4T)0 PALAFITTES, OR LA.CUSTEIAN CONSTEUCTIONS 



tliis long period may be brouglit into some connexion with our "historical epocli 

 We know scarcely more than that with us, as in the north of Europe, the age 

 of stone preceded the age of bronze, as this preceded the age of iron.* 



AGE OF THE PALAFITTES OP STONE. 



The teneviere or palafittes of the age of stone, from the very fact that they 

 are the most ancient, are least susceptible of a chronological determination. As 

 in geology, there can be no question liere except of a relative chronology. If it 

 is beyond doubt that the palafittes of the age of stone are anterior to those of the 

 age of bronze, it is not less certain, on the other hand, that they are posterior to 

 the first traces of man as revealed to us by modern geological researches, more 

 especially : a, at the epoch of the hatchets of Moulin-Quignon and of Abbeville, 

 when man was a cotempbrary of the mammoth ; h, at the epoch of the osseous 

 breccias of the Pyrenees, when MM. Lartet and Christy show us man associated 

 with the reindeer and carving on its horns the image of some domestic animals 

 which he possessed, including the reindeer itself ;t c, in the kokkenmo dings of 

 Denmark, which contain no trace of cereals or cultivated fruits, and in which we 

 fiud, as regards domestic animals, only the dog ; d, in the turf-pits of Iceland 

 and of the mouth of the Somme, which contain the great-horned elk, {cervios 

 megaloceras.) All these epochs, if it be that they are distinct, possessed only 

 tlie hatchet rudely cut by blows, while that of our tenevieres is always ground 

 and smooth. 



If more precise data respecting the epoch of the tenevieres are ever obtained, 

 it will be through the study of deposits, rather than from written documents. 

 As an essay towards this geological chronology, we already possess some con- 

 tributions. M. Morlot| has taken advantage of a section made in constructing 

 tlie railroad across the cone of dejection of the Tinniere, near Villeneuve, to study 

 the structure of the cone. He has recognized, we are assm-ed, the traces of 

 three epochs distinctly superposed — the lloman epoch, the epoch of bronze, and 

 the epoch of stone, each represented by an ancient stratum. By comparing the 

 depths of these different beds, he has been led to assign to the age of bronze an 

 antiquity of from 29 to 42 centuries, and to the age of stone, one of from 47 to 

 70 centuries. M. Gillierou^ likewise, from a study of the lake of Bienne, has 

 ai-rived, as has been already seen, at a result nearly analogous, since he has car- 

 ried back the station of stone of the bridge of Thielle to at least 67^ centuries. 



* Some authors, relying on the fact that at Alise the arms of the three eras are found asso- 

 ciated in the same foss, arrows of stone with those of bronze and iron, have thought themselves 

 justified in calling into question the succession of ages above mentioned. But it must not bo 

 forgotten that Alise was the theatre of a conflict in which were engaged troops drawn from 

 every part of Gaul, a portion of whom might well be greatly in arrear as regards their arma- 

 ment. Thus, in 18J5, our fathers saw in the Kussian army, Cossacks armed with the bow 

 and arrows, beside troops better equipped. From the fact that there have been improvements 

 in successive ages we cannot conclude that these impi-ovements have been everywhere simul- 

 taneous in the ancient \vorld. Hence we should not be surprised if it were shown that the 

 lacustrian populations of Italy had already reached the age of bronze, when those of our lakes 

 were still at the age of stone, just as it is probable that iron was known in Etruria earlier 

 than in Helvetia. According to William of Poitiers, arms of stone were in use even in the 

 eleventh century, at the battle of Hastings. {Jiictant Angli cuspides et diver sor urn gencriim 

 tela, swvissimds qiioque secures et lignis iiirpnsita saxa.) 



t According to the latest researches of M. Lartet, the mammoth is also found there. 



i Etudes gcologico-arclitoloaiques. Builctin de la Soc. Vaudoise. Tom. VI, p. 325. 



^ Notice sUr les habitations lacustres du pont de Thielle. Actes de la Soc. jurassiennc d^emu- 

 lation, isGO. M. Troyon, on the other hand, has arrived at a much lower number in esti- 

 mating the age of the pile-works of Uttins, near Yverdon, namely, at fifteen centuries only 

 before our era. But, according to a recent memoir of M. Jayet, this calculation is inadmissi- 

 ble, because the establishment of Uttins must have existed in a lagoon. 



