PIT AND PILE DWELLINGS
Pit dwelling earliest form of house-building--Discoveries at
Bright-hampton, Worlebury--British oppida--Hurstbourne--Contents of
pit dwelling--Pot-boilers--Condition of civilisation--Pile dwellings--
Switzerland--Glastonbury--Hedsor--Crannogs--Modern use of pile
dwellings--Description of a lake dwelling--Contents--Bronze Age--
Recent discoveries at Glastonbury.
We have examined in our last chapter the abodes of the dead; we will
now investigate the abodes of the living which the earth has preserved
for us for so many centuries. The age of the cave dwellers had long
passed; and the prehistoric folk, having attained to some degree of
civilisation, began to devise for themselves some secure retreats from
inclement rains and cold winds. Perhaps the burrowing rabbit gave them
an idea for providing some dwelling-place. At any rate the earliest and
simplest notion for constructing a habitation was that of digging holes
in the ground and roofing them over with a light thatch. Hence we have
the pit dwellings of our rude forefathers.
Many examples of pit dwellings have been found by industrious explorers.
Some labourers when digging gravel at Brighthampton, near Oxford, came
across several such excavations. They were simply pits dug in the earth,
large enough to hold one or two persons, and from the sides of these
pits a certain quantity of earth had been removed so as to form a seat.
At the bottom of these a few rude flint arrow-heads were found. In the
remarkable British oppidum at Worlebury, near Weston-super-Mare, several
circular, well-like pits may be seen, fairly preserved in shape owing to
the rocky nature of the ground in which they have been excavated. One in
particular is very perfect, and about two feet from the bottom is a seat
formed of the rock extending all round the pit.
These ancient pit dwellings are usually surrounded by an earthen
rampart. Caesar says that "the Britons called that a town where they
used to assemble for the sake of avoiding an incursion of enemies, when
they had fortified the entangled woods with a rampart and ditch." The
remains of many of these oppida may still be seen in almost all parts of
the country; and in most of these hollows are plainly distinguishable,
which doubtless were pit dwellings; but owing to the sides having fallen
in, they have now the appearance of natural hollows in the earth.
At Hurstbourne, Hants, nine of these early habitations were discovered
by the late Dr. Stevens, some of which were rudely pitched with flint
stones, and had passages leading into the pit. A few flints irregularly
placed together with wood ashes showed the position of the hearths,
where cooking operations had been carried on. The sloping
entrance-passages are peculiar and almost unique in England, though
several have been met with in France. A rude ladder was the usual mode
of entrance into these underground dwellings. Fragments of hand-made
British pottery and the commoner kinds of Romano-British ware were
found, and portions of mealing stones and also a saddle-quern, or
grain-crusher, which instruments for hand-mealing must have been in
common use among the pit dwellers. The grain was probably prepared by
parching it before crushing; the hollow understone prevented the grain
from escaping; and the muller was so shaped as to render it easily
grasped, while it was pushed backwards and forwards by the hands.
Similar stones are used at the present time by the African natives, as
travellers testify.
[Illustration: ARTICLES FOUND IN PIT DWELLINGS
(1) Knife of deer-antler
(2) Bone needle
(3) Marrow scoop
(4, 5) Bone awls]
One of the pits at Hurstbourne was evidently a cooking-hole, where the
pit dwellers prepared their feasts, and bones of the Celtic ox (_bos
longifrons_), pig, red deer, goat, dog, and hare or rabbit were found
near it. One of the bones had evidently been bitten by teeth. The pit
dwellers also practised some domestic industries, as Dr. Stevens found a
needle, an awl or bodkin, and fragments of pointed bone, probably used
for sewing skins together. A rude spindle-whorl shows that they knew
something of weaving, and two bored stones were evidently buttons or
dress-fasteners. A large supply of flint implements, scrapers, and
arrow-heads, proves that the dwellings were inhabited by the Neolithic
people before the Britons came to occupy them. I must not omit to notice
the heating stones, or "pot-boilers." These were heated in the fire, and
then placed among the meat intended to be cooked, in a hole in the
ground which served the purpose of a cooking pot. I have found many such
stones in Berkshire, notably from the neighbourhood of Wallingford and
Long Wittenham. The writer of the _Early History of Mankind_ states that
the Assineboins, or stone-boilers, dig a hole in the ground, take a
piece of raw hide, and press it down to the sides of the hole, and fill
it with water; this is called a "paunch-kettle"; then they make a number
of stones red-hot in a fire close by, the meat is put into the water,
and the hot stones dropped in until it is cooked. The South Sea
Islanders have similar primitive methods of cooking. The Highlanders
used to prepare the feasts of their clans in much the same way; and the
modern gipsies adopt a not very dissimilar mode of cooking their stolen
fowls and hedgehogs.
We can now people these cheerless primitive pit dwellings with their
ancient inhabitants, and understand something of their manners of life
and customs. Their rude abodes had probably cone-shaped roofs made of
rafters lashed together at the centre, protected by an outside coat of
peat, sods of turf, or rushes. The spindle-whorl is evidence that they
could spin thread; the mealing stones show that they knew how to
cultivate corn; and the bones of the animals found in their dwellings
testify to the fact that they were not in the wild state of primitive
hunters, but possessed herds of cows and goats and other domestic
animals.
Who were these people? Mr. Boyd Dawkins is of opinion that the early pit
dwellers belonged to the Neolithic folk of whom I have already told you,
as the flint implements testify. But these dwellings were evidently
occupied by a later people. The querns and spindle-whorl probably
belonged to the Celts, or Britons, before the advent of the Roman
legions; and that these people were the inhabitants of the Hampshire pit
dwellings is proved by the presence of a British gold coin which is
recognised by numismatists as an imitation of the Greek stater of Philip
II. of Macedon. According to Sir John Evans, the native British coinage
was in existence as early as 150 years before Christ. Hence to this
period we may assign the date of the existence of these Celtic primitive
habitations.
Pit dwellings were not the only kind of habitations which the early
inhabitants of our country used, and some of our villages possess
constructions of remarkable interest, which recent industrious digging
has disclosed. These are none other than lake dwellings, similar to
those first discovered in Switzerland about fifty years ago. Few of our
villages can boast of such relics of antiquity. Near Glastonbury, in
1892, in a dried-up ancient mere a lake village was discovered, which I
will describe presently; and recently at Hedsor in Buckinghamshire a
pile dwelling has been found which some learned antiquaries are now
examining. In Ireland and Scotland there are found the remains of
fortified dwellings called Crannogs in some of the lakes, as in Dowalton
Loch, Wigtownshire, and Cloonfinlough in Connaught, but these belong to
later times and were used in the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: IRON SPEAR-HEAD FOUND AT HEDSOR]
In primitive times, when tribe warred with tribe, and every man's hand
was against his fellow-man, and when wild and savage beasts roamed o'er
moor and woodland, security was the one thing most desired by the early
inhabitants of Europe. Hence they conceived the brilliant notion of
constructing dwellings built on piles in the midst of lakes or rivers,
where they might live in peace and safety, and secure themselves from
the sudden attack of their enemies, or the ravages of beasts of prey.
Switzerland is famous for its numerous clusters, or villages, of ancient
lake dwellings, which were of considerable size. At Morges, on the Lake
of Geneva, the settlement of huts extends 1,200 feet long by 150 in
breadth; and that at Sutz on the Lake of Bienne covers six acres, and is
connected with the shore by a gangway 100 feet long and 40 feet wide.
Nor is the use of these habitations entirely abandoned at the present
time. Venezuela, which means "little Venice," derives its name from the
Indian village composed of pile dwellings on the shores of the Gulf of
Maracaibo, as its original explorer Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499 chose to
compare the sea-protected huts with the queen city of the Adriatic; and
in many parts of South America, in the estuaries of the Orinoco and
Amazon, such dwellings are still found, also among the Dyaks of Borneo,
in the Caroline Islands, and on the Gold Coast of Africa. Herodotus
describes similar dwellings on the Lake Prasias, existing in the fifth
century B.C., and Lord Avebury states that now the Roumelian fishermen
on the same lake "inhabit wooden cottages built over the water as in the
time of Herodotus."
These habitations of primitive man were built on piles driven into the
bed of the lake or river. These piles were stems, or trunks of trees,
sharpened with stone or bronze tools. A rude platform was erected on
these piles, and on this a wooden hut constructed with walls of wattle
and daub, and thatched with reeds or rushes. A bridge built on piles
connected the lake village with the shore whither the dwellers used to
go to cultivate their wheat, barley, and flax, and feed their kine and
sheep and goats. They made canoes out of hollow trunks of trees. One of
these canoes which have been discovered is 43 feet in length and over 4
feet wide. The beams supporting the platform, on which the huts were
erected, were fastened by wooden pins. Much ingenuity was exercised in
the making of these dwellings. Sometimes they found that the mud of the
lake was too soft to hold the piles; so they fashioned a framework of
trunks of trees, which they let down to the bottom of the lake, and
fastened the upright piles to it. Sometimes the rocky bed of the lake
prevented the piles from being driven into it; so they heaped stones
around the piles, and thus made them secure. The lake dwellers were very
sociable, and had only one common platform for all the huts, which were
clustered together. As all the actual dwellings have been destroyed by
time's rude action, it is impossible to describe them accurately; but
their usual size was about 20 feet by 12 feet. The floor was of clay,
and in the centre of the building there was a hearth made of slabs of
stone.
The people who inhabited these structures belonged either to the later
Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, as we learn from the relics which their
huts disclose. In the earlier ones are found celts, flint flakes,
arrow-heads, harpoons of stag's horn with barbs, awls, needles, chisels,
and fish-hooks made of bone, and sometimes wooden combs, and skates made
out of the leg-bone of a horse. Besides the remains of the usual
domestic animals we find bones of the beaver, bear, elk, and bison.
When the use of bronze was discovered the people still lived on in their
lake dwellings. Fire often played havoc with the wooden wattle walls;
hence we frequently find a succession of platforms. The first dwelling
having been destroyed by flames, a second one was subsequently
constructed; and this having shared the same fate, another platform with
improved huts was raised upon the ruins of its predecessors. The relics
of each habitation show that, as time went on, the pit dwellers advanced
in civilisation, and increased the comforts and conveniences of life.
Some of the dwellings of these early peoples belong to the Bronze Age,
as do those of the Auvernier settlement in the Lake of Neuchatel; and
these huts are rich in the relics of their former inhabitants. At Marin
on the same lake the lake dwellers were evidently workers in iron; and
the relics, which contain large spear-heads, shields, horse furniture,
fibulas, and other ornaments, together with Roman coins, prove that they
belonged to the period of which history tells us.
I have described at length these Swiss lake dwellings, although they do
not belong to the antiquities of our villages in England, because much
the same kind of habitations existed in our country, though few have
as yet been unearthed. Possibly under the peaty soil of some ancient
river-bed, or old mere, long ago drained, you may be fortunate enough
to meet with the remains of similar structures here in England. At
Glastonbury a few years ago a lake village was discovered, which has
created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief
description. Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is
an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store
for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth,
and reveal the relics which have been so long stored there.
All that met the eyes of the diggers was a series of circular low
mounds, about sixty in number, extending over an area of three acres.
Imagine the delight of the gentlemen when they discovered that each of
these mounds contained the remains of a lake dwelling which was
constructed more than two thousand years ago.
First they found above the soft peat, the remains of a lake long dried
up, a platform formed of timber and brushwood, somewhat similar to the
structures which we have seen in the Swiss lakes. Rows of small piles
support this platform, and on it a floor of clay, or rather several
floors. The clay is composed of several horizontal layers with
intervening thin layers of decayed wood and charcoal, each layer
representing a distinct floor of a dwelling. In the centre of each mound
are the remains of rude hearths. The dwellings, of which no walls
remain, were evidently built of timber, the crevices between the wood
being filled with wattle and daub. In one of the mounds were found
several small crucibles which show that the inhabitants knew how to work
in metals. Querns, whetstones, spindle whorls, fibulae, and finger-rings
of bronze, a horse's bit, a small saw, numerous implements of horn and
bone, combs, needles, a jet ring and amber bead, all tell the tale of
the degree of civilisation attained by these early folk. They worked in
metals, made pottery and cloth, tilled and farmed the adjoining lands,
and probably belonged to the late Celtic race before the advent of the
Romans. These lake dwellers used a canoe in order to reach the mainland,
and this primitive boat has been discovered. It is evidently cut out of
the stem of an oak, is flat-bottomed, and its dimensions are 17 feet
long, 2 feet wide, and 1 foot deep. The prow is pointed, and has a hole,
through which doubtless a rope was passed, in order to fasten it to the
little harbour of the lake village.
It will be gathered that these people, whether dwelling in their pit or
lake villages, showed so much capacity, industry, and social
organisation, that even in the Neolithic Age they were far removed from
a savage state, and a low condition of culture and civilisation. They
showed great ingenuity in the making of their tools, their vessels of
pottery, their ornaments, and clothing. They were not naked, woad-dyed
savages. They could spin and weave, grow corn, and make bread, and had
brought into subjection for their use domestic animals, horses and
cattle, sheep and goats, and swine. They lived in security and comfort,
and were industrious and intelligent; and it is interesting to record,
from the relics which the earth has preserved of their civilisation, the
kind of life which they must have lived in the ages which existed before
the dawn of history.