Part 24 (1/2)
The lacustrine settlements of Switzerland, when considered under the heads of the various pre-historical epochs to which they belong, may be divided in the following way:--
_The Stone Age_:--The Lake of Constance (about thirty settlements); the Lake of Neuchatel (twelve settlements); the Lake of Geneva (two settlements); the Lake of Morat (one settlement); the lakes of Bienne, Zurich, Pfaeffikon, Inkwyl, Moosseedorf, Nussbaumen, w.a.n.ger, &c.; the settlements of Saint-Aubin and Concise, the peat-bog of Wauwyl, and the settlement at the Bridge of Thiele.
_The Bronze Epoch_:--The Lake of Geneva (twenty settlements); the Lake of Neuchatel (twenty-five settlements); the Lake of Bienne (ten settlements); also the lakes of Morat and Sempach.
_The Iron Epoch_:--The lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne.
It may appear strange that the primitive inhabitants of Switzerland should have preferred aquatic dwellings to habitations built on _terra firma_, which could certainly have been constructed much more easily.
Further on in our work we shall have something to say as to the advantages which men might derive from such a peculiar arrangement of their dwellings; but we may now remark that this custom was somewhat prevalent among the earliest inhabitants of Europe. Ancient history furnishes us with several instances of it. Herodotus, speaking of the Paeonians, of the Lake Prasias, in Thrace, says:--
”Their habitations are built in the following way. On long piles, sunk into the bottom of the lake, planks are placed, forming a floor; a narrow bridge is the means of access to them. These piles used to be fixed by the inhabitants at their joint expense; but afterwards it was settled that each man should bring three from Mount Orbelus for every woman whom he married. Plurality of wives, be it observed, was permitted in this country. On these planks each has his hut with a trap-door down into the lake; and lest any of their children should fall through this opening they took care to attach a cord to their feet. They used to feed their horses and beasts of burden on fish. In this lake fish was so abundant that if a basket was let down through the trap-door it might be drawn up a short time afterwards filled with fish.”
Sir J. Lubbock, repeating the statement of one of his friends who resides at Salonica, a.s.serts that the fishermen of the Lake Prasias still inhabit wooden huts built over the water, as in the time of Herodotus. There is nothing improbable in this, since the town of Tcherkask in Russia is constructed in a similar way over the River Don, and Venice itself is nothing but a lacustrine city built during historic times over a lagune of the Adriatic sea.
We may add that even in modern times this custom of building villages on piles still exists in some parts of the world. According to the evidence of Dampier and Dumont d'Urville, habitations built on piles are to be met with in New Guinea, Celebes, Ceram, Mindanao, the Caroline Islands, &c. The city of Borneo is, indeed, entirely built on this plan. In some of the isles of the Pacific Ocean there are several tribes of savages who likewise make their dwellings over water. The Indians of Venezuela have adopted this custom with the sole intention of sheltering themselves from the mosquitoes.
It is quite permissible to suppose that the need for security was the motive which induced the ancient inhabitants of Switzerland, and other countries, thus to make settlements and live upon the lakes. Surrounded as they were by vast marshes and impenetrable forests, they lived in dread of the attacks of numerous wild beasts. They therefore taxed their ingenuity to insure their safety as far as they possibly could, and no means appeared more efficacious than that of surrounding themselves with water. At a subsequent period, when men commenced to make war against one another, these aquatic habitations became still more valuable. They then const.i.tuted something in the nature of camps or fortification in which, being well-protected from all danger of sudden surprise, the people of the country could defy the efforts of their enemies.
We must, however, add, that in more recent times these buildings on piles were--according to M. Desor--used only as storehouses for utensils and provisions; the actual dwellings for men being built on _terra firma_.
These lacustrine dwellings are designated under various names by different authors. Dr. Keller, who was the first to describe them, gave them in German the name of _pfahlbauten_ (buildings on piles) which the Italians have translated by the word _palafitta_. This latter appellation, when gallicized by M. Desor, becomes _palafitte_. Lastly, the name _tenevieres_ or _steinbergs_ (mountains of stone) is given to constructions of a peculiar character in which the piles are kept up by ma.s.ses of stone which have been brought to the spot. By Dr. Keller, this latter kind are called _packwerkbauten_.
When we examine as a whole the character of the lacustrine settlements which have hitherto been discovered, it may, in fact, be perceived that those who built them proceeded on two different systems of construction; either, they buried the piles very deeply in the bed of the lake, and on these piles placed the platform which was to support their huts; or, they artificially raised the bed of the lake by means of heaps of stones, fixing in these heaps somewhat large stakes, not so much for the purpose of supporting the habitations themselves as with a view of making the heaps of stones a firm and compact body.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 148.--Section of the _Teneviere_ of Hauterive.]
This latter mode of construction is represented in fig. 148, taken from a design given by M. Desor in his remarkable work 'Les Palafittes.'[33]
One or the other of these modes of construction was employed according to the nature of the bed of the lake. In lakes with a muddy bottom, the first plan could be easily employed; but when the bed was rocky, it was necessary to have recourse to the second. This is the reason why on the northern sh.o.r.e of the Lake of Neuchatel, where the banks of limestone come very close to the surface, a comparatively large number of _tenevieres_ may be observed.
These are the facts as generally noticed, especially in wide and deep lakes; the edifice, however, was not always constructed in this mode. In marshes and small lakes, which have now become peat-bogs, another system was frequently applied, a remarkable instance of which is furnished by the peat-moss at Wauwyl. In this locality were found several quadrangular s.p.a.ces very distinctly enclosed by piles, between which were raised as many as five platforms one above the other. These piles are naturally very long, and some are buried as much as seven feet in the solid ground--an operation which must have required an enormous amount of labour. The intervals between the platforms are filled up with boughs of trees and clay, and the floors themselves are made in nearly the same way as those we have before mentioned. The lowest rested directly on the bed of the lake, and on the upper one the huts were placed.
It is sometimes the case that these heaps of stones rise above the water; they then form perfect artificial islands, and the habitations which covered them are no longer, properly speaking, dwellings on piles.
Of this kind is the station on the Lake of Inkwyl in Switzerland; of this kind, also, are the _crannoges_ of Ireland, of which we shall subsequently make special mention. Some of these artificial islands have braved the destructive action of ages, and are still inhabited at the present time. M. Desor mentions the Isle of Roses in the Lake of Starnberg (Bavaria) which has never been known to have been unfrequented by man; it now contains a royal residence.
Let us revert to the mode of construction of the aquatic dwellings of Switzerland.
In all probability the stones used were conveyed to the required spot by means of canoes made of hollowed-out trunks of trees. Several of these canoes may still be seen at the bottom of Lake Bienne, and one, indeed, is still laden with pebbles, which leads us to think that it must have foundered with its cargo. But it is very difficult to raise these canoes from the bottom, and it is, besides, probable that when exposed to the open air they would fall to dust. Nevertheless, one of them is exhibited in the Museum at Neuchatel.
In the Museum at Saint-Germain there is a canoe very similar to that of Neuchatel. It is made out of the trunk of a hollow tree. A second canoe, very like the first, but with the bark still on it, and in a bad state of preservation, lies in the entry of the same Museum of Saint-Germain.
It was taken out of the Seine, as we stated when speaking in a previous chapter of the first discovery of the art of navigation during the Stone Age.
It may very easily be explained how the constructors went to work in felling the trees and converting them into piles. M. Desor has remarked that the pieces of wood composing the piles are cut cleanly through round their circ.u.mference only; the central part shows inequalities just like those which are noticed when a stick is broken in two by the hand after having been cut into all round the outside. The builders of the lacustrine villages, therefore, when they wanted to fell a tree must have acted much as follows: having cut all round it to a depth of 3 or 4 inches, they fixed a cord to the top, and broke the tree down by forcibly pulling at the upper part. They then cut it through in the same way with stone or bronze hatchets, giving it the requisite length, hewing it into a point at one end so that it should more easily penetrate the mud. Sometimes a fire applied to the base of the tree prepared for, and facilitated, the effect of the sharp instruments used.
A great number of the piles that have been found still bear the marks of the fire and the cuts made by stone hatchets. In constructing the _tenevieres_, the labour of pointing the piles was needless, as the latter were thoroughly wedged in by the acc.u.mulation of stones of which we gave a representation in fig. 148.
When the piles were prepared, they had to be floated to the spot fixed upon for the village, and to be fixed in the bed of the lake. If we consider that, in many cases, the length of these piles reached to as much as 16 or 20 feet, some idea may be formed of the difficulty of an undertaking of this kind. In the construction of the _tenevieres_ much thicker piles were used, and the labour was much less difficult. For instance, in the more ancient _tenevieres_ of the Lake of Neuchatel piles are found made of whole trunks of trees which measure 10 to 12 inches in diameter.
The mind is almost confused when it endeavours to sum up the amount of energy and strong will which the primitive population of Switzerland must have bestowed on constructing, unaided as they were by metal implements, the earliest lacustrine settlements, some of which are of very considerable extent. The settlement of Morges, one of the largest in the Lake of Geneva, is not less than 71,000 square yards in area.
That of Chabrey, in the Lake of Neuchatel, measures about 60,000 square yards; another, in the same lake, 48,000 yards; and, lastly, a third, that of La Tene, 36,000 yards. There are many others which are smaller, although of respectable dimensions.