Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake Stations, "Terremares," Crannoges,
Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti," and "Truddhi."
The earliest races of men lived in a climate less rigorous than ours,
on the shores of wide rivers, in the midst of fertile districts,
where fishing and the chase easily supplied all their needs. These
races were numerous and prolific, and we find traces of them all
over Western Europe, from Norfolk to the middle of Spain. What
were the homes of these men and their families? Did they crouch
in dens, as Tacitus says the German tribes did in his day? In his
"Ancient Wiltshire," Sir R. Coalt Hoare says that the earliest human
habitations were holes dug in the earth and covered over with the
branches of trees. Near Joigny there still remain some circular
holes in the ground, about fifty feet in diameter by sixteen to
twenty deep, known in the country under the name of BUVARDS. The
trunk of a tree was fixed at the bottom and rose above the ground,
and the branches plastered with clay formed the roof. The floor
of these BUVARDS consists of a greasy black earth mixed with bones,
cinders, charcoal, and worked flints. Amongst the last named, polished
hatchets predominate, which proves that these refuges were inhabited
in Neolithic times, but there is nothing to prevent our supposing that
they were also occupied in the Palaeolithic period. Ameghino gives a
still more striking example of an earth-dwelling. Near Mercedes, about
twenty leagues from Buenos Ayres, he picked up numerous human bones,
together with arrow-heads, chisels, flint knives, bone stilettos and
polishers, and bones of animals scratched and cut by man. Later,
Ameghino discovered the actual dwelling of this primeval man, and
his strange home was beneath the carapace of a gigantic armadillo,
the now extinct glyptodon seen in Fig. 48.
FIGURE 48
The glyptodon.
"All around the carapace," says Ameghino, "in the reddish agglomerate
of the original. soil lay charcoal cinders, burnt and split bones,
and flints. Digging beneath this, a flint implement was found, with
some long split llama and stag bones, which had evidently been handled
by man, with some toxodon and mylodon teeth." Fig. 49 represents
the now extinct mylodon. Some time afterwards, the discovery of
another carapace under similar conditions added weight to Ameghino's
supposition.[110] In the midst of the pampas, those vast treeless
plains, where no rock or accident of conformation affords shelter
from heat or cold or a hiding-place from wild beasts, man was not at
a loss; he hollowed out for himself a hole in the earth, roofing it
over with the shell of a glyptodon, and securing a retreat where he
could be safe at least for a time.
FIGURE 49
Mylodon robustus.
It was not until later, driven to do so by the cold, that man learnt
to use the natural caves hollowed out in limestone rocks, either in
geological convulsions or by the quieter action of water. The absence
in the caves which have been excavated in America of implements of
the Chelleen type, the most ancient known as yet, would point to
this conclusion, though it is impossible to fix the earliest date of
their occupation. This date, moreover, varies very much in different
localities. The earth was but gradually peopled, and our ancestors
penetrated into different countries in successive migrations. Some
caves have recently been discovered in Wales, in the midst of Glacial
deposits.[111] The Boulder Clay and marine drift on neighboring heights
are incontrovertible proofs of the submergence of this region, when
Great Britain was almost completely covered with ice. Excavations
made in 1886 have brought to light a series of deposits, one above
the other, the gravel and red earth containing Quaternary bones and
worked flints, whilst the stalagmite and ooze are evidently of more
recent origin. This is the usual state of things in all the English
eaves; but in those of the Clyde, the bone beds had been disturbed and
mixed with striated pebbles and Glacial drift. From this Hicks, who
superintended the excavations, concluded that man and the Quaternary
animals had lived in those caves before the Glacial epoch, and before
the great submergence, which in some places was no less than some 1,300
feet below the present level of the sea. If this were so, it would be
one of the most ancient proofs not only of the presence of man, but
also of the kind of habitation he first dwelt in. These conclusions
have, however, been hotly disputed. M. Arcelin[112] remarks that there
are in England two exceptional geological landmarks, the Forest Bed
representing the last Pliocene formations, and the River Gravels,
which are the most ancient Quaternary deposits. Between the two, we
find the Boulder Clay of Glacial origin. Now the fauna of the caves
of the Clyde, far from resembling that of the Forest Bed, appears
to be more recent than that of the ancient deposits of the River
Gravels. Amongst this fauna we find neither the ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS nor
the RHINOCEROS MERCKII; the worked flints are not like those known as
belonging to the River-Gravel type, but the relics more nearly resemble
those of the Reindeer period of France. It is therefore impossible,
in the present state of our knowledge, to assert that man lived in the
southwest of England in the Glacial epoch, to the phenomena of which,
if he witnessed them, he must eventually have fallen a victim.
Our ancestors must constantly have disputed the possession of
their caves of refuge with animals, but there is often a certain
distinction between those chiefly occupied by man and the mere dens
of wild beasts. The latter are generally more difficult of access,
and are only to be entered by long, low, narrow, dark passages. Those
permanently inhabited by man are wide, not very deep, and they are well
lighted. That at Montgaudier, for instance, has an arched entrance
some forty-five feet wide by eighteen high. The cave-men had already
learnt to appreciate the advantages of air and light.
The caves are often of considerable height; that of Massat is some
560 feet high, that of Lherm is 655, that of Bouicheta nearly 755,
that of Loubens 820, and that of Santhenay is, as much as 1,344
feet high. Those of Eyzies, Moustier, and Aurignac are also very
lofty. As the valleys were hollowed out by the rushing torrents of
the Quaternary floods, men sought a home near the waters which were
indispensable to their existence, and came to dwell on the shores
of rivers. The most ancient of the inhabited caves, therefore, are
those on the highest levels, but the difference in the nature of the
country and the varying force of geological action have led to so many
exceptions, that all we can say with any certainty is that the caves
were inhabited at different epochs. That of Montgaudier, for instance,
was filled with an accumulation of ooze about forty feet thick. Weapons
and tools lay one above the other from the bottom to the top, and it is
easy to distinguish the succession of hearths by the blackened earth,
cinders, charcoal, and crushed bones lying about them.
In the Placard Cave eight different deposits bear witness to the
presence of man; and these are separated by others bare of traces of
human occupation. The lowest deposit, which is some twenty-five feet
below the present level of the soil, contains worked flints of the
Mousterien type, above which, but separated by an accumulation of
DEBRIS which has fallen from the roof, comes a layer in which was
found a number of arrow-heads of the shape of laurel leaves. The
fauna of both these levels includes the reindeer, the horse, and
the aurochs. As we go up we find, above another layer of DEBRIS, the
Solutreen type of tools and weapons represented by bone implements
and numerous arrow-heads, this time stalked and notched. The four
following levels correspond with those belonging to what is known as
the Madeleine type, and the arrow-heads are decorated with geometrical
designs. The traces of human occupation at different times, doubtless
separated by long intervals, are therefore very clearly defined. The
Fontabert Cave, in Dauphine, contained, at a depth of about six feet,
traces of fire and roughly worked flints, and about three feet below
the surface lay the skeleton of a man, who had perhaps been overtaken
by a fall of earth, still holding in his hand a polished dipper of
fine workmanship. Yet a third and evidently more recent period is
characterized by a jade crescent. We might easily multiply instances
of a similar kind, but that we wish to avoid so much repetition.
We soon begin to find evidence of the progress made by man, and though
in Neolithic times he still continued to occupy caves he learned to
adapt them better to his needs. The rock shelters of the Petit-Morin
valley, so well explored by M. de Baye, are the best examples we
can give.
These caves are hollowed out of a very thick belt of cretaceous
limestone. They date from different epochs, and each presents special
characteristics which can easily be recognized. Some were used as
burial-places, others as habitations. In the former the entrance is
of irregular shape, the walls are roughly cut, and the work is of
the most elementary description. The sepulchral eaves were simply
closed by a large stone rolled into place and covered with rubbish,
the better to hide the entrance. The shelters used to live in show
much more careful work, and are divided into two unequal parts by a
wall cut in the living rock. To get into the second partition one has
to go down steps, cut in the limestone, and these steps are worn with
long usage. The entrance was cut out of a massive piece of rock, left
thick on purpose, and on either side of the opening the edges still
show the rabbet which was to receive the door. Two small holes on the
right and left were probably used to fix a bar across the front to
strengthen the entrance. A good many of these eaves are provided with
an opening for ventilation, and some skilful contrivances were resorted
to for keeping out water. Inside we find different floors, shelves,
and crockets cut in the chalk, and on the floors M. de Baye picked up
shells, ornaments, and flints, which were lying just where their owners
had left them. Very different is all this from the Vezere caves, and
everything proves an undeniable improvement in the conditions of life.
The most interesting of all the objects found in these caves
are, however, the carvings; but few date from Neolithic times,
and some archaeologists have argued from their absence in favor
of the displacement everywhere of old races by the incursion of
new-corners. Some of these carvings represent hafted hatchets,
the flint being painted black to make the raised design stand out
better. Others represent human figures. In the Coizard Cave, for
instance, was found a roughly outlined representation of a woman with a
prominent nose, eyes indicated by black dots, highly developed breasts,
but no lower limbs. A necklace adorns her throat, and a pendant hanging
from this necklace is colored yellow. On the passage leading to the
door is engraved another figure which was originally more accurately
drawn than the others, but is not in such good preservation. In the
Courjonnet Cave we see a woman with a bird's bead; she was probably
one of the LARES PENATES, the protectors of the domestic hearth. We
meet with this same goddess at Santorin, and at Troy, and on the
shores of the Vistula, which is a very interesting ethnological fact.
The objects found in the sepulchral caves are important, and included
a number of arrow-heads with transverse cutting edges. There is no
doubt about their use; they have been picked up in black earth, in
contact with human bones, the decomposition of the soft parts of which
caused them to fall out of the mortal wound they had inflicted. With
these arrow-heads were found flint knives, large sloped scrapers,
polishers, and bone stilettos, the femora of a ruminant with a pig's
tooth fixed on to each end, hoes made of stag horn, beads and pendants
made of bone, shell, schist, quartz, and aragonite, with the teeth of
bears, boars, wolves, and foxes, all pierced with holes. Some of the
shell anti schist beads were spread upon the surface of the skull,
and perhaps formed a net or RESILLE, such as that already referred
to as found at Baousse-Rousse.
For centuries this occupation of caves continued, offering as they did
a shelter that was dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer. Homer
tells us that the Cyclops lived on the heights of the mountains
and in the depths of the caves,[113] and Prometheus says that, like
the feeble ant, men dwelt in deep subterranean caves, where the sun
never penetrated.[114]
Whilst the men of the Petit-Morin valley hollowed out caves, or
enlarged those made by nature, others took refuge in buts made of
dried clay and interlaced branches, or in tents of the skins of
the animals they had slain, and, though these fragile dwellings have
disappeared, leaving no trace, there yet remain indelible evidences of
the presence of many successive generations. Everywhere throughout the
world we find heaps of rubbish, consisting chiefly of the shells of
mollusca and crustacea, broken bones, flakes of flint, and fragments
of stone and bone implements, covering vast areas and often rising
to a considerable height.
Not until our own day did these rubbish heaps attract attention,
and it was reserved to our own generation, so interested in all that
relates to the past, to recognize their true significance. Steenstrup
noticed, in the north of Europe, that these mounds consisted nearly
entirely of the shells of edible species, such as the oyster, mussel,
and LITTORINA LITTOREA; that they were all those of adult specimens,
but not all subject to similar conditions of existence or native to
the same waters. The kitchen-middings, or heaps of kitchen refuse --
such was the name given to these shell-mounds -- could not have been
the natural deposits left by the waves after storms, for in that case
they would have been mixed with quantities of sand and pebbles. The
conclusion is inevitable, that man alone could have piled up these
accumulations, which were the refuse flung away day by day after
his meals. The excavation of the kitchen-middings confirmed in
a remarkable manner the opinion of Steenstrup, and everywhere a
number of important objects were discovered. In several places the
old hearths were brought to light. They consisted of flat stones, on
which were piles of cinders, with fragments of wood and charcoal. It
was now finally proved that these mounds occupied the site of ancient
settlements, the inhabitants of which rarely left the coast, and fed
chiefly on the mollusca which abounded in the waters of the North Sea.
These primeval races, however savage they may have been, were not
wanting in intelligence. The earliest inhabitants of Russia placed
their dwellings near rivers above the highest flood-level known
to or foreseen by them. The Scandinavians were most precise in the
orientation of their homes, and M. de Quatrefages points out that the
kitchen-midding of Soelager is set against a hill in the best position
for protecting those who lived near it from the north winds, which are
so trying in these districts on account of their violence. At Havelse,
says Sir John Lubbock, the settlement was on rather higher ground, and,
though close to the shore, was quite beyond the reach of the waves. The
English visitors had an excavation made whilst they were present,
and in two or three hours they obtained about a hundred fragments
of bone, many rude flakes, sling stones, and fragments of flint,
together with some rough axes of the ordinary shell-mound type. The
excavations at Meilgaard a little later by the same explorers were
even more fruitful in results.
Scandinavia does not appear to have been occupied in the Paleolithic
period, and the most ancient facts concerning it only date from the
expeditions of the Romans against the Teutons, and our knowledge even
of them is very incomplete.[115] We are still ignorant of much which
may have been known to the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians. It is
possible that in the remote days under notice the Scandinavians were
ignorant of the art of tilling the ground, for so far no cereal or
agricultural product of any kind has been discovered, nor the bones
of any domestic animal, except indeed those of the dog, which may,
however, have been still in a wild state. Amongst the bones collected
from the kitchen-middings, those of the stag, the kid, and the boar
are much the most numerous. The bear, the urns, the wild cat, the
otter, the porpoise, the seal, and the small mammals, the marten,
the water-rat and the mouse, have also been found. At Havelse were
collected more than 3,500 mammal bones, amongst which do not occur
those of the musk-ox, the reindeer, the elk, or the marmot; their
absence bearing witness to a more temperate climate than that of
the present day in the regions under notice. The stag antlers found
belong to every season of the year, from which we may conclude that
the people of these districts, like the cave-men of the Pyrenees,
had given up a nomad life and remained at home all the year round,
living in the dwellings they had built upon the shores of the sea.
Amongst the birds found, we may mention the large penguin, now extinct,
the moor-fowl, which fed entirely on pine buds, and several species
of clucks and geese; whilst amongst the fish were the herring, the
cod, the dab, and the eel. The numerous relics of chelonia prove the
existence of numbers of the turtle tribe in the North Sea.
A great variety of objects, most of them of a coarse type, have been
found beneath the kitchen-middings; metals are however completely
absent, and it is probable that they were quite unknown to the
Scandinavians for several centuries after their arrival in the country.
It is easy to quote similar facts in other countries. In 1877,
Count Ouvarof mentioned, at the Archaeological Congress at Kazan,
some kitchen-middings near the Oka, a little river flowing into the
Volga near Nijni-Novgorod. In excavating some BOUGRYS, or little
mounds of sand overlooking the valley, he discovered amongst the
layers of alluvium, successive deposits of cinders and fragments of
charcoal, which appear to have been the remains of a fire. A little
lower down in another deposit were fragments of pottery, stone weapons
and implements, and an immense number of shells. Judging from these
relics of their daily life, this numerous population must have fed
exclusively on fish and mollusca, for excavations brought to light but
few mammal bones. The mollusca were all of species that only live in
salt water. From this we know that the waves washed the shores near
this BOUGRY, and that a milder climate probably prevailed in these
regions, making life more supportable.
Virchow has recognized on the shores of Lake Burtneek in Germany, a
kitchen-midding belonging to the earliest Neolithic times, perhaps
even to the close of the Palaeolithic period. He there picked
up some stone and bone implements, and notices on the one hand
the absence of the reindeer, and on the other, as in Scandinavia,
that of domestic animals. But in this case, the home of the living
became the tomb of the dead, and numerous skeletons lay beside the
abandoned hearths. Similar discoveries have been made in Portugal;
shell-heaps having been found thirty-five to forty miles from the
coast, and from sixty-five to eighty feet above the sea-level. Here
also excavations have brought to light several different hearths;
and in many of the most ancient kitchen-middings in the valley of the
Tigris were found crouching skeletons, proving that here too the home
had become the tomb.[116]
Similar deposits are by no means rare in France. M. du Chatellier
mentions one in Brittany, which he estimates as 325 cubic feet in
size. From it be has taken spear- and arrow-heads, knives and scrapers,
some highly finished, others but roughly cut and often with scarcely
any shape at all. The population was evidently ichthyophagous,
to judge by the vast accumulations of shells of scallops, oysters,
limpets, pectens, and other mollusca. The few animal bones are those
of the stag, the bear, and certain wading birds.
At Canche, near Etaples, has been evade out a series of mounds forming
a semicircle some eight hundred and fifty feet in extent. These mounds
are made up of successive layers of shells and charcoal, the relics
of successive occupations. Lastly we must mention a kitchen-midding
situated at the mouth of the Somme, which is eight hundred and
twenty feet long by about one hundred wide. It consists principally
of shells of adult species, with which are mixed fragments of coarse
black pottery and numerous goat and sheep bones, the latter bearing
witness to a more recent date than that of the kitchen-middings of
Scandinavia or of Germany.
Throughout Europe similar facts are coming to light. Evans mentions
heaps of shells on the coasts of England. Chantre speaks of others
near Lake Gotchai in the Caucasus, and Nordenskiold of others at Cape
North, to which he wishes to restore its true name of Jokaipi. He
sass these mounds are exactly like those of Denmark.
It is, however, chiefly in America that these heaps attract attention,
for there huge shell-mounds stretch along the coast in Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Louisiana, California, and Nicaragua. We
meet with them again near the Orinoco and the Mississippi, in the
Aleutian Islands, and in the Guianas, in Brazil and in Patagonia,
on the coasts of the Pacific as on those of the Atlantic. Owing to
the darker color of the vegetation growing on them, the shell-heaps
of Tierra del Fuego are seen from afar by the navigator. For a long
time the true character of these mounds was not known, and they were
attributed to natural causes, such as the emergence of the ancient
coast-line from the sea, and it was not until lately that it was
discovered that they were the work of men.
Some of these kitchen-middings are of great size. Sir Charles Lyell
describes one on St. Simon's Island, at the mouth of the Altamaha
(Georgia), which covers ten acres of ground and varies in height from
five to ten feet. It consisted almost entirely of oyster shells. In
America, as in Europe, excavations brought to light hatchets,
flints, arrows, and fragments of pottery. Another of these mounds,
near the St. John River, consists, as does that visited by Lyell,
of oyster shells, and is of extraordinary dimensions, being three
hundred feet long, and though the exact width cannot be made out, is
certainly several hundred feet across. Putnam[117] gives an account
of the excavation of one of these mounds formed of shells of the MYA,
VENUS, PECTEN, BUCCINUM, and NATICA genera. It stretched along the
sea-coast for a distance of several hundred feet, it was from four to
five feet thick, and penetrated some distance below the surface of the
ground. The valves had been opened with the aid of heat, and the animal
bones found with the shells had been broken with heavy hammers which
were found in the kitchen-midding. The bones included those of the
stag, the wolf, and the fox. Fishes were also represented by remains
of the cod, the plaice, and chelonia by turtle shells. Some bird bones
were also found, and the knives, arrow- and spear-heads, scrapers,
etc., were all of the rudest workmanship. Mr. Phelps has superintended
yet more important excavations at Damariscotta[118] and all along the
coast to the month of the Penobscot. In the lowest layers he made
out ancient hearths, and found numerous fragments of pottery which
are the most ancient examples of keramic ware found in New England,
and were covered with incised ornamentation of considerable refinement.
The kitchen-middings of Florida and Alabama are even more
remarkable. There is one on Amelia Island which is a quarter of
a mile long with a medium depth of three feet and a breadth of
nearly five. That of Bear's Point covers sixty acres of ground,
that of Anercerty Point one hundred, and that of Santa Rosa five
hundred. Others taper to a great height. Turtle Mound, near Smyrna, is
formed of a mass of oyster shells attaining a height of nearly thirty
feet, and the height of several others is more than forty feet.[119]
In all of them bushels of shells have already been found, although a
great part of the sites they occupy are still unexplored; huge trees,
roots, and tropical creepers having, in the course of many centuries,
covered them with an almost impenetrable thicket.
Whether man did or did not live in the basin of the Delaware at the
most remote times of which we have any knowledge, we meet with traces
of his occupation in the same latitude at more recent periods. At
Long-Nick-Branch is a shell-mound that extends for half a mile, and in
California there is a yet larger kitchen-midding. It measures a mile
in length by half a mile in width, and, as in similar accumulations,
excavations have yielded thousands of stone hammers and bone implements
(Fig. 24).
The shell-mounds of which we have so far been speaking are all near
the sea, but there is yet another consisting entirely of marine
shells fifty miles beyond Mobile. This fact seems to point to a
considerable change in the level of the ground since the time of man's
first occupancy, for he is not likely to have taken all the trouble
involved in carrying the mollusca necessary for his daily food so far,
when he might so easily have settled down near the shore.
I cannot close this account of the kitchen-middings, without calling
attention to two very interesting facts. The importance of these
mounds bears witness alike to the number of the inhabitants who
dwelt near them, and the long duration of their sojourn. Worsaae
sets back the initial date of the most ancient of the shell-mounds
of the New World more than three thousand years. This is however a
delicate question, on which in the present state of our knowledge it
is difficult to hazard a serious opinion. It is easier to come to
a conclusion on other points: the close resemblance, for instance,
between the kitchen-middings of America and those of Europe. In both
continents we find the early inhabitants fed almost entirely on fish;
their weapons, tools, and pottery were almost identical in character;
and in both cases the characteristic animals of Quaternary times had
disappeared, and the use of metals still remained unknown. Are these
remarkable coincidences the result of chance, or must we not rather
suppose that people of the same origin occupied at the same epoch
both sides of the Atlantic?
The man of the kitchen-middings evidently had a fixed abode. Long
since, the tent, the temporary shelter of the nomad, had given place
to the but. We have already said what this but may have been like,
but the most certain data we have as to human habitations at this
still but little known epoch, are those supplied by the Lake Stations
of Switzerland, and it is to our own generation that we are indebted
for the first discoveries relating to them.
The memory of these Lake Stations bad completely passed away, and it
was only the long drought which desolated Switzerland in 1853 and 1854,
and the extraordinary sinking of Lake Zurich, revealing the piles
still standing, that attracted the attention of archaeologists. In
the space still enclosed by these piles lay scattered pell-mell
stones, bones, burnt cinders of ancient hearths, pestles, hammers,
pottery, hatchets of various shapes, implements of many kinds, with
innumerable objects of daily use. These relics prove that some of
the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland had dwelt on the lake where
they were found, in a refuge to which they had probably retired to
escape from the attacks of their fellow-men or wild beasts. Though
they bad succeeded in getting away from these enemies, they were to
fall victims to a yet more formidable adversary, and the half-burnt
piles have preserved to our own day the traces of a conflagration
that destroyed the Lake dwelling so laboriously constructed.
The discovery of these piles excited general interest, an interest
that was redoubled when similar discoveries revealed that all the
lakes of Switzerland were dotted with stations that had been built long
centuries before in the midst of the waters. Twenty such stations were
made out on Lake Bienne, twenty-four on the Lake of Geneva, thirty on
Lake Constance, forty-nine on that of Neuchatel, and others, though
not so many, on Lakes Sempach, Morat, Mooseedorf, and Pfeffikon. In
fact more than two hundred Lake Stations are now known in Switzerland;
and how many more may have completely disappeared?
There is really nothing to surprise us in the fact of buildings
rising from the midst of waters. They are known in historic times;
Herodotus relates that the inhabitants of pile dwellings on Lake
Prasias successfully repelled the attacks of the Persians commanded
by Megabasus. Alonzo de Ojeda, the companion of Amerigo Vespucci,
speaks of a village consisting of twenty large houses built on piles
in the midst of a lake, to which he gave the name of Venezuela in
honor of Venice, his native town. We meet with pile dwellings in
our own day in the Celebes, in New Guinea, in Java, at Mindanao,
and in the Caroline Islands. Sir Richard Burton saw pile dwellings
at Dahomey, Captain Cameron on the lakes of Central Africa, and the
Bishop of Labuan tells us that the houses of the Dayaks are built on
lofty platforms on the shores of rivers. The accounts of historians
and travellers help us to understand alike the anode of construction
of the Lake Stations and the kind of life led by their inhabitants.
The Lake dwellings of Switzerland may be assigned to three different
periods. That of Chavannes, on Lake Bienne, belongs to the earliest
type. The hatchets found are small, scarcely polished, and always
of native rock, such as serpentine, diorite, or saussurite; the
pottery is coarse, mixed with grains of sand or bits of quartz; the
bottoms of the vases are thick, and no traces of ornamentation can
be made out. The pile-dwellings of the second period, such as those
of Locras and Latringen, show considerable progress; the hatchets,
some of which are very large, are well made. Several of them are of
nephrite, chloromelanite, and jade; and their number, as compared
with those in minerals native to Switzerland, varies from five to
eight per cent. Here and there in rare instances we find a few copper
or bronze lamellae amongst the piles. The pottery is now of finer
clay, better kneaded; and ornamentation, including chevrons, wolves'
teeth, and mammillated designs, is more common. The handle, however,
is still a mere projection. The third period, which we may date from
the transition from stone to bronze, is largely represented; copper
weapons and tools are already numerous, and bronze is beginning to
occur. The stone hatchets and hammers are skilfully pierced, and wooden
or horn implements are often found. The vases are of various shapes,
all provided with handles, and are covered with ornaments, some made
with the fingers of the potter, others with the help of a twig or some
fine string. On the other hand, there are no hatchets of foreign rock;
commerce and intercourse with people at a distance had ceased, or at
least become rarer. The tools are fixed into handles of stag horn,
which are found in every stage of manufacture. The personal property
of the Lake Dwellers included bead necklaces, pendants, buttons,
needles, and horn combs. The teeth of animals served as amulets,
and the bones that were of denser material than born were used as
javelin- or arrow-heads. The arrows were generally of triangular
shape and not barbed.[120]
The distance from the shore of the most ancient of the Lake dwellings
varies from 131 to 298 feet. Gradually men began to take greater and
greater precautions against danger, and the most recent stations are
656 to 984 feet from the banks of the lake. The piles of the Stone
age are from eleven to twelve inches in diameter; those of the later
epochs are smaller. They are pointed at the ends, and hardened by
fire. When the piles had been driven into the bottom of the lake,
a platform was laid on them solid enough to bear the weight of the
buts. This platform was made of beams laid down horizontally, and
bound together by interlaced branches. Two modes of construction can
easily be distinguished. In one the platforms were upheld by numerous
piles, ten yards long, firmly driven into the mud. This is how the
PFAHLBAUTEN, PALAFITTES, or pile dwellings situated in shallow waters
were generally put together. In other cases it seemed easier to raise
the soil round the piles, than to drive them into the hard rock which
formed the bed of the lake. Care was then taken to consolidate them,
and keep them in position with blocks of stone, clay, and tiers of
piles. Keller gives to these latter the name of PACKWERBAUTEN, and
other German archaeologists call them STEINBERGEN.
The mean depth of the waters in those parts of the lakes formerly
occupied by the pile dwellings is from thirteen to sixteen feet, and
we can still make out the piles when the water is calm and clear. Worn
though they may be, their tops still emerge at a height varying from
one to three feet above the mud at the bottom of the lake. Their number
was originally considerable, and it is estimated that there were forty
thousand at Wangen, and a hundred thousand at Robenhausen. The area
occupied by the stations varies considerably; according to Troyon,
that at Wangen was seven hundred paces long by one hundred and twenty
broad. Baron von Mayenfisch explored seventeen sites in the Lake of
Constance, the area of which varies from three to four acres. At Inkwyl
is a little artificial island about forty-eight feet in diameter. The
Lake dwelling of Morges, which was still inhabited in the Bronze age,
covers an area of twelve hundred feet long by a mean width of one
hundred and fifty. It is, however, useless to enumerate the various
calculations that have been made, as they are founded on nothing but
more or less probable guesswork.
Excavations show that the buts that rose from the platforms were
made of wattle and hurdle-work. In different places calcined and
agglutinated fragments have been picked up, and pieces of clay
which had served as facing. The house to which they had belonged
had been destroyed by fire, and the clay, hardened in the flames,
had resisted the disintegrating action of the water. On one side this
clay is smooth, and on the other it still retains the marks of the
interlaced branches, which had helped to form the inner walls. Some
of these marks are so clear and regular that Troyon, noticing the way
they curve, was able to assert that the buts were circular, and that
they varied in diameter from ten to fifteen feet.
A recent discovery at Schussenreid (Wurtemberg) gives completeness to
our knowledge of the Swiss Lake dwellings. In the midst of a peat-bog
rises a but known as a KNUPPELBAU, which is supposed to date from
the Stone age. It is of rectangular form, and is divided into two
compartments communicating with each other by a foot-bridge consisting
of three beams laid side by side. The floors of this but are made of
rounded wood, and the walls of piles split in half. Excavations have
brought to light several floors, one above the other, and divided by
thick layers of clay. The rising of the level of the peat doubtless
compelled the Lake Dweller to add by degrees to the height of his
house.
The Proto-Helvetian race were well-developed men, and the bones
that have been collected show that they were not at all wanting
in symmetry of form or in cranial capacity. The crania found are
distinctly dolichocephalous, and their owners had evidently attained
to no small degree of culture and of technical skill. Judging from
the length of the femora found, though it must be added that they are
mostly those of women, the ancient Lake Dwellers were not so tall as
the present inhabitants of Europe. The smallness of the handles of
their weapons and tools points to the same conclusion.[121]
Though the importance and number of the discoveries made in Switzerland
render it the classic land of Lake Stations, it is not the only
country in which they have been found. They have been made out in
the Lago Maggiore and in the lakes of Varese, Peschiera, and Garda
in Lombardy; in Lake Salpi in the Capitanata, and in other parts
of Italy. Judging from the objects recovered from these stations,
they belonged partly to the Stone and partly to the Bronze age.
The pile dwelling of Lagozza is one of the most interesting known to
us. It forms a long square, facing due east, and covers an area of two
thousand six hundred yards, now completely overgrown with peat six
and a half feet thick. Amongst the posts still standing can be made
out a number of half-burnt planks, which are probably the remains
of the platform. One of the posts was still covered with bark, and
it was easy to recognize the silver birch (BETULA ALBA). Other posts
consisted of the trunks of resinous trees, such as the PINUS PICEA,
the PINUS SYLVESTRIS, and the larch, which now only grow in the lofty
Alpine valleys. Amongst the industrial objects found in the Lagozza
pile dwelling were polished stone hatchets, hammers, polishers of
hard stone, knife-blades, flint scrapers, and seven or eight arrows
with transverse cutting edges, a form rare in Italy.
Castelfranco,[122] from whom we borrow these details, has also, in
the excavations he superintended, picked up a number of earthenware
spindle-whorls with a hole in the middle, amulets, and numerous pieces
of pottery, some fine and some coarse, according to the purpose for
which they were intended. The first mould had in most cases been
covered over with a layer of very fine clay spread upon it with the
aid of a kind of boasting-chisel. We may also mention a bone comb. The
combs found in Swiss Lake dwellings are of horn9 with the exception
of one from Locras of yew wood.
What chiefly distinguishes the Lagozza pile dwelling, however,
is the absence of the bones, teeth, or horns of animals, and also
of fish-hooks, harpoons, or nets, so that we must conclude that
the inhabitants did not hunt or fish, that they did not breed
domestic animals, and were probably vegetarians. The researches
of Professor Sordelli confirm this hypothesis; from amongst the
objects taken from the peat he recognized two kinds of corn (TRITICUM
VULGARE ANTIQUORUM and TRITICUM VULAGERE HIBERNUM), six-rowed barley
(HORDEUM HEXASTICHUM), mosses, ferns, flax, the Indian poppy (PAPAVER
SOMNIFERUM), acorns, and an immense number of nuts and apples.
The acorns are those of the common oak, and their cups and outer
rind had been removed, so that they had evidently been prepared
to serve as food for, man; the apples were small and coriaceous,
resembling the modern crab-apple; the Indian poppy cannot have grown
without cultivation; but this was perhaps but an example of the same
species already recognized in the Lake dwellings of Switzerland. It
is difficult to say whether it was used for food or whether oil was
extracted from it.
We have already spoken of the discoveries made in Austria and
Hungary. Count Wurmbrand has described the difficulties with
which explorers had to contend. The lakes have in many cases become
inaccessible swamps, and in others, the waters having been artificially
dimmed to regulate their overflow, the sites of the pile dwellings
are so far below the level of the lakes that any excavations are
impossible. Long and arduous researches have, however, been rewarded
with some success, and the numerous objects recovered bear witness,
as in Switzerland, to the gradual progress made by the successive
generations who occupied these pile dwellings.
FIGURE 50
Objects discovered in the peat-bogs of Laybach. A. Earthenware
vase. B. Fragment of ornamented pottery. C. Bone needle. D. Earthenware
weight for fishing-net. E. Fragment of jawbone.
A lake near Laybach had been converted in drying up into an immense
peat-bog, nearly thirty-eight miles in circumference, bounded on the
right and left by lofty mountains.[123] When this bog was under water
it had been the site of several Lake Stations. One, for instance, has
been made out over three hundred and twenty yards from the bank. The
piles, which consisted of the trunks of oaks, beeches, and poplars,
varying from eight to ten inches in diameter, were placed at regular
intervals. The objects taken from the peat-bog are simply innumerable
(Fig. 50), and include hundreds of needles of different sizes,
stilettos, dagger-blades, arrows, and hatchets, with stag-horn
handles. Coarse black earthenware vases are equally numerous and
are of a great variety of form, but their ornamentation. is of the
most primitive description, and was done sometimes with the nail of
the potter, and sometimes with a pointed bone. Little earthenware
figures (Figs. 51 and 52) were also found, some of which were sent
from the Laybach Museum to the French Exhibition of 1878. One of
them is said to represent a woman, probably an idol. This is one of
the first known examples of the representation of the human figure
from a Lake dwelling. At Nimlau, near Olmutz, the drying lip of a
little. lake brought to light a Lake Station surrounded by the trunks
of oak trees of a large size. They were piled up, one above the other,
and strongly bound together with osiers. These trunks were evidently
intended to fortify the station.
FIGURE 51
Small terra-cotta figures, found in the Laybach pile dwellings.
The mode of construction of the Lake Stations of the marshes of
Pomerania is very different from that employed in Switzerland or in
Austria. The foundations rest on horizontal beams, kept in place either
by great blocks of rock or by piles driven in vertically. In many cases
notches had evidently been made, the better to place the cross-beams;
whilst in others forked branches had been selected, so that a second
branch could be fitted into the fork. Primeval man soon learnt to
appreciate the solidity of such a combination. Do these stations,
however, really date from prehistoric times? Virchow, returning to his
first opinion, now thinks that the pile dwellings of Germany belong to
the same epoch as the intrenchments known as BURGWALLEN, when metals
and even iron were already in general use. They were inhabited until
the thirteenth century, and it is easy to trace in them, as in those
of Switzerland, the signs of the successive occupations, the dwellings
having evidently been abandoned and restored later by fresh comers.
FIGURE 52
Small terra-cotta figures, from the Laybach pile dwellings.
At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle in 1863,
Lord Lovaine described a Lake Station in the south of Scotland,
and Sir J. Lubbock mentions one in the north of England. Others are
known at Holderness (Yorkshire), at Thetford, on Barton Mere, near
Bury St. Edmunds; but judging from the description of them they are
not of earlier date than the Bronze age.
Other stations are more ancient. A few years ago a number of piles were
found a little above Kew, beneath a layer of alluvium, and embedded
in the gravel which formed the ancient bed of the Thames. All around
these piles were scattered the bones of animals, of which those of
the BOS LONGIFRONS were the most remarkable. The long bones had been
split to get out the marrow, an evident proof of the intelligent
action of man. In London two similar examples were found on the site
of the present Mansion House, and beneath the ancient walls of the
city. They are supposed to date from times earlier, not only than
the cutting out of the present course of the Thames, but before that
invasion of the sea which preceded the formation of the Thames valley,
now the home of more than four million men and women.
The Lake Stations of France are less important than those of the
neighboring countries. It is supposed that Vatan, a little town
of Berry, was built on the site of a Lake city. It is situated in
the midst of a dried-up marsh, and at different points piles have
been removed which were driven deep into the mud. We also hear of
pile dwellings in the Jura Mountains, in the Pyrenean valleys of
Haute-Garonne, Ariege, and Aude, as well as in those of the Eastern
Pyrenees. In the department of Landes, which on one side joins the
plateau of Lannemezan, and on the other the lofty plains of Bearn,
are many marshy depressions, where have been found numbers of piles,
with charred wood and fragments of pottery.
Discoveries no less curious have been made in the Bourget Lake,
but the dwellings rising from its surface date from a comparatively
recent epoch. The numerous fragments of pottery found prove that
terra-cotta ware had attained to a beauty of form and color unknown
to primitive times. Indeed some of the vases actually bear the name of
the Roman potter who made them. We must also assign to an epoch later
than the Stone age the buildings, remains of which have beet found in
the peat-bogs of Saint-Dos near Salies (Basses-Pyrenees). At a depth
of about thirty-two inches has been found a regular floor formed of
trunks of trees resting on piles and bound together in a primitive
fashion with the filaments of roots. These piles bear a number of
deep clean-cut notches, such as could only have been made with an
iron implement. in other parts of France there are Lake Stations,
which were occupied until the time of the Carlovingians. To this
time belong the pile dwellings of Lake Paladru (Isere), which were
abandoned, so far as we can tell, by their owners when they were
swamped by the rising of the water.
When the Lake Stations of Europe were inhabited, the characteristic
animals of the Quaternary epoch, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros,
the lion, and the hippopotamus had disappeared from that continent,
and their place was taken by the earliest domestic animals. The
Lake fauna of Switzerland includes about seventy species, thirty
mammals twenty-six birds, ten kinds of fish, and four reptiles.[124]
The mammals were the stag, the dog, the pig, the goat, the sheep, and
two kinds of oxen. These animals were already domesticated, there can
be absolutely no doubt on this point, for in many PFAHLBAUTEN their
very dung has been found, a conclusive proof that they lived side by
side with man.
The remains of the stag and of the ox are more numerous than those of
any other animal, and it is easy to see that every clay the importance
of a pastoral life became more clearly recognized. In the most ancient
Lake Stations, those of Mooseedorf, Wangen, and Meilen, for instance,
the stag predominates; in those of the western lakes, which are
comparatively more recent, relics of the ox are more numerous. In the
Lake village of Nidau, which dates from the Bronze age, a greatly
increased number of bones of domestic animals have been found,
whilst those of wild creatures become rarer and rarer. The progress
of domestication is evident, and it is no less certain that the lapse
of centuries must have been required for the formation of the herds
which evidently existed in certain localities. It is possible that
these animals may have first entered Europe in the wake of foreign
invaders, and before being reduced to servitude, they may have roamed
about in a wild state, and even have been contemporaries with species
now extinct. However that may be, there can be no doubt on one point,
they could not domesticate themselves; one race of creatures after
another must have fallen under the subjection of man, who gradually
became the master of all the animals that are still about us.
We do not meet in the pile dwellings with the common mouse, the rat,
or the cat, and the horse is very rare. It is the same with the
kitchen-middings and the caves occupied in Neolithic times. The
disappearance of the horse, so numerous in earlier epochs, is
general, and this would be inexplicable if history did not solve
the mystery. The Bible, which gives us such complete details of the
pastoral life of the Hebrews, speaks for the first time of the horse
after the exodus from Egypt of the children of Israel, and in Egypt
itself the horse is not represented in any monument of earlier date
than the Seventeenth Dynasty. It is the same in America, animals of
the equine race, that were so numerous in early geological times,
had long since disappeared on the arrival of the Spaniards, and the
horses they brought with them inspired the Mexicans and Peruvians
with unutterable terror.
Domestic animals require regular food through the long winter months;
so that their presence alone is enough to prove that their owners
were tillers of the soil. The discovery in many of the Helvetian
Lake Stations of calcined cereals confirms this hypothesis. Amongst
the cereals found, corn is the most abundant, and several bushels of
it have been collected. In the department of the Gironde, regular
silos or subterranean storing-places for grain have been found in
which the calcined corn was stowed away. In the Lake Stations have
also been found millet, peas, poppy-heads, nuts, plums, raspberries,
and even dried apples and pears, doubtless set aside as a provision
for the winter. From the water at Cortaillod, have been taken, with
a few ears of barley, cherry-stones, acorns, and beechnuts[125];
and at Laybach, some water-chestnuts (TRAPA NATANS) of a kind that
has long since disappeared from Carniola. Sometimes the cereals were
roughly roasted, crushed, and put away in large earthenware vessels;
but in some places, regular flat round loaves of bread have been found
about one or two inches thick, which were baked without leaven. We
may well assert that great changes lead taken place since the first
arrival of man upon the earth.
The so-called TERREMARES of Italy date from the same period as the
Danish kitchen-middings and the Swiss pile dwellings. They are met with
chiefly in Lombardy and in the ancient duchies of Parma and Piacenza,
and consist of low mounds rising from thirteen to sixteen feet above
the surface of the soil. In some cases a number of TERREMARES, close to
one another, form regular villages covering an area of from five to six
miles square. Excavations of the TERREMARE have brought to light rows
of piles from seven to ten feet long, connected by transverse beams,
forming a regular floor, from which rose buts built in a similar way to
those of the Swiss pile dwellings, of interlaced branches or of clay
and straw, for no trace has been made out of the use of bricks or of
stones. The refuse of the kitchen and rubbish of all kinds rapidly
accumulated round about these buts, and formed the first nucleus of
the mound, which soon grew to a considerable height as one occupant
of the house succeeded another. When the refuse became too much of a
nuisance, the owner of the but set up fresh piles at a greater height
on the same site, laid down another platform, and built anew but. In
some places three such platforms have been found one above another.
As in the Lake Stations, excavations of the TERREMARES have brought
to light numerous bones of domestic animals; but those of wild
creatures, such as bears, stags, roedeer, and boars, are even rarer
than in Switzerland. The inhabitants evidently had other resources
than hunting at their command, and though the processes they employed
were but elementary, they cultivated corn, beans, vines, and various
fruits. Though iron was still unknown, some bronze objects have been
found in certain TERREMARES, but these were only roughly melted
pieces of metal, showing no traces of having been either hammered
or soldered. Amongst the pottery found in the TERREMARES, we must
mention a number of small objects not unlike acorns in form, pierced
lengthwise, and decorated with incised lines, some straight, others
curved. Italian archaeologists call them FUSAIOLES, and Swiss savants,
who have found a great many in the lakes of their native country,
give them the name of PESONS DE FUSEAU. Both these names connect them
with the process of spinning; but their number renders this hypothesis
inadmissible, and when we give an account of the excavations carried
on at Hissarlik, under Dr. Schliemann, we shall be able to determine
their character (see Chapter VII.).
At Castione, near the town of Parma, and in several other parts of
the provinces of Parma and Reggio, TERREMARES have been discovered
rising from the midst of vast rectangular basins artificially hollowed
out. Some have concluded from this that the TERREMARECOLLI as the
inhabitants of the TERREMARES have been called, were descended from
the people who built the pile dwellings of Switzerland, and that,
faithful to the traditions of their race, they hollowed out ponds
in default of natural lakes. If this were so, Italy must have been
peopled with a race that came over the Alps.[126] Who or what this
race was can only be matter of conjecture. It cannot, however,
have been the Ligures, a branch of the great Iberian family, who
were totally ignorant of culture, and to whom the builders of the
most ancient of the TERREMARES were certainly superior; nor can
it have been the Etruscans, for all relics of that race, which are
moreover easily recognizable, were found quite apart from the deep
deposits containing the TERREMARES. Many indications point to the
conclusion that when the Celts came down into Italy their knowledge of
metallurgy was already more advanced than that of the builders of the
TERREMARES. We are therefore disposed to think with Heilbig, that the
TERREMARECOLLI were the Itali, of Arian race, who were the ancestors of
the Sabini, Umbri, Osci, and Latins. In the great migrations of races,
the Itali bad separated themselves from their brethren the Pelasgi,
who had remained in Epirus, and, continuing their march, they peopled
Switzerland and crossed the Alps, settling down in the fertile plains
watered by the Po, where it is easy even now to prove their presence.
In superintending the excavation of a TERREMARE at Toszig, in Hungary,
Pigorini,[127] was greatly struck by the resemblance between it and
similar erections in Italy, especially that of Casarolo. This is very
much in favor of the Itali having been the builders. But the objects
collected in some of the TERREMARES, those of Varano and Chierici
for instance, prove that they were inhabited from Neolithic times,
so that the Itali of Italy, if Itali they were, did but follow the
traditions of their predecessors. In spite, however, of zealous study,
all that relates to the origin of tribes and races remains involved
in the greatest obscurity, and we can but look to the future to supply
what the present altogether fails to give.
We have yet other tokens of the presence of the ancient races
who peopled Italy. Dr. Concezio Rosa[128] noticed in the Abruzzi
extensive black patches on the ground, which bore witness to the
former residence of men. The excavation of these FONDI DI CABANE, as
they are called, led to the finding of a great many stone knives and
scrapers with numerous bone stilettos and the bones of various animals,
all of them of species still living. Later, similar FONDI were found
between the Eastern Alps and Mount Gargano. In Reggio, at Rivaltella,
at Castelnuovo de Sotto, and at Calerno, they formed regular groups,
and from one of these stations more than one thousand worked flints
were collected. We mention them especially because they were of
lozenge (SELCI ROMBOIDALI) and half-lozenge (SEMI-ROMBI) shapes,
which are forms unknown in other districts.
With these flints were hand-made vases with handles, the clay unmixed
with sand or quartz and ornamented with lines, grooves, and raised
knobs. These vases differ greatly from those found in the TERREMARES;
are they then, as has been said, of earlier (late? It is impossible
to come to any decision on the point.
Before closing our account of prehistoric buildings surrounded by
water, we must say a few words on crannoges though there is the
greatest difference of opinion as to their date.
Crannoges are artificial islets raised above the level of certain lakes
in Ireland and Scotland[129] by means of a series of layers of earth
and stone, and strengthened by piles, some upright, others laid down
lengthwise. Wylde counted forty-six in Ireland in his time, some of
them of considerable extent. That of Ardkellin Lough (Roscommon) is
surrounded by a wall of dry stones resting on piles. In other places
have been found the remains of stockades very intelligently set up
in such a manner as to break the force of the shock of the water.
To add to the difficulties of dealing with the subject of crannoges,
they were successively occupied for many centuries. They are mentioned
in the most ancient Irish legends, and even in the sixteenth century
they served as refuges for the kings of the country in the constant
rebellions that took place. The objects taken from the lakes belong to
very different epochs, and it is impossible to say anything positive
as to the time of their construction.
A but found in Donegal may, however, date from an extremely remote
age.[130] It rested on a thick layer of sand brought front the
neighboring shore, and was covered over by a bed of peat slot
less than sixteen feet thick. Since the hilt was deserted by man
the peat had gradually accumulated till it had at last invaded the
dwelling itself. The but included a ground-floor, and one story about
twelve feet long by nine wide and four high. The walls consisted of
beams scarcely squared, joined together with wooden mortices and
pegs. The roof, which was probably flat, consisted of oak planks,
the spaces between which had been filled in with mortar made of
sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements,
showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a
stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel,
the discoverers say, corresponded exactly with the notches around the
mortices. A regular paved way, formed of sea-beach pebbles placed on
a foundation of interlaced branches, led up to a hearth made of flat
stones measuring some three feet every way. All about lay fragments
of charcoal and broken nuts, the latter partly burnt. Another but,
with an oak floor resting on four posts, has recently been discovered
in County Fermanagh, beneath a deposit of peat about twenty feet
thick. No trace of metal has been found in either of these Irish buts,
and the thickness of the peat beneath which they lay is another proof
of their great antiquity. One serious objection, however, is this:
Were the Irish sufficiently advanced in prehistoric times to be able
to erect dwellings implying so considerable an amount of civilization?
Crannoges are met with in Scotland as well as in Ireland, and
excavations in Loch Lee have enabled explorers to make out their
mode of construction. The Lake Dwellers began by piling up a number
of trunks of trees in the shallower waters of a lake. They then
strengthened these trunks with branches or beams about which the
mud collected till the whole formed an islet. All about this islet,
beneath the waters of the lake, were found various objects in stone,
wood, and horn, as well as some canoes several feet long. Similar
crannoges are to be seen on the lakes of Kincardine and Forfar,
which Troyon thinks date from the Stone age.[131] If he be right,
and we should not like to make any assertion one way or the other, the
bronze objects and the enamelled glass bowls found near these dwellings
prove that they were occupied by several successive generations.
It is probable that Lake dwellings were also used in Asia and in
Africa from prehistoric times. History tells us that the inhabitants
of Phasis, the Mingrelians of the present day, lived in reed huts
on the water, and that they went from one islet to another in canoes
hollowed out of the trunks of oak-trees. A bas-relief from the palace
of Sennacherib, preserved in the British Museum, represents warriors
fighting on artificial islands made of large reeds. But here w e
enter the domain of history, and we must return to Neolithic times,
and speak of the habitations built of more durable materials and the
ruins of which are still standing.
It is impossible to say with any certainty to what period the most
ancient of these structures belong. It is probable that man early
learned to pile up stones, binding them together at first with clay,
and then with some stronger cements. The BURGHS of Scotland, the
NURHAGS of the island of Sardinia, the TALAYOTI of the Balearic Isles,
the CASTELLIERI of Istria, are all ancient witnesses of the modes of
building employed in the most remote ages.
BURGHS, BROCKS, or BROUGHS are numerous in Scotland,[132] and also in
the islands of the Atlantic. For a long time they were supposed to be
of Scandinavian origin, but Sir J. Lubbock[133] remarks With reason
that no building at all like them exists in Norway or in Denmark, and
it is difficult to admit the idea that the Scandinavians set up in
the islands tributary to them buildings which were unknown to their
own mainland. We are therefore disposed to think that these curious
structures, which were inhabited until the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries of the Christian era, are of much earlier date than the
first invasion by the Northmen, and that the burgh still standing
on the little island of Moussa, one of the Shetlands, is one of the
best examples that we can quote. A tower, forty-one feet high, rises
on the borders of the sea. The walls are of unhewn stones, piled up
without cement, and they form two circles, separated by a passage
four feet wide. In each story are a series of very small openings,
intended to admit air and light to the cell-like rooms inside, and
to a staircase that leads to the top of the tower. The only way into
this burgh is through a door only seven. feet high, and so narrow
that it is impossible for two people to go in abreast.
The regularity of the building of this burgh, and the architectural
knowledge. it implies, prevent our ascribing it either to the
Stone or even to the Bronze age; but we find in Scotland itself
more ancient examples, if we may so express ourselves, of domestic
architecture. These examples are subterranean dwellings, made of
rough-hewn stones of considerable size, laid down in regular courses,
to which the names of EARTH-HOUSES, PICTS' HOUSES, and WEEMS have been
given. The walls converge towards the centre, leaving an opening at
the top, which was covered in with large flat stones. These dwellings
are certainly of earlier date than the burghs, and the discovery of
a PICTS' HOUSE actually beneath the ruins of a burgh enables us to
speak with certainty on this point.
In Ireland similar proofs have been found of the great antiquity of
roan. More than one hundred towers have been found in that country,
all built of large stones, and varying in height from seventy to one
hundred and thirty feet, with a diameter of from eight to fifteen
feet. The most diverse origins have been attributed to these towers,
from prehistoric times to the centuries immediately preceding
the Christian era; from the time of the Druids to that of the
Friars. According to the point of view of different archaeologists,
they have been called temples of the sun, hermitages, phallic
monuments, or signal towers.
We meet with a similar problem in considering the NURHAGS, as in
considering the burghs. They have been justly called a page of
history, written all over the surface of Sardinia by an unknown
people. Count Albert de la Marmora counted three thousand of them a
few years ago, and more recent explorers tell us that this number is
greatly exceeded. Like the burghs, which they strangely resemble, the
NURHAGS are conical towers with very thick walls made of huge stones,
some Hewn, others in their natural state, arranged in regular courses
without mortar. On entering one of them we find ourselves in a vaulted
room, which looks exactly like one half of an egg in shape. In the
upper stories are two, and sometimes three rooms, one above the
other, to which access is gained by steps cut in the walls. The
whole structure is crowned by a terrace (Fig. 53). We must add that
the entrance to the NURHAG is through an opening on a level with the
ground, and so low that one can only go in by crawling on the stomach.
Many conjectures have been made as to the use of these towers. Were
they temples in which to worship, or trophies of victory? Their number
is against either of these hypotheses. Were they then habitations or
towers of observation? Not the former certainly, for no one could live
between walls sixteen or twenty-two feet thick, shut out from air and
light. Some travellers think they were tombs, but excavations have
brought to light no bones or sepulchral relics. We can compare them
to nothing but the Towers of Silence, on which the Parsees expose
their dead to the birds of heaven, which are ever ready rapidly to
acquit themselves of their melancholy functions.
FIGURE 53
Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia).
The origin of the NURHAGS is as uncertain as their use. Diodorus
Siculus considered them very ancient, and one fact has come to
light in our day which enables us to arrive at a somewhat more exact
decision. The island of Sardinia was taken by the Romans from the
Carthaginians in 238 B.C., and an aqueduct, the ruins of which can
still be seen, was built by the conquerors on the foundations of an
ancient NURHAG, so that the latter must belong to an earlier (late
than the third century before our era. Fergusson, who speaks with
authority on everything relating to the monuments of the Stone age,
assigns the NURHAGS to the mystic times of the Trojan War. In all
probability they were built by an invading people. La Marmora thinks
these invaders were the Libyans; M. de Rougemont, in his history of the
Bronze age, says that the curved vault is the characteristic feature
of Pelasgian architecture, which is often confounded with that of
the Phoenicians. Although any final conclusion would be premature,
we ourselves think that the builders of the NURHAGS belonged to
the great stream of emigration from the East, the course of which
is marked by megalithic monuments in so many parts of the world. In
some instances, NURHAGS were surrounded by cromlechs, of which most
of the stones have now been thrown down. Some of these stones bore
prominences resembling the breasts of a woman.
The accumulations of earth and rubbish about the NURHAGS are, some
of them, from six to ten feet high. In the lower deposits have been
found coarse pottery, with no attempt at ornamentation, fragments
of flint, and obsidian hatchets of black basalt, or porphyry of the
Palaeolithic type, arrow-head, flint knives, stones used in slings,
and numerous shells; whilst in the upper deposits were picked up
black pottery and fragments of bronze belonging to the transition
period between the Stone and Metal ages.
All over the island of Sardinia, side by side with the NURHAGS, rise
tombs to which have been given the name of SEPOLTURE DEI GIGANTI. They
are from thirty-two to thirty-nine feet long by a nearly equal width,
and are built,. some of huge slabs of stone, some of stones of smaller
size. They are in every case surmounted by a pediment, formed of a
single block, and often covered with sculptures dating from different
epochs. These sepulchres are certainly of later date than the NURHAGS,
and in them have been found numerous implements of bronze, but none
of stone.
FIGURE 54
"Talayoti" at Trepuco (Minorca).
The TALAYOTI, of which one hundred and fifty are still standing in
the island of Minorca, are circular or elliptical truncated cones,
built of huge unhewn stones, laid one on the other without cement
(Fig. 54). The most remarkable of all of them, that at Torello, near
Mahon, is thirty-three feet high. In many cases there are two stone,
one placed upright, the other across it, in front of the TALAYOTI. The
meaning of these biliths is unknown.
Yet another series of cyclopean monuments are known under the name
of NANETAS, and are not unlike overturned boats. Seven such NANETAS
are still to be seen in the Balearic Isles. The one which is best
preserved consists of large unhewn stones of rectangular shape,
enclosing an inner chamber about six feet in width. The roof having
fallen in, its height cannot be exactly determined; we only know that
the lateral walls are some forty-five feet high.
In Algeria also have been preserved some towers built of stones
without cement. Some of them are square (BASINA) and surmounted by
a small dolmen, others are round (CHOUCHET) and closed at the top by
a large slab of stone, as in the NURHAGS we have just described.
It is difficult to bring this account to a close without mentioning
the TRUDDHI and the SPECCHIE of Otranto.[134] A TRUDDHI is a massive
conical tower consisting of a heap of scarcely hewn stones piled up
without cement and with an exterior facing. Inside is a round room,
the roof of which is formed by a series of circular courses of stone
projecting one beyond the other. Sometimes a second chamber rises
above the first, which IS reached by steps cut in the facing, which
steps also lead to the platform on the top of the tower. Thousands of
TRUDDHI are to be seen in Italy; they date from every epoch, and the
people of Lecce and Bari continue to erect them as did their fathers
before them. Side by side with the TRUDDHI rise the SPECCHIE, which
are conical masses of stone, of greater height and probably of more
ancient date than the towers. Lenormant thinks they were used to live
in; but his opinion has been much questioned, and it is necessary to
speak on this point with great reserve.
The CASTELLIERI of Istria, which the Slavonian peasants call STARIGRAD,
are as yet but little known. Doubtless an examination of them will
bring out their resemblance to the NURHAGS and TALAYOTI. They are,
however, more than mere towers, forming regular ENCEINTES between walls
formed of two facings of dry stones, the space between which is filled
in with smaller stones. There are fifteen of these CASTELLIERI in the
district of Albona, a little town on the southeast of Trieste. They
were at first attributed to the Roman epoch, but later researches
relegate them rather to prehistoric times, and the discovery near
them of numerous stone implements rather tends to support this latter
opinion, but it must not be considered conclusive.
Perhaps we ought also to connect with the earliest ages of humanity
the stations recently discovered in Spain by MM. Siret.[135] These
were evidently centres of population, surrounded by walls of a
very primitive description. We shall have to refer again to these
discoveries; we will only add now that in the black earth forming
the soil were found worked flints, polished diorite hatchets, pierced
shells, with various pieces of pottery, and mills for grinding corn. So
far, however though many of the stations have been explored, no trace
has been found of the use of metals.
A vast period of time, countless centuries, indeed, have passed
away since the close of the Paleolithic epoch. The burghs, NURHAGS,
and CASTELLIERI show the progress of civilization, and at the same
time prove that this progress extended throughout Europe, and that
at a time not so very far removed from our own. The close resemblance
between buildings of different dates enables us to speak with certainty
of the connection between the races which succeeded each other in
Europe. The importance of these conclusions is very great, and will
be brought out still more in our study of megalithic monuments.