Some of these bones contained crystals of vivianite, resembling in this respect the osseous remains found on some of the Scottish crannogs, especially that at Lochlee. (B. 373, p. 88.)
The Bos primigenius is also represented by a portion of horn 21 inches long. The presence of hazel nuts with gnawed holes also points to the existence of some small rodents, probably the dormouse. One or two bones (metacarpal bone of a deer and an ulna of the bear) are covered all over with groups of peculiarly-striated markings, as if made with a file; but for what purpose, or whether the work of man or of some rodent animal, remains a mystery.
There is also a considerable quantity of the bones of birds, the spine bones of fish, jawbones of large pike, carp, etc., and a portion of the shell of a tortoise (Emis lutaria).
Of human remains there are two skulls of adults, minus the facial part, another of a child, a lower jaw, and a few bones of the extremities.
Notwithstanding a minute search, no traces of any kind of corn have hitherto come to light; but we must not therefore conclude that the lake-dwellers were ignorant of agriculture and the ordinary cereals, as grain is so apt to decompose unless it happens to be in a carbonised state. It is, however, probable that the cultivation of grain was not the chief industry of the colony, and that the mealing-stones which were in such abundance must have been used for grinding some other kind of food as well as grain, such as the kernels of hazel-nuts and water-chestnuts. The water-chestnut (Trapa natans), according to Deschmann, does not grow at the present time in Carniola; nor has it ever, since the earliest botanical examination of the country by Scopoli, been considered a native plant in the Flora Carniolica. In the last century the monks of the Cistercian order, at Sittich, cultivated it in their ponds. Pliny, however, distinctly states that in ancient times it was used as a food. "Thraces qui ad Strymona habitant foliis tribuli equos saginant, ipsi nucleo vivunt, panem facientes prædulcem, et qui contrabit ventrem." (H. Nat., xxii. 10-12.)
Among the vast quantity of osseous remains there is not a single fragment of the skeleton of the horse. On the other hand, it is calculated that the deer is represented by no less than 500 individuals, and the beaver by at least 140. For the latter this is a colossal figure, seeing that the richest station in beaver remains among the Swiss lake-dwellings, viz. Moosseedorfsee, numbers only eight individuals. The animal is now extinct in the country, nor has it ever been mentioned in any of the historical annals of Carniola.
Third Lecture.
LAKE-DWELLINGS AND PILE-STRUCTURES IN ITALY.
On the 20th of July, 1860, M. G. de Mortillet wrote a letter to Sig. Cornalia, president of the Italian Society of the Natural Sciences, at Milan,[37] in which, while mentioning the discoveries made in Switzerland, he suggested that similar antiquities might be found in the lakes of Lombardy. The reading of this letter led to a discussion which at once elicited one or two statements of archæological importance. The vice-president, Sig. Antonio Villa, recalled the fact that a bronze axe-head and some flint arrow-heads were found in the turf-bog of Bosisio, at a depth of 10 feet, which were described and figured in a Milan journal, Il Fotografo, 2nd August, 1856. The president also mentioned that he possessed weapons of a similar character, which were found, along with some human bones, in the peat-beds of Brenna. Shortly afterwards the celebrated naturalist Gastaldi, in an article in Il Nuovo Cimento, directed attention to certain antiquities which the turf-cutters were in the habit of finding in the "torbiera di Mercurago." (B. 37.) Subsequently Gastaldi visited this locality, and along with Professor Moro, of Arona (who first recognised the importance of the objects in question), made further researches in the peat at Mercurago, the result of which was to leave no doubt that they had here to deal with the remains of a true palafitte analogous to the pile-dwellings in the Swiss lakes. During the next two years Gastaldi's report was considerably enlarged by further finds at Mercurago. (B. 43 and 52.)
About the same time that these discoveries at Mercurago were being made the existence of a palafitte in Lake Garda was surmised from the finding, at various times, of bronze implements and weapons in the harbour at Peschiera; but nothing further of a very definite character occurred till the summer of 1863, when Professors Desor and De Mortillet visited Lombardy in search of lake-dwellings. These eminent archæologists were joined by Professor Stoppani, and the immediate result of their investigations was the discovery of several settlements in the Lake of Varese and elsewhere. (B. 67.) Since then the lacustrine stations south of the Alps have greatly increased in number, there being now scarcely any of the smaller lakes and turbaries of North Italy that have not yielded more or fewer remains of this character.