FISH-REMAINS. 45 



covering it over with glowing ashes. Millet was employed in a similar manner 

 for making bread. It is probable, however, that the lake-people consumed their 

 farinaceous food chiefly in the shape of porridge. 



Carbonized apples of small size, identical with those growing wild in the 

 woods of Switzerland, have been found abundantly, and in a tolerable state of 

 preservation. They are often cut in halves, more rarely in three or four parts, 

 and were evidently dried for consumption during winter. Whether a larger 

 kind of apple, found at Robenhausen, was a cultivated or a wild-growing species, 

 remains undecided. Professor Oswald Heer, of Zurich, who has published an 

 interesting work on lacustrine vegetable remains, inclines to the former view. 

 Wild pears were treated in the same manner ; but they are far less common 

 than apples, which must have formed a much-sought article of diet. Among 

 other vegetable remains accumulated in the lake-mud may be mentioned hazel- 

 nuts and beech-nuts, both in great plenty ; also water-chestnuts, which doubtless 

 were collected and eaten by the lake-men, as they are in Upper Italy at this day. 

 Their presen t occurrence in Switzerland appears to be restricted to a tarn in the 

 Canton of Lucerne. There have farther been found the stones of sloes, bird- 

 cherries and wild plums, and seeds of the raspberry, blackberry, and strawberry, 

 showing that these fruits of the forest were used as food. Excepting peas, no 

 culinary vegetables have appeared in the stone-age settlements. Allusion having 

 been made to the cultivation of flax, it may further be stated that hemp was 

 totally unknown to the lake-dwellers, even to those of a later period. 



According to Dr. Keller, the lake-colonists of the stone age drew their 

 sustenance chiefly from the vegetable kingdom. Their animal food was acquired 

 by hunting rather than by the breeding of cattle, considering that in the 

 accumulations around the piles the bones of wild animals outnumber those of the 

 domestic species. In the bronze-yielding pile-works, it will be seen, the propor- 

 tion is reversed. 



Fish-remains. People living upon lakes plentifully stocked with fish, it 

 can be imagined, availed themselves of all means in their power for capturing 

 them, and the numerous remains of fishes discovered on the sites of the ancient 

 lacustrine villages bear witness to the extent of their efforts in that direction. 

 Not only the bones of fishes, but also their scales, the latter even in a good state 

 of preservation, have been extracted from the lake-mud. "With respect to 

 fishes," says Professor Riitimeyer, " many species were found which are now the 

 most abundant in our lakes and rivers. "* The following are mentioned : 



The salmon (Salino salar, Lin.), the pike (Esox lucius, Lin.), the porch 

 (Perca fluoiatilis, Lin.), the carp (Cyprians carpio, Lin.), the dace (Cyprinus 



* Keller : Lake Dwellings ; Vol. I, p. 537. 



