104 FOSSIL MEN. 



peaceful and industrious tribes, driven out of the 

 plains and lower river valleys by the encroachments 

 of wild and savage enemies, and obliged for safety 

 even to forsake the dry land and pitch their abodes 

 over the waters. When these lake villages were 

 accidentally burned, quantities of the property of the 

 inhabitants were lost in the waters, and have in 

 modern times been recovered by the diligent search 

 of antiquarians ; * attention having first been called 

 to these singular abodes by the unusually low state of 

 the water in the Swiss lakes in the year 1854. 



The lake settlements were inhabited from an early 

 period of the Stone age down to the Roman period, 

 and it is not impossible that they furnished some part 

 of the Helvetian tribes with whom the Eoman power 

 came into conflict in the time of Caesar. The earliest 

 sites belong to the Stone age, and the successive in- 

 troduction of bronze and iron can be distinctly traced 

 in their remains. It is possible, however, that a Stone 

 period continued in eastern Switzerland after bronze 

 had been introduced into the west, and there are suf- 

 ficient traces of bronze in the oldest of the villages to 

 show that elsewhere there must have been peoples 

 more advanced. In the Stone period the inhabitants 

 were already skilful builders, constructors of boats, 

 cultivators of grain and flax, weavers and potters. 

 They had domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs ; 

 in which respect they were far in advance of the 

 village Indians of America. But like them they sub- 

 * More especially Dr. Keller. 



