THE EEMAINS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 103 



the remains. Were it not for this, there was actually 

 nothing to prevent us from referring them to any 

 antiquity that any hypothesis as to their origin might 

 demand, even as far back as the emergence of the 

 bank of Post-pliocene sand, about 100 feet above 

 the level of the St. Lawrence, in which they are found, 

 from the sea of the Glacial age. Secondly, as to 

 their evidence of culture or barbarism. Though the 

 Hochelagans were an agricultural people, dwelling in 

 houses in a walled town, the indications of this are 

 so slight that they might easily have been overlooked, 

 while the abundant bones of wild animals might lead 

 us to suppose that we had to do merely with hunters, 

 and these undoubtedly of a Stone and Bone age, in 

 which some implements, at least, of the rudest type 

 were used. Yet these relics are those of a central 

 town. The indications left by the same people at 

 their occasional camping-places, when on expeditions 

 to obtain fish, game, furs, or maple sap, would indicate 

 a far more primitive condition, and might be referred 

 to a still older date. 



In the old world, the now celebrated lake-towns, or 

 Pfahlbauten, of Switzerland, present a type of civiliza- 

 tion near akin to that of Hochelaga, and like it for- 

 gotten until accidentally disinterred as recently as the 

 year 1854. They were laboriously and with some 

 engineering skill built on platforms over the water 

 supported on piles, originally by men with no better 

 implements than those of stone. They afforded a 

 comparatively secure retreat to simple and probably 



