ARCHEOLOGY. 



impurity. It was only in the Iron Age that lead 

 and silver came to be generally used. The pres- 

 ence ' of lead in bronzes,' says Morlot, ' in such 

 proportions as to denote that it has been de- 

 signedly introduced, seems a sufficient criterion 

 for recognising these alloys as proceeding from 

 civilised populations, and not from those of the 

 Age of Bronze.' All the bronzes containing zinc 

 also pertain to later times, and were unknown in 

 the Age of Bronze, properly so called. The arms 

 of the lake-dwellings of the Iron Age consist 

 principally of long, slightly tapering, double-edged 

 swords of iron, obtusely pointed. The centre of 

 the blade is always composed of very fibrous 

 iron (which appears in wavy lines, giving it the 

 appearance of a damascened blade), while the 

 edges are strips of soft iron welded on. The 

 sheaths were of bronze, highly ornamented with 

 peculiar patterns. Spear-heads of iron with 

 hollow sockets, and leaf-shaped, or waved, and 

 indented blades, shield-mountings of iron, tools of 

 almost every description, and ornaments of many 

 varieties, mark the age as one of considerable 

 culture, civilisation, and energy ; while the Roman 

 and Gallic coins which are found with the relics 

 indicate that the closing period of the Swiss 

 lake-dwellings was not altogether unknown to 

 history. 



The lake-dwellings of Northern Germany and 

 Pomerania, in some of which the reindeer has 

 been found with implements of bronze, belong to 

 the later Bronze Age, and to a period bordering 

 on historic times. 



CRANNOGS. 



Although pile-dwellings seem to be unknown in 

 the lakes of England, islands wholly or partially 

 constructed of piled work are common in the 

 lochs of Ireland and of Scotland, where they are 

 called crannogs, from the Celtic crann, a tree. 

 Perhaps the most interesting group of crannogs 

 in Ireland is that in the Ballydoo Lough and Lough 

 Eyes, in the county of Fermanagh. The largest 

 crannog in the first-mentioned loch is of oval form, 

 80 feet by 60, and composed of a substructure of 

 heath, brambles, and brushwood piled up from 

 the bottom, and stockaded all round. The re- 

 mains of a wooden house, about 18 feet square, 

 were found on it ; and the whole surface was a 

 refuse-heap of bones of the domestic and wild 



Fig. 17. Clay Cooking-pot, from an Irish Crannog, 

 13 inches diameter. 



animals now living in the country. The pottery 

 of this crannog was the most interesting feature 



connected with it It was remarkably well made, 

 of drab-coloured^ clay, unglazed, but highly orna- 

 mented. The vessels were finely shaped, but 

 hand-made, and a number of them were pots with 

 triangular ears for suspension, similar to those of 

 our culinary pots of metal Upwards of thirty- 

 five different patterns of ornamentation were 

 found, chiefly consisting of oblique rows of im- 

 pressions of a toothed punch in the soft clay. 

 Precisely the same kind of punch had been used 

 to produce this identical pattern on some of the 

 very beautiful sepulchral urns which were dug up 

 in the tumuli of the neighbourhood. The char- 

 acter of this ornamentation belongs to the late 

 pagan times in Ireland. No crannogs exclusively 

 of the Stone Age have been found in Britain. 

 Those of Ireland are known historically to have 

 been occupied till very recent times. The earliest 

 notice of them in the Irish annals records that 

 the crannog of Lagore (which was one of the first 

 to attract the notice of antiquaries, from its ex- 

 ploration by Sir W. Wilde, in 1840) was plundered 

 and burned by one of the petty Irish kings, in 848 

 A.D. ; and again in 933 A.D., by the Norwegian 

 invaders under Olaf, son of Ivar. Brian Borumha 

 is said to have fortified many of them, in 1045 

 A.D. Crannogs are noticed by the annals at 

 intervals from that time till the end of the i6th 

 century, when the O'Neill is described as 'having 

 his lodging in the fen where he keeps his catell 

 and all his men,' and as depending only on forti- 

 fications in ' sartin ffresh-water loghes in his 

 country, and in ye said fortified islands lyeth all his 

 plate, which is much, and money, and prisoners, 

 and gages.' 



Crannogs were first discovered in Scotland in 

 1812, by Mr Mackinlay, a member of the Scottish 

 Society of Antiquaries, who sent an account of 

 two in the island of Bute to George Chalmers, 

 author of Caledonia. They have since been found 

 in many of the lochs of Scotland, especially in the 

 south-western counties ; but few of them now ex- 

 hibit remains of the dwellings. They are often 

 connected with the shore by causeways, and in 

 general they seem to have been islands, or shal- 

 lows, adapted, enlarged, or fortified by piling and 

 stockades. No implements characteristic of the 

 Stone Age have been found in any of them. The 

 piles of such a settlement of the Bronze Age were 

 standing in Duddingston Loch in the end of the 

 last century; and a large quantity of arms, includ- 

 ing bronze swords and spear-heads, and with por- 

 tions of large bronze caldrons, were dredged out 

 of the loch in 1780. These are still preserved in. 



Fig. 18. Bronze Spear-hed (Duddingston Loch), 

 1 1 inches long. 



the National Museum of the Antiquaries of Scot- 

 land, at Edinburgh. In the same collection there 

 is an interesting series of relics from a crannog 

 on Dowalton Loch, in Wigtownshire, Among the 

 articles found in this loch are bronze basins dili- 

 gently clouted, as things too valuable to be throwr* 

 away when they became the worse for wear, and 

 a beautiful bronze saucepan tinned in the inside, 

 and bearing on the handle the stamp of P-CIP1- 



711 



