PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR STEMS OR LEAVES. 125 



of the Austrian States, where bronze has been discovered. 1 

 The late epoch of the introduction of flax into this region 

 excludes the hypothesis that the inhabitants of Switzer- 

 land received it from Eastern Europe, from which, more- 

 over, they were separated by immense forests. 



Since the ingenious observations of the Zurich savant, 

 a flax has been discovered which was employed by the 

 prehistoric inhabitants of the peat-mosses of Lagozza, 

 in Lombardy; and Sordelli has shown that it was the 

 same as that of Robenhausen, L. angustifolium. 2 This 

 ancient people was ignorant of the use of hemp and of 

 metals, but they possessed the same cereals as the Swiss 

 lake-dwellers of the stone age, and ate like them the 

 acorns of Quercus robur, var. sessiliflora. There was, 

 therefore, a civilization which had reached a certain 

 development on both sides of the Alps, before metals, 

 even bronze, were in common use, and before hemp and 

 the domestic fowl were known. 3 It was probably before 

 the arrival of the Aryans in Europe, or soon after that 

 event. 4 



The common names of the flax in ancient European 

 languages may throw some light on this question. 



The name lin, llin, linu, linon, linum, lein, Ian, 

 exists in all the European languages of Aryan origin of 

 the centre and south of Europe, Keltic, Slavonic, Greek, 

 or Latin. This name is, however, not common to the 

 Aryan languages of India ; consequently, as Pictet 5 

 justly says, the cultivation must have been begun by the 



1 Mittheil. Anfhropol. Gesellschaft, Wien, vol. vi. pp. 122, 161; Alhandl, 

 Wien Akad., 84, p. 488. 



2 Sordelli, Sulle piante della torbiera e della stazione preistorica 

 delta Lagozza, pp. 37, 51, printed at the conclusion of Castelfranco's 

 Notizie alia stazione lacustre della Lagozza, in 8vo, Atti della Soc. Ital. 

 Sc. Nat., 1880. 



3 The fowl was introduced inco Greece from Asia in the sixth 

 century before Christ, according to Heer, Ueb. d. Flachs, p. 25. 



4 These discoveries in the peat-mosses of Lagozza and elsewhere in 

 Italy show how far Hehn was mistaken in supposing that (Kulturpfl., edit. 

 3, 1877, p. 524) the Swiss lake-dwellers were near the time of Csesar. 

 The men of the same civilization as they to the south of the Alps were 

 evidently more ancient than the Roman republic, perhaps than the 

 Ligurians. 



5 Ad. Pictet, Origines lnH*-'Kurop r) edit. 2, vol. i. p. 396, 



