364 PILE-WORK ANTIQUITIES OF OLMUTZ. 



The greater part, however, of the objects from the banks of the March have 

 their origin in the age of bronze ; they are such as, in the words of Dr. Keller, 

 " belong to a very early period, which coincides with the bronze age of Switz- 

 erland, and fully correspond with the articles taken from the pile structures of 

 that period." Among other, both entire and broken, articles of bronze, the same 

 savant identified " a portion of a ring in which the joints of the fabrication are 

 still to be distinguished ; a piece of a needle ; an ear-ring of the same form with 

 those found in the pile buildings and burial mounds," &c.; also, " a spindle whirl, 

 bearing the same close correspondence." Among the earthen vessels are found 

 many fashioned apparently by no unpractised hand, and, among others. Dr. 

 Keller describes one as " a large pot, somewhat coarsely executed, but well 

 baked, and furnished with an uncommonly solid brim ; it is more than fifty-six 

 centimetres in width, and from the ornamentation may be assigned to a very 

 early epoch of the bronze age." Again, a drinking-cup is described as "exactly 

 similar to those which we often find in the burial mounds of the Helvetic era 

 (two hundred years before and till the birth of Christ) and executed in the 

 same style with the above." 



From the communications of Professor Riitimeyer, respecting the animal re- 

 mains thus far sent to him, (another remittance has within a short time been 

 despatched to Basle,) we learn that in the settlements on the March there existed 

 the following animals : The wild boar, the hart, the horse, the goat, the sheep, the 

 brachyceros, an ancient race of domestic cattle, two varieties of the dog, the tame 

 hog, and also the extinct turf-hog {S'us scrofa fdlustris, Riitimeyer.) Of this 

 last the professor had before him, among other remains, a nearly perfect skull, 

 which he describes as "diflfering in nothing from those of Switzerland and Italy." 



Professor Oswald Heer has been kind enough to examine the cereal grains 

 which were found mingled in the mass containing the bones of animals and men, 

 as well as two fragments of bronze. He expresses hiniself as follows: "Besides 

 the wheat, ( Triticum vulgare,) which occurs in two forms with larger and smaller 

 grains, we find also those of rye, ( Secale cereale,) which had been as yet nowhere 

 discovered in the remains either of the pile-settlements or of the Roman times. 

 Should it prove on further research that the grains in question are in reality a 

 product of the Roman or rather pre-Roman period, it would certainly furnish an 

 interesting fact for the history of our cereals." This fact, however, is by no 

 means difficult to prove, for the ancient date is satisfactorily evinced : 1st. By 

 the two fragments of bronze found in connection with the grains and examined 

 by Dr. Keller, one of which fragments appears to have been a portion of a large 

 ring, probably for the neck, and the other the handle of some spoon-shaped 

 implement 2d. By the immediate contiguity in which the grains are found 

 with the skull, determined by Professor Riitimeyer to be that of the turf-hog. 

 3d. By the close proximity of the bones of the animal, pronounced by the same 

 authority to belong to the ancient race of neat cattle. 4th. By the presence of 

 a human skull, whose high antiquity it is impossible to doubt. This last relic 

 corresponds in a surprising degree with a skull lately described by K. E. Von 

 Baer, (Bulletin of the Petersburg Academy, Melanges biologiques, 1S63, IV, 3,) 

 which was taken from a burial mound of the bronze age in Zealand, and of which 

 Von Baer had received a plaster cast from M. Thomsen, of Copenhagen. This 

 Danish skull, which would appear to be the first belonging to the bronze period 

 that has been obtained in Copenhagen, presents, equally with that found at 01- 

 mutz, " an extremely inclined crown — that is to say, it is considerably elevated 

 along the median line, and sinks away rapidly on both sides. In both crania, 

 the upper and hinder part of the head, as far as the occipital ridge, has a 

 striking degree of projection, while the under portion, below that ridge, approxi- 

 mates to the horizontal. In both a cross line (querlinia) passes from one auricu- 

 lar opening to the other, in front of the foramen magnum, &c." Now as, 

 according to Von Baer, this Danish skull of the age of bronze strikingly resem- 



