The migratory movements of the Celts on the Continent have a bearing which cannot be ignored on the time of the Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland. So far as I am aware, no modern investigator has suggested that the Celts were not already in the Iron Age at the time of their expansion into Italy and Spain. Why then should it be imagined, in the absence of any positive indication to the purpose, that they occupied these islands more than a thousand years earlier? If I am not mistaken, the archæological evidence is fairly decisive on the point. Archæologists are agreed in dividing the Celtic Iron Age into two main periods, the Early Celtic or Hallstatt period, and the Late Celtic or La Tène period, also called the Marnian period. Each of these periods is taken to consist roundly of about four centuries, and the two periods on the Continent together correspond roughly to the last eight or nine centuries before the Christian Era. The Late Celtic period is abundantly represented in the antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, but the objects that have been found in either country belonging to the Early Celtic Period are extremely rare. On this head Coffey writes as follows ("Bronze Age in Ireland," page 5): "It must be remembered that the Continental Hallstatt period is not at present well represented in Great Britain and Ireland, and though, under Hallstatt influence, certain Continental Iron-Age types such as bronze caldrons, trumpets, round shields, etc., found their way into Ireland, we cannot as yet definitely separate this period from the end of the Bronze Age." In fact, "sporadic finds" are all that represent the Early Celtic period in Ireland, in Britain, and even in the neighbouring regions of the Continent. It will not be questioned that during the Hallstatt period there was quite sufficient intercourse of trade between the islands and the Continent to explain these sporadic finds as importations. The main fact is that, so far as archæological research has ascertained, the Early Celtic period of the Iron Age is substantially absent from Ireland and Britain, whereas the Late Celtic period is abundantly represented. The Bronze Age in Ireland comes down to about 350 B.C., and its Continental affinities are not specially or notably Celtic. The Bronze Age is succeeded in both Britain and Ireland by the Late Celtic period of the Iron Age. The inference, to my mind, is obvious, that the Celts did not reach either Britain or Ireland until the Late Celtic period, _i.e._, until the fourth or fifth century B.C. This conclusion agrees well with all that is known of the migratory movements of the Celts on the Continent.