15 
CASE S. 
Case S contains a series of specimens from one of the Swiss 
Lake Dwellings or Pfahlbauten (Rohenhausen on the Lake Pfaffi- 
kon, a little to the north of the Lake of Zurich), all 'presented by 
the Hon . and Ven. Archdeacon Harris . 
The Swiss lake-dwellings first attracted attention during the 
dry winter of 1853, when the inhabitants of Meilen, on the Lake 
of Zurich, in dredging mud for the purpose of raising the level of 
some ground which they sought to reclaim, discovered a number of 
wooden piles deeply driven into the bed of the lake, and from this 
spot they dredged up a number of stone hammers, stone axes, and 
other implements, as well as fragments of rude hand-made pottery. 
This discovery soon led to others of a similar nature on the Lakes 
of Constance, Zurich, Geneva, Neufchatel, and on most of the 
smaller lakes, and it became evident that a race of people had 
inhabited Switzerland, who probably for security built their villages 
upon platforms raised upon piles driven into the bed of the lake. 
After a time it was remembered that Herodotus had given the « 
description of habitations which must have strikingly resembled 
those on the Swiss lakes. A Thracian tribe dwelt in the year 
520 b.c. in Prasias, a small mountain-lake of Pseonia (now part 
of modern Roumelia), and the Father of History thus describes 
the construction of their dwellings :—“ In this lake strong piles 
are driven into the ground, over which planks are thrown, con¬ 
nected by a narrow bridge with the shore.” * * “ Upon these 
planks each man has his hut, from every one of which a trap-door 
opens to the water.” * * “ Their horses and cattle are fed 
principally with fish.” As we shall see the Swiss lake-dwellers, 
like the Pasonians, possessed horses and cattle, and there is evi¬ 
dence that, as in their case, a narrow bridge formed the medium of 
communication between the village and the shore, for a double 
range of stakes is often found in a straight line from the mass of 
stakes to the shore. That some of these Swiss lake-villages were 
of considerable extent is certain—one at Wan gen must have stood 
upon no less than 40,000 piles, whilst M. Troy on, from calcula¬ 
tions based upon the area occupied respectively by the already- 
discovered villages of the “ stone age,” estimates the population at 
about 31,800 persons, and that of the “ bronze age” settlements at 
42,500. 
In the case is exhibited a copy of the ideal restoration of one of 
these villages, made by Dr. F. Keller, of Zurich, in which he has 
not trusted to his imagination only, but has availed himself of a 
sketch published by M. Dumont d’Urville of similar habitations of 
the Papoos, in New Guinea, in the Bay of Dorei. 
As yet all the settlements of the bronze period are confined to 
Western and Central Switzerland, whilst in the more eastern lakes 
those of the stone period alone have as yet been discovered. 
In Switzerland a stone age preceded that of bronze, for the piles 
