176 On the Ancient Lake Habitations of Switzerland. 



barley, several bushels of the former cereal having been found 

 at Wangen, the grains adhering together in large masses. Ears 

 of barley are also numerous. 



Carbonized cakes of unleavened bread, and the round stones 

 used in grinding the corn, have also been found here, and may 

 be seen in the collection. No agricultural implements, except 

 sickles of bronze, have yet been discovered ; their other instru- 

 ments of tillage were doubtless made of wood. 



The uncultivated fruit-trees of the forest supplied them 

 abundantly with apples and pears, wild plums, prunes, hazel- 

 nuts, and beech-nuts, great abundance of the stones and shells 

 of which, and also seeds of the raspberry and blackberry, are 

 found in the mud around their dwellings. The apples are 

 often found cut in two, and apparently dried for winter use, as 

 is the custom in America at the present day. 



Seeds of the water caltrop (Trapa natans), now almost 

 extinct in Switzerland, are met with, and are believed to have 

 been used as articles of food. The fibres of flax and hemp 

 have also been found applied to useful purposes, such as cords, 

 netting, and woven fabrics for clothing. (See list of specimens 

 in collection.) 



Professor Rutimeyer's examination of the remains of animals 

 obtained from the various settlements, has led to the most 

 interesting conclusions respecting the modes of life of their 

 occupants. For example, in the oldest settlements, those of 

 the Stone age, such as Wanwyl and Moosseedorf, the remains 

 of the stag predominate over the ox, and the goat over the 

 sheep, the wild boar over the domestic hog, the fox over 

 the dog; whilst at Bienne and Meilen, settlements of the 

 Bronze age, the dog predominates over the fox, the domestic* 

 hog over the wild boar, the sheep over the goats. Lastly, at 

 the Steinberg (which I have already mentioned as a settlement 

 that lasted down to the introduction of iron), we find numerous 

 bones of the horse, an animal whose remains are extrennhj rare 

 in the earlier settlements. Thus, the Stone ago may be said 

 to represent the epoch of the hunter ; the Bronze, the pastoral 

 ago ; whilst the commencement of the Iron age probably wit- 

 nessed tho demolition of the latest pile-works, and was to the 

 Swiss lake-dwellers a time of invasion, conquest, and ultimate 

 destruction by a foreign and more powerful race. 



Of their religious superstitions wo know little. That they 

 eat foxes and eschewed tho hare seems proved by the frequent 

 occurrence of foxes' bones, and the discovery of but one soli- 

 tary bone of the haro up to tho present time* Col. Schwab 



* Such a superstition still prevails nmong the Laplanders at tho present day. 

 The Ruseiuns even refuse to cnt it ! This aversion to the hare is also noticed 

 by Julius Cffisar, in his Commentaries (lib. v., cap. xii.), as existing among the 

 ancient Britons. 



