Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/235

 bridge. Abulfeda the geographer, writing in the 13th century, notices the fact that part of the Apamasan Lake was then called the Lake of the Christians, because it was inhabited by Christian fishermen who lived on the lake in wooden huts built on piles. Fishermen s huts roughly constructed of branches of trees and supported on piles placed saltire-wise existed in the shallows of the bays on the European side of the Bosphorus not many years ago, and Sir John Lubbock mentions that the Roumelian fisher men on Lake Prasias &quot; still inhabit wooden cottages built over the water, as in the time of Herodotus.&quot; The records of the wars in Ireland in the 16th century show that the petty chieftains of that time had their defensive strongholds constructed in the &quot; freshwater lochs &quot; of the country, and there is record evidence of a similar system in the western parts of Scotland. The archaeological researches of the past few years have shown that such artificial construc tions in lakes were used as defensive dwellings by the Celtic people of post-Roman and mediaeval times (see CRANXOGS). Similar researches on the Continent have also established the fact that in pre-historic times nearly all the shallow 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 principal groups are those in the Lakes of Bourget, Geneva, Neuchatel, Bienne, Zurich, and Constance lying to the north of the Alps, and in the Lakes Maggiore, Varese, Iseo, and Garda lying to the south of that mountain range. Many smaller lakes, however, contain them, and they are also found in peat moors on the sites of ancient lakes now drained or silted up. In some of the larger lakes the number of settlements has been very great. Fifty are enumerated in the Lake of Xeuchatel, thirty-two in the Lake of Constance, twenty- four in the Lake of Geneva, and twenty in the Lake of Bienne. Some of these settlements have been of con siderable size. The site of the lake dwelling of Wangen, in the Untersee, Lake of Constance, forms a parallelogram more than 700 paces in length by about 120 paces in breadth. The settlement at Merges, which is one of the largest in the Lake of Geneva, is 1200 feet long by 150 feet in breadth. The settlement of Sutz, one of the largest in the Lake of Bienne, extends over an area of 6 English acres, and was connected with the shore by a gangway nearly 100 yards long and about 40 feet wide. The sub structure .which supported the platforms on which the dwellings were placed was most frequently of piles driven into the bottom of the lake. Less frequently it consisted of a stack of brushwood or fascines built up from the bottom and strengthened by stakes penetrating the mass so as to keep it from spreading. &quot;When piles were used they were simply the rough stems of trees of a length pro portioned to the depth of the water, sharpened some times by fire and at other times chopped to a point by hatchets. On their level tops the beams supporting the platforms were laid and fastened by wooden pins, or inserted in mortices cut in the heads of the piles. In some cases the whole construction was further steadied and strengthened by cross beams, notched into the piles below the supports of the platform. The platform itself was usually composed of rough layers of unbarked stems, but occasionally it was formed more regularly of boards split from larger stems. When the mud was too soft to afford foothold for the piles they were mortised into a framework of tree trunks placed horizontally on the bottom of the lake. On the other hand, when the bottom was rocky so that the piles could not be driven, they were steadied at their bases by being enveloped in a mound of loose stones, deposited 223 around and among them, exactly in the manner in which the foundations of piers and breakwaters are now con structed. In cases where piles have not been used, as at Niederwyl and Wauwyl, the substructure is a mass of fascines or faggots laid parallel and crosswise upon one another with layers of brushwood or of clay and gravel separating the beds of the wooden material, which is steadied and kept in position by upright stakes not driven into the lake bottom, a few piles here and there being occasionally fixed throughout the mass to serve as guides or stays. At Niederwyl the platform was formed of split boards, many of which were 2 feet broad and 2 or 3 inches in thickness. On these substructures were placed the groups of huts composing the settlement; for the peculiarity of these lake dwellings is that they were pile villages, or clusters of huts occupying a common platform. The huts themselves were quadrilateral in form. The size of each separate dwelling is in some cases marked by boards rest ing edgeways on the platform, like the skirting boards over the flooring of the rooms in a modern house. The walls, which were supported by posts, or by piles of greater length, were formed of wattle-work, coated with clay. The floors were of clay, and in each floor there was a hearth constructed of flat slabs of stone. The roofs were thatched with bark, straw, reeds, or rushes. As the superstructures are in all cases gone, there is no evidence as to the position and form of the doorways, or the size, number, and position of the windows, if there were any. In some cases the remains of the gangways or bridges connecting the settle ments with the shore have been discovered, but in others the village appears to have been practically insular and accessible only by canoes. Several of these single-tree canoes have been found, one of which is 43 feet in length and 4 feet 4 inches in its greatest width. It is impossible to estimate with any degree of certainty the number of separate dwellings of which any of these villages may have consisted, but at Niederwyl they stood almost contiguously on the platform, the space between them not exceeding 3 feet in width. The size of the huts also varied consider ably. At Niederwyl they were 20 feet long and 12 feet wide, while at Robenhausen they were about 27 feet long by about 22 feet wide. The character of the relics associated with the sites of the various settlements dis closes the fact that in some cases they 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 iron and bronze were used. But, though the character of the associated 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. It was a parallelo gram 70 feet long by 50 feet wide, supported on piles, and having a gangway built on faggots connecting it with the land. The superstructure had been destroyed by fire. The implements found in the relic bed under it were celts or axe-heads of stone, with their haftings of stag s horn and wood ; a flint saw, set in a handle of fir wood and fastened with asphalt ; flint flakes and arrow-heads ; harpoons of stag s horn with barbs ; awls, needles, chisels, fish-hooks, and other implements of bone ; a comb of yew wood 5 inches long ; and a skate made out of the leg bone of a horse. The pottery consisted chiefly of roughly-made vessels, some of which were of large size, others had holes under the rims for suspension, and many were covered with an encrustation of soot, the result of their use as culinary vessels. Burnt wheat, barley, and linseed, with many varieties of seeds and fruits, were plentifully mingled with the bones of the stag, the ox, the swine, the sheep, and