Much of Ridgeway’s archæological evidence is Hallstatt in type and, apparently at least, Hallstatt in date, and may well equate better with the Dorian than the “Achæan” movement, but the legends are not to be lightly swept aside, and we have the swords, which are admittedly pre-geometric, and so pre-Dorian, and may well antedate also the Trojan War. There is also the introduction into southern Greece of a type of palace, which seems to have developed in a more northerly clime.[356] We have, therefore, evidence for some intrusive elements entering Greek lands from the Danube basin, bringing with them swords of Central European type, a new type of domestic architecture, and, we may well believe, certain deities and beliefs of more northern origin,[357] yet the continuity of the ceramic culture shows that there had been no general displacement of the population. Before attempting to decide between these conflicting views, it may be wise to consider the term “Achæan.” By this I mean only those people, who are the subject of Sir William Ridgeway’s hypothesis, and who organised the attack upon Priam’s Troy. They may, for all we know, be a people or merely a class, and their connection with the Achæans of the Peloponnese, discussed by Herodotus,[358] may be very remote. It seems clear, in fact, that the term as used by Herodotus connoted something very different from what the term meant to Homer, and what it signifies in the pages of Ridgeway. Now the presence of these leaf-shaped swords in pre-Dorian Greece seems to postulate the presence of intruders from the Danube basin; the paucity of their number, all the more striking when we consider the extent of the excavations carried out in Greek lands, seems to indicate that these intruders were few. These swords had been, as we have seen, invented by the Nordic steppe-folk in Central Europe, and may sometimes have been used by their Alpine subjects. But for a few strangers to intrude into a foreign land needs on their part considerable courage and the spirit of adventure, features which we have found characteristic of the Nordic steppe-folk, and conspicuously lacking among the Alpines. We may, therefore, take it for granted that these intruders, who introduced the leaf-shaped swords into Greek lands, were of Nordic type and temperament.