PRIMITIVE MAN : II. NEOLITHIC MAN. 277 



calculated that no fewer than 40,000 piles must have been 

 driven into the bed of the lake, and as many as 100,000 at 

 Robenhausen, this latter station covered an area of at least 

 120,000 square feet. As means of felling the great number 

 of trees required, the only implements the men could have 

 had would have been the stone axe or wedge, and fire, then 

 the piles had to be driven into the bed of the lake, sometimes 

 at as great a distance from the shore as forty or even ninety 

 yards, and if the bottom of the lake was rocky, the piles 

 were held in position by great masses of stone being dropped 

 between them. On such piles platforms were made, on 

 which the huts were erected, and thanks to the fires which 

 so frequently destroyed these pile-built villages, we are able 

 to form a very good opinion as to how the huts were made, 

 and what their appearance must have been; amongst the 

 debris buried in the mud and ashes found at many of the 

 lacustrine stations, flat masses of burnt clay occur, smooth on 

 one side but bearing marks of interlaced branches on the 

 other, leading us to the conclusion that the houses would 

 have been made of tree trunks bound together by wattle- 

 work, and Hned with clay, the curved forms of the burnt clay 

 which has been found also show us that the huts must have 

 been circular, and with conical roofs. 



These lake dwellings would in those days have afforded 

 a fair amount of protection against human foes, as well as 

 against the attacks of wild beasts. Canoes laboriously 

 hewn and hollowed with the aid of fire, made of single 

 trunks of trees, have been found which would very prob- 

 ably have heljoed the lake dwellers in their fishing expeditions. 

 Similar vessels would have enabled the" Neolithic people to 

 cross the channel between this country and the continent 

 from which England was now severed. 



The lake stations are wonderfully rich in antiquities, and 

 shed a very considerable amount of light upon the life and 

 civilization of the Neolithic age. Metal was not yet in use, 

 but a great variety of tools, implements, and weapons, were 

 made out of different sorts of stone, and also out of bone, 

 and antlers of deer ; amongst these were arrows, javelins, 

 harpoons, needles, fish-hooks, pins, hammers, picks, daggers, 

 combs, spindle whorls, and numerous other objects, pestles, 

 and mortars of granite, and whetstones. Then hand-made 

 pottery of a coarse character was in use. As far as has 

 been discovered the men of Palasolithic times were un- 

 acquainted with the potter's art. It is true, one or two 



