It was at one time believed that they introduced into this country the knowledge of bronze, and graphic pictures were drawn of the way in which, with their superior weapons, they conquered the stone-using aborigines. Few, however, of their graves, either here or in Jutland, contain objects of metal, and those which have been met with seem to conform more to south-western than to Central European types.[259] It must not, however, be assumed too hastily that they were in complete ignorance of metal, though they did not possess implements of that material on their arrival; for, as we have seen, the Tripolje people, in their period A, had used copper axes, doubtless carried thither by Ægean traders, and the perforated axes, used in the Ukraine, as in Jutland and Britain, seem as though copied from metal originals. It would be more accurate to say that a tradition of the former use of metal may have lingered among them, as of an article once possessed but long since lost. /Chapter VII/ THE EVOLUTION OF THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORD We have seen that the Alpine people were the earliest inhabitants of the mountain zone, west of the Hungarian plain, and that they had arrived there at an early date, bringing with them from the east the custom of living in pile-dwellings and the germs of agriculture. Whether they were living also in Hungary seems uncertain, though it is possible that they dwelt in the ring of mountain land that surrounds the plain. Nordic folk had arrived in both areas by 3000 /B.C./, coming, it has been suggested, from the Russian steppes. It is also more than probable that fresh invaders from the steppes arrived about 2200 /B.C./, especially in the Hungarian plain. Thus, though the population of the whole of the area, which we have termed the Celtic cradle, was to some extent alike, there were considerable differences, both in the proportion of racial elements and in the methods of life, between the people of the mountain zone and the inhabitants of the plain. Though members of both the Alpine and Nordic races inhabited the mountain zone, and are found living together in the same villages, they appear not to have intermarried, at any rate to any considerable extent, for at a much later date we find skulls both of the long-headed and the broad-headed types, but few if any which show evidence of mixed ancestry.[260] The evidence obtained from the cemetery at Hallstatt, which dates from 1000 years or more later, seems to point to the same conclusion.[261]