Of Western Europe. 



the general surface. A weather-boarding of a single 



O CD D 



plank surrounded each hut at the bottom, keeping out 

 wet. So far no indications have been found of more 

 than a single row of boards being so used. Apparently, 

 each hut contained but one room ; each contained one 

 fire-place of stone slabs. Some had trunks of trees 

 with branches lopped short, as if used for hanging up 

 articles to keep them from the floor. Nearly all had 

 clay weights used in weaving. The sides of the huts 

 were made by weaving small wythes among the upright 

 supports and covering the walls so made with a thick 

 coating of clay. Where the villages were burnt, large 

 fragments are found of the clay with the impression of 

 the burnt wicker-work on the inner side. 



The inhabitants kept their domestic animals out in 

 these villages. The researches have already brought up 

 whole museums full of implements of stone, bone, 

 bronze, and iron ; arrow-heads, lance-heads, swords, 

 hatchets, hammers, chisels, knives, needles, pins, hair- 

 pins, brooches, necklaces, and other ornaments ; pottery, 

 linen stuffs, and wearing apparel, and even charred frag- 

 ments of bread, and seeds of berries and fruits. 



We do not yet know certainly the race, language, gov- 

 ernment, or religion of these people. The pile villages 

 only indicate a certain stage — an early one — of develop- 

 ment. Hippocrates mentions villages of this sort in 

 the river Phasis, in Colchis. Herodotus relates that the 

 inhabitants of a similar village in Lake Prasias, in 

 Thrace, escaped unharmed during the invasion of 

 Xerxes. Abulfeda described one such in the Apa- 

 mean lake, in Syria, in the thirteenth century. The 

 crannogs of Ireland — analogous structures, though used 



