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
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,13 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 horn, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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