36 
STRUCTURE OF LAKE-DWELLINGS. 
I. Substructure. 
I . — Pile-dwellings. — What may especially be called pile-dwell- 
ings are by far the most numerous variety of lake-habitation 
in Switzerland and Upper Italy. The ideal restoration in Case 
D 2 1, made under the direction of Dr. Keller, will give a general 
notion of the construction of this form of lake-dwelling. Piles 
of various kinds of wood, sometimes split, but in general ■ 
mere stems with the bark on, sharpened sometimes with the 
aid of fire, sometimes with stone hatchets, and in later times 
with tools of bronze and probably of iron, were driven into the 
shallows of the lakes, provided ■ they were not rocky, at various 
distances from the shore. These piles were placed sometimes 
close together, sometimes in pairs, sometimes tolerably wide apart, 
generally in regular order, but occasionally in apparent confu- 
sion. In every instance the heads of the piles were brought to a 
level, and then the platform beams were laid upon them, which 
in some cases were fastened by wooden pins, in others mortises 
or central hollows were cut in the heads of the vertical piles to 
receive the cross beams. Occasionally cross timbers were joined 
to the upright piles below the platform to support and steady the 
structure, either forced in as it were between them or fastened to 
them by what workmen call notching," that is, portions were 
cut out of the vertical piles to receive the cross timbers. The 
platform lying on the top of this series of piles appears in many 
cases to have been of the rudest construction, and to have con- 
sisted merely of one or two layers of unbarked stems lying 
parallel one to another ; in a few cases, as in one of the Italian 
lake-dwellings, they were composed of boards, split out of the 
trunks of trees, and joined with some approach to accuracy. 
In many instances the outer row of piles appears to have been 
covered or closed in by a kind of wattle or hurdle work, made of 
small twigs or branches, probably to lessen the splash of the 
water, or to prevent the piles from being injured by floating 
wood. 
The distance of these lake-villages from the shore varied con- 
siderably ; there appears to have been no regular rule in this 
respect ; it may, however, be well to mention that when a lake- 
dwelling has been inhabited both in the Stone and in the Bronze 
period, that part referable to the Bronze period is usually further 
from the shore and deeper in the lake than that which belongs 
