Fig. 263.—Agriculture during the Iron Epoch.
As a matter of fact, we have no acquaintance with any of the iron and bronze instruments which were used by men of the iron epoch in cultivation of the ground. Scythes and sickles are the only agricultural implements which have been discovered. But even these instruments, added to a quantity of remains of the bones of cattle which have been found in the lacustrine and palustrine settlements, are sufficient to prove that the art of cultivating the earth and of extracting produce from its bosom, rendered fertile by practices sanctioned by experience, existed in full vigour among the men who lived during the period immediately preceding historic times.
The plate which accompanies this page is intended to represent in a material form the state of agriculture during the iron epoch. We may notice the corn-harvest being carried on by means of sickles, like those found in the lacustrine settlements of Switzerland. A man is engaged in beating out, with a mere stick, the wheatsheaves in order to thrash out the grain. The grain is then ground in a circular mill, worked by a horizontal handle. This mill is composed of two stones revolving one above the other, and was the substitute for the rough primitive corn-mill; it subsequently became the mill used by the Romans—the pistrinum—at which the slaves were condemned to work.
Indications of an unequivocal character have enabled us to recognise as a fact, that human sacrifices took place among the Helvetians during this period. It is, however, well known, from the accounts of ancient historians, that this barbarous custom existed among the Gauls and various nations in the north of Europe. In a tumulus situated near Lausanne, which contained four cinerary urns, there were also found the skeletons of four young females. Their broken bones testified but too surely to the tortures which had terminated their existence. The remains of their ornaments lay scattered about in every direction, and everything was calculated to lead to the belief that they had been crushed under the mass of stones which formed the tumulus—unhappy victims of a cruel superstition. Not far from this spot, another tumulus contained twelve skeletons lying in all kinds of unusual postures. It is but too probable that these were the remains of individuals who had all been immolated together on the altar of some supposed implacable divinity.
What was the character of the type of the human race during the iron epoch? It must evidently have been that of the present era. Both the skulls and the bodies of the skeletons found in the tombs of this epoch point to a race of men entirely identical with that of our own days.
We shall not carry on our study of pre-historic mankind to any later date. We have now arrived at an epoch upon which sufficient light has been thrown by oral tradition combined with historical records. The task of the historian begins at the point where the naturalist's investigations come to an end.
FOOTNOTE:
[ [41] 'Les Sépultures de Saint-Jean de Belleville,' with lithographed plates.