THE POTTERY OF THE BRONZE AGE. 223 



wheel does not seem to have been in use. Rings of earthen- 

 ware are common, and appear to have been used as supports 

 for the round-bottomed vases. The ornaments are of the same 

 general character as those on the objects of bronze. Many 

 of the large urns appear to have been used as store-places for 

 the grain, etc., which was collected during the summer for 

 winter's use. In the absence, perhaps, of boxes and cupboards, 

 even ornaments and instruments seem to have been kept in 

 large jars, Some beautiful bracelets were found with several 

 sickles in a jar at Cortaillod. Pieces of pottery, distorted by 

 fire, during the process of baking, have, according to M. Troyon, 

 been found in many of the Lake villages ; whence he concludes 

 that the pottery was manufactured on the spot. 



Colonel Schwab has found at Nidau more than twenty 

 crescents made of earthenware, with the convex side flattened, 

 to serve as a foot. They are compressed at the sides, some- 

 times plain, sometimes ornamented, from ten to twelve inches 

 wide, and six to eight in height. Dr. Keller was at first 

 inclined to regard them as emblems of moon worship, but it 

 is more probable that they were pillows.* Though this seems 

 at first very unlikely, and they must, one would think, have 

 been very uncomfortable, still we know that several barbarous 

 races at the present day use wooden pillows or neck-rests of 

 the same kind, as, for instance, the Fijians, who, having enor- 

 mous heads of hair, sacrifice comfort to vanity, and use a mere 

 wooden bar as a pillow. The very long bronze pins found 

 with these "crescents" indicate that during the Bronze Age 

 the hair was worn very long and was carefully arranged. 



M. Troyon is of opinion that the inhabitants of Switzerland 

 during the Bronze Age were of a different race from those 

 who had lived there during the earlier period, and he agrees 

 with some of the Scandinavian archaeologists in regarding them 

 as the true " Celts/' and in attributing to them the habit of 



* Vogt's Lectures on Man, p. 368. 



