/. Lubbock on the Ancient Lake Habitations of Switzerland. Ill 



Human bones occur in the Pileworks but very seldom, and 

 may no doubt be referred to accidents, especially as we find that 

 those of children are most numerous. One mature skull was, 

 however discovered at Meilen, and has been described by Pro- 

 fessor His, who considers that it does not differ much from the 

 ordinary Swiss type. And while his work was in the press, M. 

 Rutimeyer ' "" " -•- ^ ^ ^- ^ '—n- ^-— -^ 



from Biel. 



M. Troyon has a very interesting chapter on the different 

 modes of burial ; he points out that the disposition of the corpse 

 after death, had a deep meaning and is perhaps of greater im- 

 portance than the nature of the tomb, which must in many cases 

 nave depended upon that of the materials which came to hand. 

 The Greeks generally burnt their dead ; considering fire as the 

 means of purification, while the Persians shrank from such an 

 act, regarding fire, according to Herodotus, as a deity. Other 

 nations, looking upon the earth as the universal mother, returned 

 mto her bosom the remains of their dead, fortunately ignorant of 

 the deduction that as we brought nothing into the world so we 

 can take nothing out of it, and regarding it therefore as a sacred 

 duty to bury with the departed his most useful weapons and most 

 beautiful ornaments. This belief seems to have been almost as 

 general as the hope of a resurrection, and even among the Jews 

 we find a trace of it in the words of Ezekiel (ch. xxxii, 27). "And 

 they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircum- 

 cised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war." 



In tombs of the Stone age the corpse appears to have been 

 almost always, if not always, buried in a sitting position with 

 the knees brought up under the chin, and the hands crossed over 

 the breast.* This attitude occurs also in many Asiatic, African, 

 and American tombs. M. Troyon, quotes the following passage 

 f'-om a work published by Andrd Thevet, in lo7o; "Quand 

 ^onc (speaking of the Brazilian aborigines), leurs parents sont 

 Jforts, ils les courbent dans un bloc et monceau dans la Jit on 

 il3 sont dece'des, tout ainsi que les enfants sont au ventre de la 

 ^^re, puis ainsi enveloppes, lies et garrottes de cordes, lis les 

 tnettent dans une grande vase de terre." M. Troyon adds, Chez 

 pertains Indiens, les meres, apre's avoir donne a I'homme, avant 

 dellnhumerl'attitudequ'il avaitdansle sein maternel, epanchent 



^ee tor Denmark, Worsaae's Antiquities, ifing. Ji-aic. p. o^. ^" J""5- -— 

 ^^ Bateman's excellent volume just published, " Ten years d.gg-ng^ .n Celtic and 

 ««on GravehiUs" the same position was, to say the least of it, very common m 

 ^% British Tombs, in wS^affo the cor'pse -^,g«!^f ^"3^,f ,^.fd"^lte f 

 iunta of"^""*"^ be very interesting if some archsologij ^^"J^Jf J^^J^^*^ ^^n foiS 



^ JocH. Sci.-Seconi> Series, Vol. XXXIV, No. 101.-Sept., 1862. 



