382 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. x. 



Geneva, Neuchatel, and Bienne, contain remains referred 

 by MM. Chantre, de Mortillet, and others, to the late 

 age of Bronze. An examination of the principal bronze 

 implements, weapons, and ornaments, compiled from M. 

 Chantre's tables, shows at once to what an extent the 

 later age of bronze differs from the earlier. Various 

 implements for casting bronze, and stamping it and 

 working it in repousse, are found with tools for working 

 wood, reaping hooks, and swords, daggers, lances, arrow- 

 heads, horse furniture, and personal ornaments ; the 

 whole forming a series of a totally different nature from 

 that of the earlier period. Stone implements were, 

 however, still in use, such as saws, wedges, scrapers, 

 and, to a smaller degree, also axes. It may be objected 

 to this collection of things found in and around the 

 lake habitations, that it may be the result of the occupa- 

 tion of the same spots during many centuries, and that 

 it does not necessarily follow that these articles are in 

 any sense contemporaneous. A relic-bed may have 

 been the result of accumulation during long periods of 

 time. This objection will hold good in many cases 

 but not in all, since the frequent conflagrations, by 

 which the settlements were destroyed, would cause the 

 heavy stone and bronze articles in use at the same time 

 to drop to the bottom of the lake. According to Colonel 

 Schwab, 1 about one quarter of the pile-dwellings in the 

 lakes of Bienne and Neuchatel were burned. It will 

 not hold good in dealing with the <( tresors" or hoards 

 of bronze articles prepared for use, and concealed while 

 being carried from one place to another, which have 

 been met with in twenty-nine localities in France, nor 

 will it apply to the sixty-seven hoards, in France and 



1 Keller, Lake-Dwellings, transl. by J. E. Lee, 2d edit. p. 672. 



