362 



PALAFITTES, OR LACUSTRIAN CONSTRUCTIONS 



gray or black, never red, and always intermixed witli small siliceous pebbles, 

 doubtless to guard against the defects of unequal and imperfect baking. 



In default of siles they also employed limestone, and sometimes fragments 

 of shell, or even charcoal. The large vases are protuberant, the small ones 

 cylindrical, more or less contracted or rounded towards the base, but without 

 being conical like those of the age of bronze ; hence the earthen supports or 

 rings, which, in that period, were used to keep the vessels upright, do not as yet 

 occur in this. It is not unusual to distinguish marks of the fingers, especially 

 at the base, (Fig. 19Z».) Others are furnished with a sort of handle or rude 

 projection intended to facilitate the handling or carriage, (Fig. 19«;) this lat- 



i 



■^ '■,''d 



< 



I ]'j:\ut; rJii. i limine i'JIi. 



ter is rarer. In the specimen given the impression of the fingers of the potter 

 may be recognized. With regard to the black color, it was obtained perhaps 

 by .'rmoking, or, as is more probable, by introducing grease into the paste, as is 

 done, we are told, by the potters of Peru. 



The prints of the fingers are very small, which would 

 seem to indicate a race of diminutive size, unless we are 

 to suppose them to have been made by women, and we 

 know that among certain tribes, (the Kabyles, for instance) 

 '^■. it is the women who manufacture the pottery. From 

 .' ime to time vessels are met with composed of a paste 



\!! S3 coarse and exhibiting rudiments of ornamentation, 

 (Fig. 20.)^ 

 ^ , "i ~, _ .-x There is sufficient reason for supposing that these jars 



served, like those of the age of bronze, for the preserva- 

 tion of food. Along with those earthen vessels occur 

 others, not less interesting and more characteristic, con- 

 structed out of the horns of the stag. They hollowed the horn at the place of 

 its insertion, where it becomes enlarged, and formed of it small and not ungrace- 

 ful vessels, usually pierced with a hole on one side ; of these, several specimens, 

 derived from the lakes of Neuchatel and Moossedorf, are known to us ; we se- 

 lect for representation that from the collection of Dr. Clement, (Fig. 20a.) 



This savant has discovered at Concise an- 

 ''I other small vase, made from a piece of stag's 

 horn, but of different form, and thus far 

 unique in its kind. It is cylindrical, with 

 two small handles, doubtless intended for 

 the passage of a strap for suspension. 



A certain number of utensils are scattered 

 Figure 20a Q^ ^|jg surface of the tenevieres, such as 



hatchets, lances, hammers, sometimes also fragments of coarse pottery, which 



