...]
It is particularly important to observe, says M. Worsaae, that all
the antiquities which have hitherto been found in the large burying
places of the Iron period, in Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, France,
England, and the North, exhibit traces more or less of Roman
influence.
[footnote...
Primeval Antiquities of Denmark. London, 1849, p. 140.
...]
The Romans themselves used weapons of bronze when they could not
obtain iron in sufficient quantity, and many of the Roman weapons dug
out of the ancient tumuli are of that metal. They possessed the art
of tempering and hardening bronze to such a degree as to enable them
to manufacture swords with it of a pretty good edge; and in those
countries which they penetrated, their bronze implements gradually
supplanted those which had been previously fashioned of stone. Great
quantities of bronze tools have been found in different parts of
England,--sometimes in heaps, as if they had been thrown away in
basketfuls as things of little value. It has been conjectured that
when the Romans came into Britain they found the inhabitants,
especially those to the northward, in very nearly the same state as
Captain Cook and other voyagers found the inhabitants of the South
Sea Islands; that the Britons parted with their food and valuables
for tools of inferior metal made in imitation of their stone ones;
but finding themselves cheated by the Romans, as the natives of
Otaheite have been cheated by Europeans, the Britons relinquished the
bad tools when they became acquainted with articles made of better
metal.*
[footnote...
See Dr. Pearson's paper in the Philosophical Transactions, 1796,