Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
37 _Bul. Soc. Anth_., 1882, pp. 143, 535.
38 _Ass. Française_, Blois, 1884, p. 417.
39 Boulogne: _Mém. de Médecine et de Chirurgie Militaires_, 3d series,
Paris, 1868. Védrénes: “Le Trépanation du Crâne” (_Rev. Anth_.,
October, 1886).
CHAPTER VII.
Camps, Fortifications, Vitrified Forts; Santorin; The Towns upon the
Hill of Hissarlik.
Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most
lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle
between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever since
the days of primeval man. History is but one long account of wars and
conquests, victories or defeats, and progress is chiefly marked in
inventions which made battles more sanguinary and added to the number
of victims slaughtered. At the very dawn of humanity man learned to
make weapons; very soon, however, weapons ceased to appear sufficient.
The first fortification was doubtless the cave, which its owner
strengthened by closing the entrance with blocks of stone and piles of
broken rock, or by digging deep trenches about it.
Population rapidly increased and war was declared between tribe and
tribe, nation and nation, race and race. Terrible must have been the
struggles between invaders and the original possessors of the soil.
Means of defence were multiplied to keep pace with new modes of attack,
and our ancestors of the Stone age were intelligent enough to make
places of refuge in which on necessity they could shelter their wives
and children, and later, when they became sedentary, their flocks and
their stores of grain. In many different localities we find the remains
of camps and fortifications, which, to avoid using a more ambitious
term, we may characterize generally as enclosures.1
These primitive enclosures, says Bertrand in his “Archéologie Celtiquc
et Gauloise,” may have been very much more numerous than is supposed,
if we include amongst them, as it appears we ought, many ruins long
thought to date from the Roman era.
There is no doubt as to the purpose served by the camps, but we are not
prepared to speak as positively as does Bertrand as to their origin,
and the difficulty of deciding is very greatly increased on account of
these camps having been successively occupied at different epochs by
different peoples. Bearing in mind this reservation, we will now sum up
to the best of our ability all that is so far known about the most
important remains hitherto examined.
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