From an archæological point of view the Celtic civilisation which existed in Central Europe, certainly as far back as 400 B.C., and very probably three or four centuries earlier, was that of the Iron Age. The Continental antiquaries divide the Iron Age in this part of Europe into two periods marked by differences in culture. The culture of the Early Iron Age is prehistoric, and is called that of “Hallstatt,” after the great Alpine cemetery near Salzburg in Austria. The culture of the Later Iron Age comes after the time when the Celts first make their appearance in history, and is known to Swiss and German archæologists as that of “La Tène,” from the Gaulish Oppidum at the north end of the Lake of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The La Tène culture in the form it occurs in France is called “Marnian,” and corresponds with the “Late-Celtic” culture of Great Britain. Hallstatt, from which the Celtic civilisation of the earlier Iron Age takes its name, is situated thirty miles S.E. of Salzburg in Austria, amongst the mountains forming the southern boundary of the valley of the Danube. It was a place of great commercial importance in ancient times, in consequence of the salt mines in the neighbourhood, and because it lay on the great trade route by which amber was brought from the mouth of the Elbe to Hatria, at the head of the Adriatic.[29] [29] C. Elton’s _Origins of English History_, pp. 46 and 62, and Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins’ _Early Man in Britain_, pp. 417, 466, and 473. The pre-Roman necropolis of Hallstatt was discovered in 1846, and excavations have been going on there at intervals ever since. In 1864 M. de Sacken, curator of the collection of antiquities in the Vienna Museum, published a monograph on the subject, which still remains the best book of reference. M. de Sacken did not superintend the excavations personally, that task having fallen to the lot of George Ramsauer. Copies in MS. of Ramsauer’s notes on the contents of the tombs, and sketches of the antiquities discovered in them exist in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and in the national museums at Saint-Germain and at Vienna. The Hallstatt finds show very clearly the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age in Central Europe. M. Salomon Reinach thus summarises, in his _Les Celtes dans les Vallées du Pô et du Danube_ (p. 129), the conclusions arrived at by M. de Sacken:— (1) Two distinct races have been buried at Hallstatt; one of which cremated the bodies and the other which practised inhumation; the former showing themselves to have been much richer than the latter.