Part 43

"The oldest article," writes Mr. Benn, "from the crannog at Randalstown found, so far as I know, was a stone hatchet, rather of a small size, but not remarkable or uncommon. The most recent, and the only piece of coin I ever heard of, discovered in such a locality, is a base coin of Philip and Mary." (B. 29, p. 88.) In the crannog of Roughan Lake, the last retreat of Sir Phelim O'Neil, some bronze spear-heads were found, along with a highly ornamented quern stone. On the lowering of Lough Gur an island became visible which is said to have been a crannog, and on it were found, among other things, a remarkably fine bronze spear-head,[121] having its socket ornamented with gold, a stone mould for spear-heads (=Fig. 107=), and some bones of the reindeer; but yet it existed as a stronghold till 1599, when it was surrendered by the English to the Earl of Desmond.[122] The sword-blades figured by Wood-Martin (B. 444, pl. xxxvii.) as coming from crannog sites at Toome Bar are undoubtedly characteristic specimens of the Bronze Age weapons; but then the evidence that they are crannog relics at all is so slender that for determinative purposes they may be considered valueless. Moreover they were associated with objects equally typical of all ages--from palæolithic flints to mediæval silver ornaments. "All these flint flakes are of the earliest type," says Mr. Day, who describes this locality, "many closely resembling those found in the 'drift' at Abbeville;" and the relics include flint cores, stone and bronze objects, a "ring brooch, enamelled bead, and a silver armlet." (B. 92, p. 227.) Similar remarks are equally applicable to all the Scottish crannogs on which objects apparently belonging to different ages have been found. A reviewer of my work on "Ancient Scottish Lake-dwellings" (B. 373), in which I gave it as my opinion that the Lochlee crannog must be assigned to post-Roman times, takes exception to this opinion on the grounds that amongst the relics are a polished stone celt of neolithic type, flint scrapers, which, he says, "may be of the Bronze Age, but could hardly be considered as post-Roman," and portions of the antlers of the reindeer, which, according to him, "can hardly have ranged as far south at any period later than the neolithic age." Had my reviewer read the remarks in my book at page 147, regarding this polished greenstone hatchet, he would hardly have selected it to prove that this crannog existed during the neolithic age. My words are: "As many of the relics, if judged independently of the rest and their surroundings, might be taken as good representatives of the three so-called Ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron, it is but natural for the reader to inquire if superposition has defined them by a corresponding relationship. On this point I offer no dubious opinion. The polished stone celt (that referred to by my reviewer) and an iron knife were found almost in juxtaposition about the level of the lowest fire-place." The iron implements on this crannog included hatchets, chisels, gouges, and a crosscut saw, and the very lowest logs bore unmistakable evidence of having been manipulated with sharp metal tools. The entire absence of cutting instruments of bronze renders it more than probable that such tools were made of iron, and were similar to those found on the crannog. As for the conclusions educed from the presence of the horns of the reindeer (hesitatingly identified by the late Professor Rolleston), it is now actually proved that this animal was not extinct in Scotland before the twelfth century. In the "Orkneyinga Saga"[123] it is stated that "every summer the Earls were wont to go over to Caithness, and up into the forests, to hunt the red deer or the reindeer." The recent discovery of its bones and horns in refuse heaps in Caithness, and in many of the brochs in the north of Scotland, amply proves that the reindeer was hunted and eaten by the Norsemen as late as the above date.

Whatever explanation may be forthcoming as to the prevalence of prehistoric relics on these crannogs, there is no possibility of denying that the vast majority of them were not only inhabited, but constructed during the Iron Age. Mr. Wakeman, in the most carefully investigated of all the crannogs in Fermanagh, viz. that at Drumdarragh, describes three periods of occupation; yet among the relics corresponding to the earliest period were several iron objects, one being "an animal's head in iron," which he considers might be the leg of a pot. Nor am I aware that superposition has defined in any clear instance the heterogeneous mixture of relics that usually turn up on crannogs.

It must also be noticed that few, if any, of them can be classified as exclusively belonging to the earlier ages, like those so numerously recorded in Central Europe. Indeed, there are only two or three which have any claim to such delimitation, viz. those in Coal-bog (Kilnamaddo), in Drumkelin bog, county Donegal, and in Holderness. On the two former sites were found the most perfect examples of log-huts that have yet come to light, and as they were both deeply buried in peat, 17 and 25 feet respectively, they undoubtedly point to some antiquity. But the relics, which include a stone axe and some flint objects, are too few to justify such a sweeping conclusion as that these dwellings were constructed at a period when metal implements were unknown in the country. At any rate, there can be no reasonable doubt that the period of greatest development of the Scottish and Irish lake-dwellings was during the Iron Age, and, at least, as far posterior to Roman civilisation as that of the Swiss Pfahlbauten was anterior to it.

In instituting an inquiry as to how far the geographical distribution of crannogs coincides with that of the various nationalities of the period, we arrive at some striking results. Thus adopting Skene's division of the four kingdoms into which Scotland was ultimately divided by the contending nationalities of Picts, Scots, Angles, and Strathclyde Britons, after the final withdrawal of the Romans, I find that of the fifty or sixty crannogs proper none are located within the territories of the Angles; ten and seven are respectively within the confines of the Picts and Scots; while all the rest are situated in the Scottish portion of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde. That they have not been found in the south-eastern provinces of Scotland may be due to the rarity of suitable lakes, or the want of proper research on the part of antiquaries; but, as the matter actually stands, their absence suggests the theory that these districts had been occupied by a foreign element before Celtic civilisation gave such a prominence to the lake-dwellings. It will be thus seen that in the early centuries of the Christian era the distribution of crannogs in Scotland and Ireland closely coincides with a well-defined area in which the Celtic language was spoken. For proof that in those days this was the language of the south-west of Scotland, I need only point to the recent work of Sir Herbert Maxwell on the topography of Galloway.

But from an etymological analysis of the earliest topographical nomenclature of Britain, it is inferred that, during still earlier times, a much larger portion of Britain, if not the whole of it, was under the sway of the Celts. Hence it becomes interesting to inquire if, in these localities, from which Celtic influence was expelled, there exist traces of lake-dwellings. In localities where the Celtic races were never supplanted by foreigners, it would be strange indeed, and altogether at variance with archæological experience, if the habit of resorting to isolated and inaccessible islands for safety would be all at once abandoned, whenever the greater security afforded by stone buildings became known. Hence the persistence with which the island forts continued in these Celtic regions. But in this wider Celtic area, on the supposition that the Celts were the introducers or founders of the system, we ought to find some vestiges of these dwellings along the regions traversed by them before they became isolated from their Continental brethren, and cooped up in the western districts of Britain. This is precisely what the general researches into British lake-dwellings have shown in the stray remnants of them that have been found in Llangorse, Holderness, the _meres_ of Norfolk and Suffolk, Cold Ash Common, etc. All these, with perhaps the exception of the pile-structures at London Wall, appear to be older than the majority of the crannogs of Scotland and Ireland.

Taking all these facts into account, together with the distinct statement made by Cæsar that the Britons were in the habit of making use of wooden piles and marshes in their mode of entrenchments, I am inclined to believe that we have here evidence of a widely distributed custom which underlies the subsequent great development which the lake-dwellings assumed in Scotland and Ireland. Moreover, I believe it probable that the early Celts had got this knowledge from contact with the inhabitants of the pile-villages in Central Europe. On this hypothesis it would follow that the Celts had migrated into Britain when these lacustrine abodes were in full vogue in Switzerland, and that they retained their knowledge of the art long after it had fallen into desuetude in Europe. Subsequent immigrants into Britain, such as the Belgæ, Angles, etc., would cultivate new and improved methods of defensive warfare; whilst the first Celtic invaders, still retaining their primary ideas of civilisation, when harassed by enemies and obliged to act on the defensive would have recourse to their inherited system of protection, with such variations and improvements as better implements and the topographical requirements of the country suggested to them. It is as defenders, not as conquerors, that the Celts constructed their lake-dwellings.

This hypothesis, which was first enunciated in my work on "Ancient Scottish Lake-dwellings" as a mere conjecture, has elicited a considerable diversity of opinion on the part of critics. In the _Times_ of October 4th, 1882, it is thus referred to:--"This is pure theory, and is quite unnecessary to account for the facts: as well might one argue a connection between the pile-dwellers of New Guinea and Central Africa and those of the Swiss lakes." Sir John Lubbock (_Nature_, December 24th, 1882) confesses that he is disposed to doubt that there is any connection between the geographical distribution of the Scottish lake-dwellings at present known and that of the ancient Celts. On the other hand, another reviewer attempts to defend it on the ground that "in the Swiss lake-dwellings of the Iron Age there are indications, especially in the ornamentation of the sword-sheaths and other articles, of a style of art which closely corresponds to the style of decoration prevalent in the crannogs of Scotland and Ireland (_Scotsman_, November 22nd, 1882).

The indications above alluded to in support of this hypothesis as based on a comparison of the relics, will be more appropriately discussed in my next lecture, when I come to review the lake-dwellings of the Iron Age in Central Europe. There are, however, one or two objections urged on the other side--as, for example, the difference of structure and late occupancy of the crannogs, as compared with the Swiss lake-dwellings--that require now to be shortly considered.

As to the supposed difference in structure, I need only refer to the structural details of various fascine-dwellings, as in the lakes of Fuschl, Schussenried, Niederwyl, Inkwyl, Wauwyl, etc., as a sufficient proof of the resemblance between them and the Scottish and Irish crannogs. It is true that the pile-dwellings were more numerous on the Continent than the fascine structures, while the reverse is the case in Scotland and Ireland--if indeed the former can be said to have existed at all in these countries. That the pile system was, however, known to the crannog-builders, and occasionally acted upon, we are not devoid of some positive evidence. Mr. G. H. Kinahan says that a few of the Irish crannogs were built on piles (B. 119, 2nd ed. p. 654), and instances an example in Loch Cimbe (now Loch Hackett), county Galway, which was so frequently blown down that the occupiers were obliged to convert it into an island, which they did by adding boat-loads of stones to its site. One of the lake-dwellings in Lough Mourne I concluded to have been a pile-dwelling (see page 386), and it was connected to the shore by a wooden gangway. Mr. Burns Begg describes remains of a pile-dwelling in Loch Leven as an "oblong wooden platform, raised above the water on piles, twelve feet or upwards in height." (B. 460.)

Subsequently I had an opportunity of visiting the locality, along with Mr. Burns Begg, and I am convinced these remains could not have been an ordinary submerged crannog or artificial island. The lake bottom is not soft and compressible, but, on the contrary, very compact and quite incapable of yielding to any great extent. The structures, even in the present reduced level of the loch, are never less than 1 or 2 feet below the surface; but as formerly there would have been 9 feet more of water over them it is quite improbable that this amount of submergence could be accounted for by the usual subsidence or compression of the submerged materials.

Some of the examples of lake-dwellings recorded in England, such as those described by Sir Charles Bunbury and Dr. Palmer, would appear also to have been pile-structures.

If, therefore, both principles were known among the crannog-builders of the British Isles, why, it may be asked, did they give a preference to the fascine structures? I have already remarked that these structures on the Continent were confined to small mossy lakes, which, owing to the yielding nature of their sediments and peaty deposits, were unsuitable for pile-dwellings. In such conditions, which are generally prevalent in Scotland and Ireland, the wooden island supplied more readily, and perhaps with less labour, the requisite stability for platforms in boggy lakes and marshes intended for huts and other superstructures, especially when these platforms were small and the islands sparsely placed.

The wide chronological interval which separates the crannogs from the lake-dwellings of Central Europe is also supposed to militate against the supposition of there being any causal connection between them. But this gap is more apparent than real, as, when carefully looked into, it will be found to have been bridged over by a closer series of links than was hitherto imagined. Not only were there some lake-dwellings in Switzerland during the Iron Age, but in several instances Roman, Gallo-Roman and even Allemanish remains were found on their sites, as in the lakes of Starnberg, Ueberlingen, Zürich, etc. (See page 543.) Among the antiquities collected on the site of the dwellings in Lake Paladru were horseshoes, curry combs, and a variety of other antiquities which, in the opinion of M. G. de Mortillet and other archæologists, could not be accounted for as the products of any civilisation prior to Carlovingian times. We have also seen that in North Germany they existed at equally late times, having overlapped considerably into the Slavish period; while the Terp-mounds in Holland and other places were only superseded by the construction of the great sea-dykes. It must also be remembered that the custom of constructing lake-dwellings was not universally adopted in Europe. Their absence in Northern Europe, Spain and Portugal, and other places cannot be accounted for by a deficiency in the topographical and hydrographical requirements for such structures. They appear to have spread from the great central area of their first development in Europe in sporadic fringes, but never extending beyond the limits to which the ordinary waves of human intercourse and civilisation would likely reach.

Taking all these circumstances into consideration, I repeat that, while we are justified in ascribing the remains of lake-dwellings, so far as they are at present known within the British Isles, to a Celtic source, I see no _prima facie_ improbability, as regards their structure and distribution in space and time, against the hypothesis that the Celts derived their knowledge of this custom from the great system of Central Europe, though founded and developed at a much earlier period.

The only exception to the general statement that the Celts were the sole constructors of lake-dwellings in Britain (without taking into account the earlier vestiges of such structures in England from which, owing to the scarcity of industrial remains, there is, as yet, no ethnological evidence either way), is the discovery at London Wall recorded by General Pitt-Rivers. I have already remarked (page 464), on the similarity of these remains to those from the Terp-mounds in Friesland. Especially interesting are the two bone skates, made from the metacarpals of the horse, recorded from the former, because such implements are common in the latter. I do not agree with Lindenschmit (page 462) in assigning all these so-called skates to the Stone period. On the contrary, they are mostly of post-Roman date. In lake-dwellings they are very rarely met with, and only one is recorded as coming from a station of the Stone Age, viz. Moosseedorf (page 75). The other localities from which examples have been recorded are Persanzig (page 315), Dabersee (page 317), Kownatken (page 328), Starnberg (B. 119, 2nd ed., p. 593), and a Terramara in Hungary (page 167).

Though the Anglo-Saxons, in coming from the mouth of the Elbe and the low-lying districts between it and the Rhine, must have been familiar with marine pile-structures, they do not appear to have cultivated the system to any great extent after immigrating into Britain. But this may be accounted for by the fact that very soon they became the conquerors of the country. It is only for defence that lake and marsh-dwellings have been resorted to.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] _Journ. R. H. A. A._, vol. v., 4th S., p. 325.

[72] _Archæological Journal_, vol. xx. p. 170.

[73] _Proc. R. I. A._, vol. v. p. 215.

[74] _R. H. Arch. As._, vol. v., 4th S., p. 330.

[75] Three iron pots were found on this crannog, one of them being of a triangular shape.

[76] Various mediæval objects collected in the mud on and near the crannog sites: iron cuirass, matchlock guns, pistols, antique keys, spurs, implements of iron, bronze ladle, bronze spear-head. The swords and gun-barrels were found sticking up in the mud from the lake-bottom.

[77] A great many piles covering an oval enclosure about 100 feet in diameter. On submarine crannogs, see Kinahan's "Manual of the Geology of Ireland," p. 264, and Note 83 (p. 443) of Scottish list of crannogs.

[78] O'Flahertie in his history mentions that the ancient castle of the O'Flaherties of Bunowen, in Ballinahinch Lake, was built on an artificial island.

[79] Two crannogs, one large and the other small. The former is only separated from the mainland by a shallow channel, and is accessible in summer by a narrow causeway. On it were found "two fine specimens of bronze pins, besides other articles of less interest in lead and iron, and a flint spear-head."

[80] A stockaded enclosure, about 35 feet in diameter, lying some 12 or 14 feet below the bog surface. "A magnificent pair of quern stones" and a large bowl-shaped vessel of oak are known to have been found on it.

[81] A curious wooden flooring, buried 14 feet in the bog. It rested on "a thick deposit of hazel and birch branches." Over it was a "collection of stone slabs, closely fitted together with a substratum of blue clay, but all laid on planks of timber forming part of the floor. On this there were quantities of ashes, proving that this was the fire-place of the ancient dwelling."

[82] "With piles round the margin and amongst the stones on its surface were found querns, some perfect, some in a broken state." A canoe became visible at a depth of 2½ to 3 feet when the water of the lake was unusually low.

[83] A small crannog discovered by turf-cutters, and "interesting from the fact of instruments made of iron and stone having been found together." Among other things were a bronze pin, fragments of crucibles, bits of anthracite coal, a socketed iron implement, two small flint knives, a stone celt, a round flat stone with an oblong-worked indentation on each side, and several bits of rude pottery.

[84] An artificial island, 30 yards in diameter, thickly planted with timber and surrounded with piles. In 1870 a canoe was found on the shore of this islet, embedded in the mud and half destroyed by fire. In the stuff lying on its floor were found some iron tools--an adze, a hammer (both with handles), a socketed chisel, two whetstones, and some fragments of iron.

[85] A small lake, scarcely a mile in circumference, and about three miles from Cavan. About a hundred yards from shore a heap of stones, surrounded by circles of stockades about fifty feet in diameter. In the moss near the lake two canoes were found 21 and 18 feet long.

[86] This lake is in the parish of Clonbroney, and contains two crannogs, called "Round Island" and "Fry's Island." The former is 18½ yards in diameter, and the "wooden piles, though in a pulpy and rotten state, are still to be seen. In the lake a small canoe, 9½ feet long, an iron spear, the nether stone of a grain-rubber, and the antlers (with eighteen points) of a deer were found embedded in the silt."

[87] This is a small lake, three and a half miles north of Enniskillen, about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth. It contains three crannogs, the largest of which is 105 feet in diameter. "Here were found querns, whetstones, worked pieces of deer-horn, some fragments of iron plated with bronze, many pieces of ornamented pottery, some of which were furnished with ears or handles; a very curious stone (apparently a tombstone), sculptured with a cross and ornamented with four human heads, and scroll work, and a large boulder, upon which a cross-like figure had been picked or punched out."

[88] A large crannog, covering about an acre, but only partly artificial. About thirty thousand piles used in strengthening the island, which had a jetty, and near this a canoe was found. The principal relics are--some stone hammers, three pieces of flint scrapers, a bead of amber and another of glass, a small stone ring the size of a finger-ring, fragments of pottery, a crucible, some articles of brass, and portions of bog-ore. The piles were cut by very sharp metal implements.

[89] In 1833 Captain W. Mudge, R.N., discovered here a wooden hut made of a framework of large oak beams mortised at the four corners. It measured 12 feet square and 9 feet high, and about half way up there was a flooring which divided the space into two storeys. The roof of this unique hut was buried in the peat 16 feet from the surface, and its base rested on a substratum of brushwood resembling a crannog. (See p. 489).

[90] Two crannogs, one large, 100 feet in diameter. An iron cauldron, found near the shore of lake, made on the same principle as the usual bronze cauldrons, of beaten iron, and riveted.

[91] Ornamented quern stone found on the crannog.

[92] "Six stone and two bronze celts, an iron spear-head and a bayonet, three fibulæ, one bridle-bit and two cheek-plates made of bronze," found on this island.

[93] From this crannog the following objects were presented to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy:--"A piece of circular grindstone, block of flint, old iron key, two portions of blades of iron swords, and a piece of bone spike."