Part 50

"Concerning the people of the Phasis, that region is marshy and hot, and full of water, and woody; and at every season frequent and violent rains fall there. The inhabitants live in the marshes, and have houses of timber and of reeds constructed in the midst of the waters; and they seldom go out to the city or the market, but sail up and down in boats made out of a single tree-trunk, for there are numerous canals in that region. The water they drink is hot and stagnant, putrefied by the sun, and swollen by the rainfall, and the Phasis itself is the most stagnant and quiet-flowing of all rivers."

In the works of recent travellers I find statements corroborating the opinion already published by Dr. Keller (B. 119, 2nd ed., p. 666), that the remains of lake-dwellings have been detected in Asia Minor, more especially in the Caucasus and the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian. As early as 1849 Bayern discovered palafittes in Lake Gok-chai and in Lake Paleostrum, not far from the embouchure of the Rion (Phasis). Mr. Chantre states that on the lowering of Lake Toporovan, near the village of Choucha at the embouchure of the Koura, and in some other lakes on the coast of the Black Sea, indications of their existence have been observed.[153] None of these have, however, been sufficiently explored to be of archæological value.

While the lake-dwellers of Switzerland were quietly living in the peculiar habitations which the hydrographical conditions of the country enabled them to develop so largely, great and progressive changes were going on elsewhere among the neolithic settlers in Europe. Probably other immigrants soon found their way to the far west, and brought with them a knowledge of bronze. As time rolled on, considerable divergences from the primitive civilisation took place, partly the outcome of geographical and climatal conditions, and partly the result of innovations by freer intercourse with the inhabitants of the shores of the Mediterranean. Then were laid gradually the germs of the historical nationalities of Europe. Just at the dawn of history we find the Celts, not in the sunshine of their power, but with faded strength and departed glory, confined to a limited area in Europe. After the collapse of the great lake-villages it is not singular to find that a knowledge of the system remained among the surrounding nationalities which subsequently germinated into activity in various sporadic corners, and produced not only the Scottish and Irish crannogs, but the analogous remains in Friesland, North Germany, Paladru, etc. As the great extinct mammals are known to have lingered in the recesses of mountain ranges and other secluded localities, so the artificial islands or crannogs and other lake-habitations of the Iron Age are but the deteriorated remnants of a doomed system which, like every dying art before final extinction, passed through a stage of decay and degeneration.

FOOTNOTES:

[124] _Antiqua_, 1883, p. 15.

[125] _Matériaux, etc._, vol. xvi. p. 215.

[126] _Bulletino Palet. It._, An. i. p. 7.

[127] While visiting Mr. Flinders Petrie's collection of antiquities from Egypt lately exhibited in London, I was much interested in seeing a well-shaped wooden sickle with a groove in which a flint saw was still cemented in its place. The groove is adapted for three such saws, but only one remained in its place. The wooden portion of this unique instrument is shaped like a modern corn-hook, with the exception that the handle turns downwards at a right angle to the cutting plane, and the opposite end runs out into a long sharp point. It measures 12½ inches from tip to tip, and 17 from the point to the most bulging part of the body. From the same place were various other flint implements and some semilunar knives or saws, precisely similar to those so common in the Scandinavian archæological area. Mr. Petrie also pointed out some flint objects which were undoubtedly an imitation of implements of copper and bronze with which they were associated. The tombs of Hawara in which these relics were discovered are said to be of the 12th dynasty, dating some 2,600 years B.C.

[128] B. 423, pp. 80, 90; _Bul. Palet. Ital._, An. xii. p. 80.

[129] _Archiv für Anthropologie_, vol. xvi.

[130] _Antiqua._ 1883, p. 89.

[131] _Corr.-blatt_, 1882, 1883, and B. 401.

[132] _Mitt. der Anth. Ges. Wien_, B. xiii. pp. 213 and 216.

[133] _Neues Jahrb. für Mineralogie_, B. iii., 1884.

[134] _Archæological Journal_, vol. xxxvi., 1880.

[135] _Zeit. für Ethn._, bd. xv. pp. 163-190.

[136] _Antiqua_, 1885, p. 138.

[137] _Zeit. für Ethn._, vol. xviii., _Verhand._, p. 83.

[138] _Ibid._, p. 411.

[139] _Ibid._, vol. xix. p. 97.

[140] _Ibid._, p. 140.

[141] Castelfranco: _Bul. Palet. Ital._, Anno iv. p. 50.

[142] _Nuovo Giornale Bot. Ital._, vol. xxii., N. 1, 1890.

[143] An excellent summary of the evidence establishing this fact is given by Baron de Baye in his recent work "Archæologie Prehistorique," chap. vi.

[144] _Zeit. für Ethn._, vol. xviii., _Verhand._, p. 368.

[145] See also _Anzeiger_, 1880, p. 46; and 1882, p. 221.

[146] _Archéologie Celtique et Gauloise_, p. 368.

[147] _Double Sépulture Gauloise de la Gorge-Meillet (Marne)._ By Ed. Fourdrignier. Paris, 1878.

[148] W. Osborne, _Zur Beurtheilung des prähistorischen Fundes auf dem Hradischt bei Stradonic in Böhmen. Mitt. der Anth. Ges. Wien_, vol. x.

[149] _Bull. dell' Inst._, 1875, pp. 50 and 178, and 1877, p. 74.

[150] _Bull. Palet. It._, anno xii., p. 194, etc., with six plates.

[151] _Revue Archéologique_, 1864.

[152] "Horæ Ferales," pp. 172 to 189.

[153] "Recherches Anthropologiques dans le Caucase," vol i. p. 70.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LAKE-DWELLING RESEARCHES IN EUROPE.