188 CONSTRUCTION OF THE PLATFORMS. 



case, it would seem safer to suppose that in each period some 

 of the villages had perished or been forsaken before others 

 were built. 



We might feel surprised that a people so uncivilized should 

 have constructed their houses with immense labour on the 

 water, when it would have been so much more easy to have 

 built them on dry land. But we have already seen how, even 

 in historical times, such dwellings have served as simple and 

 yet valuable fortifications. Still, though it is evident that the 

 security thus given would amply compensate for much extra 

 labour, it remains difficult to understand in what manner the 

 piles were driven into the ground. 



In many cases, indeed, settlements of the Stone Age are 

 characterized by what are called " Steinbergs," that is to say, 

 artificial heaps of stones, etc., evidently brought by the natives 

 to serve as a support to the piles. A boat laden with stones, 

 apparently for this purpose, was some years ago discovered in 

 in the Lake of jSTeufchatel. In fact, they found it easier to 

 raise the bottom round the piles than to drive the piles into 

 the bottom. On the other hand, some of these constructions, 

 as, for instance, those at Inkwyl and Wauwyl, described 

 respectively by M. Morlot and Col. Suter, more closely re- 

 semble the Irish Crannoge. We see, therefore, that, as Dr. 

 Keller says, the Lake-dwellers followed two different systems 

 in the construction of their dwellings, which he distinguishes 

 as " Pfahlbauten," or Pile -buildings, and " Packwerkbauten," 

 or Crannoges : in the first of which the platforms were simply 

 supported on piles ; in the second of which the support con- 

 sisted not of piles only, but of a solid mass of mud, stones, 

 etc., with layers of horizontal and perpendicular stakes, the 

 latter serving less as a support than to bind the mass firmly 

 together. It is evident that the " Packwerkbau" is a much 

 simpler and ruder affair than the " Pfuhlbau," in which no 

 small skill must have been required to connect the perpendi- 



