in] AND HISTORIC TIMES 93 



held that the domestic horse was employed by the Lake- 

 dwellers from the Bronze age, and beyond doubt bronze bits, 

 bronze trappings, and even a bronze wheel and other chariot- 

 fittings have been discovered. Thus a bronze bit completely 

 preserved was found at Moeringen, and a perfect specimen of 

 another made of two tines of stag-horn with a transverse 

 mouth-piece of bone was found at Corcelettes, while many 

 fragments of both kinds, especially side-pieces made of horn, 

 have been obtained from various sites^ But even Moeringen 

 and Auvernier, where these bits make their appearance, belong 

 to the latest Bronze period, and remains undoubtedly of the 

 Iron age, such as a La Tene sword, have been found at least at 

 the former. It must be carefully borne in mind that long after 

 iron had come into use for cutting weapons, bronze, horn, bone 

 and stone continued to be used, bronze being especially adapted 

 for horse-bits and horse-trappings and for fittings for chariots. 

 The Swiss horse was small, as is proved by the bits made of 

 bronze and stag-horn, which have been found at Moeringen and 

 Auvernier. These bits are only three-and-a-half inches wide. 

 Various Swiss sites have yielded great numbers of antiquities 

 of the later Iron age (commonly called the La Tene period, 

 from the fact that this peculiar class of antiquities first became 

 known at the Pile-settlement of La Tene on Lake Neuchatel). 

 The weapons and ornaments are similar to those found on the 

 battle-fields where Caesar overthrew the Helvetians. From 

 the osseous remains of horses found on sites of the La Tene 

 period it is clear that the horses of the Helvetians were of 

 slender build. According to Dr Marek- the La Tene horse 

 agrees in its fundamental characters, size excepted, with the 

 Oriental races of horses, whose typical representative is the 

 ' Arab.' This Helveto-Gallic horse, as he terms it, was 135 — 

 141 cm. (13-2 — 14 hands) at the withers, and it thus occupies 

 an intermediate position between Arabs and ponies. But it 

 is important to bear in mind that the finest type of Arab is 



1 Munro, Lake-dwellings of Europe, pp. 28, 524, etc. Fig. 191 shows 

 various horse-bits. 



- J. Marek, "Das helvetisch-gallische Pferd " (Abhandl. Schweiz. palaeontol. 

 Gesellschaft, Vol. xxv. 1898); Scharff, R. I. A. Proc. Vol. xxv. Sec. C. 



