OP THE LAKE OP NEUCHATEL. 



397 



continued to exist under the Eoman domination.* One miglit be tempted, in 

 view of the quantity of large tiles found among the piles of the Tene, to suppose 

 that they covered the structures of that station, although a roof of tiles does not 

 very well comport with huts of wood built upon simple piles. 



M. Troyon does not hesitate to assign to the first age of iron certain very 

 curious potteries, which form part of the collection of Col. Schwab. These are 

 fragments of large dishes ornamented on the inside with red and black paintings 

 representing sometimes concentric bands, sometimes triangles or squares, and 

 reminding us of pottery of the same kind found with various objects of iron in 

 the tumuli of eastern Switzerland. It should not be lost sight of, however, 

 that the station of Nidau, whence these objects proceed, constitutes a repository 

 of several epochs, among which that of iron of the Gallic period is perhaps least 

 competently represented, since the large swords and most of the objects which 

 elsewhere accompany the latter are there wanting, while, on the other hand, this 

 painted pottery is at present a stranger to the palafitte of the Tene and to other 

 repositories of authentic Gallic origin. From these considerations we cannot 

 regard them as characteristic of the age with which we are at present occupied. 



Skeletons of aniipals are less abundant than in the stations of the preceding 

 ages ; yet they are not absent. The bones of the horse particularly are numer- 

 ous. Neither are other domestic animals wanting, but they have not yet been 

 made the subject of special study, any more than the remains of the wild animals 

 which accompany them. 



It is but recently that we have been successful in procuring the first human 

 relics of this epoch. They are the bones of the trunk, of the members, and, 

 what is more important, a skull almost complete, which we propose to describe 

 elsewhere in detail, and of which we shaU give here but a sketch, (Fig. 91.) 



Faa:Tire 91a. 



Figure 916. 



We content ourselves, then, with saying that in size it is quite large, but of a 

 conformation far from advantageous, very long, extremely flattened on top, with 

 an enormous occipital development, while the forehead is so low as to appear 

 almost absent. In this respect it is not superior to the skulls of the two previous 

 ages, if it be not even inferior to them. No skull is to be found in the work of 

 Messrs. Rutimeyer and His so unfavorably formed. It pertains, however, to the 

 group of Helvetian skulls, and is of the so-called type of Sion, to which it most 

 neai'ly approximates. 



* An analogous consequence may be drawn from the discovery, recently made by M. 

 Eabut,_ of a vase bearing a Roman inscription, in the midst of the station of Chatillon, at the 

 lake of Bourget. (See Kabut, Habitations lacustres de la Savoie, page JJl.) 



