Between this and Neuchâtel are three stations, viz. Champréveyres, Monruz, and Crêt, on which a few objects have been picked up. In 1885 a pot of dark pottery ornamented with circular lines and triangles ("Wolfszahn-ornamenten"), measuring 6¼ inches in diameter and 4¾ in height, was fished up in eight feet of water, and was supposed to be from the bronze station of Champréveyres.[7] The pot contained sand and the following objects:—two stone celts, a spindle-whorl, a pierced boars tusk, half of a stone axe-hammer partially bored, two objects of stone, a bit of red ochre, and a bit of yellow ochre.
Auvernier.—In the sheltered bay between Colombier and Auvernier was one of the largest and most interesting settlements in the lake. It was discovered early, and notwithstanding that its remains were covered with ten or twelve feet of water, it was minutely searched. Professor Desor ascertained that there were two distinct stations near the same place, one being a bronze station and farther out in the lake. The Stone Age settlement, which lay just between the latter and the shore, contained a steinberg of round and angular stones, and covered nearly two acres. The piles of the bronze station were inserted in soft mud, and their tops projected from one to two feet above the lake bottom. In one place a canoe and large masses of wattle-work were seen by Desor protruding from the mud. Among the antiquities collected by the earlier explorers are:—Arrow-points of various shapes with and without barbs, a richly-ornamented socketed lance-head, a solid ring armilla, a chisel, fish-hook, etc. Also fragments of variously-ornamented pottery, one of which showed something like the Greek pattern or meander line. Not less than twenty of the illustrations of Desor (B. 95) are of objects from this station.
Fig. 9.—Auvernier. All 1⁄3 real size.
The station was systematically investigated during the year 1873 and the three following years, and a report of the results was published by Dr. Gross in 1876. (B. 286.) He describes the antiquities under the following heads, from which it will be seen that the station ranks almost on a par with that at Moeringen:—(1) Arms, (2) instruments, (3) objects of dress, (4) objects belonging to horses' harness, (5) moulds, (6) pottery. Dr. Gross, at the eighth meeting of the German Congress of Archæologists at Constance, in September, 1877, gave some further account of the relics from Auvernier, particularly the swords, of which six were found. (B. 306.)
The illustrations on [Fig. 9] include a variety of axes (Nos. 1 to 8), knives (Nos. 9 to 11), a socketed chisel (No. 12), a gouge (No. 18); three hammers, one with a square socket and a side loop (No. 13), another with a square perforation in the middle (No. 19), and the third shaped like the upper portion of a winged axe (No. 20); two sickles (Nos. 15 and 16), a star-like ornament (No. 14), pendants (Nos. 17 and 24), half of a mould for an axe (No. 22), and an ornamental object (No. 27). All the above are of bronze, and of the remaining objects, one (No. 23) is a trilocular dish of pottery, two are of bone (Nos. 25 and 26), and the last (No. 28) is a stone anvil set in a wooden casing. The handle of one of the swords is illustrated on [Fig. 186], No. 3.
Cortaillod.—We next come to the neighbourhood of Cortaillod, where there were several settlements. From Mr. A. Vouga's admirable and concise notices (B. 393 and 414a) of the more recent discoveries, it appears that the principal station (Station Principale, marked a on the accompanying [Sketch Map]) was nearly opposite the village of Petit Cortaillod, and consisted of two portions—one, nearest the shore, furnishing relics of the Stone Age; and the other, those characteristic of the Bronze Age. A few hundred yards to the north there was another large Stone Age settlement (Station de la Fabrique, b), also with a Bronze Age portion on its outer or lake side. On the south side of the principal station there were observed two small groups of piles probably remains of embryonic stations which were never completed (c and d). On one of these a remarkable wooden implement, supposed to be a pile-driver, was found, measuring 5 feet 4 inches in length ([Fig. 184], No. 4).
