Aprils, 1888] 



NATURE 



531 



magnificent museum and laboratories of the J'orestry 

 School at Munich, the Forest of Freising, the willow 

 nurseries and plantations at Oberberghausen, the spruce 

 forests at Hohenaschau, and the timber depot at Traun- 

 stein. They then proceeded to the Austrian forests of 

 the Salzkammergut ; and later to the Forest School and 

 school forests at Nancy, the cork oaks and pine forests 

 in the Esterel, and the Pinus maritima forests on the 

 west coast of France, used for the preparation of turpentine 

 as well as for timber. 



With this practical tour, the training of the young 

 forester in Europe stops, and he departs for India to 

 assume the new duties and large responsibilities of his 

 life as a forest officer under the Imperial Government. 



THE BALTIC AMBER COAST IN 

 PREHISTORIC TIMES. 



Die prdhistorischen Denkmdhr der Proviiiz West- 

 preussen unci der angrenzenden Gebiete. Von Dr. A. 

 Lissauer. (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1887.) 



''T^HE prehistoric antiquities of that part of the Baltic 

 J- coast that lies about the mouth of the Vistula have 

 something more than a local interest. The old Prussian 

 shore — the land of the yEstii of Tacitus and Cassiodorus, 

 of the Estas of King Alfred — had already in very early 

 times a European importance in its connection with the 

 widely ramifying amber commerce of antiquity, of which 

 this was in historic times the richest field of production. 

 The present work by Dr. Lissauer, the President and 

 founder of the Anthropological Section of the Natural 

 History Society of Danzig, is peculiarly welcome as 

 giving in a thoroughly scientific form a summary of the 

 results of the archaeological discoveries made in recent 

 years relating to the prehistoric period in the province of 

 West Prussia and its border districts. The author has 

 divided the work into several sections, corresponding to the 

 Neolithic, Hallstatt, and the successive Iron Age periods 

 and has accompanied each with an excellent synoptic list 

 of the various individual finds. 



Of the earlier Palaeolithic Age there are, of course, no 

 remains in this Baltic tract, which was still covered with 

 an ice- sheet at a time when primaeval man had already 

 begun to tenant the caves of Cracow. As the ice 

 retreated there was formed the great glacier stream at 

 present represented by the Vistula, but which then pro- 

 longed its course to the west, and, joining with the Elbe, 

 poured its waters into the German Ocean. The physical 

 event which in this region dominates all the succeeding 

 history is the breaking through of the Vistula at Fordon, 

 near Bromberg, and the formation of the new channel by 

 which it poured itself henceforth into the Gulf of Danzig ; 

 and this, geologically speaking, was a comparatively 

 recent consummation. The author has reproduced an 

 elaborate calculation of Jentzsch, based on the formation 

 of the delta and the average amount of sediment conveyed 

 by the waters of the Vistula, according to which the 

 breaking through of that river to the north must have 

 taken place approximately about 3000 B.C. That the 

 Neolithic immigration into the Old Prussian land from 

 the south must have taken place at an early period is seen 

 from the local distribution of these remains, which tends 



to show that the ice and snow still lingered on the higher 

 parts of the country. On the other hand, from the- fact 

 that Neolithic settlements are peculiarly abundant in the 

 old bed of the Vistula itself. Dr. Lissauer concludes that 

 this immigration did not take place till well after the 

 date when the river had taken its new course. Here, too, 

 as elsewhere, we find the same entire revolution in the 

 character of the Neolithic fauna as contrasted with the 

 Palteolithic group of the Polish caves for example. Not 

 a single representative remains. No reindeer bones even 

 have been discovered on the Neolithic sites of the lands of 

 the Lower Vistula, though the remains both of aurochs 

 and of bison have been found. 



Among the most interesting and characteristic objects 

 that appear in association with the Neolithic deposits of 

 the Lower Vistula are certain rude representations of 

 human and animal figures cut out of amber. These re- 

 markable productions, perforated as if for suspension, and 

 engraved with fine lines, are more frequent to the east 

 than to the west of the Vistula mouth ; but one of the most 

 striking, a figure of a boar, ranked by Virchow amongst 

 the best relics of the plastic art that have reached us from 

 the Stone Age, was found in the neighbourhood of Danzig. 

 These amber men and animals have been the object of a 

 special study by Dr. Tischler, of Konigsberg, whose re- 

 searches into the prehistoric remains of East Prussia are 

 the complement to those of Dr. Lissauer in the Western 

 Province. In his admirable papers on the Stone Age in 

 East Prussia, Dr. Tischler has shown that these figures 

 are characteristic of an extensive East Baltic region ; they 

 have been found in the same shapes and with the same 

 perforations, but cut out of bone and stalagmite instead of 

 amber,, in the Polish cave of Pod-kochanka ; and, what is 

 still more remarkable, bone figures of analogous char^tcter 

 have been discovered amidst the remains of a Neolithic 

 station, described by the Russian explorer Inostranzeff, 

 on the shores of the Lake of Ladoga. From these and 

 other parallels. Dr. Tischler has been able to establish the 

 existence of adistinct East Baltic Stone Province extending 

 from the Oder to the Lake of Ladoga, and in all prob- 

 ability to the Onega shores, and including not only the 

 provin<jes of East and West Prussia but the greater part 

 of Poland. The relation of these northern " idols " to the 

 clay figures of men and animals found in the Swiss lake- 

 dwellinigs, in the pile settlements of Laibach, and some 

 of the prehistoric sites of Hungary and Transylvania, 

 where one has been found of alabaster ; and the relation 

 again of these latter to the " Pallas" of Dr. Schliemann's 

 Trojan excavations, or the rude " Carian " and Cypriote 

 figures, suggest wide and far-reaching inquiries on which 

 it is impossible here to embark. 



Of the Bronze Age, pure and simple, there are very 

 scanty remains in these East Baltic coast-lands ; though 

 there are sufficient examples, both of Hungarian and West 

 Baltic forms, to show that before the close of the period 

 in Central and North- Western Europe its arts were 

 already taking root in this region. Dr. Lissauer's remarks 

 on what he terms the " so-called Bronze Age," but which, 

 in the greater part of our Continent at least, represents a 

 very well defined stage of culture, reflect an attitude of mind 

 not yet wholly extinct amongst German scholars. How 

 far the Hallstatt culture can in this district be regarded 

 as the immediate successor of that of Neolithic times is a 



