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The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other parts of Europe. By Dr. FERDINAND KELLER. Translated and Arranged by JOHN EDWARD LEE, F.S.A., F.G.S. In Two Volumes. London: Longmans and Co.

NATURE Sometimes seems impatient at man's slow progress, and as if she desired to assist him in his researches. A great storm sweeps away the sand and shingle from the coast, and bares to the eye of the geologist buried forests and fossiliferous strata containing some of the missing links in the great chain of life. At another time the waves cast up on the shore some curious inhabitant of the deep, before unknown to Science. And so, in Switzerland, the pile dwellings might long have remained unexplored if it had not been for the great drought and extended frost of the winter of 1853-4, which caused the rivers to shrink to their smallest compass, and the level of the lakes to fall lower than is ever recorded in history, before this time.

Then were exposed, in a way that could not but arouse attention, the remains of habitations some of which are probably as old as the mysterious dolmens, and were used by the earliest of the neolithic immigrants. Notwithstanding their vast antiquity. the sediment at the bottoms of the quiet lakes had preserved not only the piles themselves, and articles of wood, stone, and pottery, but the provisions that had been stored for winter use, linen cloth, and fishermen's lines and nets. The great opportunity thus afforded for examining these remains was not neg lected, and under the enthusiastic yet cautious leadership of Dr. Ferdinand Keller the explorations have been zealously carried on from that time to the present day.

A translation of Dr. Keller's earlier reports was published by Mr. Lee in 1866, and has been the principal work of reference for English students. Since then a great many additional discoveries have been made, not only in the lakes, but in many of the peat-bogs which have been proved to be filled-up lake-basins. The area over which the lake dwellers lived is shown to have extended far beyond Switzerland, into Italy, Austria, and Hungary. Now, more than ten years after the first edition, Mr. Lee lays us under a fresh obligation by a second, in which it is scarcely too much to say that the additional information is nearly equal to the whole contained in the first, Modestly terming it a translation of Dr. Keller's memoirs, Mr. Lee gives us what is in reality the work rather of a student who, wishing to ascribe

all the honour to the master under whom he had studied, lays his own labours at his feet. A mere translation it is not. The antiquities themselves have been carefully studied by Mr. Lee, who brings, from a variety of sources, information to bear upon them, and appears to have neglected nothing that he thought might afford help in their elucidation. He has done for the Lake Dwellers of Switzerland and Italy what Prof. Rupert Jones -in his edition of Messrs. Lartet and Christy's "Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ "-has done for the Cave Dwellers of France; and it is instructive and suggestive to study the two works together, and to note the few points of resemblance and the many of contrast in the two peoples who occupied Central Europe at far removed periods, and in that area appear never to have come in contact. That the lacustrine people did not differ in race from those who lived on the dry land is proved by the fact that the implements of stone and bronze found in graves and tumuli, and on the surface in parts where there are no lakes, are the same in material, form, and ornamentation as those obtained from the pile-dwellings. Articles of bronze, stone, horn, bone, and earthenware, exactly similar to those used by the lake dwellers, were found in a settlement on the mainland at Ebersberg.

The people living on the land chose, for their settlements, positions on the sides and crests of hills that offered facilities for defence. These were hill-forts, and so the settlements in the lakes may be considered water-forts; the object in both cases being safety against the attacks of neighbouring tribes. In the early history of mankind, as well as amongst the lowest of existing races, every small community was or is at enmity with neighbouring ones; and so amongst these earliest neolithic settlers of Switzerland, some entrenched themselves on the hills, others in the lakes as far from the shore as they could drive their piles, and were the same people adapting themselves to the necessities of their surroundings.

The lake settlements were formed by first driving piles into the sand or clay in shallow parts; sometimes the piles were strengthened by cross timbers mortised into them, or by stones being brought from the land and heaped up around them. The tops of the piles were brought to the same level, and on them was formed a platform of small stems of trees, covered with mud, loam, and gravel. On this platform the huts of the settlers were reared. The walls consisted of upright posts, between which a wattle-work of small branches was interwoven, and the whole filled up and covered with clay. The roof was thatched with straw or reeds.

A narrow bridge or platform, built on piles, connected the settlement with the shore. It might have been safer to have done without this, and to have kept up the communication by means of canoes only; but the settlers stalled their cattle in the lake dwellings, and it would be necessary to have a more permanent

connection with the land to get them to and from their pastures.

Many of the settlements were destroyed by fire, to which, from the combustible character of their materials, they must have been particularly liable. It is to the occurrence of these fires that we owe the preservation of many of the articles that have been obtained from the bottoms of the lakes. The whole of the provisions stored up for winter use have in some cases been precipitated into the water by the giving way of the burning piles. Rare implements of jade and personal ornaments have at these times been lost and covered up amongst the débris. Even loaves of bread and fruits have been preserved through having been charred before falling into the water.

The oldest of the lake dwellings appear to date back as far as the earliest traces we have of neolithic man in Central Europe. In these the implements are of stone, bone, and horn, and the pottery is rude and entirely hand-made. At this time the lake dwellers subsisted largely upon wild animals and fruits, though domestic animals and cultivated plants were not unknown. Weaving linen cloth was practised in the oldest settlements, and hanks of unspun flax and thread, cord, nets, and cloth of the same material have been found.

Up from the rudest stage of the stone age there is a regular progression to be observed. The bronze age comes in gradually; at first a bronze celt being found amongst the stone ones; then stone-implements become scarce, and those of bronze common and of improved form and ornamentation. Throughout, the evidence points to the gradual progression in civilisation of the same people, influenced, doubtless, by others in a more advanced stage living to the south and east, but without any sign of the sudden intrusion of a new race bringing with them new weapons and customs. Prof. Desor has also shown that the form of skull prevalent in the stone age continued through the bronze and iron ages, continually increasing in size, and showing a broader and higher forehead. It is the same type of skull that prevails in the Swiss valleys at the present day, showing that the direct descendants of the builders of the pile dwellings still live around the shores of the lakes.

Some of the breeds of domestic cattle they kept and of the varieties of grain they cultivated have also survived to our time, though greatly improved. The "marsh cow" of the lake dwellings is represented by the common Swiss "brown cow," and some of our varieties of wheat are, according to Dr. Heer, the descendants of those grown by the lake dwellers. None of the animals known in these ancient times have become extinct, though the domestic breeds have been improved and the wild species have in some cases deteriorated, probably, in the latter case, through the curtailment of their feeding-grounds by man.

The remains of the common fowl have not been met with in the lake dwellings, and this gives us an approximate date for the latest of those belonging to the bronze age, as it is not mentioned by Homer, and is first referred to by Greek authors about 400 B.C. In the time of Pericles it was known as the Persian bird, from which we may gather it was brought from that country to Europe. It was unknown to the ancient Egyptians, and is not mentioned in the Old Testament. It had, however, spread into Western Europe before the Christian era, as it appears on the earliest of the Gallic coins, and was fourd by Julius Cæsar in Britain. Probably, therefore, we may place the date of the latest of the settlements of the bronze age at from 2400 to 3000 years ago.

It is often stated that Europe was peopled directly from Asia, but the relics found in the earliest of the lake dwellings do not favour this conclusion, but rather show an intimate relation with Egypt and the shores of the Mediterranean. Rye, which was cultivated in the east in the bronze age, is not found in the lake dwellings, and it was equally unknown to the ancient Egyptians. The cereals cultivated by the lacustrine people were all Egyptian or Italian. The eastern hemp was not used by either the lake dwellers or the ancient Egyptians; flax was largely grown, spun, and woven by both. Even the weeds introduced with the seed flax and corn point to the southern origin of the people. Dr. Heer finds the seeds of the Cretan catchfly in the remains from the lake dwellings. This plant does not now grow in Switzerland or Germany, but is found everywhere in the flax fields of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The corn bluebottle, a native of Sicily, also grew in the fields of the lake dwellers; and the water chestnut had probably been introduced from Italy.

The influence of Egypt is shown in another way. A number of large crescent-shaped objects, made of pottery and wood, have been found amongst the remains of the lake dwellings. At first some thought these were indications of the worship of the moon, others that they were rude representations of the heads of bulls. Similar crescents have, however, been discovered in abundance amongst the Egyptian antiquities, and there is no doubt but that they were used as pillows by a people who wore their hair in the form of thick plaited head-dresses. The sleeper rested his neck in the hollow of the crescent, so as to prevent his carefully prepared head-dress from being disarranged. That the lake dwellers really wore their hair in thick plaited masses is proved by the discovery of very many iong hair-pins. Even at the present day similar pillows are used by different tribes in Africa and Polynesia, who fasten up their hair in thick masses with pins 9 inches long.

The only fact pointing to a communication with the east is the presence of celts made of jade. This stone must have been

brought from the east, and the advocates of the Oriental origin of the first settlers in Europe have supposed that they brought the implements made of it with them. But in that case, either the first settlers must have come laden with these implements to supply both themselves and their descendants, or the latter must have obtained them by barter from the east. In one of the latest settlements of the stone age-at Gerlafingen, in the Lake of Bienne-some of the finest jade-implements have been found. Two chisels of pure copper and some bronze celts of primitive type indicate that the people of this settlement lived at the close of the stone age. As they have been shown to be the descendants of the earlier lake dwellers, they could only have obtained these articles through traders, and, if they did so, their forefathers might have done the same. It is known that in ancient America copper articles found their way from the northern lakes, passing from tribe to tribe far to the south, whilst, on the other hand, the obsidian implements of Mexico were carried northward. The system of barter exists now amongst tribes more rude and savage than the Swiss lake dwellers. In those parts of Asia where jade occurs amongst the rocks, the ancient inhabitants would soon discover that they possessed an article of export for which they could obtain whatever they might wish in exchange from the nations of the West. And the latter, in the linen cloth they fabricated, had one article at least that they might barter for the coveted jade implements.

About the origin of the still earlier people that lived in Switzerland and other parts of Europe long before the lake dwellers -the people of the reindeer period-we know absolutely nothing. We know that they lived in Europe along with extinct species of elephant and rhinoceros, and many other animals not now found in Europe, and that in the latter part of their time the reindeer abounded throughout Central Europe and as far south as the Pyrenees. We know, too, that the climate was much colder, and that the musk sheep and other arctic animals lived in the South of France. But where palæolithic man came from there is as yet no evidence to show.

His outgoing is almost as much shrouded in mystery as his incoming. He simply disappears, and with him vanish the great beasts amongst which he lived. There is not a single point of connection between the latest of the palæolithic and the earliest of the neolithic tribes. Both, it is true, used stoneimplements, but they are so essentially distinct in type that they can be recognised at a glance, and there are no intermediate forms showing the development of the one from the other. We have seen that there has been a regular, quiet, and gradual progression of the people of the stone age of the lake dwellings, through the bronze and iron periods, up to the present time. The people themselves are still represented, their arts remain, and every species of animal and plant they knew still exists.