LAKE DWELLINGS. Habitations were constructed within the margins of lakes, creeks or the sea, at some distance from the shore. They exist in such parts as the estuaries of the Orinoco and the Amazon, New Guinea, Borneo and the west coast and centre of Africa. Their existence in Lake Prasias is recorded by Herodotus.
In prehistoric times nearly all the lakes of Switzerland, and many in the adjoining countries—in Savoy and the north of Italy, in Austria and Hungary and in Mecklenburg and Pomerania— were peopled by lake-dwelling communities, living in villages con structed on platforms supported by piles at varying distances from the shores. They are also found in peat moors on the sites of ancient lakes now drained or silted up, as at Laibach in Carniola. In some of the larger lakes the number of settlements was very great. Fifty are enumerated in the Lake of Neuchatel, 32 in the Lake of Constance, 24 in the Lake of Geneva and 20 in the Lake of Bienne. The settlement at Morges, one of the largest in the Lake of Geneva, is i,2ooft. long by 'soft. broad and was exposed to view during the drought of 1921. The settlement of Sutz, one of the largest in the Lake of Bienne, ex tends over six acres, and was connected with the shore by a gang way nearly 1 ooyd. long and about 4oft. wide.
The substructure which supported the platforms on which the dwellings were placed was most frequently of piles driven into the bottom of the lake ; less frequently a stack of brushwood or fascines was built up from the bottom and strengthened by stakes penetrating the mass so as to keep it from spreading. The piles used were the rough stems of trees of a length proportioned to the depth of the water, sharpened sometimes by fire and at other times chopped to a point by hatchets. On their level tops the beams supporting the platforms were laid and fastened by wooden pins, or inserted in mortices cut in the heads of the piles. In some cases the whole construction was further steadied and strengthened by cross beams, notched into the piles below the supports of the platform. The platform itself was composed of rough layers of unbarked stems, or occasionally of boards split from larger stems. When the mud was too soft to afford foothold for the piles they were mortised into a framework of tree trunks, placed horizontally on the bottom of the lake. When the bottom
was so rocky that the piles could not be driven, they were steadied at their bases by being enveloped in a mound of loose stones. The huts themselves were quadrilateral in form. The size of each dwelling is in some cases marked by boards resting edge ways on the platform. The walls, which were supported by posts, or by piles of greater length, were formed of wattle-work coated with clay. The floors were of clay, and in each floor there was a hearth constructed of flat slabs of stone. The roofs were thatched with bark, straw, reeds or rushes. Some walls were formed of split tree trunks set upright and plastered with clay, and the flooring of similar timbers bedded in clay. In other cases the remains of the gangways or bridges connecting the settlements with the shore have been discovered, but often the village appears to have been accessible only by canoes.
The settlements were the dwellings of a people using stone, bone and wood for their implements, ornaments and weapons ; in others, of a people using bronze as well as stone and bone ; and in others again the occasional use of iron is disclosed. At the settlement in the Lake of Moosseedorf, near Berne, the most perfect example of a lake dwelling of the stone age, the imple ments found in the relic bed were axe-heads of stone, with their haftings of stag's antler and wood ; a flint saw, set in a handle of fir wood and fastened with asphalt ; flint flakes and arrow-heads; harpoons of stag's antler with barbs ; awls, needles, chisels, fish hooks and other implements of bone ; a comb of yew wood sin. long; and a skate made out of the leg bone of a horse. The pottery consisted chiefly of roughly-made vessels, some of which were of large size, others had holes under the rims for suspension, and many were covered with soot, the result of their use as culinary vessels. Burnt wheat, barley and linseed, with many varieties of seeds and fruits, were plentifully mingled with the bones of the stag, the ox, the swine, the sheep and the goat, representing the ordinary food of the inhabitants, while remains of the beaver, fox, hare, dog, bear, horse, elk and the bison were also found.