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
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 _Knüppelbau_, 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.12
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 Varèse, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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