CHAPTER VII 



THE TURBARY OR BUNDNER SHEEP 



Among the debris of the Prehistoric pile-dwell- 

 ings of the lakes of Switzerland, Professor L. 

 Riitimeyer,^ of Basle, discovered and described the 

 remains of a small and slender-horned breed of 

 domesticated sheep to which he gave the name 

 of Torfschaf {Ovz's aries palustris), equivalent in 

 English to turbary or peat sheep. This sheep, 

 which was subsequently found to survive in certain 

 parts of the Orisons, is of such importance and 

 interest that it may be accorded a short chapter to 

 itself. 



The earliest inhabitants of these lake-dwellings, 

 or Pfahlbauten, as they are called in German, were 

 a short-headed, or brachycephalic, race belonging 

 to the Mongoloid stock of Asia, which from the 

 earliest historic times till the Middle Ages 

 periodically invaded Europe. Somewhat later the 

 lake-dwellings, which were from time to time 

 destroyed and rebuilt, were invaded by a long- 

 headed (dolichocephalic) race, which became more 

 or less mingled with the short-headed people. 



• Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten der Schweiz, Basle, 1861. 



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