Chapter IV: Lake-Dwellings

The winter of 1853-1854 was exceedingly cold and dry. The surface of the Swiss lakes sank lower than at any time during many preceding centuries. The lowering of the water tempted the inhabitants along the shore to erect dikes and thus fill in the newly gained flats. During this process the workmen along the edge of the retreating water came upon the tops of piles, and between those great quantities of horn and stone implements and fragments of pottery. Aeppli, a teacher in Obermeilen, called the attention of the Antiquarian Society in Zurich to these discoveries. The society recognized at once their importance, and under the leadership of its president, Ferdinand Keller, began a series of most careful investigations which have contributed more to our knowledge of life during the Neolithic period than any discoveries before or since.

The number of these lake-dwellings is very large. Lake Neuchatel has furnished over 50; Lake Leman (Geneva) 40; Lake Constance over 40; Lake Zurich 10. The shores of the smaller lakes have also contributed their full quota.[49] In some of the lakes where the shore was favorable, remains of a lake-dwelling have been found before almost every modern village. Sometimes we find the remains of two villages, one somewhat farther out than the other. In these cases the one nearer the shore is the older, usually Neolithic, while the one farther out belongs to the Bronze period.

These settlements are by no means limited to Switzerland. They stretch in a long zone along the Alps from Savoy and southern Germany through Switzerland into Austria.[50] Herodotus mentions them in the Balkan Peninsula. The amount of bronze seems to increase as we pass from east to west. They are found frequently in the Italian lakes, mostly containing relics of the Bronze Age, though here the western settlements contain little or no metal. A second series has been discovered in Britain and northern Germany, and extending into Russia. These are considerably younger. The scheme of the lake-dwelling was used in historic times in Ravenna and Venice. Large numbers are still inhabited in the far east.

A sunny, sheltered shore, protected by hills from storms and action of waves, was always an attractive site.[51] The character of the land, if open and suitable for pasturage and cultivation, was doubtless important. Much depended on the character of the bottom. Where the shore shelved off gradually and was composed of marl or sand, the piles could be easily driven, and could hold their place firmly. Even if the shore was somewhat too hard and the piles could be driven only a little distance, they were strengthened by piles of stones, often brought from a considerable distance. When a suitable location had been discovered and selected the trees were felled partly by the use of stone axes, and partly by fire, and one end of the log was pointed by the same means, according to Avebury. Their diameter was from three to nine inches, and their length from fifteen to thirty feet. During the Bronze period larger trees were felled and split, and larger piles had to be used in the deeper water farther from the shore.[52]

These rudely sharpened piles were driven into the bottom by the use of heavy stone mallets. This must have involved an immense amount of hard labor, for at the settlement of Wangen 50,000 piles were used, though not all probably at the same time. Messikommer calculated that at Robenhausen over 100,000 were used. We find sometimes a different foundation. It consists of a solid mass of mud and stones, with erect and also horizontal logs binding the whole structure firmly together. This is evidently a ruder, simpler, and perhaps more primitive, mode of building. It was less suited to an open situation, exposed to heavy waves, and seems to occur more often in smaller lakes now often filled with peat.[53] Wauwyl and Nieberwyl are good illustrations of such a "_Packwerkbau_." Some have considered them as originally floating rafts.

When the piles had been firmly driven, cross-pieces were laid over the top, and on this a "flooring" of smaller poles, or of halved logs or even split boards, whose interstices were probably filled with moss and clay, forming a solid and fairly even surface, on which the dwellings could be erected. The framework of the houses was of small piles, some of which have been found projecting considerably above the platforms.[54] "The size of the house is further marked out by boards forced in between the piles and resting edgeways on the platform, thus forming what at the present day we should call the skirting boards (mop-boards) of the hut or rooms. The walls or sides were made of a wattle or hurdle work of small branches, woven in between the upright piles, and covered with a considerable thickness of loam or clay." This is proved by numbers of pieces of clay half-burnt, or hardened in the fire, with the impressions of the wattle-work still remaining. These singularly illustrative specimens are found in nearly every settlement which has been destroyed by fire. The houses were rectangular except in a few cases. They were apparently thatched with straw or reeds. The hearths consisted of three or four stone slabs.

These houses were calculated by Messikommer at Robenhausen to have been about 27 by 22 feet, a very respectable size. One was excavated at Schussenried, whose side-walls and floor were fairly well preserved. This was a rectangle about 33 by 23 feet (10 by 7 metres), and was divided into two chambers. The front room, 6-1/2 by 4 metres, opened by a door facing south, and with remains of a hearth in one corner. The rear room, 6-1/2 by 5 metres, was without outer door, and was apparently a bedroom.[55] Beside these houses, or forming a part of them, were stalls for the cattle, granaries, and probably workshops. (The distribution of different remains is well shown in Keller's _Lake Dwellings_, I, p. 45.) The stone and bone implements, and the pottery of the lake-dwellers can be more conveniently considered in connection with those of other regions.

We pass now to the remains of animals and plants found here, especially in their relations to the food supply of the people.[56] Altogether about 70 species of animals have been discovered. Of these 10 are fish, 4 reptiles, 26 birds, and 30 mammals, of which 6 were probably domesticated. The largest of these were the great _Cervus alces_ or moose--sometimes called elk--the wild cattle, and the stag (_Cervus elaphus_). Bones of the stag and ox are very numerous and equal those of all others together. Of the horse very few remains are found until the Bronze period. Wild horses seem to have lived on in certain parts of Europe until a late date, but apparently they had emigrated almost altogether from this region. The horse of the Bronze Age was domesticated. The lion had left this region, but lingered on in the Balkans down to historic times. The brown bear and the wolf still roamed in the forest. In the oldest lake-dwellings the bones of wild animals make up a far larger proportion of the remains than in the latest ones.

We find a somewhat small dog (_Canis familiaris palustris_) closely resembling that of the Danish shell-heaps. It was apparently of the jackal type, and much like the modern Spitz. This would have been an excellent watch-dog to give warning of the approach of enemies. But at the close of the Neolithic, with the increase of flocks of sheep, a larger dog more closely related to the wolf seems to have spread widely through the country (_Canis familiaris matris optimæ Juit_). This form was much like, and probably the ancestor of, our present sheep-dogs. A third form (_Canis intermedius_) also occurs. The origin and relationships of the various forms of this oldest domesticated animal are still anything but clear. That they all go back to the jackal and the wolf rather than to a form like the Australian dingo, still seems to be most generally accepted. (But see Schenk.[57])

Man gained the dog by domesticating the jackal and different species of wolves in different parts of the world and then by crossing, or, by a more or less unconscious selection, bred different varieties, until we have at present a chaos of intermingled forms. Something similar but on a smaller scale was true of the domestic cattle. One kind of domestic cattle appears fully domesticated in the oldest lake-dwellings. It is unlike any wild European form. This is the _Bos brachyceros_. It was almost certainly imported. Mingled with its forms we find those of the _Bos primigenius_, a native of Europe and North Asia, but apparently not domesticated. This is the urus, which was common in Europe in Cæsar's day, and lasted in central Europe until 1000 A. D. and still lingers in Poland.[58] This was a very large and powerful form with long spreading horns, whose domestication appears to have commenced toward the close of the Neolithic period. It is not improbable that it was domesticated, or at least tamed, independently in different countries at quite different times. Raising of cattle was at its height during the Bronze Age; afterward the results seem to decline and the cattle to degenerate.

One of the Vaphio vases of about 1500 B. C. represents the capture of large, long-horned cattle in a net, while the second shows similar animals tamed. Apparently the smaller and lighter brachyceros was first tamed, and this success led to a series of experiments with the larger and more difficult form.[59]

If we draw a line from northwestern Russia diagonally across Europe southwestward to the mouth of the Rhone, it will divide fairly well the distribution of the descendants of those two forms. To the eastward in Russia and Austria, also generally through Germany, and extending also along the shores of the Baltic, we find the large, heavy, usually long-horned descendants of the primigenius stock. The cattle of Spain, and southward into Africa, of France and England, are more of the short-horned, light-built, smaller brachyceros type. Holstein and Jersey are good representatives of the two types, though the Holsteins are, perhaps, a somewhat marked variety. Some regard the cattle of the Scotch highlands as the best representatives of the _primigenius_ type, though reduced in size. This same type, on account of its size and endurance of harsh climate, has furnished the range cattle of our Western plains.

Two fairly distinct forms of swine occur in the lake-dwellings. The first is the so-called turbary pig (_Sus scrofa palustris_). This is a small form with comparatively long legs. It differs markedly from the wild boar, and was probably imported already domesticated. Being more or less left to feed and shift for itself, it may well have declined in size from its primitive oriental ancestors. Remains of the larger European wild boar (_Sus scrofa ferus L._) also occur from the beginning as products of the hunt. But during the Bronze period domesticated descendants of this variety grow numerous, and are crossed with the smaller turbary pig.

"The domestic sheep," says Brehm, "is a quiet, gentle, patient, simple, will-less, cowardly, wearisome animal. It has no character. It understands and learns nothing; is incapable of helping itself."[60] It is certainly absolutely dependent upon man for guidance and protection. This lies partly in its inherited nature and original surroundings, but suggests long domestication. Like the goat, it is originally a mountain form, but adapts itself readily to the dry herbage of the steppe. It is not a native of central Europe but introduced. It is much rarer than the goat in the oldest lake-dwellings, but gradually becomes more abundant, especially in the Bronze period.

The turbary sheep (_Ovis aries palustris_) is very small, with slender legs, long narrow skull, and bones somewhat like those of the goat. It was certainly not developed in Switzerland, and before it arrived there it had apparently been much modified by conditions of life or by crossing. Its anatomical characteristics are made up of at least three wild forms. The first of these is the goat-like maned sheep (_Ovis tragelaphus_) ranging over the mountains of northern Africa, extending across into Abyssinia. This form seems to have been domesticated in Egypt before the middle of the fourth millennium. At a much later date, in Homeric times, herds of sheep of a similar form were kept in Greece. It was much larger than the turbary form.

The arkal (_Ovis arkal_) is the steppe sheep of central and western Asia. It is the ancestor of the oriental and African fat-tailed sheep. The western Asiatic forms seem to have developed the fine wool at the expense of the coarse hair, like that of the goat and of many other forms.

A third form is the Moufflon, of the mountains around the Mediterranean and of its larger islands--here probably introduced. Similar forms appear in Europe during the Bronze period.

Other species are found in different parts of Asia. The balance of probabilities seems to incline toward the view that the turbary sheep came into Europe from western and central Asia with other "turbary" forms, that it had been long domesticated, and either here or on its westward migration may have more or less crossed with the descendants of other varieties. The oldest domesticated goats seem to be descended from the Bezoar goat (_Capra ægagrus_), from the mountains of southwestern Asia.

The presence of oxen, sheep, and goats is enough to prove that the people must have practised agriculture to some extent to have kept these animals alive through the winter. That they were kept on the platform is shown by the presence of manure in the remains underneath. Whether this was used for fertilizer we do not know, nor their method of cultivating the ground. No agricultural implements have come down to us.

"The small-grained, six-rowed barley (_Hordeum hexastichum sanctum_) and the small lake-dwelling wheat (_Triticum vulgare antiquorum_) were the most ancient, most important, and most generally cultivated farinaceous seeds of our country. Next to them come the beardless compact wheat (_T. vulg. compactum muticum_) and the larger six-rowed barley (_Hordeum hexastichum densum_), with the two kinds of millet, the common millet (_Panicum miliaceum_) and the Italian millet (_Setaria italica_). The Egyptian wheat (_Triticum turgidum L._), the two-rowed wheat (emmer, _Triticum dicoccum Schr._), and the one-grained wheat (_Trit. monococcum_) were probably, like the two-rowed barley, only cultivated as experiments in a few places; and the spelt (_Triticum spelta L._), which at present is one of the most important cereals, and the oat (_Avena sativa L._) appeared later, not till the Bronze Age, while rye was entirely unknown among the lake-dwellings of Switzerland."[61]

Oats occur in the Bronze period in western, middle, and northern Europe, in the Alpine lake-dwellings, and in the Danish islands. The ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, Indians and Chinese, did not cultivate them; they were raised in Asia Minor and America only since historic times. We remember that wheat and barley are mentioned in the oldest records of the Old Testament--as in Gideon's barley loaf--but rye and oats not at all.

The grains seem to show a gradual improvement in productiveness from the very oldest settlements to those of the Bronze period. They are found charred and perfectly preserved wherever the houses were destroyed by fire. Even the ears and stalks have been saved for us in the same manner. Charred loaves of bread, and cake made of poppy-seeds, were also found. "Bread was made only of wheat and millet, the latter with the addition of some grains of wheat, and, for the sake of flavoring it, with linseed also. Bread made of barley has not yet been found, and it is probable that barley was chiefly eaten boiled, or more probably parched or roasted."[62] Flint sickles made of a long flake set at a right angle with the wooden handle have been found in Denmark, and others whose blade is formed by a row of small, sharp flints set in the edge of a wooden block occur in Egypt. The hand-mills or mealing-stones are very abundant, as might be expected.

The occurrence of the seeds of the Cretan catchfly (_Silene cretica L._) is interesting, as it is not found wild in Germany or in southeastern Europe, but over all the countries of the Mediterranean. Similarly, the corn-bluebottle (_Centaura cyanus L._) is found wild in Sicily. This seems to show that these plants came in with the wheat from Italy. But it is still possible that both Switzerland and Italy received them from a source somewhat or considerably farther east or south.

Apples and pears, split and dried, occur abundantly. Some of the apples are so large that they suggest a certain amount of care and cultivation. Sour crabapples, and the stones of cherries, plums, and sloes are found accompanied by the seeds of the wild grape; of elderberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Acorns, beechnuts, and hazelnuts were stored up. Besides the seeds of the poppy, already mentioned, those of caraway were used apparently to flavor the bread. Altogether some 170 plants have been discovered and determined from these localities.[63]

Basket-making and the weaving of mats from bast-fibres had led up to a highly developed weaver's art. Few or no remains of wool have come down to us from Neolithic time, though it occurs in graves of the Bronze Age farther north. It would not preserve by charring, as all other lake-dwelling organic remains have been saved for us, and our failure to discover it is not surprising. We can hardly believe that these people did not use the wool of their flocks of sheep, or failed to felt the hair of their goats. But flax has been found in all stages of preparation and manufacture in great quantities. Says Messikommer of Robenhausen: "Every house had its loom." We find not only threads, cords, and ropes, twine and nets, but cloth of varying pattern and design. Some pieces were so finely woven and well preserved that their discoverers could hardly believe that they were not of modern make. Fringes and embroidery occur.[64]

Linen alone could hardly have furnished sufficient protection against the cold and dampness of the Swiss winter climate. The more primitive inhabitants had an abundance of furs. Garments of sheepskin were doubtless in use. And probably wool and goat's-hair were woven or felted into outer garments. Dye-stuffs of black, yellow, red, and blue coloring furnished a variety of tints and shades.

Very few human bones have been found among those lake-dwelling remains; and only a few burial-places, or rather tombs, in the neighboring mainland. The discussion of their mode of burial and racial characteristics may well be deferred to a later chapter.

Of their religious cult we know almost nothing.[65] No idols or fetiches have been recognized. Certain "crescents" of clay, supported with the horns turned upward, have been considered by some as head-rests, for which purpose they are still used by certain African tribes. Others have considered them as representatives of the crescent moon; still others as conventionalized ox heads and horns. It seems highly probable that they had some religious significance, but its exact nature is still uncertain. We shall return to them later.

A lake-dwelling of any size is inconceivable without a well-advanced social development. It could hardly be founded, builded, or maintained without close co-operation. Families had to live closely crowded together, almost as in our modern cities. Neighbors had learned to get on with one another and live together in peace, and to submit to a close regulation or discipline by law or custom. They seem to have been a peaceful folk and exposed to no great dangers from outside attack, at least in Neolithic time. When the ice fringed the shores or covered the small lakes, they must have been easily open to attack. A few brands thrown into the thatched roof would have brought sure destruction. Traces of conflagration occur, as at Robenhausen, which was twice destroyed by fire.[66] But these occurrences are rare. Neolithic settlements seem to have been more frequently abandoned because of the growth of peat than by any sudden or violent destruction. Conditions probably changed in this respect during the Bronze period.

Their food was varied and more than fairly abundant. They had their domestic animals to furnish flesh, milk, probably butter and cheese. Agriculture was primitive, but in some cases we find large stores, we might say granaries, of wheat; and wild fruits and vegetable foods were abundant. The forests offered game, and the lakes were well-stocked with fish. There may have been times of hardship and dearth, but famine could hardly have ravaged a people with these three sources of supply.

The lake offered a thoroughfare for their canoes, and communication was easy for long distances. To cite only one illustration: flint was brought from Grand Pressigny, in France, and manufactured in certain Swiss localities. There was much variety and division of labor between different villages. One manufactured flint very largely--so at and around Moosseedorf; while Robenhausen and Wangen have furnished great quantities of cloth. Others were rather centres for the manufacture of pottery. Even in the same village one area is richer in one product, a second in another. There was much variety as well as freedom of intercommunication. The whole region lay a little back from the great Danube thoroughfare, but near enough to it to retain connection with the larger world. Life was not altogether monotonous.

The lake-dwellings have been divided according to their age into three groups or stages, representing three epochs more or less marked.[67]

_Stage I._ _Archaic Epoch._--Axes small and made out of indigenous material. "Hammer-axes" and utensils of horn and bone rude. No decorations on weapons, utensils, nor on the crude pottery. Plaiting and weaving practised. Population in Switzerland at this time seems to have been sparse. Food obtained from hunt more than from domestic animals. Examples: Chavannes (Schafis) Moosseedorf, Wauwyl. People brachycephalic.

_Stage II._ _Middle Neolithic Epoch._--Weapons and utensils more perfect. Stone axes finely polished, often with hole for handle, sometimes very large. Beside the commoner minerals five to eight per cent of implements made of nephritoids (nephrite, jadeite, and chloromelanite). These are almost absent in Epochs I and III. Pottery of far better material and manufacture, with traces of ornament. Remains of domestic and wild animals nearly equal. Domestic animals are turbary pig, goat, sheep, turbary cattle, but _primigenius_ form present though less common. Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic people nearly equal in number. Examples: Robenhausen and Concise.

_Stage III._ _Copper Epoch._--Hammer-axes, beautifully finished. Bone and horn implements. Nephritoid minerals less used. Pottery more artistic. Cord-decoration appears. Certain ornaments, weapons, and implements are made of copper. Domesticated animals improve and form a larger part of the food than game. Cattle especially increase in numbers, and a new race of sheep has arisen. Long-heads more numerous than broad-heads. Examples: Roseax, at Morges. Locraz, Ferril (Vinelz).[68]

It is interesting to notice that remains of domestic cattle are abundant in all ages, that goats are more abundant than sheep in the earliest lake-dwelling, but that the sheep became equally numerous in the second epoch, while they decidedly outnumbered the goats during the Bronze period. This is what we should expect from the advance of culture.

Says Keller:[69] "The shores of the western portion of Lake Constance are probably more thickly studded with settlements than those of any other Swiss lake. In fact, here are found happily united all the requirements necessary for the erection of dwellings of this nature. A deposit of marl stretches along nearly the whole of its shores and of tolerable breadth. A rich tract of country between the shore and the hills which rise quietly behind; forests of pine and oak; pleasant bays with a gravelly bottom; a great abundance of fish in the lake, and a superfluity of game in the surrounding forests, were circumstances highly favorable to the colonization of these shores."

Could we have sat on one of these village platforms of a summer afternoon and looked out to the wheat-fields on the shore, and seen the canoes come in with fish or game, and the cattle returning from the mainland pasture; could we have watched the men fashioning implements and all manner of woodwork, and the women grinding the grain or moulding pottery, or spinning and weaving; we should have found a great deal to please and interest us. The fruits and berries, the smell of roasting fish and baking bread, of cakes well flavored with the oil from beechnut or flax, or perhaps sifted over with the seeds of poppy or caraway, would have been far from disagreeable. We should have felt that it was a goodly land, and that life was well worth living. We should not have been disturbed by shrieking steamboats, puffing and groaning locomotives, or honking automobiles, or by telegraphs or telephones, by letters which must be answered or books which must be read. There were no stocks and bonds, bills or notes, strikes or lockouts. There was no labor question; all simply had to work. No one went to school, except to nature, and there were no lectures. "The name of that chamber was peace."

We ought not to forget in our comfort that everybody could not live in a lake-dwelling, that all over Europe there were other settlements or dwellings, more lonely or isolated, where food was never abundant and sometimes very scarce, where labor was unremitting and the reward scanty. But even in those less civilized regions there was probably usually much rude comfort; and if there were times of scarcity and want, there were also times of feasting and abundance. All over Europe there were, even in Neolithic time, children, boys and girls playing around the houses; and young men and women looking out on life with the same inexperience and illusions, courage and hopes, which lure us onward to-day.