These were the remains of an ancient village built
over the water. Since this time more than 200 similar villages have
been found in the lakes of Switzerland. They have been called Lake
Villages. The piles on which they rest are trunks of trees, pointed
and driven into the lake-bottom to a depth of several yards. Every
village required 30,000 to 40,000 of these.
A wooden platform was supported by the pile work and on this were
built wooden houses covered with turf. Objects found by the hundred
among the piles reveal the character of the life of the former
inhabitants. They ate animals killed in the chase--the deer, the boar,
and the elk. But they were already acquainted with such domestic
animals as the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog. They knew how to
till the ground, to reap, and to grind their grain; for in the ruins
of their villages are to be found grains of wheat and even fragments
of bread, or rather unleavend cakes. They wore coarse cloths of hemp
and sewed them into garments with needles of bone. They made pottery
but were very awkward in its manufacture. Their vases were poorly
burned, turned by hand, and adorned with but few lines.
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