324 GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHEOLOGY. 



Reason for the lacustrine habitations. — The question is often pro- 

 pounded, what motive sufficiently powerful could impel the ancient 

 people of Switzerland thus to station themselves on the water at great 

 expense of trouble and labor. 



Without pretending to decide this most embarrassing question, it will 

 perhaps not be uninteresting to allude to the following circumstances. 



The Eomans must have introduced north of the Alps the art of 

 masonry with stone and mortar, and that of burning bricks and tiles, 

 for we find nothing like it in Switzerland connected with previous 

 times. Before the invasion of the Eoman element (fifty-eight before 

 Christ) there would therefore have been no constructions except of 

 earth and wood, such as in fact Ca?sar found among the Gauls, whose 

 civilization was the same as that of the Helvetians. But such con- 

 structions are always liable to be overthrown or fired. Now, a lacus- 

 trine habitation, as soon as the narrow bridge which connected it with 

 the main land was intercepted, was no fonger accessible except by. 

 boats, whose approach it was easy to prevent by means of stockades or 

 rows of piles level with the water. This must have transformed these 

 establishments into citadels almost impregnable, and much more safe 

 than any construction of the times on the main land. When the 

 water froze in winter, a space of broken ice could easily be kept open 

 all round. This would prevent the crossing of wild animals, most 

 dangerous during the winter season, whilst among savage tribes, as 

 well as among civilized nations, hostilities are carried on by preference 

 during summer. 



We can conceive, therefore, how great was the importance with 

 which these lacustrine, habitations must have been invested in high 

 antiquity. 



Keversing the question, we shall be led to see in the abundance in 

 Switzerland of lacustrine habitations of the age of stone and of the age 

 of bronze an indication that during those times the population of the 

 country was divided into a multitude of independent tribes, often at 

 war among themselves. With the age of iron a social organization 

 of a much superior character and a certain centralization 1 seem to have 

 caused in Helvetia the cessation of the petty internal wars and the sub- 

 stitution of great enterprises against a common enemy. 2 Thencefor- 

 ward the lacustrine habitations lost a great deal of their importance; 

 and thus we see them becoming very scarce at this epoch. If analogous 

 establishments were maintained to a later time in Ireland, it is because 

 intestine wars afflicted the country longer., and perhaps more generally 

 than in any other part of Europe, 



Age of Stone. — Let us see what the localities of the lacustrine habi- 

 tations of this age, in Switzerland, have produced. 



The pile- work of Moosseeclorf has furnished an abundance of broken 

 bones of animals. We find that here, as in the north, man has split 



• , 



1 A Roman inscription, preserved in the Maison do Ville of Lausanne, speaks of an Hel- 

 vetian parliament, (conventus helvetiorum.) 



2 Witness the remarkable expedition of the Helvetians, which met with such a sad over- 

 throw at the battle of Bibracte before the irresistible genius of Cfesar, in the year fifty-eight 

 before the Christian era. 



