CONSTRUCTION OF THE PLATFORMS. 127 



still if we are to make any assumption in the case, it would 

 seem safer to suppose that in each period some of the vil- 

 lages had perished, or been forsaken, before others were built. 



We might feel surprise that a people so uncivilised should 

 have constructed their houses with immense labor on the 

 water, when it would have been so much more easy to have 

 built them on dry land. But we have already seen how, 

 even in historical times, such dwellings have served as simple 

 and yet valuable fortifications. The first settlers in Switzer- 

 land had to contend with the boar, the wolf, the bear, and 

 the urus ; and subsequently, when the population increased, 

 and disputes arose, the Lake-habitations, no doubt, acted as 

 fortifications, and protected man from man, as they had 

 before preserved him from wild beasts ; still, though it is 

 evident that the security thus given would amply compensate 

 for much extra labor, it remains difficult to understand in 

 what manner the piles were driven into the ground. 



In many cases, indeed, settlements of the Stone age are 

 characterised by what are called "Steinbergs," that is to say, 

 artificial heaps of stones, etc., evidently brought by the 

 natives to serve as a support to the piles. In fact, they found 

 it easier to raise the bottom round the piles, than to drive 

 the piles into the bottom. On the other hand, some of these 

 constructions, as, for instance, those at Inkwyl and Wauwyl, 

 described respectively by M. Morlot and Col. Suter, more 

 closely resemble the Irish Crannoge. We see, therefore, 

 that, as Dr. Keller says, the Lake-dwellers followed two 

 different systems in the construction of their dwellings, 

 which he distinguishes as " Pfahlbauten," or Pilebuildings, 

 and "Packwerkbauten," or Crannoges: in the first of which 

 the platforms were simply supported on piles ; in the second 

 of which the support consisted not of piles only, but of a solid 

 mass of mud, stones, etc., with layers of horizontal and per- 

 pendicular stakes, the latter serving less as a support than 



