ARCHEOLOGY. 



at least till the commencement of the Christian 

 -era. Herodotus, in the sixth century B.C., de- 

 scribes a Thracian tribe on the borders of the 

 Lake Prasias as living in communities on pile- 

 dwellings constructed in the lake ; and the fisher- 

 men on the same lake still live in houses similarly 

 constructed. Pile-dwellings or villages are de- 

 scribed by travellers as existing among the savage 

 tribes of New Guinea, Celebes, the Caroline 

 Islands, and Borneo, as well as in Africa and 

 America. 



Construction, The lake villages of Switzer- 

 land were reared on platforms of wood, supported 

 on piles driven into the bottom at no great dis- 

 tance from the shore. Sometimes mounds of 

 stones were sunk between and around the piles, 

 to add stability to the structure ; and in other 

 cases the platform rests on a basis of fascines, built 

 up from the bottom, and strengthened by piles 

 driven through it. The huts were of wattled twigs, 

 coated both on the inside and on the outside with 

 clay. They were rectangular in form, thus differ- 

 ing from the early habitations reared on land, 

 which were always circular. The floor was spread 

 with clay, and in the centre of each hut was a 

 hearth of slabs of stone. 



Underneath and around these pile-dwellings 

 there occurs in the bed of the lake an accumula- 

 tion of the refuse of the food of the inhabitants, 

 mingled with the waste of their daily life their 

 broken and lost tools, and household utensils. 

 These submerged ' middens ' have been diligently 

 dredged up by the Swiss antiquaries, and have 

 yielded materials for a pretty full history of the 

 civilisation of the lake-dwellers. 



Implements. The stone implements obtained 

 from the Swiss lakes are characterised by certain 

 peculiarities which render them easily recognisable 

 as a group. The hatchets or celts are mostly of 

 small size, and rarely of flint, which is not found 

 abundantly, or in blocks of any size, in Switzer- 

 land. The principal material is a tough, bluish- 

 green sandstone. Many are of a fine jade-like 

 stone, which does not seem to be true nephrite, 

 however, but is derived in all probability from 

 the silicious veins of the local serpentine. The 

 hatchets are usually wedge-shaped, or chisel- 



Fig. 13. Hafted Stone Axes or Celts. 



<z, hafted in deer-horn ; *, halted in wood (Swiss lakes) ; c, in 

 wooden handle (Solway Moss). 



shaped, and vary in length from eight inches to 

 tiny things of an inch long, by little more than 

 half an inch broad. As the material of which 



they are made does not flake like flint, the pro- 

 cess of manufacture was as follows. A boulder 

 of the requisite size was selected, and sawn par- 

 tially through on opposite sides with a flint saw, 

 used with sand and water. It was then broken 

 in two by a blow, and the hatchet was ground 

 into shape upon a grinding slab of sandstone. 

 When finished, the axe-head was hafted either in 

 stag's-horn or wood, or it was fixed in a short 

 socketed handle of stag's-horn, and used as a 

 chisel. Hafted stone axes, however, are extremely 

 rare. A few have been found in the lake-dwell- 

 ings. Solitary instances occur in England and 

 Scotland. The Scottish example, which was 

 found in the Solway 

 Moss, is shewn (fig. 13), 

 for comparison with the 

 Swiss mode of hafting. 

 Flat bronze celts were 

 hafted like those of 

 stone; while flanged and 

 socketed celts of bronze 

 were hafted on bent 

 branches, in the manner 



here Shewn. a Flanged Bronze Celt, hafted ; 



AlTOW-heads, knives, t. Socketed Bronze Celt, hafted. 



saws, borers, and 



scrapers of flint are also common. The arrow- 

 heads are mostly furnished with barbs, and a tang 

 for insertion in the shaft. Bows of yew-wood have 

 been found at Robenhausen, and in one case a 

 flint arrow-head was still attached to the shaft with 

 bitumen, and bound round with cord. Javelin- 

 heads, neatly chipped, and of larger size than the 

 arrow-heads, are not uncommon. The knives and 

 saws were formed of long thin flakes, neatly 

 worked, and inserted into wooden handles, in 

 which the back of the implement was fixed longi- 

 tudinally. 



The tools of bone are chiefly pointed imple- 

 ments made of the bones of the red-deer, roe-deer, 

 and other animals, even of birds. They are found 

 in large numbers, and of a great variety of shapes. 

 A few bone arrow-heads have been found with the 

 bitumen still remaining by which they were affixed 

 to the shaft' Needles, bodkins, awls, piercers, 

 fish-hooks, and a small variety of barbed har- 

 poons, probably for spearing fish, are among the 

 commoner varieties of implements of bone. 



Spindle-whorls of clay or stone, and clay loom- 

 weights, are abundant, and flax is found in all 

 stages of manufacture, from the unworked stems, 

 with the seed-capsules still on them, to specimens 

 of plaited or woven cloth. At Wangen, the flax 

 was found in certain well-defined spaces in the 

 different stages of manufacture in the raw state, 



15. Woven Fabric of Flax (Robenhaiuen). 



in bundles or 'heads,' in clews of thread, and 

 plaits of cloth-indicating that there were special 

 workshops for the manufacture. At Robenhausen, 



