In the Lake of Varese, also in Lombardy, which was examined in 1863 by
MM. Desor, G. de Mortillet, and the Abbé Stoppani, were discovered five
settlements, some of which were of the Stone Age. Subsequently, the Abbé
Ranchet pointed out four others, which raise to the number of nine the
pile works found in this lake. In order to render due honour to MM.
Keller and Desor, who have contributed so much to the investigation and
popularity of lacustrine antiquities, the Abbé Stoppani gave the name of
these _savants_ to two of the settlements.
One of these isles is very curious, as it is inhabited up to the present
day. It is called _Isoletta_ ("small island"), and the Litta family
possess a _château_ upon it.
In the peat-mosses of Brianza, a portion of Lombardy situated to the
north of Milan, the remains of lacustrine constructions have been
discovered, together with bones, fragments of pottery, pieces of
charcoal, and carbonised stone; also weapons, both of bronze and flint.
The Lake of Garda has been searched over by various explorers, who have
discovered in it the sites of several lacustrine habitations. The
authors of these discoveries are Dr. Alberti, of Verona, and MM.
Kosterlitz and Silber, two Austrian officers, who presented all the
objects which they collected to the antiquarian museums of Vienna and
Zurich. The traces of pile-works were first perceived when the works
were in progress which were excavated by the Austrians in 1855 round the
fortress of Peschiera; which proves, at least, that fortresses may
occasionally serve some useful purpose.
A settlement of the Stone Age, which was examined by M. Paolo Lioy, is
situated in a small lake in Venetia, the length of which does not exceed
half a mile, and the depth 30 feet; we allude to the Lake of Fimon, near
Vicenza. M. Lioy discovered oaken piles partially charred, which proves
that the village had at one time been burnt down; also slabs of timber
roughly squared, a canoe hollowed out of a trunk of oak, cakes of clay
which had come from the sides of huts, and still bore the imprint of the
reed-stalks, and no doubt formed a kind of coating inside the huts;
various instruments made of bone, flint, sandstone, granite, and stag's
horn; rings or spindle-weights made of burnt earth, numerous fragments
of rough pottery, merely dried in the sun, and, among all these remains,
a dozen entire vessels.
There were also found stores of acorns, nuts, and water-chestnuts, the
fruit of the sorb-tree, some sloe-stones, &c. A large quantity of animal
bones certified to the existence of the bison, the stag, the wild boar,
the fox, and several other doubtful species. All the long bones were
broken, as is usually the case, for the extraction of the marrow, but
not with the ordinary regularity; they had merely been cracked by blows
with stones.
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