which supported the villages of the former period are far more de¬ 
cayed than is the case with those belonging to the bronze age. 
The animal remains show that the owner of the bronze hatchet 
had made an important advance in civilization, by abandoning in 
increasing degree the uncertain life of the hunter for the more 
settled occupation of the herdsman. 
The lake-dwellers of the early stone period fed on venison and 
the flesh of the wild boar, more than on the flesh of domestic 
cattle; this was reversed in the later stone period and in the age 
of bronze. Remains of the tame pig are altogether wanting in 
some of the older stone stations, whilst this animal was a common 
article of food in the bronze age. In the beginning of the age of 
stone in Switzerland the goats outnumbered the sheep, but towards 
the close of the same period the sheep were more abundant than 
the goats. 
Even in the earliest settlements, however, several domesticated 
animals occur; there were two races of ox, and one each of the 
goat, the sheep, and the dog. The most common species of 
domesticated ox was the “marsh cow” (Bos longifrons), the 
second species was derived from the wild bull (B. primigenius.) 
In the later division of the stone period, two tame races of pig 
existed—one large and derived from the wild boar, the other 
smaller, the “ marsh hog ” (Sus Scrofa palustris). 
A middle-sized race of dogs continued unaltered throughout the 
entire stone period, but in the bronze age a large hunting dog and 
a small horse appear. In passing from the oldest to the most 
modern sites, the extirpation of the elk and beaver, and the gradual 
reduction in numbers of the bear, stag, and roe, are distinctly per¬ 
ceptible. The Lithuanian bison died out in Switzerland about the 
commencement of the bronze age. 
Yery few human bones have been discovered, and only one skull 
(dredged up from Meilen, and belonging to the early stone period) 
has as yet been carefully examined, the type much resembles that 
now prevailing in Switzerland (Professor His, quoted by Sir 
Charles Lyell.) Professor Biitimeyer is said to be at present 
engaged in investigating some human remains from the lake 
dwellings of Switzerland, and his researches will probably throw 
much light on this subject. 
According to calculations made by M. Morlot, M. Troy on, and 
M. Victor G-illieron, all reasoning from different data, the settle¬ 
ments of the early stone period may claim an antiquity of from 
5000 to 7000 years, and those of the bronze age of from 3000 to 
4000; but these figures, in the present state of our knowledge, 
must be held to admit of considerable alteration. A few of the 
most modern lake-dwellings, such as Noville and Chavannes, are 
assigned by antiquaries to so recent a period as the 6th century; 
in these the first traces are observable of the domestic cat and the 
domestic fowl. 
Passing by such modern examples as that afforded by the island- 
