Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
Another calculation has been made by M. Troyon to obtain the approximate
date of the remains of an ancient settlement built on piles and
preserved in a peat-bog at Chamblon, near Yverdun, on the Lake of
Neufchatel. The site of the ancient Roman town of Eburodunum (Yverdun),
once on the borders of the lake, and between which and the shore there
now intervenes a zone of newly-gained dry land, 2500 feet in breadth,
shows the rate at which the bed of the lake has been filled up with
river sediment in fifteen centuries. Assuming the lake to have retreated
at the same rate before the Roman period, the pile-works of Chamblon,
which are of the bronze period, must be at the least 3300 years old.
For the third calculation, communicated to me by M. Morlot, we are
indebted to M. Victor Gillieron, of Neuveville, on the Lake of Bienne.
It relates to the age of a pile-dwelling, the mammalian bones of which
are considered by M. Rutimeyer to indicate the earliest portion of
the stone period of Switzerland, and to correspond in age with the
settlement of Moosseedorf.
The piles in question occur at the Pont de Thiele, between the lakes of
Bienne and Neufchatel. The old convent of St. Jean, founded 750 years
ago, and built originally on the margin of the Lake of Bienne, is now
at a considerable distance from the shore, and affords a measure of the
rate of the gain of land in seven centuries and a half. Assuming that
a similar rate of the conversion of water into marshy land prevailed
antecedently, we should require an addition of sixty centuries for the
growth of the morass intervening between the convent and the aquatic
dwelling of Pont de Thiele, in all 6750 years. M. Morlot, after
examining the ground, thinks it highly probable that the shape of the
bottom on which the morass rests is uniform; but this important point
has not yet been tested by boring. The result, if confirmed, would agree
exceedingly well with the chronological computation before mentioned
of the age of the stone period of Tiniere. As I have not myself visited
Switzerland since these chronological speculations were first hazarded,
I am unable to enter critically into a discussion of the objections
which have been raised to the two first of them, or to decide on the
merits of the explanations offered in reply.
IRISH LAKE-DWELLINGS OR CRANNOGES.
The lake-dwellings of the British isles, although not explored as yet
with scientific zeal, as those of Switzerland have been in the last ten
years, are yet known to be very numerous, and when carefully examined
will not fail to throw great light on the history of the bronze and
stone periods.
In the lakes of Ireland alone, no less than forty-six examples of
artificial islands, called crannoges, have been discovered. They occur
in Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Down, Monaghan, Limerick, Meath, King's
County, and Tyrone.*
(* W.M. Wylie "Archaeologia" volume 38 1859 page 8.)
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