Lake dwelling

“ Being informed that flint and staghorn implements were turned up in a field close to this lake, he at once visited the spot, and recognised the site of a lake-dwelling, situated in a small peninsula some 800 square yards in extent, and rising 11⁄2 foot above the water, which enclosed it on three sides. Here woodwork, pottery, and other débris of human occupancy were found embedded in a relic-bed rather less than a foot in thickness. The pottery was much broken, but it resembled that from Schussenried, both in quality and style of ornamentation. ”

“ I detected the remains of one (lake-dwelling) at Crowland in the year 1870, during some excavations. The piles were of sallow planted very closely together, upon these was laid brushwood, and [Pg 460] over this a layer of gravel. Immense quantities of bones, chiefly of the Keltic shorthorn, were found, together with a few bone implements, and a curious ornament of jet. Near Ely, stakes have been found in the peat, but they do not seem to belong to a lake-dwelling. ”

“ In the first described lake-dwelling no submergence could have taken place, as the lake bottom was composed of compact sand in which the piles had a firm hold.
In different parts of the lake two single-tree canoes were found [Pg 389] embedded in the mud, both of which are now preserved in the Belfast Museum. One is a plain trough of a rectangular shape with slightly sloping sides, measuring 121⁄2 feet long, 21⁄2 wide and 9 inches deep (No. 3) . Its flat base is perforated with six circular holes 3⁄4 inch in diameter. ”

“ Similar researches have also established the fact that in prehistoric times nearly all the lakes of Switzerland, and many in the adjoining countries—in Savoy and the north of Italy, in Austria and Hungary and in Mecklenburg and Pomerania—were peopled, so to speak, by lake-dwelling communities, living in villages constructed on platforms supported by piles at varying distances from the shores. ”

“ The character of the relics shows that in some cases the settlements have been the dwellings of a people using no materials but stone, bone and wood for their implements, ornaments and weapons; in others, of a people using bronze as well as stone and bone; and in others again the occasional use of iron is disclosed. But, though the character of the relics is thus changed, there is no corresponding change in the construction and arrangements of the dwellings. The settlement in the Lake of Moosseedorf, near Bern, affords the most perfect example of a lake dwelling of the Stone age. ”

“ What then must be the age of lake dwellings, where three and even four superincumbent floors testify to the necessity of providing against the ever-rising water level!
Lakes, marshes, and woods, have in all ages afforded shelter to the conquered, and have often enabled them to set the invader at defiance. ”

“ Immediately over the glacial débris in which this basin is formed there lies a layer of whitish clay, "Weissergrund," about 15 inches thick, and then follows peat for a thickness of 10 or 12 feet. The lake-dwelling remains are met with at a depth of 61⁄2 feet, but it is impossible to form a correct idea of the extent of the entire settlement, as it is only a portion that has been exposed. At this depth in the peat wooden platforms are met with, formed of layers of round or split timbers lying transversely one above the other, and forming a kind of fascine structure. ”

“ The food refuse contained most commonly the bones of the ordinary domestic animals, those of wild animals, such as reindeer, wild boar, stag, wild goat, and beaver, being but rarely met with.
(3) Many of the lake-dwellings were synchronous with the Burgwälle, a fact which was conclusively proved by their possessing the characteristic pottery of the latter, as was notably the case in the Persanzig lake-dwelling. Moreover, Virchow showed that some of the Burgwälle had direct communication with adjacent lake-dwellings, as in the Dabersee, Soldinersee, and Kloppsee. ”

“ From these long-lived settlements, with their promiscuous contents, we must turn to those which have come, as it were, to a premature end, just shortly after the first metal objects began to be used, but before the full development of the Bronze Age. From such stations in [Pg 513] the lake-dwelling area I select the following seven as the most interesting, viz.:—Polada, Laibach, Mondsee, Robenhausen, Locras, Vinelz, and St. ”

“ A cable car took them to and from the lake, and beside the road they could see lots of land offered for sale at high foot-rates, with tall forest-trees still standing in them; others, partly built upon, and occupied by fine dwelling-houses, with the back yard full of charred stumps. ”

“ Lake dwellings have been universally employed both in ancient and modern times: similar physical surroundings originated practically the same style of structures amongst far distant and even ocean-separated tribes. “Man is moulded to a remarkable degree, physically as well as mentally, by manner of living, food, and climate. ”

“ To build a comfortable eight-room dwelling, modern in every respect, requires about 20,000 feet of lumber, and when we divide a billion and a half by this figure we have 75,000 homes, capable of accommodating a population of about 400,000 people. With the thousands of tons of building stone transported by lake each year, the millions of barrels of cement, the cargoes of shingles, sand, and brick, our49 “City of the Lakes” for 1909 would be as large as Buffalo, Cleveland, or Detroit. ”

“ The scientifics are only humbugging the public about those lake-dwellings. They were only the bath-houses and wash-houses of a comparatively modern and civilised race, just as you see them now on the Lake of a Thousand Islands, and at the mouths of the Amazon, and even on the Rhine. ”

“ The remains of human handicraft, in the form of log-houses or lake-dwellings, have been found buried under each and all these peat growths: a depth of 25 feet had overgrown the log-house discovered at Inver, Co. Donegal, and on the floor-level, outside the building, were traces of the corkers of the great oak forest age. ”

“ One notable fact about the distribution of lake-dwellings is that their relics conform in style, ornamentation, and general characteristics, to contemporary antiquities in the surrounding districts; and I find no special characters in their industrial remains that bind the lake-dwellers together as one clannish people. The relics from the lake-dwellings of the Stone Age in Northern Germany are readily seen to be closely related with those of the Scandinavian archæological area. ”

“ The alluvial deposits of fifteen centuries have thus not only raised the general level of the valley, and covered it with débris to the thickness of about 12 feet, but also very considerably enlarged its area, and converted it now into an unhealthy and marshy wilderness." [47]
Increase of Lake Silt.—But is there nothing in the local phenomena of these lake-dwellings to indicate, even approximately, the period of their existence, or the changes that have taken place since, by submergence, they have disappeared from the gaze of mankind? ”

“ It might be of almost any material and be a sort of bungalow or even only what they call a 'shack,' but comfort would be in and all about it and happiness within its walls. It would face the lake with an outlook on all its moods, its bright placidity or its rage in storms, and there would be white sails and the passing steamers and all that pertains to those who go down to the sea in ships. ”

“ From the above quotation it would appear that this [156] structure has not ceased to be an island by becoming submerged, like most of the other lake-dwellings hitherto noticed. The surface of the log pavement is at present about 18 inches above the water-level, so that, before the recent drainage, it would be 6 inches below it, but, originally, it must have been 3 or 4 feet above the ordinary level of the loch. Hence, on the supposition that no great alteration was made on the lake area by former cuttings, the maximum amount of subsidence would not be more than 5 feet. ”

“ Keller was of opinion that the great distinction between the continental pile dwellings (pfahlbauten) , and the crannogs of Ireland and kindred lake dwellings of Scotland, is that the latter served merely as places of refuge for chieftains, their families, and property, i. e. strongholds belonging to individuals, whilst the Swiss lacustrine dwellings were inhabited century after century by groups of families; here they fabricated their pottery, their utensils, their wearing apparel, their fishing implements, their weapons of warfare ”

“ Similar structures were immediately after discovered in almost all the lakes of Switzerland, the favourite site being a sunny sheltered bay, with soft and gently-shelving bottom. They were of three classes—first, pile dwellings: the piles, sometimes 30 feet in length, were driven into the bottom of the lake, and occasionally further strengthened by the deposit of stones around their base: these constructions always occur in deep water. ”

“ These poor people lingering on the shore—what were they afraid of? Why, was there ever anything so delightful as this—the cry of the wind and the rush of the water; and everything around in glancing lights and vivid colours; for the lake was not all of that intense and driven blue, it became a beautiful roseate purple where the sunlight struck through the shallows on the long banks of ruddy sand. ”

“ One small bead, of bright red colour, like coral, finds a place in the Schussenried Collection; but the following objects are wanting, viz. clay ring supports, leather, cloth, bread, apples and pears, usually found in lake-dwellings. ”

“ It has often seemed to us that the loving, favoring smile of heaven rested peculiarly upon our plain, environed as it is by gently rising hills, which, with their robes of verdure and noble trees, shelter it from harsh winds, and hold it in the warmth and freedom of a pure health-giving atmosphere. Our charming lake, covering more than sixty-five acres, nestles like a gem in its western borders, mirroring forms and colors, all of beauty, and holds upon its banks some of the most delightful of our homes. ”

“ The great value, however, of the investigations of the lake-dwellings, especially in the south-west of Scotland, depends on the quantity and variety of the remains of human industry discovered in and around their sites. It is from such fragmentary remains as food refuse, stray ornaments, broken weapons, useless and worn-out implements, and such-like waifs and strays of human occupancy, that archæologists attempt to reconstruct the outlines of the social life and organisation of the prehistoric past. ”

“ Is it not more probable that the people who made it merely availed themselves either of a shoal or of the best foundation into which uprights might be driven? Wooden roads and causeways across the deep, treacherous morasses and soft miry banks with which lake dwellings were environed have been frequently discovered. A roadway, evidently made for convenience of the crannog in Loughnahinch, county Tipperary, was covered with a great accumulation of peat. ”

“ Pins are the most common objects among the industrial remains of the lake-dwellings, the total number found in the Swiss stations alone being approximately over 10,000. Their principal function was to adorn the hair, but no doubt some were used for other purposes, such as the fastening of garments, and so they took the place of the fibulæ. ”

“ Westward again, the debacle, an amazing tangle of mountains, some throwing a mossy green shoulder into view, others jagged precipices or walls of scree—Fairfield and Cofa Pike, St. Sunday’s Crag and Hartsop Dodd, Red Screes, Kirkstone, and many another. But to describe yard by yard the opening view were tedious indeed; when one has climbed almost every moor and mountain within sight, and walked in many of the coves and valleys, one is apt to have much to say which must be familiar to all who know the Lake Country by repute. ”

“ And so the starfish arms of the little lake at my feet seemed to have plunged into this wilderness tangle only to reappear at greater distance. Like swamp-fire, it lured the imagination always on and on and on through the secret waterways of the uninhabited North. It was as though I stood on the dividing ridge between the old and the new. Through the southern haze, hull down, I thought to make out the smoke of a Great Lake freighter; from the shelter of a distant cove I was not surprised a moment later to see emerge a tiny speck whose movements betrayed it as a birch canoe. ”

“ The fringe of trees and ragged cliffs upon the side toward the lake hid the table-land completely from that direction. And, set between two gnarled cedars, at the very edge of a dense bit of the forest where it ran out from the sea of verdure like a cape, was a low, rambling log cabin, a thin spiral of smoke winding up from its stone chimney. Here was "home."
The cabin had all the signs of age, discolored by many Winters, a vine a dozen years old climbing over it. And Johnny Watson, who had known the Devil's Pocket for a quarter of a century, had said that no man ever lived here! ”

“ Here, along with him on the level plateau, were other roomy cottages, some dark, some still sending forth a guiding ray; while long lines of white-washed fence gleamed ghostly in the moonlight and were finally lost in the shadow of the great bluff that abruptly shut in the entire point and plateau and shut out all further sight of lake or land in that direction. Far beneath he could hear the soft plash upon the sandy shore of the little wavelets that came sweeping in the wake of the raft-boat and spending their tiny strength upon the strand ”