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XII. On Lake-Dwellings of the Early Periods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

William Michael Wylie Esq.
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Extract

Some time has now elapsed since we received the first tidings of the discoveries of very ancient remains in the lakes of Switzerland, which have scarcely obtained the attention really due to their archaeological importance. These accounts were followed by an earnest appeal from the Society of Antiquaries of Zürich, praying our Society to undertake an examination of the lake Prasias, in the hope of verifying the descriptions of Herodotus, with which these discoveries in Switzerland seem closely to correspond.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , 1860 , pp. 177 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1860

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References

page 177 note a Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. iii. p. 102.

page 177 note b Herodotus, lib. v. cap. 16.

page 178 note a Keller's Keltischen Pfahlbauten in den Schweizerseen. Zürich, 1854. This work of Dr. Keller's contains a most elaborate and valuable account of the details of the Meilen discovery.

page 179 note a Habitations Lacustres de la Suisse—Statistique des Antiquités de la Suisse Occidental, par F. Troyon.

page 180 note a Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. 76. Archæologia, Vol. XXXVI. p. 142, note.

page 180 note b Keltischen Pfahlbauten, Pl. iv. fig. 23. Collectanea Antiqua, vol. iii. pl xvi. p. 67. Proceedings Soc-Ant. vol. iv. p. 166.

page 182 note a Statisticpe des Antiquités, &c.

page 183 note a Habitations Lacustres.

page 183 note b Id.

page 183 note c Troyon's Ossemens et Antiquités du Lac de Moosseedorf.

page 184 note a Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. i. p. 420.

page 184 note b Some accounts of these will be found in Wilde's Catalogue of Antiquities, &c. in the Museum of the Eoyal Irish Academy; and also in vols. i. and v. of the Proceedings of the Eoyal Irish Academy. In the Appendix to vol. v. p. xliii. is a valuable report by one of the engineers of the Commission, Mr. T. J. Mulvany, on the “Artificial or Stockaded Islands in the Counties of Leitrim, Cavan, and Monaghan.”

page 184 note c Observations on the Early Habitations of the Irish, &c.

page 184 note d These bones consisted of those of several varieties of oxen; also of swine, deer, goats, sheep, dogs, foxes, horses, and asses. Specimens will be found in the Museum of the Eoyal Irish Academy. Another such crannoge yielded no less than 150 tons of animal remains.

page 184 note e Archaeol Journal, vol. vi. p. 101.

page 185 note a Wilde's Catalogue of Antiquities, &c. in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, 1857.

page 185 note b Vol. iii. p. 44.

page 186 note a Vol. XXVI. pl. 361.

page 187 note a To such probably belong the remains found on draining a mere near Wretham Hall, Thetford, Norfolk. Here, in a deposit of peaty mud, twenty feet in depth, “numerous posts of oak wood, shaped and pointed by human art, were found standing erect, entirely buried in the peat.” At a depth of from five to six feet from the surface were found some very large antlers of the red deer, which had evidently been sawn off. It is to be regretted that no further investigation seems to have been made.—Quarterly Geological Journal, vol. xii. p. 355.

It is said too that these lake-buildings have been noticed as still existing in several parts of Asia. In a series of bas-reliefs found at Kouyunjik in the palace of Sennacherib, are represented the conquests of the Assyrians over a tribe who inhabited a marshy region; in one of these slabs (engraved in “The Monuments of Nineveh,” second series, pl. 25), we see represented several small artificial islands, formed apparently by wattling together the tall reeds which grew in the marshes, and erecting a platform in which are sheltered five or six people. It has been conjectured by Mr. Layard, that these slabs represent the conquests over the inhabitants of the lower part of the Euphrates. See Nineveh and Babylon, 1853, p. 584. The notice of the habitations of the Papoos, in New Guinea, would seem a complete parallel of the Helvetian and Pæonian constructions.—Dumont d'Urville's Voyages, torn. iv. p. 607. Rawlinson's Herodotus, lib. v. cap. 16, note.