18 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



dred and sixty days, or approximately nine 

 months the period from conception to birth. 



Another study of the Mexican calendar has 

 been made by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, and was the 

 subject of a paper contributed by her to the 

 tenth International Congress of Americanists, 

 at Stockholm. Her theory is based upon a dis- 

 tinct statement in an anonymous manuscript 

 in the Biblioteea Nuzionah- at Florence, to the 

 effect that the year always began with one of 

 four day signs, and took 'its name accordingly. 

 When it began on a day Acatl, the year was 

 named Acatl, and so on. The fundamental con- 

 clusions readied by the author are that (1) the 

 ivli'_rious festival periods of the Mexican year 

 must not be confounded, as heretofore, with the 

 eighteen so-called months of the civil solar year, 

 each of the latter of which began by a day of en- 

 forced rest, and contained set market days, at 

 five-day intervals ; (2) the religious festival pe- 

 riods were partly movable and partly ruled by the 

 central ritual year contained in each solar year, 

 the beginning of a festival period having been 

 shown, in three well-authenticated instances, to 

 have coincided with the first day of one of the 

 thirteen periods of twenty days embraced in the 

 ritual year. 



British. In an ancient British village of 

 marsh dwellings discovered near Glastonbury in 

 March, 1892, the foundations of the separate 

 houses were made by placing on the surface of 

 the peat a layer or platform of timber and 

 brushwood confined by numerous small piles at 

 the margin. On this a layer of clay was placed, 

 slightly raised at the center, where the remains 

 ! ,i hearth were generally found. The dwelling 

 itself was composed of' timber filled in with 

 wattle and daub. The wall posts and the en- 

 trance threshold and doorstep were found in 

 xifu. Hanks of clay and stone, mortised timber, 

 hurdle work, a boat 17 feet long, quantities of 

 wheel-made and hand-made pottery, sling stones, 

 hones of animals, and a great number of objects 

 of bronze and iron, horn, bone, and stone, in- 

 cluding fibulae, rings, knives, saws, weapons, 

 combs, needles, pottery stamps, and querns, 

 were found. In an account given to the British 

 Association of the discovery, Prof. Boyd Daw- 

 kins dwelt upon the evidence it afforded that 

 the people there had attained a high state of 

 civilization. They had weaving looms and 

 weaving combs, the latter being the origin, as 

 the speaker undertook to demonstrate, of the 

 comb used for the hair. He also showed that 

 the Glastonbury lake dwellers understood the 

 management of horses, though whether for rid- 

 ing or driving he could not say. They had 

 needles and pins, particularly the safety pin, 

 which was the ancestor of the present brooch. 

 It had even been possible to find out something 

 about their games, and to predicate with cer- 

 tainty that they indulged in cock fighting a 

 pastime to which ('a'sar says the Gauls were 

 passionately addicted. From comparison with 

 Gallic relics of known periods, Mr. Arthur 

 Kvans fixed the date of the encampment as 

 about 50 B. c. He added that while it was cus- 

 tomary to represent the ancient Britons as bar- 

 barians who painted their bodies, they in fact 

 enjoyed a degree of civilization in certain re- 

 spects which left them little to learn from the 



Romans. He had evidence that as far back as the 

 ' fourth or fifth century before our era the Britons 

 imported beautiful bronze brackets, Greek pot- 

 tery, mirrors, and other objects of art from be- 

 yond the Alps. A further report upon this lake 

 village was made at the Oxford meeting of the 

 British Association in 1894, when the associa- 

 tion's committee showed that the following 

 facts have been established : 



(a) That the village was originally surrounded by 

 the water of a shallow mere. (6) That 5 feet of peat 

 accumulated during its occupation, (c) That a strong 

 palisading of posts and piles protected the village. 

 (d) That the groundwork of the village, so far, at 

 least, as its margin is concerned, is artiiicial for the 

 depth of 5 feet. Numerous and important objects 

 have been unearthed this season from the peat out- 

 side the village at all depths down to 7 feet 3 inches, 

 and as far as 80 feet from the village border. Pottery 

 hand and wheel made clay pellets (so-called 

 sling stones) baked and unbaked, and bones of ani- 

 mals are still met with at all points in great quan- 

 tities. Kecently a decorated wheel-made bowl of 

 black ware has* been found in perfect preservation 

 and highly finished, 4 inches high and 5 inches 

 across the rim, besides numerous other pieces of pot- 

 tery elaborately marked with designs of circles, 

 curved and flowing lines, and triangles. The find of 

 greatest importance in bronze has been a well-pre- 

 served bowl measuring 4i inches across the rim. 

 Among the other objects of bronze are two more spi- 

 ral finger rings and a penannular ring brooch. In 

 iron there is a reaping hook, together with its wooden 

 handle, 16 inches in length, and a primitive sickle 

 with riveted wood handle complete, in length 10 

 inches. More human remains have been met with 

 this year than previously, including a complete skull 

 showing several sword or axe marks : no other bones 

 belonging to the body were discovered near it. There 

 still remain two thirds of the village border to be 

 traced, and nearly 50 dwelling mounds and about 

 five sixths of the entire village area to be, examined. 



At the meeting of the British Archaeological 

 Association at Manchester in August, Dr. Phene, 

 one of the vice-presidents, maintained that the 

 pre-Roman occupation of Britain was a com- 

 mercial and hence a civilized one, and proceeded 

 to show that the pre-Roman roads of Italy bore 

 the same peculiar features as the early roads of 

 Great Britain. He cited a variety of evidence 

 of close commercial intercourse between Britain 

 and Italy in pre-Roman times. By the evidence 

 of his own surveys and of the ' researches of 

 other persons, he 'concluded that two Italian 

 tribes the Vennones and the Senones were 

 domiciled in Britain long prior to the Roman 

 conquest. These points were sufficient to prove 

 Italian occupation at a very early date, and to 

 account for the formation of roads in Britain, 

 which might thus be correctly called Italian 

 roads. The author then proceeded to give his 

 evidence in detail. 



(merman. In relaying the pavement of the 

 Church of Sainte-Foy, at Schlettstadt, in Alsace, 

 a passage was found leading to a suite of two 

 subterranean apartments, and farther on the 

 vacant tombs and a fourth tomb containing a- 

 quantity of rubbish. A block of mortar in the 

 rubbish heap attracted attention from its bear- 

 ing an impression like that of a human body. 

 On making a cast of this impression, a bust of a 

 beautiful woman, represented in Fig. 2, was re- 

 vealed. The expression of the face was calm 

 and gentle, though sad, and the features bore 



