Page:The Rise of the Swiss Republic (1892).djvu/21

 

 

HE earliest traces of man’s existence which have been found in the territory covered by modern Switzerland, are represented by some fragments of basket-work, imbedded in a lignite formation at Wetzikon near Zürich. Geologists recognize two glacial eras as having passed over the country, and this lignite is the vegetation, now carbonized, which sprang up after the retreat of the first ice and before the advance of the second, so that the presence of man in these regions has been established during a period, the antiquity of which can only be estimated by geological formulas.

Man’s next appearance dates from the time when the second glacial era was on the wane, and the outskirts of the country were already free from ice. Traces of a primitive people, known to antiquarians as Troglodytes, have been discovered in a few isolated caves, at the foot of the Salève near Geneva, at Villeneuve, and notably at Thayngen near Schaffhausen. At this last place a cave has been exhaustively examined, and has amply rewarded the pains expended upon it, for besides a mass of flint and bone implements, the searchers came upon a bone fragment upon which the image of a reindeer was engraved. The drawing is so good, that there was some excuse for the incredulity with which its appearance was popularly received. Amongst the contemporary fauna may be mentioned the mam-