Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/410

382 Geneva, Neuchâtel, and Bienne, contain remains referred by MM. Chantre, de Mortillet, and others, to the late age of Bronze. An examination of the principal bronze implements, weapons, and ornaments, compiled from M. Chantre's tables, shows at once to what an extent the later age of bronze differs from the earlier. Various implements for casting bronze, and stamping it and working it in repoussé, are found with tools for working wood, reaping hooks, and swords, daggers, lances, arrow-heads, horse furniture, and personal ornaments; the whole forming a series of a totally different nature from that of the earlier period. Stone implements were, however, still in use, such as saws, wedges, scrapers, and, to a smaller degree, also axes. It may be objected to this collection of things found in and around the lake habitations, that it may be the result of the occupation of the same spots during many centuries, and that it does not necessarily follow that these articles are in any sense contemporaneous. A relic-bed may have been the result of accumulation during long periods of time. This objection will hold good in many cases but not in all, since the frequent conflagrations, by which the settlements were destroyed, would cause the heavy stone and bronze articles in use at the same time to drop to the bottom of the lake. According to Colonel Schwab, about one quarter of the pile-dwellings in the lakes of Bienne and Neuchâtel were burned. It will not hold good in dealing with the "trésors" or hoards of bronze articles prepared for use, and concealed while being carried from one place to another, which have been met with in twenty-nine localities in France, nor will it apply to the sixty-seven hoards, in France and