LAKE-DWELLINGS. ;-}9 



When the results of Dr. Keller's investigations became known by his 

 wi'itings, a general search for similar memorials of former times was made in 

 the many lakes of the republic, and such unexpected success rewarded the efforts 

 of the explorers, that more than three hundred lacustrine settlements are now 

 known to exist in Switzerland and a part of Germany bordering on the Lake of 

 Constance, and others have been discovered in the Lombardian lakes, in Savoy, 

 Bavaria, Austria, Mecklenburg, Prussia, and in some districts of France, even 

 at the foot of the Pyrenees. Hence it is evident that the habit of erecting 

 dwellings in lakes wafe at one period widely spread over Europe. Nowhere, 

 however, have these remains been found in greater number than in Switzerland, 

 a country abounding in lakes, which naturally invited such aquatic colonies. 

 In fact, the shore-lines of most of the Helvetian lakes are marked with the 

 traces of these ancient habitations. In this connection should be mentioned the 

 lakes of Neuchatel, Geneva, Constance, Bienne, Morat, Zug, Zurich, Sempach, 

 Pfaffikon (Canton of Ziirich), Moosseedorf (near Berne), Nussbaumen (Canton of 

 Thurgau) , Inkwyl (near Soleure, or Solothurn) , and Wauwyl (Canton of Lucerne) . 



The oldest lake-settlements date back to the neolithic period, and these, of 

 course, arc tirst to be considered in these pages. The pile-work at the bank of 

 Lake Pfaffikon, near Robenhausen, for instance, has not yielded any articles of 

 bronze, but some earthern crucibles containing lumj^s of melted bronze, and at 

 Meilen only a bronze celt (or hatchet) and a bracelet of the same alloy were 

 found ; which facts demonstrate that these colonies still flourished at the time 

 when bronze was introduced. There are many other lake-settlements in which, 

 among hundreds of articles of stone, horn, bone, or wood, not the slightest trace 

 of metal has occurred. These stations of the pure stone age are chiefly found in 

 Eastern Switzerland. Mo.st of those in the western lakes of the Helvetian 

 republic have furnished articles both of stone and of bronze, and in some 

 stations tools and weapons of iron, thought to be Gallic in character, and even 

 coins and other objects of Roman origin, have come to light. It thus appears 

 that these lacustrine colonies existed for a very long period, which was character- 

 ized by remarkable changes in the condition of man, whose progress, whatever 



■was formed of split stems of trees, set close together and covered with mats. Weapons and utensils were placed 

 in order in the corners." Mr. Goering has also published a description of these Indian pile-dwellings in the 

 " Gartenlaube " (1879, p. 404, etc.), with a good view of a group of the aquatic habitations. "Similar pile- 

 buildings," he observes, "are numerous along the shores of the lake; they often form whole villages, which 

 present a most curious aspect in a dark night, when the lighted huts are mirrored in the waters of the lake." All 

 this tends to verify Vespucci's account. Tribes !it the mouth of the Orinoco and Amazon resort to pile-dwellings 

 more or less similar to those here described.— See also a very good article by Dr. A. Ernst, entitled " Die Goajiro- 

 Indianer," in " Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic," Vol. II, 1870; p. 328, etc. 



The city of Me.\ico was originally a village built on piles, and other Aztec places situated near lakes were 

 thus constructed. I am not aware that remains of aboriginal pile-dwellings have been noticed in the United 

 States; but it would not at all be surprising to find them. Balize, a small pilot-town near the mouth of the 

 Mississippi River, is built on piles. I saw this curious village in 1848. 



