Volume 4 — THE LAKE DWELLINGS. [Footnote 142]

Since 1854, when Dr. Keller published his first report on pile-dwellings in Lake Zurich, he, and other Swiss archaeologists stimulated by his example and guided by his counsel, have zealously explored many other Swiss lakes, and have succeeded in discovering more than two hundred similar settlements, and in collecting tens of thousands of relics of the people who during many centuries occupied them. Six reports on the "wonderful Pfahlbauten" have been published by Dr. Keller; but, being written in German, they are less known than the compilation in French by Fred. Troyon, who has absorbed Dr. Keller's facts, and mingling them with fancies of his own, has given a sensational character to his work. Excellent notices have, however, appeared, written by Wylie, Lubbock, Lyell, and others, and translations of some original memoirs have been printed in the Smithsonian Reports. Stripped though the subject be, in some degree, of novelty, the present translation of Dr. Keller's work is not the less welcome; it is indeed right, that he who gave the first exposition of these structures should tell the story of their discovery, and picture forth the state of society which their remains reveal. In this work we have a general description of the structure of these dwellings; notices of the various settlements which have been discovered, with an account of others on the Italian side of the Alps, and of the Crannoges in Ireland and Scotland; chapters on the remains of plants, by Dr. Heer, and of animals, by Professor Rütimeter; and ninety-nine plates and several woodcuts give graphic, but sometimes rough drawings of the dwellings, and of the various objects found in them. As a storehouse of facts, illustrating the character and progress of an ancient people, this work is invaluable; it will aid other archaeologists in their researches; and we think, too, that the cautious and philosophical manner in which Dr. Keller reasons from his facts will help to correct some hasty and fanciful speculations.

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For the construction of pile-dwellings, Swiss lakes afford favorable sites, as along the shores there is generally a considerable breadth of shallow water. Some pleasant bay, protected by well-wooded hills, abounding in game, was selected for such settlements; and at a little distance from the land piles of various kinds of would, generally entire stems with with their bark on, but sometimes split, and from fifteen to thirty feet in links and three to nine inches in diameter, were driven into the bottom all the late, the heads of the piles rising from two to four feet above the water. At the Wangen settlement there were 40,000 piles, but all may not have been driven down at the same period. Across this substructure other stems of trees ten of twelve feet long were laid, and fastened by wooden pegs; and above them split boards were similarly fastened, for me a solid, even platform, which was covered by a bed of mud or loam. The platform of a few, which Dr. Keller calls fascine dwellings, was supported not on piles, but on layers of sticks and small stems built up from the bottom of the lake, being similar to some of the Scottish Crannoges. The boards and planks had been imperfectly fitted together, for numerous objects which had slipped through the chinks of the floor are scattered over the lake bottom; but quantities of broken implements, pottery, and animal and vegetable refuse, heaped together on particular spots, show that spaces had been left in the platform, through which rubbish had been thrown into the water, thus for me heaps analogous to the kitchen-middings of Denmark. Huts were erected on the platform, having a framework of piles and stakes, with waddle or hurdlework of small branches woven between the upright piles, and covered over with a thickness of from two to three inches of loam or clay, evidence of which has been found in pieces of half-burnt day retaining the impression of the wattle-work. As some pieces have a curve, Troyon concluded that the huts were circular, and from nine to twelve feet in diameter; but Dr. Keller shows that the curve had probably been produced by the great heat to which the clay covering was exposed before it fell into the water, while also pieces of different curves are found promiscuously on the same spot with others perfectly flat, no piece indeed exceeding twelve inches across. It is now pretty certain that most, if not all the huts, were rectangular; those at Robenhausen and Niederwyl were found to be twenty-seven feet by twenty-two feet. They stood close to but apart from each other, and were thatched with straw and reeds. From the almost universal prevalence of clay weights for weaving, it may be inferred that every one was furnished with a loom. A narrow platform or bridge resting on piles, of which a few remains have been found, connected these dwellings with the land. Room enough there was in and around these huts for all the operations of daily life, as well as for the manufacture of every implement used in household economy; and in short, this was the place where every craft or art known to the settlers was brought into play. Even domestic animals were stalled on the platform, as at Robenhausen the remains of the litter of these animals has been found.

Such sites for dwellings are not unknown to history. Hippocrates describes similar habitations on the stagnant, quiet-flowing river Phasis in Armenia, and Herodotus others on Lake Prasias in Thrace. The Crannoges in Ireland were inhabited as recently as 1645, but rather as places of refuge; and at the present time there are analogous structures in the Eastern Archipelago. Security against the attack of enemies seems to have been the chief reason of selecting such peculiar sites for dwellings, at a period when society was in a divided state, {400} and when war of tribe against tribe was frequent. Similar conditions were indicated by the numerous hill-forts of the ancient Britons, and even by the pele towers of the border-land in mediaeval times. From the great labor bestowed on the pile structures, and the vast number of instruments of all kinds found in the "relic bed" of the lakes, it is clear that they had not been temporary places of refuge, but permanent habitations, which had been occupied during many generations; and the relics, scattered abundantly beneath these pile-dwellings, furnish important evidence relating to different eras of civilization.

In a considerable number of these dwellings—thirty at least—no trace of metal has been discovered, the instruments having been made of stone, bone, and wood; in a much larger number bronze, without a trace of iron, has been found; and in a few, it is clear that iron has been extensively used. The three ages of stone, bronze, and iron are here established by better evidence than from any other groups of remains; for the great number and variety of relics which these lake habitations have yielded, give a broad basis for true inductive reasoning on prehistoric conditions. Yet there is evidently no sudden break in these periods, such as would prove that superior and conquering races had introduced higher civilization. "It is very certain that, at least in Switzerland," says Dr. Keller, "there was no hard line of demarcation between the three periods, but that the new materials were spread abroad like any other article of trade, and that the more useful tools gradually superseded those of less value." We have here, therefore, continuity and progress; and it may be reasonably inferred, that the advance in art from the use of stone to that of bronze, and then to iron, was made by the same race who originally took up their abode on these lakes; for during the long time the pile habitations were occupied, extending over several thousands of years, there was no essential change in the structure of the dwellings or in the mode of life. Doubtless, when these lake-dwellers first arrived in Switzerland, they had the germs of civilization; they had domestic animals from the first, such as sheep, though the flesh of wild animals was more used for food; they could spin, weave, and make cordage from beast or vegetable fibre, rude pottery they could make, some of which was even painted with graphite and rubble; fishers they were, using nets and hooks made of bone; from serpentine, flint, horns and bones they made their weapons and tools; they had brought with them cereals, and cultivated the soil with very inefficient instruments made of stag's horns and crooked branches of trees, and raised wheat and and barley, which they ground by mills of the primitive form, consisting of a round stone as a corn-crusher, and a mealing-stone with a hollow in which the corn was bruised. The stone weapons and implements are similar to those of Denmark; but several show in an interesting manner how the stone celts or chisels, which were small, from one to eight inches in length, were hafted. Some were first inserted into a piece of stag's horn, and then set in a shaft or club; others were inserted into clefts of branches and fastened by cord and asphalt. During this early age, it was the most important of all instruments, and was used for various purposes; fixed at the end of a pole, it was a lance; set into wood, it was a war-club or domestic axe; placed in horn, it was the poor man's knife; it served to skin animals, to cut flesh and hides, and to make all instruments of horn and wood.

The evidences of commercial intercourse with other people are but slight; but a bluish glass bead, in a stone age dwelling on the little reedy or "moor-lake" of Wauwyl, may show some connection with the Egyptians or Phoenicians; and knives, arrow-heads, and other implements, made of flints, not found in Switzerland, but derived from distant parts of France and Germany, {401} may indicate a barter trade with the north and west. Possibly, too, Nephrite, of which the most valuable celts were made, and which does not occur in Europe, but in Egypt, China, and other parts of Asia, may point to intercourse with the east, unless we suppose the Nephrite implements had been brought from the east by the lake-dwellers, when they first settled in Switzerland.

Not a few of the stone-age dwellings had been burnt by accident or by an enemy, and wore not rebuilt; but others had a continued existence through both the stone and bronze periods; and hence we see settlements in a transitional state, and trace a gradual advance in civilization. At Meilen, where a vast number of stone relics have been found, there appear one bronze armilla and one bronze celt; but at Robenhausen we probably see the commencement of the metallurgic art, for amid a profusion of stone relics belonging to three different platforms, crucibles have been found, with lumps of melted bronze, and one lump of pure unmelted copper. It may be that the lake-dwellers became first acquainted with metal through traders; but, as Dr. Keller remarks, "May we not venture to assume that the colonists, by their intercourse with strangers who were acquainted with the nature of metals, were incited to search their country for copper ore, and try to melt and cast it? Copper ore is found on the south side of Mürtschenstock, on the Lake of Wallenstadt." The age which was dawning blends itself with the age which was setting; for we find that the new instruments of bronze were copies of the old forms in stone. Even the bronze ornaments were but improved copies of analogous objects in own, showing indeed the sameness of race in both periods, and the similarity of their tastes and customs. The gradual introduction of metal gave to the lake-dwellers new powers, which enabled them to improve their condition; dwellings were now erected in deeper water; larger piles were used, and better sharpened and squared, fastened with cross beams, and strengthened by stones heaped up; pottery was better made, more elegant in form, and sometimes painted black or red, or ornamented with tin-foil plates. The bronze implements which had been made by native artisans were of excellent workmanship and form, especially the spear and javelin-heads, which prove great proficiency in casting. The swords with short handles and curved knives and armillae resemble those which have been found in Denmark; but we observe none of the graceful leaf-shaped swords which occur in Britain and Ireland. Varied, peculiar, and sometimes beautiful is the ornamentation of the period, consisting of zigzag lines, points, triangles, spiral and lozenge forms.

A transitional state there was, too, between the bronze and the iron periods. Morges settlement on Lake Geneva may be regarded of the bronze age; for not only have one hundred and thirty bronze objects been found there, but also moulds for casting bronze winged celts, showing that such implements had been made on the spot; yet here there occurs an iron poniard. But in the lake-dwelling of Marin, one of the lost occupied, the number of iron objects is surprisingly great, exhibiting to view weapons, agricultural and domestic implements, and ornaments made of iron, which in the older dwellings had been made of stone or bone or bronze. Of these iron relics the most remarkable are the swords, of which fifty and more have been found at Marin, some with and others without sheaths, all, with one exception, of iron, and every one being peculiarly yet differently ornamented. These swords are masterpieces of the smith's art, and were probably produced at large manufactories, when there were division of labor and every practical appliance, for some of them bear upon them makers' marks. They are, however, the product of Celtic art, and correspond in form and ornamentation with those of the later Celtic period of northern nations; and {402} this view is confirmed by the discovery of similar swords in the ditches of the fortress of Alesia, where a conflict had taken place between the Romans and Helvetians when it was besieged by Caesar. Less striking to the eye, however, is the connection between the productions of the bronze and of the iron age; but our author remarks:

"There are, indeed, some forms of implements which remind us of the previous age. But, on the whole, when the Marin objects were made, iron had taken full possession of the field, and all the implements, including ornaments, which could be made out of iron, a metal both firmer and more pliable, were manufactured out of this material. But the form of these specimens had in some measure undergone a change, for the working of iron is a totally different matter from that of bronze; and the hammer of the smith and the moulds of the founder cannot produce the same forms. The remains of the settlements of pure stone, bronze, and iron ages indicate, therefore, epochs of civilization among the inhabitants, separated by long intervals, while the end for which the lake-dwellings were erected—namely, the security of person and property—and their construction remained the same."

Of the religion of the lake-dwellers there is no certain information; but some relics made of stone and pottery, somewhat crescent-shaped, found in bronze-age settlements, Dr. Keller thinks may be representative of the crescent moon, and, therefore, probably objects of worship. According to Pliny, the Druids gathered the mistletoe with great solemnity on the sixth day of the moon; and hence it is inferred that the moon images were sacred emblems, having power to avert and cure diseases. This, however, is but a fancy, for it does not appear from Caesar that the Celts worshipped the heavenly bodies.

The fauna and flora of the lake-dwellings afford interesting information to naturalists, and throw some light on the questions as to the origin, the development, and distribution of species. During the stone age, the bos primigenius and bos bison were abundant, but they disappear after the introduction of metallic weapons; the former is now only found on the marshes of the North Sea. A very large ox, with great semilunar horns, bent forward from the frontal plane (bos trochoceros), and which had been contemporaneous with the mammoth and hippopotamus, appears to have been domesticated at Concise and Chevreaux. It is now extinct; but the marsh cow (bos brachyceros), which was most abundant in the stone age, has continued to exist to the present time, and now occupies the mountainous parts of Switzerland and its wild mountain valleys. In the earlier periods, several races of swine ran wild, which were subsequently domesticated. The fox was abundantly eaten; but the hare was not used for food, even the traces of its existence are few; neither domestic false, nor rats, nor mice appear. Wild animals predominate in the stone age, but they gave way in subsequent period. to domestic animals.

The seeds and other parts of plants lying in the lake mud, or buried under several feet of peat, have been so well preserved, that their characters can be determined. The small-grained six-rowed barley and the small lake-dwelling wheat (triticum vulgare antiquorum) were, from the earliest period, the most generally cultivated of farinaceous seeds; and, notwithstanding the rudeness of the husbandry implements, the quality of the produce was apparently equal to that of modern times; the spelt (triticum spelta), now one of the most important cereals of Switzerland, did not appear till the bronze age; while rye was entirely unknown, thus showing a connection with the countries of the Mediterranean, the lake colonists having the same cereals as the Egyptians. Cakes of unleavened bread have been found, made of millet and wheat, which had been baked on the hearthstone in the dwellings. Barley seems to have been used boiled or parched; but as corn-crushers and mealing-stones have been found in most of the settlements, grain had been extensively used for food The latest settlement, dating backward {403} not less than 2,000 years, and the older going some 3,000 years and more further backward still, it is interesting to observe what change this long lapse of time produced on plants:

"The dense, compact wheat and the close, six-rowed barley have undergone no perceptible change, yet it must be confessed that most of them agree with no recent forms sufficiently to allow of their being classed together. The small Celtic beans, the peas, the small lake-dwelling barley, the Egyptian and small lake-dwelling wheat, and the two-rowed wheat, or emmer, form peculiar and apparently extinct races; they are distinguished for the most part from the modern cultivated kinds by smaller seeds. Man has, therefore, in course of time produced sorts which give a more abundant yield, and these have gradually supplanted the old varieties."

With wild plants the case is different:

"The flora of the lake-dwellings announces to us that all the plants which come in contact with man become changed up to a certain point, and man participates in the great transformations of nature, while the wild plants, which surround us at the present day, still grow in the same forms as they did three or four thousand years ago, and do not exhibit the slightest change."

The final abandonment of these lake-dwellings, about the beginning of the Christian era, would result from an improved civilization and a more united and orderly state of society; but how long before that time they had been occupied has not yet been definitely determined; our chronology is still relative rather than absolute. Peat has accumulated over some settlements, but as its rate of growth varies under different conditions, we are only told by it that the stone-age dwellings lasted many centuries. At Robenhausen peat moor, there are remains of three settlements of the stone age, one over the other; two of which had been destroyed by fire, and the last had been abandoned, probably on account of the increase of peat. Between the first and second settlement there are three feet of peat and one foot of other deposit, both containing relics; between the second and third settlements the deposits are the same in character and sickness, and over the last dwelling are two feet of peat and half-a-foot of mould; so that during the stone age there had been a slow growth of eight feet of peat, and the deposit of three and a half feet of other matter. Other means have been used to obtain more definite results; the most remarkable of which is that of Professor Morlot, who from an examination of a cone of gravel and alluvium, connected with deposits of the stone, bronze, Roman, and recent periods, and gradually built up by the torrent of Teniere where it falls into Lake Geneva, concludes that the age of bronze has an antiquity of from 3,000 to 4,000 years, and that of stone from 5,000 to 7,000 years—no very startling estimate, when we remember the high antiquity which has been assigned to the drift and cave men.

Of the physical characters of the lake-dwellers, Dr. Keller gives us little information; that they had small hands is probable from the shortness of their sword-handles. Few human bones, and those chiefly of children, have been found. No crania of the stone age have been seen, but a few out of the bronze period, one of which from Meilen differs little from the skulls of the existing Swiss. It is, therefore, mainly from the relics found that we can form any guess as to the origin and relationship of the lake-dwellers, and by those it is shown that they belonged to the very people who at the same time lived on the mainland. Dr. Keller concludes "that the builders of the lake-dwellings were a branch of the Celtic population of Switzerland, but that the earlier settlements belong to the pre-historic period, and had already fallen into decay before the Celts took their place in the history of Europe."

The history of the lake-dwellers opens a hopeful prospect for those races who are now in a degraded condition; for here they start with a low degree of civilization, and yet there is a gradual rise upward to that point where great skill was reached {404} in metallurgic and other arts; but even this was only a step onward to that high cultivation of intellect and morals among their descendants the Swiss people. Why should not other races pass through the same stages, especially when influenced by intercourse with modern civilized nations?

ORIGINAL