We soon begin to find evidence of the progress made by man, and though in Neolithic times he still continued to occupy caves he learned to adapt them better to his needs. The rock shelters of the Petit-Morin valley, so well explored by M. de Baye, are the best examples we can give.

These caves are hollowed out of a very thick belt of cretaceous limestone. They date from different epochs, and each presents special characteristics which can easily be recognized. Some were used as burial-places, others as habitations. In the former the entrance is of irregular shape, the walls are roughly cut, and the work is of the most elementary description. The sepulchral eaves were simply closed by a large stone rolled into place and covered with rubbish, the better to hide the entrance. The shelters used to live in show much more careful work, and are divided into two unequal parts by a wall cut in the living rock. To get into the second partition one has to go down steps, cut in the limestone, and these steps are worn with long usage. The entrance was cut out of a massive piece of rock, left thick on purpose, and on either side of the opening the edges still show the rabbet which was to receive the door. Two small holes on the right and left were probably used to fix a bar across the front to strengthen the entrance. A good many of these eaves are provided with an opening for ventilation, and some skilful contrivances were resorted to for keeping out water. Inside we find different floors, shelves, and crockets cut in the chalk, and on the floors M. de Baye picked up shells, ornaments, and flints, which were lying just where their owners had left them. Very different is all this from the Vezere caves, and everything proves an undeniable improvement in the conditions of life.

The most interesting of all the objects found in these caves are, however, the carvings; but few date from Neolithic times, and some archaeologists have argued from their absence in favor of the displacement everywhere of old races by the incursion of new-corners. Some of these carvings represent hafted hatchets, the flint being painted black to make the raised design stand out better. Others represent human figures. In the Coizard Cave, for instance, was found a roughly outlined representation of a woman with a prominent nose, eyes indicated by black dots, highly developed breasts, but no lower limbs. A necklace adorns her throat, and a pendant hanging from this necklace is colored yellow. On the passage leading to the door is engraved another figure which was originally more accurately drawn than the others, but is not in such good preservation. In the Courjonnet Cave we see a woman with a bird's bead; she was probably one of the LARES PENATES, the protectors of the domestic hearth. We meet with this same goddess at Santorin, and at Troy, and on the shores of the Vistula, which is a very interesting ethnological fact.

The objects found in the sepulchral caves are important, and included a number of arrow-heads with transverse cutting edges. There is no doubt about their use; they have been picked up in black earth, in contact with human bones, the decomposition of the soft parts of which caused them to fall out of the mortal wound they had inflicted. With these arrow-heads were found flint knives, large sloped scrapers, polishers, and bone stilettos, the femora of a ruminant with a pig's tooth fixed on to each end, hoes made of stag horn, beads and pendants made of bone, shell, schist, quartz, and aragonite, with the teeth of bears, boars, wolves, and foxes, all pierced with holes. Some of the shell anti schist beads were spread upon the surface of the skull, and perhaps formed a net or RESILLE, such as that already referred to as found at Baousse-Rousse.

For centuries this occupation of caves continued, offering as they did a shelter that was dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer. Homer tells us that the Cyclops lived on the heights of the mountains and in the depths of the caves,[113] and Prometheus says that, like the feeble ant, men dwelt in deep subterranean caves, where the sun never penetrated.[114]

Whilst the men of the Petit-Morin valley hollowed out caves, or enlarged those made by nature, others took refuge in buts made of dried clay and interlaced branches, or in tents of the skins of the animals they had slain, and, though these fragile dwellings have disappeared, leaving no trace, there yet remain indelible evidences of the presence of many successive generations. Everywhere throughout the world we find heaps of rubbish, consisting chiefly of the shells of mollusca and crustacea, broken bones, flakes of flint, and fragments of stone and bone implements, covering vast areas and often rising to a considerable height.

Not until our own day did these rubbish heaps attract attention, and it was reserved to our own generation, so interested in all that relates to the past, to recognize their true significance. Steenstrup noticed, in the north of Europe, that these mounds consisted nearly entirely of the shells of edible species, such as the oyster, mussel, and LITTORINA LITTOREA; that they were all those of adult specimens, but not all subject to similar conditions of existence or native to the same waters. The kitchen-middings, or heaps of kitchen refuse — such was the name given to these shell-mounds — could not have been the natural deposits left by the waves after storms, for in that case they would have been mixed with quantities of sand and pebbles. The conclusion is inevitable, that man alone could have piled up these accumulations, which were the refuse flung away day by day after his meals. The excavation of the kitchen-middings confirmed in a remarkable manner the opinion of Steenstrup, and everywhere a number of important objects were discovered. In several places the old hearths were brought to light. They consisted of flat stones, on which were piles of cinders, with fragments of wood and charcoal. It was now finally proved that these mounds occupied the site of ancient settlements, the inhabitants of which rarely left the coast, and fed chiefly on the mollusca which abounded in the waters of the North Sea.

These primeval races, however savage they may have been, were not wanting in intelligence. The earliest inhabitants of Russia placed their dwellings near rivers above the highest flood-level known to or foreseen by them. The Scandinavians were most precise in the orientation of their homes, and M. de Quatrefages points out that the kitchen-midding of Soelager is set against a hill in the best position for protecting those who lived near it from the north winds, which are so trying in these districts on account of their violence. At Havelse, says Sir John Lubbock, the settlement was on rather higher ground, and, though close to the shore, was quite beyond the reach of the waves. The English visitors had an excavation made whilst they were present, and in two or three hours they obtained about a hundred fragments of bone, many rude flakes, sling stones, and fragments of flint, together with some rough axes of the ordinary shell-mound type. The excavations at Meilgaard a little later by the same explorers were even more fruitful in results.

Scandinavia does not appear to have been occupied in the Paleolithic period, and the most ancient facts concerning it only date from the expeditions of the Romans against the Teutons, and our knowledge even of them is very incomplete.[115] We are still ignorant of much which may have been known to the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians. It is possible that in the remote days under notice the Scandinavians were ignorant of the art of tilling the ground, for so far no cereal or agricultural product of any kind has been discovered, nor the bones of any domestic animal, except indeed those of the dog, which may, however, have been still in a wild state. Amongst the bones collected from the kitchen-middings, those of the stag, the kid, and the boar are much the most numerous. The bear, the urns, the wild cat, the otter, the porpoise, the seal, and the small mammals, the marten, the water-rat and the mouse, have also been found. At Havelse were collected more than 3,500 mammal bones, amongst which do not occur those of the musk-ox, the reindeer, the elk, or the marmot; their absence bearing witness to a more temperate climate than that of the present day in the regions under notice. The stag antlers found belong to every season of the year, from which we may conclude that the people of these districts, like the cave-men of the Pyrenees, had given up a nomad life and remained at home all the year round, living in the dwellings they had built upon the shores of the sea.

Amongst the birds found, we may mention the large penguin, now extinct, the moor-fowl, which fed entirely on pine buds, and several species of clucks and geese; whilst amongst the fish were the herring, the cod, the dab, and the eel. The numerous relics of chelonia prove the existence of numbers of the turtle tribe in the North Sea.

A great variety of objects, most of them of a coarse type, have been found beneath the kitchen-middings; metals are however completely absent, and it is probable that they were quite unknown to the Scandinavians for several centuries after their arrival in the country.

It is easy to quote similar facts in other countries. In 1877, Count Ouvarof mentioned, at the Archaeological Congress at Kazan, some kitchen-middings near the Oka, a little river flowing into the Volga near Nijni-Novgorod. In excavating some BOUGRYS, or little mounds of sand overlooking the valley, he discovered amongst the layers of alluvium, successive deposits of cinders and fragments of charcoal, which appear to have been the remains of a fire. A little lower down in another deposit were fragments of pottery, stone weapons and implements, and an immense number of shells. Judging from these relics of their daily life, this numerous population must have fed exclusively on fish and mollusca, for excavations brought to light but few mammal bones. The mollusca were all of species that only live in salt water. From this we know that the waves washed the shores near this BOUGRY, and that a milder climate probably prevailed in these regions, making life more supportable.

Virchow has recognized on the shores of Lake Burtneek in Germany, a kitchen-midding belonging to the earliest Neolithic times, perhaps even to the close of the Palaeolithic period. He there picked up some stone and bone implements, and notices on the one hand the absence of the reindeer, and on the other, as in Scandinavia, that of domestic animals. But in this case, the home of the living became the tomb of the dead, and numerous skeletons lay beside the abandoned hearths. Similar discoveries have been made in Portugal; shell-heaps having been found thirty-five to forty miles from the coast, and from sixty-five to eighty feet above the sea-level. Here also excavations have brought to light several different hearths; and in many of the most ancient kitchen-middings in the valley of the Tigris were found crouching skeletons, proving that here too the home had become the tomb.[116]

Similar deposits are by no means rare in France. M. du Chatellier mentions one in Brittany, which he estimates as 325 cubic feet in size. From it be has taken spear- and arrow-heads, knives and scrapers, some highly finished, others but roughly cut and often with scarcely any shape at all. The population was evidently ichthyophagous, to judge by the vast accumulations of shells of scallops, oysters, limpets, pectens, and other mollusca. The few animal bones are those of the stag, the bear, and certain wading birds.

At Canche, near Etaples, has been evade out a series of mounds forming a semicircle some eight hundred and fifty feet in extent. These mounds are made up of successive layers of shells and charcoal, the relics of successive occupations. Lastly we must mention a kitchen-midding situated at the mouth of the Somme, which is eight hundred and twenty feet long by about one hundred wide. It consists principally of shells of adult species, with which are mixed fragments of coarse black pottery and numerous goat and sheep bones, the latter bearing witness to a more recent date than that of the kitchen-middings of Scandinavia or of Germany.

Throughout Europe similar facts are coming to light. Evans mentions heaps of shells on the coasts of England. Chantre speaks of others near Lake Gotchai in the Caucasus, and Nordenskiold of others at Cape North, to which he wishes to restore its true name of Jokaipi. He sass these mounds are exactly like those of Denmark.

It is, however, chiefly in America that these heaps attract attention, for there huge shell-mounds stretch along the coast in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, California, and Nicaragua. We meet with them again near the Orinoco and the Mississippi, in the Aleutian Islands, and in the Guianas, in Brazil and in Patagonia, on the coasts of the Pacific as on those of the Atlantic. Owing to the darker color of the vegetation growing on them, the shell-heaps of Tierra del Fuego are seen from afar by the navigator. For a long time the true character of these mounds was not known, and they were attributed to natural causes, such as the emergence of the ancient coast-line from the sea, and it was not until lately that it was discovered that they were the work of men.

Some of these kitchen-middings are of great size. Sir Charles Lyell describes one on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth of the Altamaha (Georgia), which covers ten acres of ground and varies in height from five to ten feet. It consisted almost entirely of oyster shells. In America, as in Europe, excavations brought to light hatchets, flints, arrows, and fragments of pottery. Another of these mounds, near the St. John River, consists, as does that visited by Lyell, of oyster shells, and is of extraordinary dimensions, being three hundred feet long, and though the exact width cannot be made out, is certainly several hundred feet across. Putnam[117] gives an account of the excavation of one of these mounds formed of shells of the MYA, VENUS, PECTEN, BUCCINUM, and NATICA genera. It stretched along the sea-coast for a distance of several hundred feet, it was from four to five feet thick, and penetrated some distance below the surface of the ground. The valves had been opened with the aid of heat, and the animal bones found with the shells had been broken with heavy hammers which were found in the kitchen-midding. The bones included those of the stag, the wolf, and the fox. Fishes were also represented by remains of the cod, the plaice, and chelonia by turtle shells. Some bird bones were also found, and the knives, arrow- and spear-heads, scrapers, etc., were all of the rudest workmanship. Mr. Phelps has superintended yet more important excavations at Damariscotta[118] and all along the coast to the month of the Penobscot. In the lowest layers he made out ancient hearths, and found numerous fragments of pottery which are the most ancient examples of keramic ware found in New England, and were covered with incised ornamentation of considerable refinement.

The kitchen-middings of Florida and Alabama are even more remarkable. There is one on Amelia Island which is a quarter of a mile long with a medium depth of three feet and a breadth of nearly five. That of Bear's Point covers sixty acres of ground, that of Anercerty Point one hundred, and that of Santa Rosa five hundred. Others taper to a great height. Turtle Mound, near Smyrna, is formed of a mass of oyster shells attaining a height of nearly thirty feet, and the height of several others is more than forty feet.[119] In all of them bushels of shells have already been found, although a great part of the sites they occupy are still unexplored; huge trees, roots, and tropical creepers having, in the course of many centuries, covered them with an almost impenetrable thicket.

Whether man did or did not live in the basin of the Delaware at the most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations, excavations have yielded thousands of stone hammers and bone implements (Fig. 24).

The shell-mounds of which we have so far been speaking are all near the sea, but there is yet another consisting entirely of marine shells fifty miles beyond Mobile. This fact seems to point to a considerable change in the level of the ground since the time of man's first occupancy, for he is not likely to have taken all the trouble involved in carrying the mollusca necessary for his daily food so far, when he might so easily have settled down near the shore.

I cannot close this account of the kitchen-middings, without calling attention to two very interesting facts. The importance of these mounds bears witness alike to the number of the inhabitants who dwelt near them, and the long duration of their sojourn. Worsaae sets back the initial date of the most ancient of the shell-mounds of the New World more than three thousand years. This is however a delicate question, on which in the present state of our knowledge it is difficult to hazard a serious opinion. It is easier to come to a conclusion on other points: the close resemblance, for instance, between the kitchen-middings of America and those of Europe. In both continents we find the early inhabitants fed almost entirely on fish; their weapons, tools, and pottery were almost identical in character; and in both cases the characteristic animals of Quaternary times had disappeared, and the use of metals still remained unknown. Are these remarkable coincidences the result of chance, or must we not rather suppose that people of the same origin occupied at the same epoch both sides of the Atlantic?

The man of the kitchen-middings evidently had a fixed abode. Long since, the tent, the temporary shelter of the nomad, had given place to the but. We have already said what this but may have been like, but the most certain data we have as to human habitations at this still but little known epoch, are those supplied by the Lake Stations of Switzerland, and it is to our own generation that we are indebted for the first discoveries relating to them.

The memory of these Lake Stations bad completely passed away, and it was only the long drought which desolated Switzerland in 1853 and 1854, and the extraordinary sinking of Lake Zurich, revealing the piles still standing, that attracted the attention of archaeologists. In the space still enclosed by these piles lay scattered pell-mell stones, bones, burnt cinders of ancient hearths, pestles, hammers, pottery, hatchets of various shapes, implements of many kinds, with innumerable objects of daily use. These relics prove that some of the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland had dwelt on the lake where they were found, in a refuge to which they had probably retired to escape from the attacks of their fellow-men or wild beasts. Though they bad succeeded in getting away from these enemies, they were to fall victims to a yet more formidable adversary, and the half-burnt piles have preserved to our own day the traces of a conflagration that destroyed the Lake dwelling so laboriously constructed.

The discovery of these piles excited general interest, an interest that was redoubled when similar discoveries revealed that all the lakes of Switzerland were dotted with stations that had been built long centuries before in the midst of the waters. Twenty such stations were made out on Lake Bienne, twenty-four on the Lake of Geneva, thirty on Lake Constance, forty-nine on that of Neuchatel, and others, though not so many, on Lakes Sempach, Morat, Mooseedorf, and Pfeffikon. In fact more than two hundred Lake Stations are now known in Switzerland; and how many more may have completely disappeared?

There is really nothing to surprise us in the fact of buildings rising from the midst of waters. They are known in historic times; Herodotus relates that the inhabitants of pile dwellings on Lake Prasias successfully repelled the attacks of the Persians commanded by Megabasus. Alonzo de Ojeda, the companion of Amerigo Vespucci, speaks of a village consisting of twenty large houses built on piles in the midst of a lake, to which he gave the name of Venezuela in honor of Venice, his native town. We meet with pile dwellings in our own day in the Celebes, in New Guinea, in Java, at Mindanao, and in the Caroline Islands. Sir Richard Burton saw pile dwellings at Dahomey, Captain Cameron on the lakes of Central Africa, and the Bishop of Labuan tells us that the houses of the Dayaks are built on lofty platforms on the shores of rivers. The accounts of historians and travellers help us to understand alike the anode of construction of the Lake Stations and the kind of life led by their inhabitants.

The Lake dwellings of Switzerland may be assigned to three different periods. That of Chavannes, on Lake Bienne, belongs to the earliest type. The hatchets found are small, scarcely polished, and always of native rock, such as serpentine, diorite, or saussurite; the pottery is coarse, mixed with grains of sand or bits of quartz; the bottoms of the vases are thick, and no traces of ornamentation can be made out. The pile-dwellings of the second period, such as those of Locras and Latringen, show considerable progress; the hatchets, some of which are very large, are well made. Several of them are of nephrite, chloromelanite, and jade; and their number, as compared with those in minerals native to Switzerland, varies from five to eight per cent. Here and there in rare instances we find a few copper or bronze lamellae amongst the piles. The pottery is now of finer clay, better kneaded; and ornamentation, including chevrons, wolves' teeth, and mammillated designs, is more common. The handle, however, is still a mere projection. The third period, which we may date from the transition from stone to bronze, is largely represented; copper weapons and tools are already numerous, and bronze is beginning to occur. The stone hatchets and hammers are skilfully pierced, and wooden or horn implements are often found. The vases are of various shapes, all provided with handles, and are covered with ornaments, some made with the fingers of the potter, others with the help of a twig or some fine string. On the other hand, there are no hatchets of foreign rock; commerce and intercourse with people at a distance had ceased, or at least become rarer. The tools are fixed into handles of stag horn, which are found in every stage of manufacture. The personal property of the Lake Dwellers included bead necklaces, pendants, buttons, needles, and horn combs. The teeth of animals served as amulets, and the bones that were of denser material than born were used as javelin- or arrow-heads. The arrows were generally of triangular shape and not barbed.[120]

The distance from the shore of the most ancient of the Lake dwellings varies from 131 to 298 feet. Gradually men began to take greater and greater precautions against danger, and the most recent stations are 656 to 984 feet from the banks of the lake. The piles of the Stone age are from eleven to twelve inches in diameter; those of the later epochs are smaller. They are pointed at the ends, and hardened by fire. When the piles had been driven into the bottom of the lake, a platform was laid on them solid enough to bear the weight of the buts. This platform was made of beams laid down horizontally, and bound together by interlaced branches. Two modes of construction can easily be distinguished. In one the platforms were upheld by numerous piles, ten yards long, firmly driven into the mud. This is how the PFAHLBAUTEN, PALAFITTES, or pile dwellings situated in shallow waters were generally put together. In other cases it seemed easier to raise the soil round the piles, than to drive them into the hard rock which formed the bed of the lake. Care was then taken to consolidate them, and keep them in position with blocks of stone, clay, and tiers of piles. Keller gives to these latter the name of PACKWERBAUTEN, and other German archaeologists call them STEINBERGEN.

The mean depth of the waters in those parts of the lakes formerly occupied by the pile dwellings is from thirteen to sixteen feet, and we can still make out the piles when the water is calm and clear. Worn though they may be, their tops still emerge at a height varying from one to three feet above the mud at the bottom of the lake. Their number was originally considerable, and it is estimated that there were forty thousand at Wangen, and a hundred thousand at Robenhausen. The area occupied by the stations varies considerably; according to Troyon, that at Wangen was seven hundred paces long by one hundred and twenty broad. Baron von Mayenfisch explored seventeen sites in the Lake of Constance, the area of which varies from three to four acres. At Inkwyl is a little artificial island about forty-eight feet in diameter. The Lake dwelling of Morges, which was still inhabited in the Bronze age, covers an area of twelve hundred feet long by a mean width of one hundred and fifty. It is, however, useless to enumerate the various calculations that have been made, as they are founded on nothing but more or less probable guesswork.

Excavations show that the buts that rose from the platforms were made of wattle and hurdle-work. In different places calcined and agglutinated fragments have been picked up, and pieces of clay which had served as facing. The house to which they had belonged had been destroyed by fire, and the clay, hardened in the flames, had resisted the disintegrating action of the water. On one side this clay is smooth, and on the other it still retains the marks of the interlaced branches, which had helped to form the inner walls. Some of these marks are so clear and regular that Troyon, noticing the way they curve, was able to assert that the buts were circular, and that they varied in diameter from ten to fifteen feet.

A recent discovery at Schussenreid (Wurtemberg) gives completeness to our knowledge of the Swiss Lake dwellings. In the midst of a peat-bog rises a but known as a KNUPPELBAU, which is supposed to date from the Stone age. It is of rectangular form, and is divided into two compartments communicating with each other by a foot-bridge consisting of three beams laid side by side. The floors of this but are made of rounded wood, and the walls of piles split in half. Excavations have brought to light several floors, one above the other, and divided by thick layers of clay. The rising of the level of the peat doubtless compelled the Lake Dweller to add by degrees to the height of his house.

The Proto-Helvetian race were well-developed men, and the bones that have been collected show that they were not at all wanting in symmetry of form or in cranial capacity. The crania found are distinctly dolichocephalous, and their owners had evidently attained to no small degree of culture and of technical skill. Judging from the length of the femora found, though it must be added that they are mostly those of women, the ancient Lake Dwellers were not so tall as the present inhabitants of Europe. The smallness of the handles of their weapons and tools points to the same conclusion.[121]

Though the importance and number of the discoveries made in Switzerland render it the classic land of Lake Stations, it is not the only country in which they have been found. They have been made out in the Lago Maggiore and in the lakes of Varese, Peschiera, and Garda in Lombardy; in Lake Salpi in the Capitanata, and in other parts of Italy. Judging from the objects recovered from these stations, they belonged partly to the Stone and partly to the Bronze age.

The pile dwelling of Lagozza is one of the most interesting known to us. It forms a long square, facing due east, and covers an area of two thousand six hundred yards, now completely overgrown with peat six and a half feet thick. Amongst the posts still standing can be made out a number of half-burnt planks, which are probably the remains of the platform. One of the posts was still covered with bark, and it was easy to recognize the silver birch (BETULA ALBA). Other posts consisted of the trunks of resinous trees, such as the PINUS PICEA, the PINUS SYLVESTRIS, and the larch, which now only grow in the lofty Alpine valleys. Amongst the industrial objects found in the Lagozza pile dwelling were polished stone hatchets, hammers, polishers of hard stone, knife-blades, flint scrapers, and seven or eight arrows with transverse cutting edges, a form rare in Italy.

Castelfranco,[122] from whom we borrow these details, has also, in the excavations he superintended, picked up a number of earthenware spindle-whorls with a hole in the middle, amulets, and numerous pieces of pottery, some fine and some coarse, according to the purpose for which they were intended. The first mould had in most cases been covered over with a layer of very fine clay spread upon it with the aid of a kind of boasting-chisel. We may also mention a bone comb. The combs found in Swiss Lake dwellings are of horn9 with the exception of one from Locras of yew wood.

What chiefly distinguishes the Lagozza pile dwelling, however, is the absence of the bones, teeth, or horns of animals, and also of fish-hooks, harpoons, or nets, so that we must conclude that the inhabitants did not hunt or fish, that they did not breed domestic animals, and were probably vegetarians. The researches of Professor Sordelli confirm this hypothesis; from amongst the objects taken from the peat he recognized two kinds of corn (TRITICUM VULGARE ANTIQUORUM and TRITICUM VULAGERE HIBERNUM), six-rowed barley (HORDEUM HEXASTICHUM), mosses, ferns, flax, the Indian poppy (PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM), acorns, and an immense number of nuts and apples.

The acorns are those of the common oak, and their cups and outer rind had been removed, so that they had evidently been prepared to serve as food for, man; the apples were small and coriaceous, resembling the modern crab-apple; the Indian poppy cannot have grown without cultivation; but this was perhaps but an example of the same species already recognized in the Lake dwellings of Switzerland. It is difficult to say whether it was used for food or whether oil was extracted from it.

We have already spoken of the discoveries made in Austria and Hungary. Count Wurmbrand has described the difficulties with which explorers had to contend. The lakes have in many cases become inaccessible swamps, and in others, the waters having been artificially dimmed to regulate their overflow, the sites of the pile dwellings are so far below the level of the lakes that any excavations are impossible. Long and arduous researches have, however, been rewarded with some success, and the numerous objects recovered bear witness, as in Switzerland, to the gradual progress made by the successive generations who occupied these pile dwellings.

FIGURE 50

Objects discovered in the peat-bogs of Laybach. A. Earthenware vase. B. Fragment of ornamented pottery. C. Bone needle. D. Earthenware weight for fishing-net. E. Fragment of jawbone.

A lake near Laybach had been converted in drying up into an immense peat-bog, nearly thirty-eight miles in circumference, bounded on the right and left by lofty mountains.[123] When this bog was under water it had been the site of several Lake Stations. One, for instance, has been made out over three hundred and twenty yards from the bank. The piles, which consisted of the trunks of oaks, beeches, and poplars, varying from eight to ten inches in diameter, were placed at regular intervals. The objects taken from the peat-bog are simply innumerable (Fig. 50), and include hundreds of needles of different sizes, stilettos, dagger-blades, arrows, and hatchets, with stag-horn handles. Coarse black earthenware vases are equally numerous and are of a great variety of form, but their ornamentation. is of the most primitive description, and was done sometimes with the nail of the potter, and sometimes with a pointed bone. Little earthenware figures (Figs. 51 and 52) were also found, some of which were sent from the Laybach Museum to the French Exhibition of 1878. One of them is said to represent a woman, probably an idol. This is one of the first known examples of the representation of the human figure from a Lake dwelling. At Nimlau, near Olmutz, the drying lip of a little. lake brought to light a Lake Station surrounded by the trunks of oak trees of a large size. They were piled up, one above the other, and strongly bound together with osiers. These trunks were evidently intended to fortify the station.

FIGURE 51

Small terra-cotta figures, found in the Laybach pile dwellings.

The mode of construction of the Lake Stations of the marshes of Pomerania is very different from that employed in Switzerland or in Austria. The foundations rest on horizontal beams, kept in place either by great blocks of rock or by piles driven in vertically. In many cases notches had evidently been made, the better to place the cross-beams; whilst in others forked branches had been selected, so that a second branch could be fitted into the fork. Primeval man soon learnt to appreciate the solidity of such a combination. Do these stations, however, really date from prehistoric times? Virchow, returning to his first opinion, now thinks that the pile dwellings of Germany belong to the same epoch as the intrenchments known as BURGWALLEN, when metals and even iron were already in general use. They were inhabited until the thirteenth century, and it is easy to trace in them, as in those of Switzerland, the signs of the successive occupations, the dwellings having evidently been abandoned and restored later by fresh comers.

FIGURE 52

Small terra-cotta figures, from the Laybach pile dwellings.

At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle in 1863, Lord Lovaine described a Lake Station in the south of Scotland, and Sir J. Lubbock mentions one in the north of England. Others are known at Holderness (Yorkshire), at Thetford, on Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmunds; but judging from the description of them they are not of earlier date than the Bronze age.

Other stations are more ancient. A few years ago a number of piles were found a little above Kew, beneath a layer of alluvium, and embedded in the gravel which formed the ancient bed of the Thames. All around these piles were scattered the bones of animals, of which those of the BOS LONGIFRONS were the most remarkable. The long bones had been split to get out the marrow, an evident proof of the intelligent action of man. In London two similar examples were found on the site of the present Mansion House, and beneath the ancient walls of the city. They are supposed to date from times earlier, not only than the cutting out of the present course of the Thames, but before that invasion of the sea which preceded the formation of the Thames valley, now the home of more than four million men and women.

The Lake Stations of France are less important than those of the neighboring countries. It is supposed that Vatan, a little town of Berry, was built on the site of a Lake city. It is situated in the midst of a dried-up marsh, and at different points piles have been removed which were driven deep into the mud. We also hear of pile dwellings in the Jura Mountains, in the Pyrenean valleys of Haute-Garonne, Ariege, and Aude, as well as in those of the Eastern Pyrenees. In the department of Landes, which on one side joins the plateau of Lannemezan, and on the other the lofty plains of Bearn, are many marshy depressions, where have been found numbers of piles, with charred wood and fragments of pottery.

Discoveries no less curious have been made in the Bourget Lake, but the dwellings rising from its surface date from a comparatively recent epoch. The numerous fragments of pottery found prove that terra-cotta ware had attained to a beauty of form and color unknown to primitive times. Indeed some of the vases actually bear the name of the Roman potter who made them. We must also assign to an epoch later than the Stone age the buildings, remains of which have beet found in the peat-bogs of Saint-Dos near Salies (Basses-Pyrenees). At a depth of about thirty-two inches has been found a regular floor formed of trunks of trees resting on piles and bound together in a primitive fashion with the filaments of roots. These piles bear a number of deep clean-cut notches, such as could only have been made with an iron implement. in other parts of France there are Lake Stations, which were occupied until the time of the Carlovingians. To this time belong the pile dwellings of Lake Paladru (Isere), which were abandoned, so far as we can tell, by their owners when they were swamped by the rising of the water.

When the Lake Stations of Europe were inhabited, the characteristic animals of the Quaternary epoch, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, and the hippopotamus had disappeared from that continent, and their place was taken by the earliest domestic animals. The Lake fauna of Switzerland includes about seventy species, thirty mammals twenty-six birds, ten kinds of fish, and four reptiles.[124] The mammals were the stag, the dog, the pig, the goat, the sheep, and two kinds of oxen. These animals were already domesticated, there can be absolutely no doubt on this point, for in many PFAHLBAUTEN their very dung has been found, a conclusive proof that they lived side by side with man.

The remains of the stag and of the ox are more numerous than those of any other animal, and it is easy to see that every clay the importance of a pastoral life became more clearly recognized. In the most ancient Lake Stations, those of Mooseedorf, Wangen, and Meilen, for instance, the stag predominates; in those of the western lakes, which are comparatively more recent, relics of the ox are more numerous. In the Lake village of Nidau, which dates from the Bronze age, a greatly increased number of bones of domestic animals have been found, whilst those of wild creatures become rarer and rarer. The progress of domestication is evident, and it is no less certain that the lapse of centuries must have been required for the formation of the herds which evidently existed in certain localities. It is possible that these animals may have first entered Europe in the wake of foreign invaders, and before being reduced to servitude, they may have roamed about in a wild state, and even have been contemporaries with species now extinct. However that may be, there can be no doubt on one point, they could not domesticate themselves; one race of creatures after another must have fallen under the subjection of man, who gradually became the master of all the animals that are still about us.

We do not meet in the pile dwellings with the common mouse, the rat, or the cat, and the horse is very rare. It is the same with the kitchen-middings and the caves occupied in Neolithic times. The disappearance of the horse, so numerous in earlier epochs, is general, and this would be inexplicable if history did not solve the mystery. The Bible, which gives us such complete details of the pastoral life of the Hebrews, speaks for the first time of the horse after the exodus from Egypt of the children of Israel, and in Egypt itself the horse is not represented in any monument of earlier date than the Seventeenth Dynasty. It is the same in America, animals of the equine race, that were so numerous in early geological times, had long since disappeared on the arrival of the Spaniards, and the horses they brought with them inspired the Mexicans and Peruvians with unutterable terror.

Domestic animals require regular food through the long winter months; so that their presence alone is enough to prove that their owners were tillers of the soil. The discovery in many of the Helvetian Lake Stations of calcined cereals confirms this hypothesis. Amongst the cereals found, corn is the most abundant, and several bushels of it have been collected. In the department of the Gironde, regular silos or subterranean storing-places for grain have been found in which the calcined corn was stowed away. In the Lake Stations have also been found millet, peas, poppy-heads, nuts, plums, raspberries, and even dried apples and pears, doubtless set aside as a provision for the winter. From the water at Cortaillod, have been taken, with a few ears of barley, cherry-stones, acorns, and beechnuts[125]; and at Laybach, some water-chestnuts (TRAPA NATANS) of a kind that has long since disappeared from Carniola. Sometimes the cereals were roughly roasted, crushed, and put away in large earthenware vessels; but in some places, regular flat round loaves of bread have been found about one or two inches thick, which were baked without leaven. We may well assert that great changes lead taken place since the first arrival of man upon the earth.

The so-called TERREMARES of Italy date from the same period as the Danish kitchen-middings and the Swiss pile dwellings. They are met with chiefly in Lombardy and in the ancient duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and consist of low mounds rising from thirteen to sixteen feet above the surface of the soil. In some cases a number of TERREMARES, close to one another, form regular villages covering an area of from five to six miles square. Excavations of the TERREMARE have brought to light rows of piles from seven to ten feet long, connected by transverse beams, forming a regular floor, from which rose buts built in a similar way to those of the Swiss pile dwellings, of interlaced branches or of clay and straw, for no trace has been made out of the use of bricks or of stones. The refuse of the kitchen and rubbish of all kinds rapidly accumulated round about these buts, and formed the first nucleus of the mound, which soon grew to a considerable height as one occupant of the house succeeded another. When the refuse became too much of a nuisance, the owner of the but set up fresh piles at a greater height on the same site, laid down another platform, and built anew but. In some places three such platforms have been found one above another.

As in the Lake Stations, excavations of the TERREMARES have brought to light numerous bones of domestic animals; but those of wild creatures, such as bears, stags, roedeer, and boars, are even rarer than in Switzerland. The inhabitants evidently had other resources than hunting at their command, and though the processes they employed were but elementary, they cultivated corn, beans, vines, and various fruits. Though iron was still unknown, some bronze objects have been found in certain TERREMARES, but these were only roughly melted pieces of metal, showing no traces of having been either hammered or soldered. Amongst the pottery found in the TERREMARES, we must mention a number of small objects not unlike acorns in form, pierced lengthwise, and decorated with incised lines, some straight, others curved. Italian archaeologists call them FUSAIOLES, and Swiss savants, who have found a great many in the lakes of their native country, give them the name of PESONS DE FUSEAU. Both these names connect them with the process of spinning; but their number renders this hypothesis inadmissible, and when we give an account of the excavations carried on at Hissarlik, under Dr. Schliemann, we shall be able to determine their character (see Chapter VII.).

At Castione, near the town of Parma, and in several other parts of the provinces of Parma and Reggio, TERREMARES have been discovered rising from the midst of vast rectangular basins artificially hollowed out. Some have concluded from this that the TERREMARECOLLI as the inhabitants of the TERREMARES have been called, were descended from the people who built the pile dwellings of Switzerland, and that, faithful to the traditions of their race, they hollowed out ponds in default of natural lakes. If this were so, Italy must have been peopled with a race that came over the Alps.[126] Who or what this race was can only be matter of conjecture. It cannot, however, have been the Ligures, a branch of the great Iberian family, who were totally ignorant of culture, and to whom the builders of the most ancient of the TERREMARES were certainly superior; nor can it have been the Etruscans, for all relics of that race, which are moreover easily recognizable, were found quite apart from the deep deposits containing the TERREMARES. Many indications point to the conclusion that when the Celts came down into Italy their knowledge of metallurgy was already more advanced than that of the builders of the TERREMARES. We are therefore disposed to think with Heilbig, that the TERREMARECOLLI were the Itali, of Arian race, who were the ancestors of the Sabini, Umbri, Osci, and Latins. In the great migrations of races, the Itali bad separated themselves from their brethren the Pelasgi, who had remained in Epirus, and, continuing their march, they peopled Switzerland and crossed the Alps, settling down in the fertile plains watered by the Po, where it is easy even now to prove their presence.

In superintending the excavation of a TERREMARE at Toszig, in Hungary, Pigorini,[127] was greatly struck by the resemblance between it and similar erections in Italy, especially that of Casarolo. This is very much in favor of the Itali having been the builders. But the objects collected in some of the TERREMARES, those of Varano and Chierici for instance, prove that they were inhabited from Neolithic times, so that the Itali of Italy, if Itali they were, did but follow the traditions of their predecessors. In spite, however, of zealous study, all that relates to the origin of tribes and races remains involved in the greatest obscurity, and we can but look to the future to supply what the present altogether fails to give.

We have yet other tokens of the presence of the ancient races who peopled Italy. Dr. Concezio Rosa[128] noticed in the Abruzzi extensive black patches on the ground, which bore witness to the former residence of men. The excavation of these FONDI DI CABANE, as they are called, led to the finding of a great many stone knives and scrapers with numerous bone stilettos and the bones of various animals, all of them of species still living. Later, similar FONDI were found between the Eastern Alps and Mount Gargano. In Reggio, at Rivaltella, at Castelnuovo de Sotto, and at Calerno, they formed regular groups, and from one of these stations more than one thousand worked flints were collected. We mention them especially because they were of lozenge (SELCI ROMBOIDALI) and half-lozenge (SEMI-ROMBI) shapes, which are forms unknown in other districts.

With these flints were hand-made vases with handles, the clay unmixed with sand or quartz and ornamented with lines, grooves, and raised knobs. These vases differ greatly from those found in the TERREMARES; are they then, as has been said, of earlier (late? It is impossible to come to any decision on the point.

Before closing our account of prehistoric buildings surrounded by water, we must say a few words on crannoges though there is the greatest difference of opinion as to their date.

Crannoges are artificial islets raised above the level of certain lakes in Ireland and Scotland[129] by means of a series of layers of earth and stone, and strengthened by piles, some upright, others laid down lengthwise. Wylde counted forty-six in Ireland in his time, some of them of considerable extent. That of Ardkellin Lough (Roscommon) is surrounded by a wall of dry stones resting on piles. In other places have been found the remains of stockades very intelligently set up in such a manner as to break the force of the shock of the water.

To add to the difficulties of dealing with the subject of crannoges, they were successively occupied for many centuries. They are mentioned in the most ancient Irish legends, and even in the sixteenth century they served as refuges for the kings of the country in the constant rebellions that took place. The objects taken from the lakes belong to very different epochs, and it is impossible to say anything positive as to the time of their construction.

A but found in Donegal may, however, date from an extremely remote age.[130] It rested on a thick layer of sand brought front the neighboring shore, and was covered over by a bed of peat slot less than sixteen feet thick. Since the hilt was deserted by man the peat had gradually accumulated till it had at last invaded the dwelling itself. The but included a ground-floor, and one story about twelve feet long by nine wide and four high. The walls consisted of beams scarcely squared, joined together with wooden mortices and pegs. The roof, which was probably flat, consisted of oak planks, the spaces between which had been filled in with mortar made of sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements, showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel, the discoverers say, corresponded exactly with the notches around the mortices. A regular paved way, formed of sea-beach pebbles placed on a foundation of interlaced branches, led up to a hearth made of flat stones measuring some three feet every way. All about lay fragments of charcoal and broken nuts, the latter partly burnt. Another but, with an oak floor resting on four posts, has recently been discovered in County Fermanagh, beneath a deposit of peat about twenty feet thick. No trace of metal has been found in either of these Irish buts, and the thickness of the peat beneath which they lay is another proof of their great antiquity. One serious objection, however, is this: Were the Irish sufficiently advanced in prehistoric times to be able to erect dwellings implying so considerable an amount of civilization?

Crannoges are met with in Scotland as well as in Ireland, and excavations in Loch Lee have enabled explorers to make out their mode of construction. The Lake Dwellers began by piling up a number of trunks of trees in the shallower waters of a lake. They then strengthened these trunks with branches or beams about which the mud collected till the whole formed an islet. All about this islet, beneath the waters of the lake, were found various objects in stone, wood, and horn, as well as some canoes several feet long. Similar crannoges are to be seen on the lakes of Kincardine and Forfar, which Troyon thinks date from the Stone age.[131] If he be right, and we should not like to make any assertion one way or the other, the bronze objects and the enamelled glass bowls found near these dwellings prove that they were occupied by several successive generations.

It is probable that Lake dwellings were also used in Asia and in Africa from prehistoric times. History tells us that the inhabitants of Phasis, the Mingrelians of the present day, lived in reed huts on the water, and that they went from one islet to another in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oak-trees. A bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib, preserved in the British Museum, represents warriors fighting on artificial islands made of large reeds. But here w e enter the domain of history, and we must return to Neolithic times, and speak of the habitations built of more durable materials and the ruins of which are still standing.

It is impossible to say with any certainty to what period the most ancient of these structures belong. It is probable that man early learned to pile up stones, binding them together at first with clay, and then with some stronger cements. The BURGHS of Scotland, the NURHAGS of the island of Sardinia, the TALAYOTI of the Balearic Isles, the CASTELLIERI of Istria, are all ancient witnesses of the modes of building employed in the most remote ages.

BURGHS, BROCKS, or BROUGHS are numerous in Scotland,[132] and also in the islands of the Atlantic. For a long time they were supposed to be of Scandinavian origin, but Sir J. Lubbock[133] remarks With reason that no building at all like them exists in Norway or in Denmark, and it is difficult to admit the idea that the Scandinavians set up in the islands tributary to them buildings which were unknown to their own mainland. We are therefore disposed to think that these curious structures, which were inhabited until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era, are of much earlier date than the first invasion by the Northmen, and that the burgh still standing on the little island of Moussa, one of the Shetlands, is one of the best examples that we can quote. A tower, forty-one feet high, rises on the borders of the sea. The walls are of unhewn stones, piled up without cement, and they form two circles, separated by a passage four feet wide. In each story are a series of very small openings, intended to admit air and light to the cell-like rooms inside, and to a staircase that leads to the top of the tower. The only way into this burgh is through a door only seven. feet high, and so narrow that it is impossible for two people to go in abreast.

The regularity of the building of this burgh, and the architectural knowledge. it implies, prevent our ascribing it either to the Stone or even to the Bronze age; but we find in Scotland itself more ancient examples, if we may so express ourselves, of domestic architecture. These examples are subterranean dwellings, made of rough-hewn stones of considerable size, laid down in regular courses, to which the names of EARTH-HOUSES, PICTS' HOUSES, and WEEMS have been given. The walls converge towards the centre, leaving an opening at the top, which was covered in with large flat stones. These dwellings are certainly of earlier date than the burghs, and the discovery of a PICTS' HOUSE actually beneath the ruins of a burgh enables us to speak with certainty on this point.

In Ireland similar proofs have been found of the great antiquity of roan. More than one hundred towers have been found in that country, all built of large stones, and varying in height from seventy to one hundred and thirty feet, with a diameter of from eight to fifteen feet. The most diverse origins have been attributed to these towers, from prehistoric times to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era; from the time of the Druids to that of the Friars. According to the point of view of different archaeologists, they have been called temples of the sun, hermitages, phallic monuments, or signal towers.

We meet with a similar problem in considering the NURHAGS, as in considering the burghs. They have been justly called a page of history, written all over the surface of Sardinia by an unknown people. Count Albert de la Marmora counted three thousand of them a few years ago, and more recent explorers tell us that this number is greatly exceeded. Like the burghs, which they strangely resemble, the NURHAGS are conical towers with very thick walls made of huge stones, some Hewn, others in their natural state, arranged in regular courses without mortar. On entering one of them we find ourselves in a vaulted room, which looks exactly like one half of an egg in shape. In the upper stories are two, and sometimes three rooms, one above the other, to which access is gained by steps cut in the walls. The whole structure is crowned by a terrace (Fig. 53). We must add that the entrance to the NURHAG is through an opening on a level with the ground, and so low that one can only go in by crawling on the stomach.

Many conjectures have been made as to the use of these towers. Were they temples in which to worship, or trophies of victory? Their number is against either of these hypotheses. Were they then habitations or towers of observation? Not the former certainly, for no one could live between walls sixteen or twenty-two feet thick, shut out from air and light. Some travellers think they were tombs, but excavations have brought to light no bones or sepulchral relics. We can compare them to nothing but the Towers of Silence, on which the Parsees expose their dead to the birds of heaven, which are ever ready rapidly to acquit themselves of their melancholy functions.

FIGURE 53

Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia).

The origin of the NURHAGS is as uncertain as their use. Diodorus Siculus considered them very ancient, and one fact has come to light in our day which enables us to arrive at a somewhat more exact decision. The island of Sardinia was taken by the Romans from the Carthaginians in 238 B.C., and an aqueduct, the ruins of which can still be seen, was built by the conquerors on the foundations of an ancient NURHAG, so that the latter must belong to an earlier (late than the third century before our era. Fergusson, who speaks with authority on everything relating to the monuments of the Stone age, assigns the NURHAGS to the mystic times of the Trojan War. In all probability they were built by an invading people. La Marmora thinks these invaders were the Libyans; M. de Rougemont, in his history of the Bronze age, says that the curved vault is the characteristic feature of Pelasgian architecture, which is often confounded with that of the Phoenicians. Although any final conclusion would be premature, we ourselves think that the builders of the NURHAGS belonged to the great stream of emigration from the East, the course of which is marked by megalithic monuments in so many parts of the world. In some instances, NURHAGS were surrounded by cromlechs, of which most of the stones have now been thrown down. Some of these stones bore prominences resembling the breasts of a woman.

The accumulations of earth and rubbish about the NURHAGS are, some of them, from six to ten feet high. In the lower deposits have been found coarse pottery, with no attempt at ornamentation, fragments of flint, and obsidian hatchets of black basalt, or porphyry of the Palaeolithic type, arrow-head, flint knives, stones used in slings, and numerous shells; whilst in the upper deposits were picked up black pottery and fragments of bronze belonging to the transition period between the Stone and Metal ages.

All over the island of Sardinia, side by side with the NURHAGS, rise tombs to which have been given the name of SEPOLTURE DEI GIGANTI. They are from thirty-two to thirty-nine feet long by a nearly equal width, and are built,. some of huge slabs of stone, some of stones of smaller size. They are in every case surmounted by a pediment, formed of a single block, and often covered with sculptures dating from different epochs. These sepulchres are certainly of later date than the NURHAGS, and in them have been found numerous implements of bronze, but none of stone.

FIGURE 54

"Talayoti" at Trepuco (Minorca).

The TALAYOTI, of which one hundred and fifty are still standing in the island of Minorca, are circular or elliptical truncated cones, built of huge unhewn stones, laid one on the other without cement (Fig. 54). The most remarkable of all of them, that at Torello, near Mahon, is thirty-three feet high. In many cases there are two stone, one placed upright, the other across it, in front of the TALAYOTI. The meaning of these biliths is unknown.

Yet another series of cyclopean monuments are known under the name of NANETAS, and are not unlike overturned boats. Seven such NANETAS are still to be seen in the Balearic Isles. The one which is best preserved consists of large unhewn stones of rectangular shape, enclosing an inner chamber about six feet in width. The roof having fallen in, its height cannot be exactly determined; we only know that the lateral walls are some forty-five feet high.

In Algeria also have been preserved some towers built of stones without cement. Some of them are square (BASINA) and surmounted by a small dolmen, others are round (CHOUCHET) and closed at the top by a large slab of stone, as in the NURHAGS we have just described.

It is difficult to bring this account to a close without mentioning the TRUDDHI and the SPECCHIE of Otranto.[134] A TRUDDHI is a massive conical tower consisting of a heap of scarcely hewn stones piled up without cement and with an exterior facing. Inside is a round room, the roof of which is formed by a series of circular courses of stone projecting one beyond the other. Sometimes a second chamber rises above the first, which IS reached by steps cut in the facing, which steps also lead to the platform on the top of the tower. Thousands of TRUDDHI are to be seen in Italy; they date from every epoch, and the people of Lecce and Bari continue to erect them as did their fathers before them. Side by side with the TRUDDHI rise the SPECCHIE, which are conical masses of stone, of greater height and probably of more ancient date than the towers. Lenormant thinks they were used to live in; but his opinion has been much questioned, and it is necessary to speak on this point with great reserve.

The CASTELLIERI of Istria, which the Slavonian peasants call STARIGRAD, are as yet but little known. Doubtless an examination of them will bring out their resemblance to the NURHAGS and TALAYOTI. They are, however, more than mere towers, forming regular ENCEINTES between walls formed of two facings of dry stones, the space between which is filled in with smaller stones. There are fifteen of these CASTELLIERI in the district of Albona, a little town on the southeast of Trieste. They were at first attributed to the Roman epoch, but later researches relegate them rather to prehistoric times, and the discovery near them of numerous stone implements rather tends to support this latter opinion, but it must not be considered conclusive.

Perhaps we ought also to connect with the earliest ages of humanity the stations recently discovered in Spain by MM. Siret.[135] These were evidently centres of population, surrounded by walls of a very primitive description. We shall have to refer again to these discoveries; we will only add now that in the black earth forming the soil were found worked flints, polished diorite hatchets, pierced shells, with various pieces of pottery, and mills for grinding corn. So far, however though many of the stations have been explored, no trace has been found of the use of metals.

A vast period of time, countless centuries, indeed, have passed away since the close of the Paleolithic epoch. The burghs, NURHAGS, and CASTELLIERI show the progress of civilization, and at the same time prove that this progress extended throughout Europe, and that at a time not so very far removed from our own. The close resemblance between buildings of different dates enables us to speak with certainty of the connection between the races which succeeded each other in Europe. The importance of these conclusions is very great, and will be brought out still more in our study of megalithic monuments.



CHAPTER V

Megalithic Monuments.

Megalithic monuments are perhaps the most interesting of all the witnesses of the remote past, into the history of which we are now inquiring, and of which so little is known. From the shores of the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, from the frontiers of Russia to the Pacific Ocean, from the steppes of Siberia to the plains of Hindustan, we see rising before us monuments of the same characteristic form, built in the same manner. This is a very important fact in the history of humanity, and of which it is difficult to exaggerate the importance.

What is the age of all these monuments? Were they all erected by one race, which has thus carried on its traditions front one generation to another? Were they the temples of the gods of this race, or the tombs of their ancestors? Did the people who set them up come from the East, or did they come from the North, on their way to the warmer regions of the South? These and many other questions are eagerly discussed, but in the present state of our knowledge not one of them call be answered in a perfectly satisfactory manner. SCIRE IGNORARE MAGNA SCIENTIA, said an ancient philosopher, and this is a truth which we must often repeat when we are dealing with prehistoric times.



FIGURE 55

Dolmen of Castle Wellan (Ireland).

Under the name of megalithic monuments we include TUMULI, DOLMENS, CROMLECHS, MENHIRS, and COVERED AVENUES. It may at first sight appear strange to include tumuli amongst stone monuments, but they almost always enclose a dolmen, a cist, or a crypt communicating with the outside by a covered passage. The excavation of more than four hundred tumuli in England has brought to light now, a stone coffer made of a number of stones set edgeways and called a KISTVAEN: now of a, tomb hollowed out beneath the surface of the ground, and enclosed by huge blocks of stone.[136] Mounds are as numerous in Portugal as tumuli in England, and the fact that they are of low height has led to their being called MAMOAS or MAMINHAS, which signifies little mounds. In Poland, tumuli consist of piles of massive stones; beneath each is a cist made of four large slabs, and containing as many as eight or ten urns full of calcined bones. The excavation of a tumulus in the plain of Tarbes brought to light an enormous block of granite resting on blocks of quartz. The spaces between these blocks were filled in with rubble made of small stones cemented into one mass with clay. Edwin-Harness Mound, near Liberty (Ohio), is 160 feet long by eighty or ninety wide, and thirteen to eighteen high in the middle. It contained a dozen sepulchral chambers.

FIGURE 56

The large dolmen of Coreoro, near Plouharnel.

More rarely tumuli are merely artificial mounds of earth, sometimes rising to a great height. Those of North America are the most remarkable known. That of Cahokia is now ninety-one feet high,[137] and was formerly surmounted by a low pyramid, now destroyed. Its base measures 560 feet by 720, the platform at the top is 146 feet by 310 feet wide, and it has been estimated that twenty-five million cubic feet of earth were used in its construction. Major Pearse mentions a tumulus near Nagpore, which is 3,900 feet in circumference, and 174 feet high. Another between Tyre and Sarepta, is 130 feet high by 650 in diameter. It has never been excavated.[138]

FIGURE 57

Dolmen of Arrayolos (Portugal).

The dolmen type of monument is a rectangle of u hewn upright stones covered over with a slab laid across them; this slab being the largest block of stone that could be found in the neighborhood or obtained by the builders.

Dolmens are generally found either on the top of a natural or an artificial mound, in the middle of a plain, or on the banks of a watercourse. We must mention, amongst others, those in Persia, which are some 7,000 feet high and from twenty-one to twenty-six feet long by six wide; that near Mykenae, that of Aumede-Bas, excavated by Dr. Prunieres; that of New Grange, in Ireland, surmounted by a cromlech of stones of considerable size, many of them brought from a distance; that of Hellstone, near Dorchester, consisting of nine upright stones supporting a table more than twenty-seven and a half feet in circumference, seven feet wide and two and a half thick. The dolmens near Saturnia, one of the most ancient Etruscan towns, include a quadrangular room, sunk some feet into the earth, and having walls made of blocks of stone and a roof of a couple of large slabs, sloped slightly to let the rain run off. We give illustrations of the dolmens of Castle Wellan in Ireland (Fig. 55), of Coreoro near Plouharnel (Morbihan) (Fig. 56), of Arrayolos in Portugal (Fig. 57), and Acora in Peru (Fig. 58), which will enable the reader to judge of the different modes of construction employed in building these megalithic monuments.

FIGURE 58

Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru).

In some cases the dolmen, which alone is visible from without, is placed upon a mound, covering a hidden sepulchral chamber, whilst in others the crypt is replaced by a simple stone cist, generally of rectangular shape. We may mention in this connection the dolmen of Bekour-Noz at St. Pierre Quiberon, which is remarkable for its great size, and rises from the midst of a cemetery in which a great many coffins have been found. The bones they contained were unfortunately dispersed at the time of their discovery.

Dolmens are scattered about in great numbers in the Kouban basin and all along the coasts of the Black Sea occupied by the Tcherkesses. These curious vestiges of an unknown civilization are still an unsolved enigma to us, as are those of Western Europe; they are generally formed of four upright slabs surmounted by a fifth laid horizontally, and one of the supporting slabs is nearly always pierced with a small round or oval opening. Excavations have brought to light arrow-heads, rings, and bronze spirals, but Chantre, an authority of considerable weight, and who has moreover had the advantage of actually seeing these megalithic monuments of the south of Russia, attributes the objects found beneath them to secondary interments, and does not hesitate in assigning the more ancient monuments themselves to the Stone age. We must not omit to mention the dolmens found in the southern portion of the island of Yezo (Japan),[139] nor that described by Darwin at Puerto Deseado (Patagonia). They are both very similar to those of Europe.

To resume, dolmens, called HUNENGRABER in Germany, STAZZONA in Corsica, ANTAS in Portugal, and STENDOS in Sweden, have all alike one large flat horizontal slab placed on two or more upright unhewn stones. This is the one fixed rule; local circumstances, perhaps even the caprice of the builders, decided the position and the mode of erection. Often, as I have already remarked, dolmens are buried beneath tumuli, but exceptions to this are numerous. General Faidherbe, after having examined more than six thousand dolmens in Algeria, affirms that the greater number have never been covered with earth.[140] In the Orkney Islands there are more than one hundred dolmens without tumuli, and Martinet failed to find any trace of mounds in Berry. In Scotland and Brittany we find dolmens buried, not beneath mounds of earth, but under accumulations of pebbles, called CAIRNS in Scotland and GALGALS in Brittany. However minor details may vary, and they do vary infinitely, one main idea everywhere dominated the builders, and that was the desire to protect from all profanation the resting-place of what had once been a human being.

Cromlechs are circles of upright stones often surrounding dolmens or tumuli. Sometimes they form single circles, and at others two, three, or even seven separate enclosures. They are common in Algeria, Sweden, and Denmark, and in the last-named country two kinds are distinguished: the LANGDYSSERS, which form an ellipse, and the RUNDYSSERS which form a perfect circle. In other countries cromlechs are slot so numerous; there are but few in France, of which we may name those of Kergoman (Morbihan), Lestridion in Plomeur, and Landaondec in Crozon (Finistere). The last-named, known its LE TEMPLE DES FAUX DIEUX, is closed by a double row of small menhirs. In Italy, the only cromlechs known are those of Sesto-Calende and those of the plateau of Mallevalle near Ticino. One of the latter still retains in their original position fifty-nine huge granite blocks, forming a circular enceinte, a semicircle, and an entrance avenue. A few leagues from the ancient Tyre can still be seen a circle of upright stones. Ouseley describes another at Darab, in Persia; a missionary speaks of three large circles at Khabb, in Arabia, which circles he compares with those at Stonehenge; and Dr. Barth tells us of a cromlech between Mourzouk and Ghat.

A kurgan, or tumulus, leaving been opened in the Kherson district, three or four concentric circles were discovered beneath it, surrounding a structure of considerable size.[141] The cromlech of Anajapoura in Ceylon, probably, however, erected comparatively recently, consists of fifty-two granite pillars, about thirteen feet high, encircling a Buddhist temple. At Peshawur is another circle, fourteen of the stones of which are still upright, whilst traces can be made out of an outer enceinte of smaller stones; in Peru there are several cromlechs, whilst others have been found at the foot of Elephant Mount, in the desert plains of Australia. The last-named vary from ten to one thousand feet in diameter, but excavations beneath them have brought to light only a few human bones.

At Mzora, in Morocco, the traveller will notice a mound of elliptical shape, some 21 or 22 1/2 feet high, flanked on the west by a group of menhirs, and surrounded by an enceinte of upright stones which now number about forty. In 1831, there were still ninety, and on the south side were noticed two round pillars parallel with each other, which probably formed an entrance.[142] This group evidently originally formed the centre of a series of megalithic monuments, for on the north and southwest some fifty monoliths can still be made out, some still erect, others fallen.[143]

It was in Great Britain, however, that cromlechs appear to have reached their highest development. That of Salkeld in Cumberland includes sixty-seven menhirs; that near Loch Stemster in Caithness, thirty-three, whilst in Westmoreland, LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS are still the objects of superstitious reverence. The remains at Avebury are among the most remarkable prehistoric monuments still extant, and evidently originally formed part of a most important group. This group had an outer rampart of earth, with a ditch on the inner side, within which was a circle of upright stones, probably numbering as many as one hundred. Within this circle were two others of smaller size, each in its turn enclosing yet another circle of upright stones. In the middle of one of these inner circles, that on the north, was a dolmen, whilst that on the south enclosed in the centre but a single upright menhir. The stones used in constructing these various groups were all such as are still to be found on the Wiltshire downs. From the southeastern portion of the extensive earthen rampart, a stone avenue extended for a considerable distance in a perfectly straight line, and is still known as Kennet's Avenue, on account of its leading to the village of Kennet. The remains on Hakpen Hill and on Silbury Hill are all supposed to have been originally connected with those at Avebury. The remains at Hakpen consist of relics of two circles, one about 140 feet in diameter, the other not more than forty. About eighty yards from the inner circle was found a double row of skeletons, all with the feet pointing towards the centre. Silbury Hill is itself an artificial conical mound, the largest in England, 170 feet high, on which were originally no less than 650 upright stones, of which only twenty are still standing, surrounded by a trench. In the centre of the circle of stones a single menhir of great height still remains with three others sloped so as to form a kind of crypt.

The megalithic monuments of Stonehenge, which are probably better known than any others in the world, are perhaps also the most curious. The group is supposed to have originally consisted of an outer stone concentric circle some one hundred feet in diameter, formed by thirty piers of solid masonry, of which about twenty can still be made out, some few standing, others lying broken upon the ground. This outer circle enclosed a second of similar shape but lesser diameter, within which again were taro elliptic circles, the outer consisting of ten or twelve sandstone blocks some twenty-two feet high, standing in pairs, each pair united by a slab laid horizontally across, so as to form a trilithon. The inner ellipse was formed by nineteen upright masses of granite, within which was the famous slab of blue marble, by many supposed to have been an altar. The pillars and lintels of the outer portico, and those of the trilithons, are fitted together with the greatest skill, with tenons and mortices, a remarkable exception to the general rule with megalithic monuments. Everywhere in the neighborhood of Stonehenge, as far as the eye can reach, are tumuli, all nearly equidistant from the principal group of monuments, a fact which has led many archaeologists, including Henry Martin, to look upon. Stonehenge as a temple surrounded by a necropolis. Excavations at Stonehenge have yielded a few human bones which have escaped the flames, with some stone and bronze weapons.

The megalithic monuments of Ireland are not less important, and a recent survey has reported no less than 276 still standing.[144] The cromlechs of Moytura[145] are supposed to commemorate the fearful combats which took place between the FIRBOLGS, or Belgae as they are called by Irish antiquaries, and the Tuatha de Dananns, when the plains of Sligo and Meath were dyed with blood, before the former were vanquished and retired to Arran. There are still no less than fourteen dolmens and thirty-nine cromlechs. The bones picked up beneath the stone circles, which keep alive the memory of these sanguinary conflicts, are those of the warriors who fell on the battlefield, but the story of how they met their fate belongs rather to history than to the subject we are considering. It is the same with the two huge monoliths of Cornwall. which commemorate a battle between the Welsh King Howel Dha and the Saxon Athelstane, as well as with the cromlechs of Ostrogothland, where, in 736, took place the battle in which the old King Harold Hildebrand was overcome and killed by his nephew, Sigurd-Ring. A group of forty-four circles also marks the site of the celebrated combat of 1030, in which Knut the Great defied Olaf the patron saint of Norway. We may also name in this connection the twenty circles of stone erected at Upland in memory of the massacre of the Danish prince, Magnus Henricksson, in 1161. Yet another group of circles marks the spot where, about 1150, the Swedish heroine, Blenda, overcame King Sweyne Grate. We might easily multiply instances of the erection in historic times of similar monuments, but we have said enough to show that the megalithic form was by no means confined to prehistoric days.

Menhirs properly so called, also known as LECHS in Brittany, are in reality isolated monoliths or single upright stones, often of considerable size. One of the best known is that of Locmariaker (Fig. 59) which was nearly seventy feet high.[146] It was still standing in 1659, but is now overturned and broken into four pieces. The flat stone resting on one portion of it is known as Caesar's table. On some menhirs, notably on Sweno's pillar in Scotland, a cross has been cut on one side, showing either that this form of monument was early adopted by Christians, or more probably, that it was adapted to their use after having long previously been a relic of prehistoric times. On the other side of Sweno's pillar is a bas-relief of fairly good execution.

In some cases menhirs mark the site of a tomb, and sometimes, as is the case with the obelisks of Egypt, they commemorate some happy event. A standing stone in Scotland preserves the memory of the battle of Largs, which took place in the thirteenth century, and a piously preserved legend tells how the menhir of Aberlemmo was set up in honor of a victory over the Danes in the tenth century.

FIGURE 59

The great broken menhir of Locmariaker, with Caesar's table.

Some archaeologists in view of the shape of certain menhirs and the superstitions connected with then, think they must be phallic monuments. Menhirs in France are quoted in this connection, cut into the form of the phallus; and the same form occurs in some menhirs near Saphos, in the island of Cyprus,[147] and in others found amongst the ruins of Uxmal, in Yucatan. Herodotus relates that Sesostris caused toy be set up, in countries he conquered, monoliths bearing in relief representations of the female sexual organs. These are, however, but exceptions, isolated facts, and it would certainly never do to argue from them that menhirs were connected with the worship of the generative flowers of nature.

It is extremely difficult to get at the statistics of menhirs. A great many have been overthrown, and yet more have disappeared altogether. Probably, besides the alignments or stone avenues, there are not more than twenty still standing.[148] One thing is certain, the monolithic form of monument has always had a great attraction for the human race, and we meet with it in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Mexico, as well as in England and Brittany. The historian speaks of such monuments in the earliest of existing records; Homer refers to them in the Iliad,[149] and in the Bible we find it related that the Lord ordered Joshua to set up twelve stones in memory of the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites.[150]

Alignments are groups of menhirs set up in one or wore rows. Sometimes large slabs are laid across them, when they arc, called covered avenues. One such alignment at Saint Pantaleon (Saone et Loire) consists of twenty menhirs. The menhirs of El Wad, in Algeria, form long avenues, running front west to east. The Arabs call them ESSENAM, and according to tradition they were erected in fulfillment of a vow made in the hope of arresting the march of an enemy. The tumulus of Run-Aour (Finistere) has two avenues running at right angles to one another.[151] This disposition, which is very rare, also occurs at Karleby, in Sweden, and by a remarkable coincidence the length of the avenues (about thirty-nine and fifty-five feet), is the same in both cases. Sometimes such avenues form communications between several dolmens, leading us to suppose that near the chief slept the members of his family or his favorite companions.

The covered avenues are often built beneath masses of earth, and the inner rooms became regular hypogea, These hypogea, or subterranean chambers, are very common near Paris, and we may mention amongst many others those of Meudon, Argenteuil, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Marly, Chamant, La Justice, and Compans. The tombs of Denmark, the GANG GRABEN of Nilsson, show an arrangement somewhat similar, a vast subterranean chamber being reached by a passage ending in a small stone cist. The tumulus of Dissignac, near Saint-Nazaire (Fig. 60), shows this strange arrangement of two galleries running parallel with each other at a distance of about eighteen feet. The walls and ceilings are made of slab, anti the interstices are filled in with flints. These galleries are some thirty feet long, and their height insensibly increases from about three to nine feet.

FIGURE 60

Covered avenue of Dissignac (Loire-Inferieur); view of the chamber at the end of the north gallery.

We must also mention the Cueva de Mengal, near the village of Antequera, in the province of Malaga (Fig. 61) Twenty stones form the walls of the crypt, five blocks of remarkable size serve as a roof, and to ensure solidity three pillars are set upright inside of the junction of the roof blocks. The crypt is some seventy-nine feet long, its greatest width is about nineteen feet, and its height varies from about eight to nine feet. The length of the Pastora room, near Seville is about eighty-seven feet, but its height is not to be compared with that of the one at Antequera. The square crypt at Pastora is very interesting. One of the roof stones having been broken, it has been strengthened by the addition of an inside pillar.[152]

FIGURE 61

Covered avenue near Antequera.

At Gavr'innis, the length of the passage leading to the crypt exceeds forty-two feet (Fig. 62), and the Long Barrow of West Kennet is more than seventy-three feet long by a width in some parts exceeding thirty-two feet. In the Long Barrows of Littleton, Nempnitt, and Uley, the crypt is reached by an avenue, the entrance of which is closed by a trilithon, and a similar arrangement is met with in many megalithic monuments of Scania. The sepulchral chambers of oval shape, such as that met with in the island of Moen, were surmounted by a tumulus some 100 yds. in circumference; twelve unhewn stones formed the walls, and five large blocks the roof. In removing the earth from the Moen tomb, the bones of several human individuals were found; and a skeleton, doubtless that of the chief, lay stretched out in the middle of the chamber, whilst the bones of the others had evidently been ranged against the walls either in a sitting or crouching position. With the bones were found a flint hatchet, which appeared never to have been used, a number of balls of amber, and several vases of different shapes.

FIGURE 62

Ground plan of the Gavr'innis monument.

The megalithic monuments of Mecklenburg are supposed to date from Neolithic times, and are constructed in two very different ways. The HUNENGRABER, formed of huge blocks of granite set up at right angles to each other, resemble the covered avenues of France and elsewhere; in the so-called RIESENBETTEN, or giant's beds, on the contrary, the sepulchral chamber is merely sunk in the ground.

We must also mention the so-called GROTTE DES FEES, or fairy grotto, forming part of so many of the megalithic monuments of Provence. This fairy grotto includes an open-air gallery cut in the mountain limestone and roofed in with huge flat stones. This gallery leads to a sepulchral chamber not less than seventy-nine feet long.

The stones used for the covered avenue of Mureaux (Seine et Oise) carne from the other side of the Seine, so that the builders must have crossed the river in a raft. Excavations have brought to light several skeletons that had been buried without any attempt at orientation, the bores of which were still in their natural position. The objects found in this tomb were very numerous mid belonged to the Neolithic period.[153]

We have now specified the chief forms and modes of arrangement of megalithic monuments, and must add that they are often found in juxtaposition. At Mane-Lud, for instance, on a rocky platform which had been artificially smoothed, and which is some 246 feet long by 162 in area, we find at the eastern extremity an avenue of upright stones, on the west a dolmen, and in the centre a crypt surmounted by a conical pile of stones. Between the cone and the avenue the ground is covered with an artificial paving of small stones cemented together, and known in France as a NAPPE PIERREUSE, and amongst the stones forming this paving were found quantities of charcoal and bones of animals. The megalith was completely buried beneath a mound of earth, or rather of dried mud, the amount of which was estimated at more than 37,986 cubic feet. At Lestridiou (Finistere), a cromlech forms the starting-point of an alignment formed of seven rows of small menhirs, the mean height of which above the ground does not exceed three feet; and these alignments lead up to two covered avenues and a central dolmen. In other cases, in England and the land of Moab for instance, alignments simply lead to cromlechs; whilst in some few cases, as at Stennis (Fig. 63), the menhirs are scattered about a plain in great numbers, with nothing either in their form or their position, or in the traditions relating to them, to throw the slightest light on their origin.

FIGURE 63

Monoliths at Stennis, in the Orkney, Islands.

One of the most important monuments that have come down to us is that of Carnac. The alignments of Menec, Kermario, and Kerlescant include 1,771 menhirs, of which 675 are still standing. The alignments of Erdeven, which succeed those of Carnac, extend for a length of more than a mile and a half. They originally included 1,030 menhirs, of which 288 are still extant.

The archaeologists of Brittany, carried away perhaps by their patriotic enthusiasm, claim that when these monuments were intact they included two thousand menhirs. What is really certain, however, is that a definite plan was evidently followed, the distances between the alignments tallying exactly; the menhirs being set up in straight parallel lines gradually decreasing in size towards the east. Excavations near them have brought to light fragments of charcoal, masses of cinders, chips of silicate of flint, with numerous fragments of pottery, and tools made of quartzite, granite, schist, and diorite, similar to those met with under all the other megaliths of Morbihan. This is yet another proof, if such were needed, that they were all the work of the same race and all probably date from the same period.

The number of megalithic monuments in the world is simply incalculable. M. A. Bertrand estimates the total number in France as 2,582, distributed in 66 departments and 1,200 communes. They are most numerous of all in Brittany; there are 491 in the Cotes-du-Nord, 530 in Ille-et-Vilaine. I am not sure of the number in Morbihan, but I know it is very considerable. The commission appointed at the instigation of Henry Martin decided that there were as many as 6,310 megaliths in France, but then amongst these were included polishing stones and cup-shaped stones, with other similar relics of the remote past. Lastly, a report recently presented to the Chamber of Deputies by M. A. Proust estimates at 419 the number of groups classed by government. In other countries these numbers are greatly exceeded. There are 2,000 megaliths in the Orkney Islands and a great many in the extreme north of Scania, and in Otranto in the southern extremity of Europe, where they resemble the PEDRAS FITTAS of Sardinia. Pallas, and after him, Haxthausen, tells us that there are thousands of kurganes in the steppes of Central and Southern Russia.[154] These kurganes are cromlechs, tombs surmounted by upright stones, square or conical hypogea, all scattered about without any apparent system, surmounted by roughly sculptured female busts, known amongst the common people as KAMENA BABA, or stone women. Tumuli, too, abound on the shores of the Irtisch and of the Yenisei, mute witnesses to the former presence of a vanished race of which we know neither the ancestors nor the descendants. These monuments are, however, by some attributed to the Tchoudes, a people who came from the Altai Mountains. The Esthonians, the Ogris or Ulgres, the Finns, and perhaps even the Celts, are supposed to be branches of the same ethnological tree. This is however quite a recent idea, and at best but a mere hypothesis.[155]