The Lake-Dwellings of Europe: Being the Rhind Lectures in Archæology for 1888Munro, Robert
History
The Lake-Dwellings of Europe: Being the Rhind Lectures in Archæology for 1888
Munro, Robert
Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Bibliography; Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Europe
The underlying peaty stratum, containing the piles, occupied much of
Parazzi's attention, and he goes largely into its minutiæ. One curious
fact which he records is that the dyke passed over its middle, leaving
a considerable portion of the _terra torbosa_ and palafitte outside
the area of the terramara deposits. This undoubtedly suggests the idea
that the palafitte existed prior to the terramara settlement. From the
character of the relics we shall, however, see that both belonged to
the same age and people.
On the surface of the terramara beds Roman remains were largely met
with, and in one place they came upon a rectangular excavation,
measuring 18 square mètres, containing ordinary earth, bricks, tiles,
fragments of jars, and other Roman pottery. When this was cleared out
there was found at the bottom, at a depth of 7 feet 6 inches, a Roman
pavement, and the stratified terramara layers could be distinctly seen
in the perpendicular walls. Clearly this cellar was constructed long
after the deposition of the terramara beds.
Nor is the settlement of Casale Zaffanella a solitary example in the
Viadana district. Already Parazzi has prepared a large map of the
neighbourhood, which finds a suitable position on the wall of his
museum, with no less than 12 terramara stations marked on it. Among
these there is one Cogozzo (B. 372b) situated about one-and-a-quarter
mile from the town and within 200 yards of the Po, which presents
the same features as that at Casale Zaffanella, and also contains
traces of a palafitte. Its area is an orientated quadrangle covering
about an acre, but it is completely buried in mud, its highest point
being 31 inches below the surface. It is surrounded by a ditch and
dyke; and, moreover, the inner edge of the dyke was found to be almost
perpendicular, showing that originally it must have had some kind of
_contrafforte_.
Some of the objects from this group of terramara stations, now
deposited in the Viadana Museum, are represented in =Fig. 86=, Nos. 1
to 13.
GORZANO (MODENA).
The old-school views advocated by Dr. Coppi, viz. that the terremare
were remains of funeral pyres (_roghi_), so much biassed his mind
that for many years he appeared to have paid little attention to the
significance of the strata, and consequently the first two volumes of
his magnificently illustrated monograph on the terramara settlement
at Gorzano (B. 207 and 261) lose much of their value from having
the objects of different ages indiscriminately mixed. This defect
is so far removed in the third volume that he divides the deposits
into upper and lower, corresponding to the historic and prehistoric
periods. But, notwithstanding this defect in Dr. Coppi's earlier
works, his investigations are of considerable scientific value, as his
numerous matter-of-fact observations are strictly to be depended on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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