That many of these lake-villages, built as they were on wooden platforms and constructed of combustible materials, were liable to conflagrations, we can readily believe, and we have had conclusive evidence that many of them came to an untimely end in this manner. It is, indeed, to such catastrophes that we owe much of our information, as the sudden interruption of busy life-scenes in such a manner and especially when accompanied by circumstances that tended to preserve the ruins from decay, has been the means of supplying us, as it were, with a photographic picture of the habits, customs, and industries of the people; and it requires only a sufficient number of such instances to be able, from a comparative examination of the recovered relics, to construct a fair scale of the progressive civilisation and culture of the lake-dwellers. On the other hand, there are lacustrine villages which have existed, through various ages, such as Nidau, but the association of objects so widely separated in point of time in one place becomes misleading, especially if their relative ages cannot be tested by superposition in the relic-bed—which can rarely be the case in lacustrine investigations, as in the act of dredging the relics are all jumbled together.
Professor Desor, observing that large quantities of pottery of every description were found in certain localities, which could not belong to one family, and that many of the bronze weapons and implements were new and unused, suggested that the palafittes in Lake Neuchâtel were merely magazines or shops, and not the ordinary residences of the people. (B. 252, p. 3.) But this opinion has not been adopted by Swiss archæologists; nor indeed is it at all justified from a study of the character of the multifarious objects discovered among their débris, which undoubtedly point to village life and the exercise of social and domestic avocations on the spot. Dr. Gross, in combating Desor's opinion, so far as founded on the unused condition of many of the relics, remarks:—"Je possède dans ma seule collection les tronçons de plus de dix épées réduites à l'état fragmentaire par un long usage. Un grand nombre d'outils s'y montrent altérés et modifiés par la même cause." (B. 392, p. xii.)
The settlements of the pure Stone Age are found only in a limited area in Central Europe. Their greatest development has been in the lakes bordering on both sides of the Alps, and it is especially from the data there supplied that we become acquainted with their characteristic features. This area may be more specifically defined as including the lakes of Lombardy, Laibach, Bavaria, Switzerland, and Savoy, with the exception perhaps of Lake Bourget—whose palafittes appear to have been constructed exclusively in the Bronze Age.
One of the most striking facts, and one to which I invite special attention, is the advanced state of the culture and social organisations which prevailed amongst the earliest constructors of these singular abodes. It is beyond doubt that, from the very start, their inhabitants were acquainted with various industries, especially weaving, which they sedulously practised; that they reared the ordinary domesticated animals; and that they cultivated flax, fruits, and various kinds of grain. For example, at Wangen two varieties of wheat and the two-rowed barley were distinctly recognised both in whole ears and in the separate grain, the latter in quantities that could be measured in bushels. The stones of the grape, which Professor Heer (B. 123) somewhat hesitatingly announced among the fruits from this station, may now be accepted as genuine, as the grape (Vitis vinifera) has recently been found at Steckborn, another station of the pure Stone Age,[124] and at Haltnau. (B. 462, p. 58.) Several varieties of well-made cloth of flax, and mats of bast, were also found at Wangen. There is preserved in the Museum of Fribourg a carbonised spindle from Lake Morat, which shows fine threads still coiled round it, and Dr. Gross figures a similar object from Locras. (B. 392.) Most antiquaries are acquainted with the remarkable varieties of cloth, fringes, nets, cords, and ropes brought to light by Messikommer from the very lowest relic-bed at Robenhausen ([Fig. 25]). Even specimens of embroidery were found at the adjoining station of Irgenhausen. (B. 126, Pl. xvi.) Remains of linen cloth, thread, nets, basket-work, etc., have also been found in a great many other stations, as Vinelz, Locras, Schaffis, Lagozza, Laibach, etc. But the absence of such fragile and perishable relics from many other stations is not to be taken as evidence that their inhabitants were unacquainted with such industries; for it must be remembered that it is only when fabrics are carbonised, or deposited in circumstances exceptionally favourable to their preservation, that they are prevented from undergoing the natural process of decay. Thus, at Schussenried, though there was no actual cloth found, the impression of a well-woven fabric is clearly seen on a consolidated mass of wheat—probably that of the sack in which the grain had been stored—and at Laibach a similar impression was observed on a fragment of pottery.
One of the stations in Moosseedorfsee which became completely exposed in consequence of drainage operations, and was carefully examined by the experienced archæologists Messrs. Jahn, Morlot, and Uhlmann, yielded a large assortment of the osseous remains of animals, amongst which the following were supposed to have been in a state of domestication, viz.:—dog, sheep, goat, pig, and various kinds of oxen. A few bones and teeth of the horse were also found, but these might have belonged to the wild species, as it is not agreed, nor is there any evidence, that this animal was domesticated till the Bronze Age. The cultivated plants from this station were barley, two kinds of wheat, pea, poppy, and flax. Among an assortment of its industrial remains, now in the Bern Museum, are about a dozen celts of nephrite (one of jadeite), bits of cord, a wooden comb, a fish-hook made of a boar's tusk, flint saws in their wooden handles, and fragments of pottery, some of which are ornamented with nail-marks or perforations round the rim. One piece of dark pottery ([Fig. 184], No. 5) has a series of triangular bits of birch bark stuck on its surface by means of asphalt. (B. 336, p. 37.) If any further evidence were required to show the skill of the early lake-dwellers in the arts of spinning and weaving, and the extent to which they followed agricultural pursuits and the rearing of domestic animals, I have only to call attention to the vast number of spindle-whorls, loom-weights, etc., which are everywhere to be met with; the corn-crushers, yokes for cattle ([Fig. 184], No. 1), field hoes, picks, and other agricultural implements found on the sites of the earliest settlements, as Robenhausen, Schaffis, Schussenried, etc.
Fig. 184.—Miscellaneous Objects.
No. 1 = about 1⁄14, 4 = 4⅓ feet long, 3 and 8 = 1⁄4, and the rest = 1⁄2 real size.
That the potter's art was well known to, and practised by, the early lake-dwellers hardly needs any demonstration when we look at the mass of fragments, and even whole dishes, consisting of bowls, plates, cups, jugs, spoons, and large vases, now tabulated and stored in the various museums of lacustrine objects. These dishes were made without a knowledge of the potter's wheel, and the paste generally contained coarse sand or small pebbles; but a finer kind was also used for the smaller vessels. Generally speaking they are coarsely made in the earlier stations, having perforated knobs instead of handles, yet occasional examples turn up which show that handles were not unknown. The ornamentation consists of finger and string marks, irregular scratchings with a pointed tool, raised knobs, perforations round the rim, together with dots and lines in various fantastic combinations. No two vessels exactly alike in style and ornamentation have ever been found. The only approach that I have seen is in the case of two vases, one from Bodmann ([Fig. 30], No. 20), and the other from Schussenried ([Fig. 35], No. 4), which certainly suggest that the vessels were made under the influence of the same artist. In Lagozza and Polada artistic patterns were made from the impressions of a small tube, probably a stiff straw or a bone instrument, alternating with panels of crossed lines. In Laibach great skill is exhibited, not only in the variety and elegance of the vessels, but also in their ornamentation, which consists of various figures, rectangles, crosses, rhombs, triangles, etc., the lines of which are flanked with small pointed impressions. In the Mondsee a similar taste for geometrical figures is displayed, and here the lines are large and deeply cut so as to admit of the insertion into them of a white substance which, on the originally black pottery, must have had a striking effect. Associated, however, with these fantastically ornamented dishes, both in Laibach and the Mondsee, are others of a much inferior type.
To the food supply derived from agriculture, the rearing of domestic animals, and the seeds and fruits of wild plants, they added the produce of hunting and fishing; and the remains of the weapons used in these pursuits are numerous. Arrow-points of flint and sometimes of other minerals, as rock crystal and jade, and of bone, are amongst the most common relics; and even a few of the bows made of yew wood, notwithstanding their liability to decay, have come to light, two from Robenhausen, and one from each of the stations of Vinelz, Sutz, and Clairvaux.