CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



again, six huts were found, in each of which there 

 was a stone corn-crusher or mealing-stone, a 

 quantity of corn, a store of raw flax, clay loom- 

 weights, and woven cloth, indicating the domestic 

 industry of the several families. 



Civilisation. Thus the lake-dwellers of Switzer- 

 land present a condition of civilisation greatly in 

 advance of the people of ' the kitchen-midden 

 period ' of Denmark. The construction of their 

 pile-dwellings not only implies great labour, but a 

 large amount of social organisation and concerted 

 effort, as well as individual ingenuity in the con- 

 struction and use of such rude tools and appli- 

 ances as were then at the workman's command. 

 They were not only expert hunters and fishers, 

 but also agriculturists and stock-keepers in the 

 earliest stage in which we know them. Even in 

 the oldest settlements, the bones of the cow, the 

 sheep, the goat, and the pig, are found abundantly 

 among the refuse of the people's food, as well as 

 bones of fishes and animals of the chase. In 

 every lake-dwelling there were corn-crushers and 

 rubbing-stones for bruising grain nay, the car- 

 bonised fragments of their bread itself are found 

 among the remains of those settlements that have 

 been destroyed by fire. Though their implements 

 of husbandry must have been of the rudest and 

 simplest construction, they seem to have arrived 

 at a high degree of skill in agriculture compared 

 with their advancement in other arts. They 

 cultivated wheat and barley (of which they had 

 several varieties), millet and flax. They gathered 

 and stored up for winter use large quantities of 

 apples and nuts. Their diet was thus partly of 

 animal food and partly of vegetable materials, 

 among which corn-meal held the chief place, and 

 fish and milk must have been abundant with 

 them. Their clothing was probably partly of 

 skins and partly of flax, which they spun into 

 threads, plaited into mats, and wove into textile 

 fabrics of various kinds. They also made ropes 

 and lines of bast, or twisted fibres of various 

 plants, and fishing-hooks of boars' tusks. Their 

 domestic utensils were scooped out of wood, or 

 fashioned by hand of prepared clay ; and though 

 rude in form, and rudely ornamented with the 

 finger-nail, as shewn in the accompanying wood- 

 cut, their vessels of domestic pottery were well 

 baked and serviceable utensils. 



Fig. 16. Fragment of Ornamented Pottery 

 (Robenhausen). 



Antiquity. It seems probable that isolation 

 rather than absolute antiquity may be the ex- 



planation of this singular conjunction of an 

 exceptionally high degree of advancement in 

 other arts, with the exclusive use of implements of 

 stone and bone for all the ordinary purposes of 

 life. Dr Keller, speaking of the probable anti- 

 quity of the settlements of the Stone Age in the 

 Swiss lakes, says, that ' with respect to their age 

 we have not a single safe datum to guide our 

 determination, so that it is quite impossible, with, 

 any probability, to decide even approximately 

 the century or centuries when they existed.' Yet 

 even granting some degree of uncertainty as to- 

 the flint and stone implements (for they lasted in. 

 some cases through several periods), he concludes 

 that we must ascribe to them a very high anti- 

 quity, though the age in which he ventures to place 

 them is one ' when iron and bronze had been 

 long known, but had not come into our districts 

 in such plenty as to be used for the common pur- 

 poses of household life, and at a time when 

 amber had already taken its place as an ornament,, 

 and had become an object of traffic.' 



Occupation to Historic Times. Perhaps the 

 most interesting circumstance connected with the 

 lake-dwellings of Switzerland is the fact that, 

 originating in the Stone Age of the people, they 

 continued to be occupied throughout the typical 

 three stages of their advancement ; and there 

 is indubitable proof that they were still used 

 when the inhabitants of Switzerland were known 

 in history as the Helvetii, and were actually 

 under the Roman rule. 



Lake-dwellings of the Bronze Age, The lake- 

 dwellings of the age of Bronze do not differ 

 materially in construction from those of the age 

 of Stone. They are, however, placed farther from 

 the shore, and the piles are smaller and more 

 numerous. The pottery is much more abundant,, 

 better made, and of more varied and elegant 

 forms. The tools were of cast bronze, consisting 

 of flanged and socketed celts or axes ; palstaves ;. 

 long heavy knives with thick backs and grace- 

 fully curved blades ; socketed chisels ; scythes or 

 sickles ; and wide thin blades of bronze with a 

 notch in the back, which are evidently for the 

 same purpose as those called ' razors ' of the Age 

 of Iron. The weapons are swords of cast bronze, 

 of the graceful leaf-shape, with bronze hilts 

 adorned with a double volute, riveted to the blade ; 

 spear-heads with hollow sockets ; and arrow- 

 heads with tangs for insertion in the shaft. A 

 great variety of pins, bracelets, ear-rings and neck- 

 rings of bronze, testify to the existence of a culti- 

 vated taste, which lavished a profusion of orna- 

 ment, not only on objects of personal attire, but 

 even on such articles as knives and reaping- 

 hooks. The presence of moulds for casting these 

 articles shews that the bronze was manufactured 

 on the spot, although the tin, at least, which 

 enters into its composition must necessarily have 

 been obtained by commerce. 



Of the Iron Age. In the lake-dwellings of the 

 Iron Age, though bronze was still largely used, it 

 was different in composition, and differently manu- 

 factured. In the Bronze Age proper, the objects 

 are all cast. In the Iron Age, the bronze was- 

 worked as well as cast, and beaten and embossed 

 patterns are used, as well as those that are pro- 

 duced in the mould or dug out in the solid metal 

 by the graver. Lead was not present in the 

 bronzes of the Bronze Age except as an accidental 





