WHF.AD FROM PILE-OWF.M- 

 G IN LAKE BIENNF., SWITZER- 



The Prehistoric Hunter. 41 



The houses forming the villages of the 

 European lake-dwellers were constructed of a 

 framework of wood, interwoven with withes 

 and encased in mud. The roofs were thatched, 

 and a hole in the roof let out the smoke, 

 which arose from slabs of stone on which they 

 built their fires. Many of these houses, of 

 rectangular and circular forms, were erected 

 on one large platform, of two or three acres 

 in area, supported by the piles. A narrow 

 causeway, often two thousand yards and more 

 in length, led from the village to the shore, arro 

 thus giving them protection from hostile tribes iand-from collection of 



» ° r ALFRED M. MAYER. 



and from the attacks of ferocious beasts. 



In some of the smaller lakes, mounds were formed of sticks, 

 trunks of trees, stones and loam, with piles driven in their midst to 

 give stability to this foundation. The dwellings on these mounds, 

 with their interwoven withes and encasement of mud, must have 

 appeared like huge beaver-houses. Probably the beaver was their 

 first instructor in lacustrine architecture. 



From the relics of these people, we can quite accurately reproduce 

 their life. They clothed themselves in skins and fabrics woven of 

 flax, and were armed with axes — no longer roughly chipped, but 

 now handsomely formed and polished — mounted in sockets of elk 

 horn, which were fastened to wooden handles. They carried bows 

 made of yew, and arrows and spears armed with neatly shaped, sharp 

 flints which were fastened to the shafts with asphalt and firm 

 wrappings of the tendons of the stag. It is probable that they were 

 dexterous in the use of the sling. They constructed dug-outs, in which 

 they paddled over the lakes, and angled from them with their bone 

 snigglers, and hooks made of the tusks of the wild boar for the great 

 lake trout and the huge pike. They also fished with nets woven 

 of flax. 



During a later period in their history, bronze was introduced, and 

 then their arms became more effective and more elegant in form, 

 although similar to the same weapons previously made of stone and 

 bone. The greatest advance the use of bronze produced was in 

 their angling tools, for their hooks of bronze are nearly as perfect in 



