Many of these remains have, of course, now entirely disappeared in the interests of agriculture, but their number still remaining is very great. In Eastern Germany Dr. R. Behla describes and tabulates no fewer than 1,100. They are more numerous in the fertile districts. In Oberlausitz, in one district measuring 9 miles long by 3 to 16 broad, they number 100, and in the neighbourhood of Bautzen within a one mile circle 20 can be counted.[59]
It is probable that the material used in the upper structures of the Burgwälle was wood, which, of course, has now completely decayed, except in some special conditions, as in swampy ground where wooden piles were used in their foundations. This is another point of contact between these buildings and the lake-dwellings which has not been overlooked by archæologists. Virchow describes the Burgwall of Potzlow, and that of Zahsow near Cottbus, as constructed over former Pfahlbauten;[60] and, indeed, the town of Cottbus seems to have been altogether built over piles, as, wherever diggings have been made, piles are met with, and in this way a finely ornamented quern was found.[61] Wooden substructures, in the form of a platform or Packwerkbau, have also been observed and recorded in many places, as at Schlieben, Gross Topola (Posen), the Labenzsee, Westpreussen.[62] Moreover, those in boggy places were approached by means of wooden gangways, the remains of which have been frequently met with in the form of a double row of piles.[63]
ANCIENT MARINE DWELLINGS ON THE COASTS OF
HOLLAND AND WESTERN GERMANY.
Notwithstanding the striking and singular appearance the Swiss lake-dwellings must have presented to foreigners and strangers, it is a remarkable fact that Roman writers are entirely silent about them. Nor can this silence be accounted for on the supposition that the lake-dwellings had entirely come to an end prior to Roman times, as several of them have furnished antiquities whose Roman origin cannot be mistaken. Some archæologists think they recognise in the representation of a Dacian village on the Column of Trajan a true pile-village (B. 164); but this is doubtful, and, even if true, it is but a very meagre evidence of the custom, and leaves the problem of the lake-dwellings as mysterious as ever. Such reticence on the part of classical writers does not, however, extend to the class of ancient remains I am now about to describe.
Pliny very distinctly states that the Chauci (Frisians and other races along the coast of the German Ocean) were in the habit of constructing artificial mounds, on which they built their houses so as to be beyond the influence of the waves and tides. The following passage from his "Natural History"[64] will be read with interest in relation to the recent discoveries that have been made in the localities referred to.
"I have myself personally witnessed the condition of the Chauci, both the Greater and the Lesser, situate in the regions of the far north. In these climates a vast tract of land, invaded twice each day and night by the overflowing waves of the ocean, opens a question that is eternally proposed to us by Nature, whether these regions are to be looked upon as belonging to the land, or whether as forming a portion of the sea?
"Here a wretched race is found, inhabiting either the more elevated spots of land, or else eminences artificially constructed, and of a height to which they know by experience that the highest tides will never reach. Here they pitch their cabins; and when the waves cover the surrounding country far and wide, like so many mariners on board ship are they; when, again, the tide recedes, their condition is that of so many shipwrecked men, and around their cottages they pursue the fishes as they make their escape with the receding tide. It is not their lot, like the adjoining nations, to keep any flocks for sustenance by their milk, nor even to maintain a warfare with wild beasts, every shrub, even, being banished afar. With the sedge and the rushes of the marsh they make cords, and with these they weave the nets employed in the capture of the fish; they fashion the mud, too, with their hands, and drying it by the help of the winds more than of the sun, cook their food by its aid, and so warm their entrails, frozen as they are by the northern blasts; their only drink, too, is rainwater, which they collect in holes dug at the entrance of their abodes; and yet these nations, if this very day they were vanquished by the Roman people, would exclaim against being reduced to slavery! Be it so, then—Fortune is most kind to many, just when she means to punish them."
Notwithstanding the preciseness of Pliny's description and the fact that for several centuries, since the great sea-dykes were erected, the scattered remains of these mounds have been accessible on dry land, they have only quite recently attracted the attention of archæologists. I consider their investigation important, not only for the large amount of industrial remains they contain, but for supplying a missing link in the evidence of continuity in the European habit of constructing pile-dwellings.
TERPEN (WEST FRIESLAND).
Before the construction of the great sea-dykes in Holland nearly the whole of West Friesland would have been in that hybrid condition described by Pliny in which it was difficult to say whether it belonged to sea or land (dubiumque terræ sit, an pars maris). At the present time, however, these lands are richly cultivated and look as if they were a dead level. It is only on close inspection that the monotony is relieved by certain elevations of considerable extent called Terpen, whose summits rise to about the level of the larger dykes. These mounds are situated at more or less regular intervals, so that if the tides by any calamity had free scope, they would appear as so many islands scattered over the country. It is on such elevations that modern churches and villages are generally built, and, till they accidentally attracted the attention of agriculturists, nobody seemed to think anything about their origin. A few years ago it was discovered that their interior was composed of a rich ammoniacal deposit which agriculturists found valuable as a fertilising agent when spread over their fields. The excavation of this substance for manuring purposes now forms an important industry, and any landed proprietor who happens to own a workable terp—i.e. one free of buildings—is on the way to realise a small fortune. When a terp is found suitable for being excavated they generally commence by digging a canal close up to its base, sufficiently large to admit of the passage of good-sized boats. The boats are then easily loaded with the stuff and so it is conveyed to all parts of the country. As the workings advance the canal is also advanced, so that the boats are always in close proximity to the diggings. In the course of these operations, bones and horns of various animals, pottery, and other relics of human industry, were occasionally turned up.