Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/236

 224 L A K L A K tlie goat, lepreseLiting the ordinary food of the inhabitants, while remains of the beaver, the fox, the hare, the dog, the bear, the hors-3, the elk, and the bison were also found. The settlement of Kobenhausen, in the moor which was formerly the bed of the ancient Lake of Pfiiffikon, seems to have continued in occupation after the introduction of bronze. The site covers an area of nearly 3 acres, and is estimated to have contained 100,000 piles. In some parts three distinct successions of inhabited platforms have been traced. The first had been destroyed by fire. It is repre- S3iited at the bottom of the lake by a layer of charcoal mixed with implements of stone and bone, and other relics highly carbonized. The second is represented above the bottom by a series of piles with burnt heads, and in the bottom by a layer of charcoal mixed with corn, apples, cloth, bones, pottery, and implements of stone and bone, separated from the first layer of charcoal by 3 feet of peaty sediment inter mixed with relics of the occupation of the platform. The piles of the third settlement do not reach down to the shell marl, but are fixed in the layers representing the first and .second settlements. They are formed of split oak trunks, while those of the two first settlements are round stems chiefly of soft wood. The huts of this last settlement appear to have had cattle stalls placed between them, the droppings and litter forming heaps at the lake bottom. The bones of the animals consumed as food at this station vere found in such numbers that 5 tons were collected in the construction of a watercourse which crossed the site. Among the wooden objects recovered from the relic beds were tubs, plates, ladles, and spoons, a flail for threshing corn, a last for stretching shoes of hide, celt handles, clubs, long-bows of yew, floats, and implements of fishing, and a dug-out canoe 1 2 feet long. No spindle-whorls were found, but there were many varieties of cloth, platted and woven, bundles of yarn, and balls of string. Among the tools of bone and stag s horn were awls, needles, harpoons, scraping tools, and haftings for stone axe-heads. The implements of stone were chiefly axe-heads and arrow-heads. Of clay and earthenware there were many varieties of domestic dishes, cups and pipkins, and crucibles or melting pots made of clay and horse dung and still retaining the drossy coating of the melted metal. No bronze objects have yet been found at Robenhausen, although the presence of the crucibles attests the fact of the use of that metal. The settlement of Auvernier in the Lake of Neuchatel is the richest and most considerable station of the Bronze age. It has yielded four bronze swords, ten socketed spear-heads, forty celts or axe heads and sickles, fifty knives, twenty socketed chisels, four hammers and an anvil, sixty rings for the arms and legs, several highly ornate torques or twisted neck rings, and upwards of two hundred hair pins of various sizes up to 16 inches in length, some having .spherical heads in which plates of gold were set. Moulds for sickles, lance-heads, and bracelets were found cut in stone or made in baked clay. From four to five hundred vessels of pottery finely made and elegantly shaped are indicated by the fragments recovered from the relic bed at this station. In the settlement at Marin in the Lake of Neuchatel iron takes the place of whatever in the older lake dwellings was made either of stone, bone, or bronze. The swords are well forged, of a peculiarly fibrous iron, and furnished with iron sheaths. The spear-heads are large, sometimes as much as 18| inches in length, with blades indented by segmental curves. Shield mountings, horse trappings, and personal ornaments such as fibulas are here made of iron instead of bronze, and Roman and Gallic coins found in the relic bed bring the occupation of the settlement distinctly within the historic period. The antiquity of the earlier settlements of the Stane and Bronze ages is not capable of being deduced from existing evidence. &quot;We may venture to place them,&quot; says Dr Keller, &quot; in an age when iron and bronze had been long known, but had not come into our districts in such plenty as to be used for the common purposes of household life, at a time when amber had already taken its place as an ornament and had become an object of traffic.&quot; It is now established that the people who erected the lake dwellings in Switzerland were also the people who were spread over the mainland. The forms and the ornamentation of the implements and weapons of stone and bronze which are found in the lake dwellings are the same as those of the implements and weapons in these materials which are found in the soil of the adjacent regions, and both groups of relics must therefore be ascribed to the industry of one and the same people. Whether dwelling on the land or dwelling in the lake, they have exhibited so many indica tions of capacity, intelligence, industry, and social organi zation that they cannot be considered as presenting, even in their Stone age, a low condition of culture or civilization. Their axes were made of tough stones, sawn from the block by flint, and ground to the fitting shape. They were fixed by the butt in a socket of stag s horn, mortised into a handle of wood. Their knives and saws of flint were mounted in wooden handles and fixed with asphalt. They made and used an endless variety of bone tools. Their pottery, though roughly finished, is well made, the vessels often of large size and capable of standing the fire as cook ing utensils. For domestic dishes they also made wooden tubs, plates, spoons, ladles, and the like. The industries of spinning and weaving were largely practised. They made nets and fishing lines, and used canoes. They practised agriculture, cultivating several varieties of wheat and barley, besides millet and flax. They kept horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and swine. Their clothing was partly of linen and partly of woollen fabrics and the skins of their beasts. Their food was nutritious and varied, their dwellings neither unhealthy nor incommodious. They lived in the security and comfort obtained by social organi zation, and were apparently intelligent, industrious, and prosperous communities. The materials for the investigation of this singular phase of pre historic life were first collected and systematized by the late Dr Ferdinand Keller, who died at Zurich, July 21, 1881, in the eighty- first year of his age. They were submitted in a series of seven suc cessive reports to the Society of Antiquaries of Zurich, of which lie was president, and printed in the Society s Transactions, Mitthcil- ungcn dcr Antiqiutrisclwn Gcsellschaft in Zurich, vols. i.-xix., 4to, 1855-76. The substance of these reports has also been issued as a separate workin England, ThcLakcDwcllingsofSicitzerlandand other parts of Europe, by Dr Ferdinand Keller, translated and arranged by John Edward Lee, 2d ed., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1878. Other works on the same subject are Frederic Troyon, Habitations Lacustrcs dcs temps anciens ct modcmcs, 8vo, Lausanne, 1860 ; E. Desor, Lcs Palafittcs ou Constructions Lacustrcs du Lac de Neuchatel, 8vo, Paris, 1865 ; E. Desor and L. Favre, Le Bel Age du Bronze Lacvstre en Suisse, folio, Paris, 1874 ; A. Perrin, Etude prlhistoriquc sur la Savoie spccialement a I epoque lacustrc (Lcs Palafittcs du Lac dc Bourgct), 4to, Paris, 1870 ; Ernest Chantre, Les Palafittfs ou Con structions Lacustrcs du Lac de Paladru, folio, Chambcry, 1871 ; P&amp;gt;artolomeo Gastaldi, Lake Habitations and prehistoric Remains in the Turbaries and Marl-beds of Nortlicrn and Central Italy, trans lated by C. H. Chambers, 8vo, London, 1865 ; Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 4th ed., Svo, London, 1878. (J. AN.) LAKHIMPUR, or LUCKIMPOOR, a British district in the extreme east of the province of Assam, extending from 26* 51 to 27 54 N. lat., and from 93 49 to 96 4 E. long. It lies along both banks of the Brahmaputra, which belongs to the district for about 400 miles of its course : and it is bounded N. by the Daphla, Miri, Abar, and Mishmi hills, E. by the Mishmi and Singpho hills, S. by the watershed of the Patkai range and the Lohit branch of the Brahma putra, and W. by the districts of Darrang and Sibsagar. To the north and north-east the frontier is undefined. The Brahmaputra is navigable for steamers in all seasons as far