Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/26

 6 General History of Europe stone axes, hatchets, and chisels he could now build wooden huts. These wooden dwellings of the Late Stone Age are the earliest such shelters in Europe. Sunken fragments of these houses are found along the shores of the Swiss lakes, lying at the bottom among the wooden piles which supported them. Second, pieces of RESTORATION OF A Swiss LAKE-DWELLERS' SETTLEMENT The lake-dwellers felled trees with their stone axes and cut them into piles some twenty feet long, sharpened at the lower end. These they drove several feet into the bottom of the lake, in water eight or ten feet deep. On a platform supported by these piles they then built their houses. The plat- form was connected with the shore by a bridge, which may be seen here on the right. A section of it could be removed at night for protection. The fish nets seen drying on the rail, the "dug-out" boat of the hunters who bring in the deer, and many other things have been found on the lake bottom in recent times stools, chests, carved dippers, spoons, and the like, of wood, show that these houses were equipped with all ordinary wooden furni- ture. Third, the householder had learned that clay will harden in the fire, and he was making handy jars, bowls, and dishes. Fourth, before his door the women sat spinning, flax thread, for the rough skin clothing of his ancestors had been replaced by garments of woven stuff. Fifth, the lake-dwellers already enjoyed one of