ARCHEOLOGY. 359 



tribes had already received swords of iron, with other products of 

 industry, from the Phocajans or the Cimbri. Yet tlie use of arms of 

 bronze was still general when the aboriginal races, attacked by a 

 people with superior arms, sunk in an unequal strife. The invaders 

 are known; they could be no other than the Helvetians of Gaul or 

 of southern Germany. All the testimonies collected by archjBologists 

 agree in identifying their Gallic origin; the Celtic denomination of 

 their villages; the form of their arms, identical with those worn by 

 the Gauls of Brennus during the occupation of Rome; the crescents 

 which they bore as amulets; the practice, in a word, of burning their 

 dead. 



The Helvetians were certainly superior to the primitive people in 

 the material part of civilization. The lacustrian deposits of the two 

 first ages offer notliing comparable to the thousands of objects which 

 have been discovered at Tiefenau, near Berne, in the soil of a field 

 of battle of the Helvetian period. Not only did they possess iron 

 and forge swords, which might even now be considered master pieces 

 of art; they also produced glass and enamel, fabricated ornaments of 

 great richness, and, if we believe the testimony of Latin authors, 

 were acquainted with the art of writing. Unfortunately this people, 

 so remarkable for their industry, professed a barbarous religion. 

 There are still to be seen, in different parts of Switzerland, the 

 remains of their sacrifices of human victims. Not far from Lausanne, 

 in the forest of Bois-Genou, rises a tumulus which covered four 

 earthen vases filled with human ashes. A cavity formed above the 

 urns contained the charcoal and cinders of the funeral pile, as well as 

 the calcined remains of animals, among which were recognized the 

 dog, the ox, and the horse. Still higher there was spread "an un- 

 even bed of large, rough stones, on which lay, without order, four 

 human skeletons, whose irregular position showed that the bodies 

 had been thrown with violence on this rude couch. Bracelets, rem- 

 nants of small chains, brooches, and various ornaments indicated the 

 attire of females, whose youth was evidenced by the incomplete 

 development of the wisdom teeth, still hidden within the alveolus. 

 The limbs of these unhappy victims had been broken by the stones 

 which covered them and which had been cast with such violence that 

 a portion of the ornaments had been shattered by the shock. At a 

 distance of two hundred joaces from the tumulus still exists an altar 

 on which, without doubt, the immolation of the wives of the deceased 

 had taken place." Again, at the further distance of two kilometers 

 there was found, under the shade of oaks another tumulus of the 

 Helvetian era, containing twelve skeletons of young persons crushed 

 by blows of the club. 



We know that after a sojourn of some centuries in the valleys of 

 the Alps and of the Jura, the Helvetians, always restless and desirous 

 of change, left their mountain country to go to establish themselves 

 in the plains of Gaul. It was then that, for the first time, they enter 

 upon the theatre of history, properly so called, thanks to Ceasar, 

 from whom they sustained, at Bibracte, a bloody defeat. The archas- 

 ological discoveries made in various parts of Switzerland enable us 



