The Geological Evidence of The Antiquity of Man

DWELL

Keller, partly fro

ar habitations

t in Danish

Periods of Vegeta

one, Bronz

ient Refuse-Heaps o

ical Distribution

their

s of Mammalia o

ls of the

wellings bui

ze Implements

eals and o

malia, wild an

inct S

utations of the Da

iods in S

artificial Islands

Ire

ART IN DA

what conditions the growth of that vegetable substance is going on in northern and humid climates. Of late years, since I first alluded to the subject, more extensive investigations have been made into the history of the Da

depths in them, lie trunks of trees, especially of the Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris), often 3 feet in diameter, which must have grown on the margin of the peat-mosses, and have frequently fallen into them. This tree is not now, nor has ever been in historical times, a native of the Danish Islands, and when introduced there has not thriven; yet it was evidently indigenous in the human period, for Steenstrup has taken out with his own hands a flint instrument from below a buried trunk of one of these pines. It appears clear that the same Scotch fir was afterwards supplanted by the sessile variety of the common oak, of which many prostrate trunks occur i

nd in sand-dunes on the coast, as also in certain shell-mounds of the aborigines presently to be described, the Danish and Swedish antiquaries and naturalists, MM. Nilsson, Steenstrup, Forchhammer, Thomsen, Worsaae, and others, ha

ation, or that of the oak. But a considerable portion of the oak epoch coincided with "the age of bronze," for swords and shields of that metal, now

de la Societe Vaud

age 292.

state, tin is not only scarce but never occurs native. To detect the existence of this metal in its ore, then to disengage it from the matrix, and finally, after blending it in due proportion with copper, to cast the fused mixture in a mould, allowing time for it to acquire hardness by slow cooling, all this bespeaks no small sagacity and skilful manipulation. Accordingly, the pottery found associated with weapons of bronze is of a more ornamental and tasteful style than any which belongs to the age of s

short in Europe, owing apparently to the territory occupied by the aboriginal inhabitants having been invaded and conquered by a people coming from t

teorites, in a native state, so that to recognise its ores, and then to separate the metal from its matrix, demands no inconsiderable exercise of the powers of observation and inventio

MOUNDS, OR KJ

k published, after

per on the Danish "

the "Natural Histo

described the resul

by him in compa

er molluscs of the same species as those which are now eaten by Man. These shells are plentifully mixed up with the bones of various quadrupeds, birds, and fish, which served as the food of the rude hunters and fishers by whom the mounds were accumulated. I have seen similar large heaps of

are one degree less rude than those of an older date, associated in France with the bones of extinct mammalia, of which more in the sequel. The mounds vary in height from 3 to 10 feet, and in area are some of them 1000 feet long, and from 150 to 200 wide. They are rarely placed more than 10 feet above the level of the sea, and are confined to its immediate neighbourhood, or if not (and there

ich border the Western Ocean, or exactly where the waves are now slowly eating away the land. There is every reason to presume that originally there w

c except near its entrance, where, whenever a north-westerly gale prevails, a current setting in from the ocean pours in a great body of salt water. Yet it seems that during the whole time of the accumulation of the "kitchen-middens" the oyster flourished in places from which it is now excluded. In like manner the eatable cockle, mussel, and periwinkle (Cardium edule, Mytilus

ples of Geolog

the peninsula of Jutland, Jutland having been at no remote period an archipelago. Even in the course of the nineteenth century, the salt waters have made one irruption i

letin de la Societ

" to

son (Bos bison, L., Bos priscus, Boj.), which has escaped extirpation only because protected by the Russian Czars, surviving in one forest in Lithuania) has not yet been met with, but will no doubt be detected hereafter, as it has been already found in the Danish peat. The beaver, long since destroyed in Denmark, occurs frequently, as does the seal (Phoca Gryppus, Fab.), now very rare on the Danish coast. With these are mingled bones of the red deer and roe, but the reindeer has not yet been found. There are also the bones of many carnivora, such as the lynx, fox, and wolf, but no signs of any domesticated animals except the dog. The long bones of the

-mosses, and the dogs of the bronze age are inferior in size and strength to those of the iron age. The domestic ox, horse, and sh

a in canoes such as are now found in the peat-mosses, hollowed out of the trunk of a single tree, to catch fish far from land, is testified by the bony relics of several deep-sea species, such as the herring, cod, and flounder. The ancient people were not cannibals, for no human bones are mingled with the spoils of the chase. Skulls, however, have been obtained not only from peat, but from tumuli of the stone period believed to be contemporaneous with the mounds. These skulls are small and round, and have a prominent ridge over the orbits of the ey

ny knowledge of agriculture. The only vegetable remains in the mounds are burnt pieces of wood and some charred subs

character of the forest vegetation. Yet in the antecedent bronze period there were no beech trees, or at most but a few stragglers, the country being then covered with oak. In the age of stone again, the Scotch fir prevailed, and already there were human inhabitants in those old pine forests. How many generations of each species of tree flourished in succession before the pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak by the beech, can be but vaguely conjectured, but the minimum of time required for the formation of so much peat m

AKE-DWELLINGS,

surface of the mud, sometimes projecting slightly above it. These have evidently once supported villages, nearly all of them of unknown date, but the most ancient of which certainly

Herodotus of a Thracian tribe, who dwelt, in the year 520 B.C., in Pr

5 cap. 16. Redisco

Review" volume

shore by a narrow causeway of similar formation. Such platforms must have been of considerable extent, for the Paeonians

treats, all communication with the mainland being cut off, excep

h, resolved to raise the level of some ground and turn it into land, by throwing mud upon it obtained by dredging in the adjoining shallow water. During these dredging operations they discovered a number of wooden piles deeply d

by fire. Herodotus has recorded that the Paeonians, above alluded to, preserved their independence during the Persian invasion, and defied the attacks of Darius by aid of the peculiar position of their dwellings. "But their safety," observes Mr. Wylie,* "was probably owing to their living in the middle of the lake, (Greek) en mese te limne, whereas

haeologia" volume

iss and Irish l

he mud around the site of the old settlements, of the most precious tools and works of art, such as would n

e treasures in stone, bronze, and bone brought to light in these subaqueous repositories, and has given an ideal restoration o

n, Antiquarische Ges

861. In the fifth nu

uary 9, 1862, Mr. L

t of the works of t

ke-habit

nt d'Urville, of similar habitations of the Papuans in New Guinea in the Bay of Dorei. It is also stated by Dr. Keller, that

auten, Antiquaris

d. 9 page

was burnt. In the sketch (Plate 1), some fishing-nets are seen spread out to dry on the wooden platform. The Swiss archaeologist has found abundant evidence of fishing-gear, consisting of pieces of cord, hooks, and stones used as weights. A canoe also is introduced, such as are occasion

nhabitants. At Wangen, M. Lohle has calculated that 40,000 piles were used, probably not all planted at one time nor by one generation.

Habitations

nce, Zurich, Geneva, and Neufchatel, and on most of the smaller ones. Some are exclusively of the stone age, others of the bronze period. Of thes

istance (probably from the south of France), the chippings of the material are in such profusion as to imply that there was a manufactory of implements on the spot. Here also, as in several other settlements, hatchets and wedges of jade

but plaited, have been detected. Professor Heer has recognised lumps of carbonised wheat, Triticum vulgare, and grains of another kind, T. dicoccum, and barley, Hordeum distichum, and flat round cakes of bread; and at Robbenhausen and elsewhere Hordeum h

ss forests, stones of the wild plum, seeds of the raspberry and blackber

tchets of that metal have been dredged up, and in many other localities the number and varie

d are confined to Western and Central Switzerland. In the more easte

l Europe at that era. In some few of the Swiss aquatic stations a mixture of bronze and iron implements has been observed, but no coins. At Tiefenau, near Berne, in ground supposed to have been a batt

the stone period; the latter having wasted down quite to the level of the mud, whereas t

ssil vertebrata, has recently published a scientific description of great interest of the animal remains dred

fahlbauten in der S

some of their immediate successors as do the contents of the Danish "kitchen-midden

r fish. All these (amounting to fifty-four species) are with one exception still living in Europe. The exception is the wild bull (Bos primigenius), which, as before stated, survived in historical times. The following are the mammalia alluded to:-The bear (Ursus arctos), the badger, the common marten, the polecat, the ermine, the weasel, the otter, wolf, fox, wild cat, h

of the wild bull and the bison are invariably split in this manner. As a rule, the lower jaws with teeth occur in greater abundance than any other parts of the skeleton-a circumstance which, geologists know, holds good in regard to fossil m

the flesh of the stag and roe, was more eaten than the flesh of the domestic cattle and sheep. This was afterwards reversed in the later stone period and in the age of bronze. At that later period also the tame pig, which is wanting in some of th

during which period a large hunting-dog, supposed to have been imported into Switzer

his quadruped is supposed to imply that the Swiss lake-dwellers were prevented from eating that animal by the same super

ries" lib 5

while they abstained from touching the hare, establishes, says

question that at a later era, namely, towards the close of the stone and beginning of the bronze period, the lake-dwellers had succeeded in taming that formidable brute the Bos primigenius, the Urus of Caesar, which he described as very fierce, swift, and strong, and scarcely inferior to the elephant in size. In a tame state its bones were somewhat less massive and heavy, and its horns were somewhat smaller than in wild individuals. Still in its domesticated form, it rivalled in dimensions the lar

Europe the domestic pig co-exists with the wild boar; and Rutimeyer agrees with Cuvier and Bell,* in considering o

Quadrupeds

Fossil Mammal

races of the same species by their skeletons alone. Among other characters, the diminished thickness of the bones and the comparative smallness of the ridges, which afford attachment to the muscles, are relied on; also the smaller dimensions of the tusks in the boar, and of the whole jaw

age possessed a larger hunting-dog, and with it a small horse, of which genus very few traces have been detected in t

aurochs, or Lithuanian bison, appears to have died out in Switzerland about the time when weapons of bronze came into use. It is only in a few of the most modern lake-dwellings, such as Noville and Chavannes

especially in the case of the dog, horse, and sheep. On the whole, however, the divergence of the domestic races from their aboriginal wild types, as exemplified at Wangen and Moosseedorf, is confined, according to Professor Rutimeyer, within narrow limits. As to the goat, it h

seems as yet to have been carefully examined. Respecting this specimen, Professor His observes that it exhibits, instead of the small and rounded form proper to the Danish peat-mosses, a

e specimen, there has been no marked change of race in the huma

and no signs of the cultivation of wheat or barley; whereas we have seen that, in one of the oldest of the Swiss settlements, at Wangen, no less than three cereals make their appearance, with four kinds of domestic animals. Yet

erent stages of civilisation, even after commercial intercourse has been established between them

32 feet deep. The regularity of its structure throughout implies that it has been formed very gradually, and by the uniform action of the same causes. Three layers of vegetable soil, each of which must at one time have formed the surface of the cone, have been cut through at different depths. The first of these was traced over a surface of 15,000 square feet, having an average thickness of 5 inches, and being about 4 feet below the present surface of the cone. This upper layer belonged to the Roman period, and contained Roman tiles and a coin. The second layer, followed over a surface of 25,000 square feet, was 6 inches t

ancient Roman town of Eburodunum (Yverdun), once on the borders of the lake, and between which and the shore there now intervenes a zone of newly-gained dry land, 2500 feet in breadth, shows the rate at which the bed of the lake ha

ake of Bienne. It relates to the age of a pile-dwelling, the mammalian bones of which are considered by M. Rutimeyer to ind

d prevailed antecedently, we should require an addition of sixty centuries for the growth of the morass intervening between the convent and the aquatic dwelling of Pont de Thiele, in all 6750 years. M. Morlot, after examining the ground, thinks it highly probable that the shape of the bottom on which the morass rests is uniform; but this important point has not yet been tested by boring. The result, if confi

DWELLINGS O

se of Switzerland have been in the last ten years, are yet known to be very numerous, and when car

l islands, called crannoges, have been discovered. They occur in Leitrim, R

chaeologia" volum

. Digby Wyatt, by placing horizontal oak beams at the bottom of the lake, into which oak posts, from 6

en, swine, deer, goats, sheep, dogs, foxes, horses, and asses." All these were discovered beneath 16 feet of bog, and were used for manure; but specimens of them are said to be preserved in the museum of t

haeologia" volume

gical Journal" v

Drumkellin bog, in Donegal, at a depth of 14 feet from the surface. It was 12 feet square and 9 feet high, being divided into two stories each 4 feet high. The planking was of oak split with wedges of stone, one of which was found in the building. The roof was flat. A staked enclosure had been raised round the cabin, and remains of oth

of implements, and the labour bestowed on it must have been immense. The wo

rchaeologia

larger instrument, in the shape of an axe. On the floor of the dwelling lay a slab of freestone, 3 feet long and 14 inches thick, in the centre of which was a small pit three quarters of an inch deep, which had been chiselled out. This is p

atter, it seems when inhabited to have been surrounded by growing trees, some of the trunks and roots of which are still preserved in their natural position. The depth of overlying peat affords no safe criterion for calculating the age of the cabin or village, for I have shown in the "Principles of Geology" that both in Eng

forms supported by piles deeply driven into the mud. "The Crannoge system of I