C.]
Caesar knew nothing of any Gallic invaders of Britain except the Belgae, who, as he gathered, inhabited the maritime districts, evidently of the south-east and south: the people of the interior, according to his informants, were aborigines. This statement, however, made no distinction between the real aborigines and the round-headed immigrants who found them in possession. It is impossible to say certainly which of the tribes in Caesar’s time were Belgic, except the Belgae, the Catuvellauni, and the Atrebates, none of whom possessed territory north of the basin of the Thames;[970] but the names of tribes and of places mentioned by Ptolemy and other late writers show that the greater part of England and Wales and at least a considerable part of Southern Scotland were in the first century of the Roman occupation inhabited by Brythons; and it is morally certain that they did not arrive after Caesar’s departure. Evidently, therefore, the Belgae had been preceded by other Brythons. But when did the first Belgic invaders appear? Those who are not content to take on trust the widely different dates which have been assigned by archaeologists will find that it is impossible to achieve any definite result. Dr. Arthur Evans has at different times conjectured that the invasion began about two hundred,[971] about one hundred and fifty,[972] and about three hundred years before the birth of Christ.[973] It would appear, however, from the time that must have been required for the gradual evolution of the successive types of British coins which will be noticed hereafter, that the prototype was introduced not less than a century and a half, possibly two centuries, before the Christian era; but it is impossible to prove, though it is generally assumed, that money was coined by the first Belgic invaders. The date of the commencement of the earlier Brythonic invasion is equally uncertain. It is now provisionally fixed about 400 B.C.[974]