Pottery.—Fragments of a coarse unornamented pottery were found, out of which one vessel has been restored, having the following dimensions:—11 inches wide at mouth; 12 inches in the widest, a little below the mouth; and 7½ at base. Height, 7½ inches.

About thirty yards distant from the lake-dwelling, in a peaty hollow in the field, Mr. Boynton found pottery of a similar character. It was buried about three feet in the peat. The depth of peat over the lake-dwelling was somewhat more, being nowhere less than 4 feet.

Fauna.—No expert has as yet made a report on the osseous remains, but they are believed to represent the following animals:—Bos longifrons and primigenius, horse (a small breed), dog or wolf, beaver, ox, pig, sheep or goat, deer, otter (?), goose, and some small birds.

One well-formed human skull, with portion of an upper jaw.

Round Hill.—So far as the excavation of this station has been prosecuted the woodwork appears to have been precisely similar to the former, but the area occupied is of larger dimensions. Mr. Boynton thinks that the piles here belong to different periods of time, and a curious fact which he pointed out to Canon Greenwell and myself seems to support this view. He showed us the point of one pile which had penetrated and terminated in the stump of another, from which he inferred that before the former had been inserted the latter had already been in a state of decay. The decayed brushwood had also a greater thickness than at West Furze. The station has not, however, yielded many relics, the principal objects being a small stone celt, portion of a perforated stone hammer, and the half of a jet bracelet. The latter appears to be unique. It is of a flattish form, and ornamented on its outer side by five prominent ridges, running circularly. The marginal ridges are separated from the three central ones by a wider interval, in which runs a smaller ridge or bead. These ridges were evidently manipulated without the use of a turning machine, as they are not perfectly uniform, though the artists intention was to make them so.

In regard to the other three stations there are only indications of their being of a similar character, such as piles and transverse woodwork along the bottom and sides of the drain. At Barmston, a stone axe, a perforated bone implement, like those from West Furze, and bits of charcoal were found. At Gransmoor a very large quantity of broken bones lay exposed in the bottom of the drain, amidst a profusion of oak piles and beams, but among them no implements have been found.

IV.—GENERAL REMARKS ON THE LAKE-DWELLINGS OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

Having placed before you, with a considerable amount of fullness, certain details of the investigations of ancient lake-dwellings that have been made within the British Isles during the last half century, I proceed now to the discussion of some facts bearing on the ultimate question of their origin and development. As my conclusions are of a somewhat argumentative character, involving the consideration of some collateral phenomena as well as a critical analysis of the special materials derived from archæological research, it will be advisable, in order to secure, as far as possible, precision, at least in methods, to concentrate attention on a few definite problems—convenient foci as it were for grouping my observations. I propose accordingly to deal successively with their structural peculiarities; their range in space and time, and how far this range coincides with ethnography; and, finally, their relation to analogous remains in Europe.

Except in a very few instances, which will be afterwards more specially referred to, all the lake-dwellings hitherto examined in Great Britain and Ireland were constructed on artificial islands made generally of wood, but sometimes of stones and such other materials as might be considered suitable. Although no such instructive examples as those at Lochlee, Buston, etc., have been recorded in Ireland, there can be no doubt that those of the latter country were built on the same general principles. Indeed, few of the writers on Irish crannogs have paid much attention to the structure of the islands, and, beyond the mere statement that they were stockaded, palisaded, or surrounded by one or more circles of piles, they have supplied no explanation of the attachments and proper function of the surrounding piles. But though the purpose of the mortised beams does not appear to have been at first well understood in Ireland, it is of importance to observe that their existence has not been entirely overlooked. Dr. Reeves, writing of a crannog in the county of Antrim, says: "These piles were from 17 to 20 feet long, and from 6 to 8 inches thick, driven into the bed of the lough, and projecting above this bed about 5 or 6 feet. They were bound together at the top by horizontal oak-beams, into which they were mortised, and secured in the mortise by stout wooden pegs." (Proc. R. I. A., vol. vii. p. 155.)

Mr. G. H. Kinahan in a paper on the crannogs of Lough Rea thus incidentally alludes to the subject:—"A little north-west of the double row, in the old working, there is a part of a circle of piles; and in another, a row of piles running nearly east and west. Mr. Hemsworth of Danesfort, who spent many of his younger days boating on the lake, and knows every part of it, informs me that on the upper end of some of the upright piles there were the marks of where horizontal beams were mortised on them. These seemed now to have disappeared, as I did not remark them." (Ibid., vol. viii. p. 417.)

These are by no means isolated observations on this point, and when we consider how readily the exposed woodwork of an uninhabited crannog would be destroyed, either by the hand of man or the natural processes of decay, we need not wonder that it is only the stumps of the piles and generally submerged portions of these singular structures that remain to the present day.

The construction of a crannog must have been a gigantic operation in those days, requiring in many cases the services of the whole clan. Having fixed on a suitable locality—the topographical requirements of which seemed to be a small mossy lake, with its margin overgrown with weeds and grasses, and secluded amidst the thick meshes of the primæval forests—the next consideration was the selection of the materials for constructing the island. In a lake containing soft and yielding sediment of decomposed vegetable matter, it is manifest that any heavy substances, such as stones and earth, would be totally inadmissible, owing to their weight, so that solid logs of wood, provided there was an abundant supply at hand, would be the best and cheapest material that could be used.

The general plan adopted was to make an island of stems of trees and brushwood laid transversely, with which stones and earth were mingled. This mass was pinned together, and surrounded by a series of stockades, which were firmly united by intertwining branches, or, in the more artistically constructed crannogs, by horizontal beams with mortised holes to receive the uprights. These horizontal beams were arranged in two ways. One set ran along the circumference and bound together all the uprights in the same circle, while others took a radial direction and connected each circle together. Sometimes the latter were long enough to embrace three circles. The external ends of these radial beams were occasionally observed to be continuous with additional strengthening materials, such as wooden props and large stones, which, in some cases, appeared also to have acted as a breakwater. The mechanical skill displayed in their structure was specially directed to give stability to the island and to prevent superincumbent pressure from causing the general mass to bulge outwards.

South of the Scottish border the remains of lake-dwellings are too much decayed or imperfectly observed to furnish many reliable data bearing on this subject. So far, however, as the evidence goes it would appear that the artificial island in Llangorse and the lacustrine dwellings in Holderness were true fascines; the former, indeed, having all the appurtenances of the typical crannog.

The crannogs were made accessible by various means. Some had moles or stone causeways, the existence of which, in some instances, became known only upon the drainage of the lake. Hence it is conjectured that these approaches might have been always submerged, and so supplied, on emergencies, a secret means of communication with the shore. This idea was suggested by the tortuous direction which many of them assumed, as for example the causeway discovered in the Loch of Sanquhar which had a zig-zag direction and so could only be waded by persons intimately acquainted with its windings. Others were approached by a wooden gangway, the evidence of which now consists only of the stumps of a double row of piles. Others again were completely insulated and accessible only by boats. One feature regarding some of the wooden gangways deserves particular attention. Both at Lochlee and Lochspouts the piles were found to be tightly embraced at their lower extremities by a curiously constructed network of transverse beams. As the surface of these elaborate structures was buried from 3 to 7 feet beneath the lake-bed, my first impression was that they might have been used, like the submerged stone causeways, as a concealed means of communicating with the shore. To test this suggestion I had a special excavation made along the line of a gangway at the Miller's Cairn in Loch Dowalton. (B. 426, p. 102.) After digging through 3 feet of the consolidated and hardened mud, we came upon a stratum of fine blue clay, extremely tenacious, and little liable to displacement. The pointed stakes of the gangway, which penetrated into this clay only a few inches, here met with a firm resistance. It then occurred to me that the ingeniously arranged wooden beams at Lochlee and Lochspouts served merely the same end as the blue clay at the Millers Cairn, and that they were to be found only in localities where there was a great depth of mud incapable of affording a sufficient basis of resistance to the piles. Such difficulties have been encountered by the constructors of pile-dwellings in all countries; and it is curious to note the variety of methods by which they were overcome. The Swiss lake-dwellers sometimes surrounded the piles with heaps of stones which now go under the name of steinbergs; at other times split planks were laid on the soft mud into which the piles were mortised. The former plan was adopted on rocky shores too hard for piles to be driven in, and the latter where there was a great depth of soft mud, as at Wollishofen and other stations adjacent to the town of Zürich. In North Germany, as Persanzig, Aryssee, and other localities, the log-house principle, which greatly economised the materials, was adopted in the construction of the subaqueous foundations. It appears to me that this was the principle adopted in the structure of the great Irish crannog of Lagore, as Sir W. Wilde distinctly states that it was "divided into separate compartments by septa or divisions that intersected one another in different directions." It was in these compartments, which were filled with bones and black mud, that the antiquities were found; so that the crannog-dwellers must have used them as kitchen-middens. Originally they contained only water, but in the course of time they became filled with food refuse and other débris. House-cleaning was thus reduced to a minimum, while the laws of sanitation were not more violated than in the underground cess-pools of many of our modern dwellings. A curious statement by Wilde in regard to the disposal of bones at Lagore is that "the remains of each species of animal were placed in separate divisions, with but little intermixture with any others."

It may be also mentioned that the log-house structures described by Pigorini as lining the inside of the surrounding dyke in the terramara of Castione were perfectly analogous, only in this case the compartments were filled with clay and rubbish, so as to act better as contraforte to the clay wall.

Canoes are so invariably found associated with crannogs that their discovery in lakes and bogs has been considered by Dr. Stuart as an indication of the existence of the latter. This may be true in some cases; but in others, such as Closeburn, Lochwinnoch, and Loch Doon, three of the examples cited by him, it is more probable that the canoes were used by the occupiers of the mediæval castles in the vicinity of which they were found. From these and other instances that have come under my notice I have come to the conclusion that dug-out canoes do not indicate such great antiquity as is commonly attributed to them, nor do they therefore necessarily carry us back to prehistoric times.

There is no peculiarity in the structure or form of these dug-outs which distinguishes their age or nationality. There is a good collection of them in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. Some have pointed prows and square-cut sterns; others have both ends pointed; some have cross bands, like ribs, left in the solid oak at regular intervals, as if to strengthen the vessel; while others are uniformly scooped out without any raised ridges. They vary much in size and shape. The largest is thus referred to in the small handbook to the Museum:—"Down the centre of the room extends the largest known canoe, formed of a single tree. The remains measure 42 feet in length, and the canoe was probably 45 feet long, by 4 to 5 feet wide, in its original state. It was recovered from the bottom of Loch Owel, in West Meath, and cut into eight sections for purposes of transport. There is a curious arrangement of apertures in the bottom, apparently to receive the ends of uprights supporting an elevating deck."

One of the canoes found at Lochlee, the remains of which are still preserved in the Burns' Museum at Kilmarnock, measured when disinterred 10 feet long, 2½ broad, and 1¾ deep. There were nine apertures in its bottom, arranged in two rows, four on each side, with the odd one at the apex. These holes were perfectly round, and exactly one inch in diameter; but when the boat was found they were quite unobserved, being all tightly plugged up, and it was only long afterwards that the plugs, upon drying, dropped out and so revealed their existence.

During the summer of 1874 a canoe (Fig. 177) was discovered in Loch Arthur, or Lotus Loch, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in the vicinity of a small artificial island, which is thus described by Rev. James Gillespie:—

A curious feature presented by some of these canoes was that accidental defects had been repaired, and the method adopted in its execution is worth noticing. The canoe found close to the Buston crannog already described (page 428), showed this peculiarity in a marked degree. Another from the Loch of Canmor is thus described by the Rev. James Wattie:—

"On the 16th June, 1859, there was fished up from the bottom of the loch, near the north shore, opposite to the Prison Island, a canoe (Fig. 178) hollowed out of a single oak-tree, 22½ feet long, 3 feet 2 inches wide over the top at the stern, 2 feet 10 inches in the middle, and 2 feet 9 inches at 6 feet from the bow, which ended nearly in a point. The edges are thin and sharp, the depth irregular—in one place 5 inches, the greatest 9 inches. There are no seats, nor rollocks or places for oars; but there may have been seats along the sides, secured by pins through holes still in the bottom. There are two rents in the bottom, alongside of each other, about eighteen feet long each; to remedy these, five bars across had been mortised into the bottom outside, from 22 to 27 inches long and 3 inches broad, except at the ends, where they were a kind of dovetailed, and 4 inches broad. One of these bars still remains, and is of very neat workmanship, and neatly mortised in. The other bars are lost, but their places are quite distinct. They have been fastened with pins, for which there are five pairs of holes through the bottom of the canoe, at the opposite side, at a distance of from 18 to 20 inches, the bottom being flattish. There are also five pairs of larger holes through the bottom, etc." (B. 94, p. 167.)

In 1870 there was published in the Journal of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland (B. 171a) an account of an unsuccessful attack on a crannog near Omagh, in the year 1566, by an English army under the command of Deputy Lord Sydney. This document, which was copied by Dr. Caulfield from despatches in the Public Record Office, London, gives a vivid description of the methods adopted in the attack and defence. A kind of pontoon was constructed on "floating barrels," which conveyed the attacking party to the island; but they found it "so bearded with stakes and other sharp wood, as it was not without extreme difficulty scaleable, and so ramparted as if the hedge had been burned—for doing whereof the fireworks failed—without a long time it was not to be digged down. Yet some scaled to the top, whereof Edward Vaughan was one, who, being pushed with a pike from the same, fell between the hedge and the bridge, and being heavily armed—albeit he could swim perfect well—was drowned, and two others hurt upon the rampart and drowned," etc.

That these island forts, however impregnable they might be considered in previous ages, had ultimately to succumb before the more modern resources of warfare, is shown by the following narrative taken from the Calendar of State Papers of Ireland, vol. 156, p. 374:—

"There was one Dualtagh O'Conner, a notorious traitor, that of all the rest continued longest as an outlaw, of power to do mischief. He had fortified himself very strongly after their manner in an island or crannoge within Lough Lane, standing within the county of Roscommon and on the borders of that country called Costelloghe. A few days ago, as opportunity and time served me, I drew a force on the sudden one night and laid siege to the island before day, and so continued seven days, restraining them from sending any forth or receiving any in, and in the meantime I had caused divers boats from Athlone and a couple of great iron pieces to be brought against the island, and on the seventh day we took the island, without hurt to any on our side, save my brother John, who got a bullet-wound in the back. When our men entered the island there was found within it 26 persons, whereof 7 were Dualtagh's sons and daughters; but himself and 18 others, seeking to save themselves by swimming, and in their cot to recover the wood next the shore, were for the most part drowned. Some report that Dualtagh was drowned, but the truth is not known. It was scarce daylight, and the weather was foggy when they betook themselves to flight. The Irishry held that place as a thing invincible."—Sir R. Bingham to Burghley, Dec. 16th, 1590.

In addition to the historical evidence we have that of the relics found on many of these crannogs, which includes iron pots, guns, leaden bullets, coins, etc. Thus associated with two crannogs in Lough Annagh were an iron cuirass, matchlock guns, pistols, antique keys, spurs, various implements of iron, a bronze ladle, bronze spear-head, etc. (B. 149, p. 156.)

To the literary researches of the late Dr. J. Robertson we are indebted for equally explicit historical notices regarding the Scottish crannogs:—"Among the more remarkable of the Scottish crannogs is that in the Loch of Forfar, which bears the name of St. Margaret, the Queen of King Malcolm Canmore, who died in 1097. It is chiefly natural, but has been strengthened by piles and stones, and the care taken to preserve this artificial barrier is attested by a record of the year 1508. Another crannoge—that of Lochindorb, in Moray—was visited by King Edward I. of England in 1303, about which time it was fortified by a castle of such mark that, in 1336, King Edward III. of England led an army to its relief through the mountain passes of Athol and Badenoch. A third crannoge—that of Loch Cannor or Kinord, in Aberdeenshire—appears in history in 1335, had King James IV. for its guest in 1506, and continued to be a place of strength until 1648, when the Estates of Parliament ordered its fortifications to be destroyed. It has an area of about an acre, and owes little or nothing to art beyond a rampart of stones and a row of piles. In the same lake there is another and much smaller crannoge, which is wholly artificial. Forty years after the dismantling of the crannoge of Loch Cannor, the crannoge of Loch-an-Eilan, in Strathspey, is spoken of as 'useful to the country in times of troubles or wars, for the people put in their goods and children here, and it is easily defended.' Canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oaks have been found, as well beside the Scotch as beside the Irish crannoges. Bronze (brass) vessels, apparently for kitchen purposes (Fig. 179), are also of frequent occurrence, but do not seem to be of a very ancient type. Deers' horns, boars' tusks, and the bones of domestic animals, have been discovered; and in one instance a stone-hammer, and in another what seem to be pieces for some such game as draughts or backgammon, have been dug up" (Fig. 180).

"Before the recent drainage of the Loch of Leys—or the Loch of Banchory, as it was called of old—the loch covered about 140 acres, but, at some earlier date, had been four or five times as large. It had one small island, long known to be artificial, oval in shape, measuring nearly 200 feet in length by about 100 in breadth, elevated about 10 feet above the bottom of the loch, and distant about 100 yards from the nearest point of the mainland. What was discovered as to the structure of this islet will be best given in the words of the gentleman, of whose estate it is a part, Sir James Horn Burnett, of Crathes. 'Digging at the Loch of Leys renewed. Took out two oak trees laid along the bottom of the lake, one 5 feet in circumference and 9 feet long; the other shorter. It is plain that the foundation of the island has been of oak and birch trees laid alternately, and filled up with earth and stones. The bark was quite fresh on the trees. The island is surrounded by oak piles which now project 2 or 3 feet above ground. They have evidently been driven in to protect the island from the action of water.' Below the surface were found the bones and antlers of a red deer of great size, kitchen vessels of bronze (brass) (Figs. 181 and 182), a millstone (taking the place of the quern in the Irish crannogs), a small canoe, and a rude, flat-bottomed boat about 9 feet long, made, as in Ireland and Switzerland, from one piece of oak. The surface of the crannog was occupied by a strong substantial building (Fig. 183). This has latterly been known by the name of the Castle of Leys, and tradition, or conjecture, speaks of it as a fortalice, from which the Wauchopes were driven during the Bruces' wars, adding that it was the seat of the Burnetts until the middle of the sixteenth century, when they built the present castle of Crathes. A grant of King Robert I. to the ancestors of the Burnetts includes lacum de Banchory cum insula ejusdem. The island again appears in record in the years 1619 and 1654 and 1664, under the name of 'The Isle of the Loch of Banchory.'"

While the comparative late occupancy of the crannogs in both countries is, therefore, unquestionable, their early origin is enveloped in the deepest mystery. Was the system an indigenous invention—the result of circumscribed local exigencies—or derived from foreign sources? and when was it founded or introduced? are questions that have elicited responses of different characters. Sir W. R. Wilde, undoubtedly one of the foremost authorities on Irish crannogs, assigns them to the Iron Age. "Certainly," says he, "the evidences derived from the antiquities found in ours, and which are chiefly of iron, refer them to a much later period than the Swiss; while we do not find any flint arrows or stone celts, and but very few bronze weapons, in our crannogs. Moreover, we have positive documentary evidence of the occupation of many of these fortresses in the time of Elizabeth, and some even later." (B. 24, p. 152.) Mr. G. H. Kinahan, on the other hand, thus formulates his opinion in a short article contributed to Keller's book (B. 119, 2nd ed., p. 654):—"Of the time when the crannogs were first built there is no known record, but that they must have been inhabited at an early period is evident, as antiquities belonging to the Stone Age are found in them. Some were in use up to modern times, Crannough Macknavin, county Galway, having been destroyed in A.D. 1610, by the English, while Bally-na-huish Castle was inhabited fifty years ago. Some crannogs seem to have been continuously occupied until they were finally abandoned, while others were deserted for longer or shorter periods. In Shore Island, Lough Rea, County Galway, there is a lacustrine accumulation over 3 feet thick, marking the time that elapsed between two occupations."

That objects supposed to be typical of the Stone and Bronze Ages have been found on many of the Irish crannogs there can be no doubt at all. For example, among the remains described by Mr. Shirley from the crannogs of MacMahon's country are stone celts, arrow-heads of flint and bronze, three looped celts of bronze, etc.; but these were associated with many iron objects of comparatively modern manufacture, such as a gun-barrel, pistol-lock, ploughshares of iron, parts of harps, and spinning-wheels, etc., etc.

"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.

Sixth Lecture.
THE LAKE-DWELLERS OF EUROPE—
THEIR CULTURE AND CIVILISATION.

I.—STONE AGE.

In the summary of the remains of lake-dwellings which I have brought under your notice in the previous lectures, you will have observed that there was often a great diversity in the character of the relics even in stations that were lying close to each other. From the study of this feature alone we must conclude that some flourished at a time when the use of metals was entirely unknown to their inhabitants, as all tools and weapons recovered from the débris were made of such materials as stone, bone, horn, etc. The substitution of bronze for these materials marks a decided change in the culture and civilisation of the lake-dwellers—a change which becomes further modified by the introduction of iron. We have thus a great variety of lake-dwellings, distinguishable from each other generally by the character of their industrial remains, according to the particular civilisation which prevailed at the period of their habitation, some dating from the pure Stone Age, others from the Bronze Age, while others again bear the imprint of various later civilisations, as Roman, Celtic, Carlovingian, Slavish, etc. In dealing, therefore, with lacustrine remains as a whole, we have to take into account not only their distribution over a wide geographical area, but also their continuance in various parts of Europe for a long period extending from the Neolithic Age to the dawn of written history.

The outlying parts of this wide field, comprising more particularly the lake-dwelling remains in North Germany and in Great Britain and Ireland, I have already sufficiently dealt with when treating of their archæological details, so that it is unnecessary to bring them again prominently forward. There remains, therefore, only the central area of Europe, where they originally developed and so extensively flourished during the Stone and Bronze Ages. To draw, from a general criticism of the mass of recovered materials which I brought before you in the first three lectures, some general notion of the culture and civilisation which characterised their occupiers is therefore the first and primary object of this lecture.

Though the famous three ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron had been established as a method of classification before lacustrine treasures became known, I question if there is in the whole range of prehistoric archæology any class of antiquities that gives greater support to this remarkable chronological sequence, or throws more light on the introduction of metals into Europe than those collected from the lake-dwellings. The period of duration of the early pile-dwellings in Central Europe entirely covers and overlaps that which witnessed the introduction of the great art of metallurgy in Europe. While the contents of graves and ceremonial burials are important in preserving special products of the technical skill of a people, we have from some of these lacustrine dwellings materials for reconstructing the entire life history of their inhabitants, giving, as it were, a complete picture of their arts, industries, luxuries, and amusements.

That many of these lake-villages, built as they were on wooden platforms and constructed of combustible materials, were liable to conflagrations, we can readily believe, and we have had conclusive evidence that many of them came to an untimely end in this manner. It is, indeed, to such catastrophes that we owe much of our information, as the sudden interruption of busy life-scenes in such a manner and especially when accompanied by circumstances that tended to preserve the ruins from decay, has been the means of supplying us, as it were, with a photographic picture of the habits, customs, and industries of the people; and it requires only a sufficient number of such instances to be able, from a comparative examination of the recovered relics, to construct a fair scale of the progressive civilisation and culture of the lake-dwellers. On the other hand, there are lacustrine villages which have existed, through various ages, such as Nidau, but the association of objects so widely separated in point of time in one place becomes misleading, especially if their relative ages cannot be tested by superposition in the relic-bed—which can rarely be the case in lacustrine investigations, as in the act of dredging the relics are all jumbled together.

Professor Desor, observing that large quantities of pottery of every description were found in certain localities, which could not belong to one family, and that many of the bronze weapons and implements were new and unused, suggested that the palafittes in Lake Neuchâtel were merely magazines or shops, and not the ordinary residences of the people. (B. 252, p. 3.) But this opinion has not been adopted by Swiss archæologists; nor indeed is it at all justified from a study of the character of the multifarious objects discovered among their débris, which undoubtedly point to village life and the exercise of social and domestic avocations on the spot. Dr. Gross, in combating Desor's opinion, so far as founded on the unused condition of many of the relics, remarks:—"Je possède dans ma seule collection les tronçons de plus de dix épées réduites à l'état fragmentaire par un long usage. Un grand nombre d'outils s'y montrent altérés et modifiés par la même cause." (B. 392, p. xii.)

The settlements of the pure Stone Age are found only in a limited area in Central Europe. Their greatest development has been in the lakes bordering on both sides of the Alps, and it is especially from the data there supplied that we become acquainted with their characteristic features. This area may be more specifically defined as including the lakes of Lombardy, Laibach, Bavaria, Switzerland, and Savoy, with the exception perhaps of Lake Bourget—whose palafittes appear to have been constructed exclusively in the Bronze Age.

One of the most striking facts, and one to which I invite special attention, is the advanced state of the culture and social organisations which prevailed amongst the earliest constructors of these singular abodes. It is beyond doubt that, from the very start, their inhabitants were acquainted with various industries, especially weaving, which they sedulously practised; that they reared the ordinary domesticated animals; and that they cultivated flax, fruits, and various kinds of grain. For example, at Wangen two varieties of wheat and the two-rowed barley were distinctly recognised both in whole ears and in the separate grain, the latter in quantities that could be measured in bushels. The stones of the grape, which Professor Heer (B. 123) somewhat hesitatingly announced among the fruits from this station, may now be accepted as genuine, as the grape (Vitis vinifera) has recently been found at Steckborn, another station of the pure Stone Age,[124] and at Haltnau. (B. 462, p. 58.) Several varieties of well-made cloth of flax, and mats of bast, were also found at Wangen. There is preserved in the Museum of Fribourg a carbonised spindle from Lake Morat, which shows fine threads still coiled round it, and Dr. Gross figures a similar object from Locras. (B. 392.) Most antiquaries are acquainted with the remarkable varieties of cloth, fringes, nets, cords, and ropes brought to light by Messikommer from the very lowest relic-bed at Robenhausen (Fig. 25). Even specimens of embroidery were found at the adjoining station of Irgenhausen. (B. 126, Pl. xvi.) Remains of linen cloth, thread, nets, basket-work, etc., have also been found in a great many other stations, as Vinelz, Locras, Schaffis, Lagozza, Laibach, etc. But the absence of such fragile and perishable relics from many other stations is not to be taken as evidence that their inhabitants were unacquainted with such industries; for it must be remembered that it is only when fabrics are carbonised, or deposited in circumstances exceptionally favourable to their preservation, that they are prevented from undergoing the natural process of decay. Thus, at Schussenried, though there was no actual cloth found, the impression of a well-woven fabric is clearly seen on a consolidated mass of wheat—probably that of the sack in which the grain had been stored—and at Laibach a similar impression was observed on a fragment of pottery.

One of the stations in Moosseedorfsee which became completely exposed in consequence of drainage operations, and was carefully examined by the experienced archæologists Messrs. Jahn, Morlot, and Uhlmann, yielded a large assortment of the osseous remains of animals, amongst which the following were supposed to have been in a state of domestication, viz.:—dog, sheep, goat, pig, and various kinds of oxen. A few bones and teeth of the horse were also found, but these might have belonged to the wild species, as it is not agreed, nor is there any evidence, that this animal was domesticated till the Bronze Age. The cultivated plants from this station were barley, two kinds of wheat, pea, poppy, and flax. Among an assortment of its industrial remains, now in the Bern Museum, are about a dozen celts of nephrite (one of jadeite), bits of cord, a wooden comb, a fish-hook made of a boar's tusk, flint saws in their wooden handles, and fragments of pottery, some of which are ornamented with nail-marks or perforations round the rim. One piece of dark pottery (Fig. 184, No. 5) has a series of triangular bits of birch bark stuck on its surface by means of asphalt. (B. 336, p. 37.) If any further evidence were required to show the skill of the early lake-dwellers in the arts of spinning and weaving, and the extent to which they followed agricultural pursuits and the rearing of domestic animals, I have only to call attention to the vast number of spindle-whorls, loom-weights, etc., which are everywhere to be met with; the corn-crushers, yokes for cattle (Fig. 184, No. 1), field hoes, picks, and other agricultural implements found on the sites of the earliest settlements, as Robenhausen, Schaffis, Schussenried, etc.