245 
Pfahlbauten, some of which were perhaps burnt and rebuilt 
more than once. 
The number of stone implements which have been already 
found is quite astonishing ; at Wangen in Lake Constance, 
many hundred weapons of various sorts have been discovered, 
and a great number also at Moosseedorf, TTauwyl, and Roben- 
hausen, in none of which places has a single piece of metal 
been as yet met with, a fact which, taken in connection with 
the great number of bronze implements which have been 
collected from other pileworks, clearly indicates that the 
settlements above mentioned, belonged to the age of stone. 
Not only, however, is metal absent, and not only, as we have 
already seen, does the Fauna indicate a greater antiquity, 
but the stone weapons themselves are less varied and less 
skilfully made. Most of them are made from rocks which 
occur in Switzerland, though it is probable that the flint was 
brought from France. The absence of any great blocks of 
this valuable material in Switzerland accounts for our not 
finding any of the large flat axes which are so characteristic 
of Northern Europe, and especially of Denmark. At Wan- 
gen, the stone implements resemble those of Moosseedorf, 
and are principally formed of indigenous rocks, which, to 
judge from the fragments scattered about, were evidently 
worked up at these two places. The stone implements 
found in the settlements belonging to this earliest period con- 
sist of hammers, axes, knives, saws, lance-heads, arrow- 
heads, corn-crushers, and polishing blocks. Some of the 
hammers were made of serpentine with a hole pierced through 
one end, and are, like all pierced stones, of very great rarity, 
belonging perhaps only to the end of the stone period. Some 
of them are cylindrical, others more cubical in shape. 
The axe was pre-eminently the implement of antiquity. It 
was used in war and in the chase, as well as for domestic pur- 
poses, and great numbers have been found, especially at 
