The Prehistoric Hinder. 



43 



dwellers were living in their lacustrine villages as late as the first 

 century after Christ ; yet neither Caesar nor Pliny mentions these 

 curious dwellings. 



The habitations in the eastern lakes seem to belong more to the 

 stone age, while those in the west belong both to the age of stone 

 and of bronze. 



Among these bronze implements we find axes, swords, daggers, 

 spear and arrow heads, knives, chisels, sickles, and fish-hooks, which 

 are as well adapted by their forms to their uses as any implements 

 of the period of bronze. With the exception of the cross-bow, which 

 they do not appear to have used, their arms were as effective 

 as any which preceded the period when gunpowder introduced 

 entirely different types of weapons. 



