William Michael Wylie

“ Even in the remote period that we designate the age of stone, they seem to have had horses; and the adjacent shores supported their oxen, swine, sheep, and goats. [9] In the later bronze period the numerous remains of oxen found during the researches in the Lake of Bienne prove that these animals were then abundant.
In some places, as at Moosseedorf, the great accumulation of chippings of stone and flint, the polishing tools, &c., prove the rude material to have been brought to the platforms, and fashioned, by a long course of patient industry, into implements of daily requirement. ”

“ While the many recent discoveries of the vestiges of lake-dwellings in Switzerland allow of a more perfect generalisation than heretofore, we have also better means of attempting some comparison with the analogous, and no less remarkable, remains presented by the archæology of our own land.
In calm weather clustering collections of stems of trees may be observed in the clear waters of Swiss lakes, at depths varying from ten to twenty feet, which have given rise to many theories. Sometimes they have been conceived to be the remains of submerged forests. ”

“ The earliest account we have of any people betaking themselves permanently to dwellings on sites of artificial construction among waters is that given by Herodotus of a Thracian tribe who thus dwelt in Prasias, [2] a small mountain lake of Pæonia now part of modern Roumelia. Their habitations, we learn, were constructed on platforms raised above the lake on piles, and connected with the shore by a narrow causeway of similar formation. These platforms must have been of considerable extent, for the Pæonians lived there, in a state of polygamy, with their families and horses ”

“ Sometimes taller piles—that is newer—are found inserted between the old ones. Systematic examination would no doubt often show that Keltic establishments have frequently been perpetuated on the sites chosen by the former race. In such case the layer of stone reliques would be found below those of bronze, just as we but now had occasion to refer to the presence of iron implements with those of bronze. ”

“ E. P. Shirley, in the Archæological Journal, [17] becomes of still greater interest and importance. Here we have a brief account of a crannoge island, found in 1844, in the lake of Monalty, co. Monaghan, and of another in the adjoining Lough-na-Glack. Mr. Shirley considers these islets as purely artificial, "from the remains of piles, and transverse portions of oak timber found there." Many reliques have been discovered on them, of various periods ”

“ Since that period, in consequence of the works of the Commission for the Arterial Drainage and Inland Navigation of Ireland, no less than forty-six crannoges have been discovered in the lakes of Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Down, Monaghan, Limerick, Meath, King's County, and Tyrone. [12] Many more are probably known, though we have at present no precise information; and a comprehensive work on this interesting portion of our national archæology is greatly to be desired. ”