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226 margin of a lake, over the tops of which cross timbers were laid so as to form a platform capable of supporting huts, and sufficiently raised above the level of the lake to be beyond the reach of the waves. A gangway connected the village with the shore. During the Stone and Bronze Ages hundreds of such villages studded the bays of nearly all the lakes of Central Europe north and south of the Alps. But, strangely enough, all these came to a sudden end in proto-historic times.

Within the British Isles they had a different system of constructing lake-dwellings. Instead of using piles to support the hut-bearing platform, they constructed an artificial island of wood, stones, rushes, earth, etc., which formed the foundation of a large wooden house. It is of importance to note that these lacustrine structures, called crannogs in Scotland and Ireland, were of a later date than those of Europe, as scarcely any of the former date back to the Bronze Age. They belong to Romano-British and early mediæval times, and hence they are frequently referred to in historical documents. In Scotland and Ireland crannogs were very abundant, their number amounting to over 100 in the former, and to twice that number in the latter country. Only a few have been recorded in Britain south of the Scottish border, but on the other hand, the discovery of the lake-villages of Glastonbury and Meare in Somersetshire makes up for