Gletterens to La Sauge.—Some eight or nine stations have been noted by the earlier explorers along this part of the coast, many of which have yielded Roman tiles and pottery. At Port Alban there are the remains of a station on which bronze (No. 21) and iron objects have been found. Recently there has been brought into notice a kind of ornamental metal mirror, said to have been found here ([Fig. 192]).[16]
Another site is farther east, giving indications of an early Stone Age station, but on which Desor found iron objects. Among recent finds are some large horn buttons and a so-called "portemonnaie lacustre" (No. 22).[17]
At Champ Martin there is a steinberg, on which spindle-whorls and a few other things have been found.
At Cudrefin the lake-dwellings are unimportant, but the station is well known as the site of a canoe, carefully described by Professor Grangier. It measures 36½ feet long, 2 feet 9 inches broad, and 1 foot 6 inches deep. This dug-out, like so many in Ireland and Scotland, had for strengthening purposes four transverse beams left in the solid. The prow had a perforated beak, which might have been used as a means for fastening a rope. (B. 194.)
At La Sauge fragments of Roman amphoræ and tiles were found associated with some piles.
LAKE OF MORAT (MURTEN).
Lying directly between the lakes of Neuchâtel and Morat there stretches a considerable elevation called Mount Vully, which ends abruptly at its north-west end on the margin of the Gross Moos. At the base of this declivity lies the Broye, and as the widening and deepening of its channel was part of the great scheme for the Correction des Eaux du Jura, a similar effect was produced on Lake Morat as on the lakes of Bienne and Neuchâtel. Previous to the lowering of its waters, however, the lake-dwelling stations along its shores were carefully examined by Colonel Schwab, Baron von Bonstetten, and the Count de Pourtalès, the proprietor of an estate on its western shore.
In Keller's 5th report (B. 61) the number of stations in this lake was given as 16, and since then one or two more have been added to the list. Many of these were, however, mere indications which, on the lowering of the level of the water, have turned out to be only stone cairns supposed to have been landing-places. According to the most recent researches of Mr. Süsstrunk (B. 336 and 462), the number may be reduced to 11, the positions of which are sufficiently defined on the accompanying [Sketch Map]. They belonged mostly to the Stone Age period, and only three, viz. Montilier, Greng-Insel, and Vallamand survived during the most flourishing period of the Bronze Age.
Montilier.—The first station of importance, beginning on the east side of the lake, was situated a little to the north of the present village of Montilier. It contained a steinberg, and the piles were stout and firmly fixed. Here Colonel Schwab found not only objects of the Stone Period, such as flint knives, stone hatchets, etc., but also an unusually large number of handsome earthenware vessels presenting a style of ornamentation which at once led him to assign the settlement to the Bronze Age—a deduction which his subsequent discoveries completely justified. These vessels were neatly finished, and had their surface sometimes rubbed over with charcoal or graphite, a process which gave them a glossy appearance. They were made without the intervention of the wheel, and from not giving out a ringing sound when struck with a hard substance, Colonel Schwab concluded they had been burnt in open fires. The ornamentation consisted of deeply incised lines, circles, triangles, etc., filled with a white chalky substance. In some instances strips of tin were plastered over the surface, which took the place of the linear incisions, and so presented a pleasing combination of the same principles of ornamentation. The forms of the vessels are extremely elegant and varied, and may be classed as cups, bowls, plates, jars, and jugs. Some have handles, others spouts springing from the middle of the bulge, and others a series of symmetrical perforations, but whether for ornament or use it is difficult to decide. One most remarkable dish like a saucer has its inner surface ornamented with linear incisions and a series of thirty symmetrically disposed groups of perforations. The colour of this pottery was either black, red, or grey, and sometimes the same dish had a combination of these colours. Spindle-whorls of diversified forms, and ornamented with dots, oval depressions, etc., were also abundant, (B. 126, Pl. iv. and v.)
Among the other Bronze Age antiquities collected here were some stone moulds, hair-pins, hatchets, knives, armlets, rings, sickles, fish-hooks, beads of glass and amber, a small flat finger-ring of gold, etc. There was also portion of an armlet of tin. The bronze knives were not numerous, but one was highly ornamented with a series of three flowing patterns of semicircles separated by incised lines which ran along its curved back.