406 PALAFITTES, OR LACUSTEIAN CONSTEUCTIONS 



the Phcnicians, it would not be limited to the southern slope of the Alps ; it 

 would have extended also to the people of the age of bronze in Switzerland. 

 The introduction of bronze would thus ascend to a very high antiq^uity, doubt- 

 less beyond the limits of the most ancient European history. 



AGE OF THE PALAFITTES OF IRON. 



The uncertainty is not so great in regard to the epoch of iron, which appears 

 to have immediately succeeded the age of bronze. The arms and utensils col- 

 lected among the piles of Marin have no longer the same exceptional character. 

 Though still strange to positive history, they connect themselves, nevertheless, 

 more or less directly, with other events the date of which may be fixed at least 

 approximately. It is this which, with us, gives to thepalafitteof the Tenenear 

 Marin its preponderant importance. It is, in Switzerland, the bond of union 

 between the lacustrian ages and the commencement of history. In effect, the 

 utensils and arms of the Tene, for not being Roman, are not therefore altogether 

 strange to us. It is sufficient to compare them with those which are found near 

 Berne, at a locality which it has been agreed to designate by the name of the 

 *' battle-field of Tiefenau," because remains of every kind are there heaped pell- 

 mell as on the theatre of a conflict. Among these remains, which have been 

 described by M. Jahn* and sketched by M. de Bonstetten,t are found, in point 

 of arms, some hundred swords and large lance heads identical with those of the 

 Tene ; in point of utensils, rings, brooches, remains of coats of mail, fragments 

 of iron bracelets, debris of chariots, all much impaired by oxidation, but bearing 

 no less the same stamp with the objects of our lacustrian station. Coins are 

 also found there ; coins of silver and pinchbeck, which are not Eoman, but Gallic 

 and Marseillese. Consequently, if the station of the Tene is cotemporary, it 

 must ascend to the epoch when the Helvetians, who are only a branch of the 

 Gauls, (though coming from Germany,) inhabited Switzerland. 



ORIGIN AND FILIATION OF THE LACUSTRIAN RACES. 



The antiquity of the lascustrian races can scarcely be considered without 

 bringing into view the question of their origin and filiation. "Whence came these 

 populations which had so great a predilection for the water, and to what stock 

 do they pertain 1 . However striking this propensity to establish themselves on 

 the water rather than on terra jinna, we still should not exaggerate its import- 

 ance so far as to conclude from this that all those who constructed palafittes 

 were necessarily of the same race. Here again there are grounds for a distinc- 

 tion between epochs. It has already been seen that, to all appearance, the pop- 

 ulations of the age of iron pertain to the great Gallic stock, that they are the 

 same Helvetians who, under Divicon, beat the Romans, and who, still later, 

 emigrated under Orgetorix. They were not Autocthones, for ancient authors 

 apprise us that they proceeded from the banks of the Rhine. On the other 

 hand, the relics of their civilization, such as they occur in the palafittes of the 

 Tene, bear in too distinct a manner the Gallic impress not to tempt us at once 

 to identify them with the similar objects which are furnished by the tombs and 

 battle-fields of Gaul. But what relation do these Gal}ic constructors or inhab- 

 itants of the palafittes of the T^ne bear to the populations of the palafittes of 

 bronze ? 



"When, in a collection, somewhat complete, of lacustrian antiquities, we con- 

 sider on one hand the objects collected in the palafittes of the age of bronze, 

 and on the other those of the age of iron, we are strixck with the disparity which 



*Memoires de la Soc. Histor.du canton de. Berne, t. II, p. 350. 

 ^Supplement au Recueil d'' Antiquites Suisses, Lausanne, 1860. 



