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peculiarities which point to any definite date, we can only 
suppose that they are contemporary with the drift, and wait 
for further means of ascertaining the period at which the 
latter was deposited. It does not appear that there is any 
reason for believing that these flint implements necessarily 
belonged to the same period at which the animals lived, 
bones of which are found in the same drift. The only 
implement made by man, as far as I know, which has 
hitherto been found in the shell-mounds in this island, 
is a rather rudely worked bronze pin, which is 
ascribed with little hesitation to the ninth century of our 
era. The objects found in the lacustrine villages, are very 
numerous and varied, and belong to different periods, but 
chiefly Eoman, or presenting forms which fix no date, and 
therefore may be older than Eoman, or they may be more 
recent. Other objects found in these pile- works, show that 
they must have been inhabited after the Eoman period, for 
rather numerous examples of pottery which I have seen in the 
engravings accompanying the publications of the Swiss 
antiquaries are certainly Germanic, and belong, probably, to 
the fifth or sixth century. Now, I can understand that these 
Swiss lakes may have been inhabited during several centuries 
by a people, or peoples succeeding each other, who lived on 
them much in the same manner, but I consider it most im- 
probable that such a continuance should have lasted thousands 
of years ; and I think we may fairly put the question, 
whether those who advocate this extreme antiquity, instead 
of giving any good reasons for disturbing our previous 
archaeological views, may not be building upon assumptions 
without any real foundations. 
As none of these discoveries have occurred within the 
range of our present subject, I will enter into no further 
investigation of them ; but the case is different with the two 
other classes of evidence. The caves are peculiar to the hilly 
