352 ARCHEOLOGY. 



remnants of their fare pine and beech nuts, walnuts and seeds of the 

 raspberry; but at the same time they reared herds of beeves, sheep, 

 goats, swine, and were accustomed to employ the dog as a substitute 

 in the care of their domestic animals. They manufactured a kind of 

 cheese in vessels pierced with holes, cultivated the apple, pear, and 

 plum tree, and stored away their fruit for the winter. They sowed 

 barley and different sorts of grain of excellent quality. Among the 

 ruins of a lacustrian village, on the lake of Constance, M. Lohle has 

 discovered an ancient storehouse, containing about a hundred meas- 

 ures of barley and wheat, both shelled and in the ear. He found 

 likewise a portion of real bread, which had been preserved by its 

 carbonization, and consisted of crushed grains, to which the bran still 

 adhered. Thus, with the exception of poultry and eggs, the food of 

 the primitive inhabitants of Helvetia in all respects resembled our 

 own. 



The possession of the cereals, those humble plants which constitute 

 the most important acquisition of the human race, would, of itself, 

 suffice to prove that the nameless tribes of the age of stone might 

 lay claim to a long period of past progress. The attentive ex- 

 ploration of lacustrian villages has shown that their inhabitants also 

 practiced on a large scale what we call the division of labor. Cer- 

 tain localities, in fact, such as Moosseedorf, Obermeilen, and Concise, 

 present so great a profusion of implements, some finished and others 

 simply rough-hewn, that we cannot help recognizing those settle- 

 ments as real places of manufacture. They were the industrial cities 

 of that era, and each of them exercised a peculiar specialty, which 

 implied a considerable system of exchanges between the different 

 centres of production. There must have existed also no unimportant 

 commerce with distant countries, for there have been found on the 

 lacustrian sites a great number of substances foreign to Switzerland. 

 The rocks of the neighboring mountains, the horns of deer and bones 

 of wild animals might have served, it is true, for the fabrication of 

 almost all the implements; but the projectile arms, made of silex, 

 could have come only from Gaul or Germany. By exchange from 

 one hand to another, the lacustrians received coral from the tribes of 

 the Mediterranean, purchased yellow amber from the dwellers on the 

 Baltic, and imported the valuable nephrite from the countries of the 

 east. Those among the learned who believe in the Asiatic origin of 

 all nations may assume that the lacustrians had themselves brought 

 from Asia a considerable quantity of nephrites; but how could they 

 have obtained the silex, amber, and coral, unless by commerce ? 

 People who pursue the chase do not fear expeditions which shall last 

 for weeks and months. Thus it was that before the arrival of Euro- 

 peans the Indians of the great lakes were in constant communication 

 with those of the lower Mississippi. Whether with a view to traffic 

 or to form alliances against enemies nearer at hand, they fearlessly 

 undertook journeys of prodigious extent across the savannahs, the 

 forests, and the great rivers. 



If their agricultural knowledge, their industry, and their extended 

 commerce were of a nature to raise in the scale of races these primi- 



