Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
by
The Marquis de Nadaillac
Part 4 out of 6
There is nothing to surprise us in all these facts. Recently near the
Yenesei River, in the heart of Siberia, were found bronze daggers,
hatchets and bridle bits (Fig. 71), all bearing witness in the beauty
of their workmanship to a more advanced state of civilization than the
Lake Dwellings or megalithic monuments farther south. Many of them are
ornamented with figures of animals, so that at an epoch less remote,
it is true, than the one we have been considering, but still far
removed from our own, we find that there was an intelligent race,
with artistic tastes, living in a country now so intensely cold as
to be uninhabitable to all but a few miserable nomad Tartars.
At Spiennes, near Mons, a field was discovered, known as the CAMP
DES CAYAUX, strewn with flints, some uncut, others hewn, together
with knives and hatchets innumerable. There were also centres
of manufacture at Hoxne and Brandon, in England, at Bellaria in
Bologna, and at Rome on the Tiburtine Way. At Ponte-Molle, where
worked flints were discovered for the first time in Italy a few years
ago, a workshop was found, remarkable for the great number of stags'
antlers, from which the middle part had been removed, doubtless to be
used as handles for tools. M. de Rossi, who gives us these details,
thinks that this station was inhabited in the Paleolithic period. In
the settlement of Concise have been found not only stone implements,
but a great many articles made of bone, so that this place was
evidently an important manufacturing centre. Knives, stilettos, and
arrow heads were turned out here, and in the hands of skilful workmen
the tusks of the boars, which abounded at this time in Switzerland,
were converted into excellent chisels.
FIGURE 71
Bronze objects found at Krasnojarsk (Siberia).
To name the districts where tools were manufactured in prehistoric
times in France would be to give a list of all the departments. In
the commune of Saint-Julien du Saut we find a large manufactory where
every division of the Stone age is fully represented, from the time
of the simply chipped hatchet to that of the polished implement of
rare perfection. Everything bears witness to the prolonged residence
of man in a neighborhood which offered the attraction of vast
deposits of chalk with bands of flint that supplied alike weapons
and tools. Amongst others, we must name the so-called ATELIER DE LA
TREICHE, near Toul, which extends for an area of about a hundred acres,
that of Bonaruc, near Dax; surrounded by waste lands covered with a
scanty vegetation; that of Rochebertier (Charente), which probably
dates from the Madeleine period; and that of Ecorche-Boeuf, near
Perigueux. The Abbe Cochet tells us of an atelier in the Aulne valley,
and Maurice Sand of another near La Chatre, where we meet with the
most ancient traces of man in Berry. In the fields, near an alignment
not far from Autun, were picked up numbers of hatchets of bard rock,
barbed arrows, flakes of flint worked into scrapers or chisels, whilst
near them were the very polishers on which they had been pointed.
We have just spoken of polishers, and we said some time ago that it was
by prolonged rubbing that the remarkable weapons of Neolithic times
were produced. We must add now that a whole series of the polishers
used are to be seen on the right bank of the Loing, near Nemours;
one of which is a regular table (Fig. 72), on which can be made out
no less than fifty grooves and twenty-five cup-like depressions.
FIGURE 72
Prehistoric polisher, near the ford of Beaumoulin, Nemours.
One would have expected to find the ground near these polishers
covered with flakes of flint and pieces of tools of all kinds, but
nothing of the kind has been discovered; a fact which leads its to
suppose that the workmen only came down into the valley to finish
off their weapons by polishing them.
At the period we are considering all the continents were peopled,
and we must repeat, for it is the most important point of our
present study, that the civilization attained to by the inhabitants
was everywhere almost identical. Thus we find centres of manufacture
similar to those of Europe at the foot of the mountains of Tunis and of
Algeria. In one of the latter, at Hassi al Rhatmaia, the knives were
piled up in one place, the scrapers in another, and the arrow-heads
in a third. In this disposition M. Rabourdin thinks he sees a sign of
the division of labor, one of the most important features of modern
progress. M. Arcelin mentions a similar deposit on the summit of the
Jebel Kalabshee, near Esneh in Egypt, and a few years ago another was
found in Palestine, near the ancient Berytus, containing great numbers
of hatchets, saws, scrapers, and all the implements characteristic of
the Stone age; whilst amongst them lay the blocks from which they had
been cut. Asia Minor was evidently an important manufacturing centre
during the Stone age, and, as a matter of course, it must have had a
considerable population; and even in America discoveries of similar
extent have been made. At Kinosha, in Wisconsin, Lapham made out
a manufactory of flint and quartzite arrow-heads, which dates from
prehistoric times, and quite recently a yet more important centre of
industry has been discovered at St. Andrew (Winnipeg).
The manufactories of Spiennes and Brandon deserve special notice,
as they show us how our ancestors got the flint they used instead
of metal. At Spiennes,[171] the excavations were begun in the open
air, then the chalk containing the flint was reached by the sinking
of vertical shafts, many of which were as much as forty feet in
depth. These shafts were connected with each other by galleries running
in every direction, but always following the belts of flints. Cuttings
have brought to light the very implements of the ancient miners. They
were of the simplest description, such as picks made of stag-horn
and heavy stone hammers, all alike bearing marks of long service.[172]
Similar results were obtained in England. Canon Greenwell explored
near Brandon, in Suffolk, a series of 254 shafts, known in the
neighborhood as Grime's Graves. As at Spiennes, the shafts were
connected by galleries from three to five feet high, and one of
theta was twenty-seven feet long. The shafts and galleries had been
hollowed out with the help of picks exactly like those found in
Belgium; seventy-nine were picked up that had been thrown away by
the workmen.[173]
Some few years ago MM. Cartailhac and Boule discovered one of these
primitive quarries at Mur de Barrez, the chief town of the department
of Aveyron.[174]
They made out eight shafts in the face of a layer of limestone some
eighty-one feet long, and at every turn of their excavations they
came to fresh shafts. These shafts opened out towards the top like
funnels, and the), were not more than three feet three inches below the
surface, the flint having been struck at that depth (Fig. 73). These
shafts were, in many cases, continued by galleries, as seen in our
illustration (Fig. 74), or by trenches, where the light is, however,
more or less shut out by small landslips. It is still easy, in spite
of this, to make out the floor of the mine, for it is trodden hard by
the feet of the ancient miners. Traces of charcoal, too, reveal the
path they took, and we learn at the same time that they used fire to
help them in their work.
FIGURE 73
Section of a flint mine; T vegetable earth, C pure limestone, C M
Marly limestone, S flint.
M. Boule,[175] from whom we borrow these details, cannot restrain his
astonishment at the practical knowledge shown by these prehistoric
miners. He tells us that they sometimes left the flint standing
as pillars at pretty short intervals, or they propped up the
galleries with even more resistant material, cementing them with
clay or with calcareous earth taken from the detritus. In spite of
these precautions, landslips frequently occurred, and implements of
stag-horn (Fig. 75) have often been flattened by the fall of the roof
of the gallery. It is really curious to find implements of an exactly
similar kind used for exactly similar purposes at Spiennes, Brandon,
Mur de Barrez, and at Cissbury, to which, however, we shall have to
refer again. In the shafts of Aveyron, as in those of England, the
marks of blows of the picks are still to be seen, and in many cases a
flint or horn-pick point is still imbedded in the rock or limestone,
as if the miner had but just left his work.
FIGURE 74
Plan of a gallery, half destroyed in making the excavation which
revealed its existence. U gallery still visible; G' gallery destroyed
by the excavation.
In this last example of what has been done in France, we must also
add that of the shafts of Nointel (Oise) and those discovered in
Maine by M. de Baye, in both of which were found nodules of flint
in different stages of preparation, together with some stag-horn
picks. In none of these excavations was any metal implement found,
or any trace of the use of metal, so that we must conclude that the
mines date from Neolithic times.
We have seen how man gradually brought to perfection the tools and
weapons which were at first so clumsy. The growth of industry led
to the birth of commerce, or, to speak more accurately, to that
of barter. From the time of the earliest migrations intercourse was
begun, or rather was carried on, between the tribes, as they gradually
dispersed, often travelling considerable distances from each other,
and fresh proofs of these relations are continually brought to light as
we become better acquainted with prehistoric times. The flints worked
by the cave-men of Belgium, the fossil shells so numerous at Chaleux,
in the Frontal and Nuton caves, at Thayngen on the frontier between
Switzerland and Germany, in Italy, in the stations of anterior date to
the TERREMARE beds, have been found the shells of the pearl oyster of
the Indian Ocean, whilst in the caves of the south of France, such as
the Madeleine, that of Cro-Magnon, Bize in Herault, and Solutre on the
banks of the Saone have been picked up the shells of Arctic marine
mollusca. The cave-man of Gourdan was decked with shells from the
Mediterranean, and the man of Mentone in his turn wore a head-dress
made of Atlantic shells. Fossil shells were also much sought after;
we have alluded to those from Champagne found in Belgium; others from
the shell-marl of Touraine and Anjou had been taken into the caves of
Perigord, whilst sea-urchins from the cretaceous strata of the south of
France were found in a prehistoric station of Auvergne, and M. Massenat
picked up at Laugerie-Basse two specimens of a species not met with
anywhere but in the Eocene deposits of the isle of Wight. The Neolithic
station of Champigny, near Paris, has yielded some objects from the
Alps, and from Belgium, from the Vosges Mountains, and the Puy de Dome.
FIGURE 75
Picks, hammers, and mattocks made of stag-horn.
In the caves of Perigord were also found fragments of hyaline quartz,
which must have been brought from the Alps or the Pyrenees. In Brittany
and in Marne flints foreign to these granite districts are numerous;
and Dr. Prunieres tells us that similar discoveries were made under
the megalithic monuments of France, and that neither in the eroded
limestone districts of Lozere, known locally as LES CAUSSES, nor under
the dolmens of Haute-Vienne, were found any but implements made of
rock not native to the country.
Hatchets, daggers, and nuclei, or as they are characteristically
called by the country people LIVRES DE BEURRE, from Grand-Pressigny,
have been picked up in the bed of the Seine, at Limagne in Auvergne,
in Brittany, at Saint Medard near Bordeaux, on the banks of the Meuse,
and even as far north as the Shetland Islands. At Concise was found
red coral from the Mediterranean, whilst the yellow amber of the
Baltic was picked up in the Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, beneath
the dolmens of Brittany, in sepulchral caves, such as those of Oyes
(Marne) or Lombrives (Ariege), beneath the megalithic tomb of La
Roquette, at Saint Pargoue (Herault) beneath the dolmen of Grailhe
(Gard), at Malpas, and at Baume (Ardeche).[176] These are nearly all
Neolithic tombs, though some few of them may date from the beginning
of the Bronze age; but the cave-men of France owned amber even
earlier than this, for five fragments have been found in the Aurensan
Cave near Bagneres-de-Bigorre, which was inhabited in Palaeolithic
times. Jadeite and nephrite[177] are met with in the Lake Dwellings
of Switzerland and Bavaria, as in the caves of Liguria and Sardinia;
chloromelanite[178] in France, and obsidian[179] in Lorraine, in the
island of Pianosa and in the Cyclades. We have already spoken of the
calaite[180] found beneath the dolmens of Brittany, and we may add
now that it has also been found in the caves of Portugal and beneath
the megalithic monuments of the south of France.
Commerce developed rapidly during Neolithic times, and, as far as we
can make out from traces left, its course was from the southeast to
the northwest. Streams and rivers were followed by merchants as by
emigrants, and at an extremely remote date the sea no longer arrested
the journeys of men. At a recent meeting of the British Anthropological
Institute, Miss Buckland dwelt on the resemblance in the material,
shape, and ornamentation of a golden cup found in , Cornwall, to other
cups found at Mykenae and at Tarquinii, and maintained that the Cornish
cup must have been the work of the same artisans, and have been brought
by commerce from what was then the extremity of the known world.
It is not only in Europe that we can trace the relations established
between men separated by vast distances, by oceans, and by apparently
impassable deserts. The shells of the Atlantic and those of the
Pacific, the copper of Lake Superior, the mica of the Alleghanies,
and the obsidian of Mexico lie together beneath the tumuli of Ohio,
and quite recently Mr. Putnam exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries
a collection of jade celts and ornaments, some from Nicaragua,
others from Costa Rica, and a hatchet with both edges sharpened
from Michigan. No deposit of jade has so far been discovered on the
American continent, so that we can only suppose these objects to have
been brought from Asia at an unknown date. The marks they retain of
having been rubbed up, and the holes made in them to hang them. up,
show what store was set by them.
Monuments of many kinds scattered over different countries, weapons
and implements, relics as they are of a remote past, enable us to gain
a closer insight into the manners, customs, and mode of life of our
ancestors of the Stone age. We can picture their daily life, which we
know to have been one long struggle, without break or truce, for they
had to contend, not only with wild animals but with each other, to
fight for the use of their caves of refuge, for their hunting fields,
and for their watercourses; and later, the first shepherds had to
do battle for the pasturage necessary for their flocks. It is only
too certain that, from the earliest dawn of humanity, men gave way,
without any effort at self-control, to their brutal passions. The
right of the strongest was the only law, and wherever man penetrated
his course was marked by violence and by death. One of the femora of
an old man was found in the celebrated Cro-Magnon Cave, bearing a deep
depression caused by a blow of a projectile, and on the forehead of
the woman that lay beside him is a large wound made by a small flint
hatchet (Fig. 76). This gash on the frontal bone penetrated the skull,
and was probably the cause of death, but not of sudden death, for
round about the wound are marks of an attempt at healing it.[181]
According to Dr. Hamy, many of the bones found in the Sordes Cave
have very curious wounds. A gaping hole on the right parietal of a
woman must have been a terrible wound (Fig. 77). The woman of Sordes,
like that of Cro-Magnon, must have survived for some time; the marks
of the removal of splinters of bone, which can quite easily be made
out, leave no doubt on that point.[182]
FIGURE 76
Cranium of a woman, from Cro-Magnon, seen full face.
In the Baumes-Chaudes caves, situated in that part of the valley of
the Tarn which belongs to the department of Lozere, Dr. Prunieres
picked up numerous bones bearing scars, characteristic of wounds
produced by stone weapons.[183] Some fifteen of these bones, such as
the right and left hip bones, tibiae, and vertebrae, still contain
flint points flung with sufficient force to penetrate deeply the
bony tissue. Always indefatigable in his researches, Dr. Prunieres
also mentions having found in the cave known as that of L'HOMME MORT
bones bearing traces of cicatrized wounds, and he presented to the
Scientific Congress at Clermont a human vertebra found beneath the
Aumede dolmen pierced with an arrow-head, which is, so to speak,
encased in the wound by the formation of bony tissue.
FIGURE 77
Skull of a woman found at Sordes, showing a severe wound from which
she recovered.
Of the nineteen crania found in the Neolithic sepulchre of Vaureal
two show traces of old wounds. One of them, that of a woman, has
three different scars, two of which were of wounds that had healed,
whilst the third in the occiput was a gaping hole, which had evidently
caused death.
A sepulchral cave at Nogent-les-Vierges (Oise) contains the skeleton
of a man with a wound on the forehead, no less than four and a half
inches long by three broad. This man, who was dune young, the sutures
being still very apparent, survived this serious wound for some time.
The Gourdan Cave has yielded crania and jaws broken by blunt weapons,
whilst on other crania have been made out scratches and stripes
which could only have been produced after the hair and skin had been
removed. In the caves of the Petit-Morin valley, M. de Baye picked
up some human vertebra pierced with flints, the points of which were
still imbedded in the bones. In the Villevenard Cave one skull was
found containing three arrow-beads with transverse points imbedded in
the skull, the bone of which had closed upon them. Another arrow was
lodged between the dorsal vertebrae. It is probable that these arrows
had remained in the wounds; certainly that is the simplest way to
account for their position. About two miles from the caves of which
we have been speaking, M. de Baye discovered a sepulchre containing
thirty skeletons, all of adult and strongly built individuals. The
bodies were laid one above the other, and separated by large flat
stones and a thin layer of earth. This sepulchral cave contained
seventy-three flint points. As in the case of Villevenard, their
position leads us to suppose that these points had been sticking in
the flesh of the bodies when they were interred, and had fallen out
when decomposition set in. Probably the bodies were those of men who
had fallen victims in a bloody conflict that had taken place in the
valley. In a cave at the station of Oyes, was found stretched upon a
bed of stones a skeleton with a piece of flint, which had been flung
with great force, imbedded in the upper part of the humerus. Round
about the wound are the marks of many attempts at healing it.
Many of the human bones found in the Vivarais Cave bear traces
of having been violently fractured by stone weapons with tapering
points. In the Challes Cave (Savoy) lies the skeleton of a woman
whose skull was fractured by a flint weapon, but in this case death
was evidently immediate, at least if we may judge from the fact that
there are no signs of the wound having received any treatment. In the
Castellet Cave, a human vertebra contained the weapon which had pierced
it, but when the bone was touched the arrow-head broke off. It had,
however, been flung with such a sure hand that it had been driven
ten inches deep into the bony tissue. Here, too, the absence of any
exostosis proves that death quickly followed the wound.
FIGURE 78
Fragment of human tibia with exostosis enclosing the end of a flint
arrow.
In other cases the victims seem to have lived for some time. We
have already spoken of wounds in crania that had healed, and we
may add that a few years ago a, human bone was presented to the
Archaeological Society of Bordeaux which still retained a flint
arrow-head in the wound it had made. Traces could clearly be made
out of the inflammation caused by the presence of the foreign body,
and the bony tissue secreted by the periosteum had, so to speak,
taken the mould of the arrow (Fig. 78).
In the cave known as the Trou d'Argent (Basses-Alpes) amongst the
bones of ruminants and carnivora, fragments of pottery and rubbish
of all kinds, was found a piece of humerus (Fig. 79) pierced at
the elbow joint and very neatly cut at the lower end, no doubt with
the help of some of the implements of hard rock scattered about the
cave. The position of this human bone amongst the remains of animals
and fragments of a meal, points to its being a relic of a scene of
cannibalism; adding yet another proof to what I said at the beginning
of this work.
FIGURE 79
Fragment of human humerus pierced at the elbow joint, found in the
Trou d'Argent.
Similar facts are reported front England and Germany. Dr. Wankel
mentions an interesting prehistoric deposit at Prerau, near Olmutz,
amongst the bones of animals belonging to the most ancient Quaternary
fauna, such as the mammoth, the cave-bear, the cave-lion, the glutton,
and the arctic fox; and amongst clumsy bone and ivory weapons and
ornaments he found a human jaw and a femur covered with strip produced
by flint hatchets. In 1801 Mr. Cunnington took several skeletons from
a barrow near Heytesbury, the skull of one of which had been broken
with a blunt implement; and Sir R. Hoare speaks of a skull from the
neighborhood of Stonehenge split open by a blow from one of these
formidable weapons. Several crania taken from a long barrow at West
Kennet have similar wounds.
Similar facts were noticed at Littleton-Drew, at Uley, at Cotswold,
and at Rodmarten, and from this Dr. Thurmam concluded that nearly
all those who were buried in long barrows had met with a violent
death.[184] He speaks, however, of one skull pierced with a large hole,
the edges of which had become rounded smooth, showing the action of
a recuperative process, and proving that the injured man had long
survived his serious wound. In 1809, a farmer of Kirkcudbrightshire
set to work to demolish a large cairn that interfered with his tilling
of the soil, and which, according to popular tradition, was the tomb
of a Scotch king. In taking away the earth the workmen found a large
stone coffin, in which lay the skeleton of a man of great stature. The
arm had been almost separated from the trunk by the blow of a diorite
hatchet, a broken bit of which remained imbedded in the bone.[185]
One of the few crania that can with certainty be said to have belonged
to Lake Dwellers of Switzerland was found at Sutz, near Zurich;
this skull was fractured at the back. The roundness of the wound,
which had been serious enough to cause death, has led authorities to
conclude that it was made with one of the formidable pick-hammers, so
many of which were found in the lake of Bienne.[186] Nilsson speaks of
a human cranium pierced with a flint arrow, and of another, both found
at Tygelso (Scandinavia), containing a dart made out of the antler of
an eland.[187] At Chauvaux, at Cesareda, and Gibraltar other crania
have been found bearing the marks of mortal wounds, and if we cross
the Atlantic we meet with similar instances. Lund tells us that at
Lagoa do Sumidouro crania were found pierced with circular tools,
whilst near them lay the implements that had caused death.[188] At
Comox, in Vancouver Island, a skeleton was found with a flint knife
imbedded in one of the bones, and at Madisonville (Ohio) another,
one of the bones of which was pierced by a triangular stone arrow;
whilst beneath a mound in Indiana was picked up a skull pierced by a
flint arrow more than six inches long. Excavations at Copiapo (Chili)
brought to light the skeleton of a man who had sustained no less than
eight wounds from arrows. The force with which they must have been
shot is really astonishing; one had broken the upper jaw and knocked
out several teeth, penetrating to the brain; and others were still
sticking in the vertebrae and ribs.[189]
In the New as in the Old World man survived many of these horrible
wounds, and a skull found under a mound near Devil's River shows
a serious wound inflicted many years before death, and one of the
Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum bears a long frontal fracture,
doubtless produced by the violent blow of a club; the five or six
fragments still to be made out are, so to speak, solidified, and the
wounded man had evidently lived on for many years, thanks apparently to
his good constitution alone, for there are no signs of the performing
of any surgical operation, such as the removal of the splinters of
bone, for instance.[190]
In 1884 a human vertebra, with an arrow-head imbedded in it, was
picked up on the island of Santa Cruz. The apophysis was broken,
and the extent of the fracture shows the great force of the blow. The
victim evidently died of the wound, for there is no sign of its having
been healed.
I have dwelt upon these deaths and wounds in spite of the inevitable
monotony of such a list, not because I wish to bring into prominence
the fact that from the earliest times the struggle for existence was
fierce and bloody, but because I am anxious to prove that in these
remote days an organized and intelligent society had grown up. No
one could have survived such wounds as we have described, but for the
care and nursing of those around him, such as the other members of his
family or of his tribe. The wounded one must have been fed by others
for months; nay more, he must have been carried in migrations, and
his food and resting-place must have been prepared for him. Moreover,
and this is of even yet more importance to our argument, they must
have been men able to treat wounds and to set bones.
This last fact has been proved beyond a doubt by the discovery
of numerous bones with the old wounds completely cicatrized. "In
several examples," says Dr. Prunieres, speaking in this connection,
"we can make out the fractures set with a neatness which gives us
a very high opinion of the skill of the Neolithic bone setters. The
setting of one fracture at the lower end of the tibia and of another
at the neck of the femur, are not inferior to what we should expect
from the most skilful surgeons of the globe."[191] A remarkable fact
truly, but one often met with in the most widely separated regions of
the earth, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and justifies
the giving of a few more details.
In 1873 Dr. Prunieres, to whom science has reason to be very grateful
for his singular discovery, presented to the members of the French
Association, in session at Lyons, a human parietal with a rounded
piece of bone let into it. This piece of bone was rather larger than
a five-franc piece, and the skull into which it had been fixed was
found beneath the Lozere dolmen. A large opening, some three inches
in diameter, the edges of which were worn smooth, had been made in
this skull, and the piece of bone let into it was thicker than the
skull itself, as well as different in color, the cranium being dark
and the foreign piece of bone pale yellow. It was evident therefore
that the two pieces did not belong in life to one person, and that
the rounded piece had been cut out of some other skull. The following
year Dr. Prunieres added fresh details about other rounded pieces of
skull that be had discovered let into crania, some of which pieces
had evidently been introduced during the life of the patient, who had
died under the operation of trepanation, whilst others had been put
in after death. Dr. Prunieres in every case speaks of RONDELLES or
rounded pieces of skulls, and we prefer to quote him exactly, but as
a matter of fact the trepanation was sometimes done with elliptical,
triangular, or even pyramidal pieces of bone.
Later no less than sixty fresh examples, corroborating Dr. Prunieres'
discoveries, were found in the Baumes-Chaudes caves, and Broca in his
turn reported the finding of three crania in the cave of L'HOMME MORT,
from which great pieces had been taken which had evidently not been
lost by accident.
From this time excavations and discoveries made under Dr. Prunieres
succeeded each other rapidly. In 1887 his collection contained 167
crania or fragments of crania, all perforated, 115 of which were picked
up in the caves of Lozere, which are probably of more recent date,
beneath the dolmens of the DEVEZES, as those vast plains given lip to
pasturage are called. These dolmens, which were doubtless reserved for
the burial of chiefs, often contain many valuable objects. Beneath one,
for instance, were found fifteen beautiful darts of variegated flint,
four polished boars' tusks, some schist pendants, some shells cut into
the shape of teeth, some bone and stone necklace beads, and, lastly,
two small bronze beads. These last-named objects justify us in dating
the dolmen from the Bronze epoch, when the use of bronze began to
spread over the district, though it was still not generally employed.
Attention once awakened, similar facts began to be announced from
many different quarters. In the Neolithic caves of Marne were found
skulls with rounded holes in them, pieces of skull such as are shown
in Fig. 28, which were probably worn as amulets. M. de Baye has in
his fine collection more than twenty examples of trepanation, one
of. which is shown in Fig. 80. In nearly every case the operation had
been performed after death; three examples alone show it to have been
done during life, and that the patient certainly survived, for the
wound shows very evident signs of having healed, and the edges of the
openings no longer bear the marks of the tool of the operator. On one
of the three crania there were two wounds near each other, but they
were quite separate, and were evidently not treated at the same time.
FIGURE 80
Mesaticephalic skull, with wound which has been trepanned.
A tumulus in the Guisseny commune (Finistere), excavated about
two years ago, covered over a sepulchral crypt. At the southeastern
extremity was picked up a badly baked hand-made earthenware vase with
four handles. Beside the vase lay a skull, on which could be made out
traces of oxidation, which had probably been caused by the wearing of
a metal band, which has not been found. This skull bears on the right
side a little oval hole with cicatrized edges about an inch long by
two fifths of an inch broad. The discovery of a bronze dagger and two
bronze plaques leaves no doubt as to the age of this tumulus. This
example of trepanation is the only well authenticated one of which
I know in Brittany. It is true one skull has been mentioned as found
beneath the megalithic monument of Saint-Picoux de Quiberon (Morbihan),
which is even said to bear marks of sawing and scraping made in
attempting trepanation, but this fact has been very much questioned,
and the date at which the trepanation was performed, if performed it
were, is very doubtful.[192] The proof we are seeking of the antiquity
of the operation of trepanation is not therefore to be found here.
On a plain amongst the hills of the right bank of the Seine, above
Paris, rises a mound resembling a promontory which is known as
the Guerin mound, and consists of a vast deposit of chalk which
was excavated long ago. Successive operations have brought to
light eight caves, most of which contained a number of human
remains, which were unfortunately dispersed without having been
scientifically examined. One alone, opened in 1874, contained
numerous bones belonging to individuals of every age and of both
sexes, with polished flints, fragments of pottery, and implements
of stag-horn. Amongst these relics was found the skull of an old man
showing a very curious example of trepanation. It was unfortunately
broken by the workmen in the very moment of discovery, and could only
be very insufficiently examined. Other examples, however, which could
be properly authenticated, are not wanting from the banks of the Seine
and Marne; two fragments of skull were found in the canton of Moret,
one of which had been trepanned during the life of its owner, and the
other after death. We must also mention the crania presented to the
learned societies at the Sorbonne, one of which came from the plateau
of Avrigny, near Mousseaux-les-Bray (Seine-et-Marne). Side by side
with the skeleton lay polished hatchets, scrapers, and arrow-heads,
fragments of pottery blackened by smoke, and lastly a solitary bone
of an ox, pierced with three holes at regular distances, which had
probably been used as a flute. Of nine crania found in this excavation
three were pierced, two after death and one during life, the edges
of the last named bearing very evident traces of treatment.
A trepanned skull was also discovered in a Neolithic sepulchre near
Crecy-sur-Morin, where lay no less than thirty skeletons, remarkable
for the strongly defined section of the tibiae, whilst around were
strewn hatchets, flint knives, bones, stilettos and picks of siliceous
limestone with handles made of pieces of stag-horn. The tomb, built of
stones without mortar, contained two contiguous chambers separated by
a wall, and covered over by a stone weighing more than 1,200 tons. It
seems likely that this huge stone had not been moved -- it must
have been beyond the strength of the makers of the tomb to lift it,
-- but that the spaces beneath, in which the dead had been placed,
had been merely hollowed out. In the covered AVENUE DES MUREAUX,
of which I have already spoken, were picked up several trepanned
crania. The tools, scrapers, and piercers, which had probably been
used for the operation, lay near the crania.
A Neolithic sepulchre containing three trepanned crania was opened at
Dampont, near Dieppe. The operation had been as neatly executed as if
it had been performed by one of our most distinguished surgeons. As
at Crecy, the sepulchral crypt was divided into two chambers, and the
slab between them was pierced with a square opening,[193] -- a fresh
example of the curious practice of making openings, of which we have
spoken in treating of so many different regions, often apparently
completely cut off from communication with each other.
Beneath the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), in the west of France, was
found a skull, and at Lizieres in the same department, the skeleton
of a tall old man with a dolichocephalic skull and platycnemic tibiae
bearing traces of old wounds badly healed. The bony tissue of the
skull was in an unhealthy state and the trepanation had evidently
been part of medical treatment. At Saint-Martin-la-Riviere (Vienna),
a tomb dating from Neolithic times contained five trepanned crania,
on one of which the perforation had been made by scraping. In this
tomb was also found a round piece of skull with a hole in it, which
had doubtless been used as a pendant. The other objects found in
this sepulchre were of a remarkable character, and included hatchets
made of coralline limestone, jade, fibrolite, and serpentine, the
blades of flint knives, arrows, some feathered, others stalked, some
necklace beads, and a number of vases, some apodal, others with flat
stands, and nearly all without any attempt at ornamentation. Beneath
a dolmen near St. Affrique, M. Cartailhac discovered a skull with two
holes in it; one near the bregma, which had been made during life,
and the other on a level with the lambda, which had not been made
until after death.[194] We cannot now note the important conclusions
founded on these two perforations, we must be content with adding
here that the tomb contained four other skeletons with crania
showing no trace of trepanation; the tibiae were platycnemic and
the humeri had the so-called perforation of the olecranon farces,
which certain anthropologists, as I think without sufficient reason,
consider characteristic of inferior races. We must mention yet one
more discovery which it will not do to omit. A human parietal with a
piece missing that had evidently been taken out, was found beneath
the rock-shelter of Entre-Roches near Angouleme. The skull bore
very evident traces of the performance of an operation which may or
may not have been executed during life. Was it done to remove the
diseased bone -- for it was diseased -- in the hope of prolonging
life? Did the patient die under the hands of the surgeon, or was
the piece of bone taken out after death to be used as an ornament or
an amulet? Any one of these hypotheses is possible, and all we can
say for certain is that there is no sign of the wound having been
healed in any way. This is a common thing enough, and the interest
of the discovery arises from a different cause. The rock-shelter
of Entre-Roches is supposed to date from Paleolithic times, and if
it were certain that there has been no displacement of the soil on
which the parietal was found, it is to be concluded that trepanation
was practised in the Quaternary period when man was living amongst
the large extinct pachydermata and felidae. But it will be difficult
to admit this unless other discoveries confirming it are made. If,
however, we cannot prove that trepanation was practised in France
in Palaeolithic times, we can assert that it was continued down to
the earliest centuries of the Christian era. One remarkable case
of trepanation was found, for instance, in the Merovingian cemetery
near St. Quentin; and a trepanned skull was recently exhibited at a
meeting of the Anthropological Society in Paris, which had been found
beneath a Merovingian tomb at Jeuilly. The patient had long survived
his wound. The skeleton was found in a stone trough, narrower at the
foot than at the head. The skeleton of a man between forty and fifty
years of age was found in a Frank cemetery at Limet, near Liege. On
the left parietal of the skull was an oval hole as big as a pigeon's
egg, bearing traces of having been medically treated. The patient,
like the man of Jeuilly, certainly survived the operation. His tomb,
as were the resting-places of his neighbors in death, was covered over
with a huge unhewn stone, and beside him lay another skeleton. A few
nails and bits of wood were the only things found in the tomb. We
may also mention the skeleton of a Frank of between fifty-five and
sixty-five years of age with a trepanned skull, found by M. Pilloy,
in a cemetery of the St. Quentin ARRONDISSEMENT, which also contained
numerous objects dating from the sixth century A.D.
So far we have only spoken of France, but similar facts are reported
all over Europe, and the difficulty really is to make a selection. Some
round pieces of skull, like those of Lozere, have been picked up in
Umbria[195]; and a skull, bearing traces of an operation, the aim
of which was to remove a portion of the left parietal, was found in
the Casa da Mouva (Portugal), which dates, as do so many in France,
from Neolithic times.
Goss mentions a discovery in one of the pile-dwellings of Lake Bienne,
of a skull with a large hole in it with bevelled edges. There is no
trace of this wound having healed, and the patient had evidently died
soon after the operation.
The Prague Museum possesses two crania found at Bilin in Bohemia;
one, of a pronounced dolichocephalic type, has near the middle of the
right parietal an opening measuring one and a half by two and a third
inches; the cicatrization is complete, and trepanation was evidently
performed long before death. The other is mesaticephalic, and bears a
round opening about one and a half inches in diameter. Dr. Wankel, to
whom we owe these details, is well known through other discoveries; his
excavations in the Bytchiskala Cave brought to light the skeleton of a
young girl of ten or twelve years old, who bad undergone the operation
of trepanation. The wound, which was on the right side of the forehead,
was half healed. The child still wore the ornaments she had been fond
of in life -- bronze bracelets and a necklace of large glass beads.
Discoveries of a similar character succeeded each other in Bohemia, and
in nearly every case the operation of trepanation had been performed
on the upper part of the forehead. Not very long ago it was reported
to the Anthropological Society of Berlin that in excavating two tombs
containing the remains of burnt bodies at Trupschutz, on the west
of Brux, some fragments of skull were picked up, showing traces of
trepanation. The edges of the wound in this case bad been healed,
and the patient had lived on after the operation. Professor Virchow
came to the same conclusion with regard to a skull from a Neolithic
tomb which bore on the right parietal traces of an ancient cicatrized
wound. He also tells us of the finding in Poland of a round piece of
skull which had evidently been worn as an amulet.[196]
In the north of Europe similar discoveries have been made. At Borreby,
in Denmark, a skull was found from which large pieces had been taken;
and another from beneath a dolmen at Noes, in the island of Falster,
had a hole in it no less than two and a quarter by one and three
quarter inches in size. In the one case the holes were parts of a
wound to which the victim had succumbed; in the other the edges were
too regular to have been caused by traumatism. A Russian skull, a cast
of which has recently been presented to the Italian Anthropological
Society, bears traces of two trepanations; one performed during life,
the other after death. The former had evidently been caused neither
by illness nor by a wound.
General Faidherbe discovered at Roknia, in Algeria, two trepanned
skulls, dating from a remote antiquity, in one of which the wound is
half an inch in diameter, and shows no sign of cicatrization; and
travellers speak of evident traces of similar operations on skulls
dating from the time of the Ainos;, the ancestors or predecessors
of the Japanese at the present day; and if we cross the Atlantic,
we shall meet with instances of trepanations executed in a similar
manner, and probably for similar reasons.
We meet with numerous examples of trepanation in America, and fresh
discoveries are daily made by the energetic men of science in that
country. Dr. Mantegazza[197] mentions three examples of trepanation
from Peru, which are of very great interest. One skull, still bound
up in many cloths, was found in the Sanja-Huara Cave (province of
Anta), which had been twice trepanned, and on which yet two more
attempts at trepanation bad been made. The latter seem to have taken
place at different times, and death seems to have succeeded the last
operation. Another skull which had belonged to an adult of Huarocondo
has two frontal openings close to each other; the upper, of elliptical
shape, is of large size and was evidently made after death. Yet another
skull from the province of Ollantay-tambo bears a double trepanation,
evidently made during life. The healing of the parietal opening proves
that it was made before the wound in the forehead, in which the edges
have remained rough. Dr. Mantegazza thinks that in the two first
cases the operations took place after the patient had been wounded,
but that in the third, the patient operated upon bad been epileptic
or perhaps even insane. We find it difficult to follow the learned
professor here, as w e are ignorant of the grounds for his conclusions.
We give an illustration (Fig. 81) of a trepanned skull found in a
cemetery in the Yucay valley. A square piece has been cut out by
making four regular incisions. The bone shows traces of an ancient
inflammation, and many eminent surgeons, including Nelaton and Broca,
have not hesitated to attribute the opening, large as it is (seven by
six inches), to a surgical operation. If the incisions are carefully
examined it is easy to see that they were made with the help of a
pointed instrument, such as a clumsily made drill, for instance. Each
incision must have taken a long time to make, and we note with ever
increasing astonishment that the ancient Peruvians were not acquainted
with the use of iron or steel, and that the hardest metal they employed
was bronze.
FIGURE 81
Trepanned Peruvian skull.
A few years ago a sepulchre was opened at Chaclacayo, at the foot
of Mount Chosica, not far from Lima. In this tomb lay three mummies,
of a man, a woman, and a child. Near them lay a human skull, having
about the middle of the forehead an opening, measuring some two and
a half by two inches. It is of polygonal form, and eight different
incisions can easily be made out, which appear to have been made
with some notched stone implement. On raising a strip of skin, still
adhering to the skull, there was seen on the front part of the sagittal
suture a very small perforation, the result either of a wound or of
an operation which bad taken place during life. It has been suggested
that the piece of bone taken from the skull had been used to make
a lance or arrow-head, which was superstitiously supposed by the
owner to ensure his victory. This is, however, a mere suggestion,
of which no proof can be given.
In other party of America discoveries have been made of trepanned
skulls, supposed to date from even more remote times than those
we have just been considering. A few years ago Professor Putnam
found, in the State of Ohio, some old wells idled with cinders and
rubbish of all kinds. From one of them, which was deeper than the
others, he took several crania, some of which bore evident traces
of trepanation. From a mound near Dallas (Illinois) were taken more
than one hundred skeletons, all of adults, placed side by side in
a crouching attitude. Every one of them had a round opening on the
left temple, and in some of these wounds the flint implement which
had produced them was still imbedded. It is very evident that we have
here tokens of some funereal rite, the meaning of which is uncertain,
though it was evidently practised also in districts very remote
from Illinois. To mention yet other examples, the excavation of a
tumulus of irregular form near Devil's River (Michigan) has brought
to light five skeletons buried u right, whilst a sixth lay in the
centre of the tumulus, which was evidently, if w e may so express it,
the place of honor. On each of the six crania a perforation had been
made after death.
A number of crania and parts of crania on which trepanation had
been performed have also been taken from several mounds on Chamber's
Island, from beneath the mound in the neighborhood of the Sable River,
near Lake Huron, and near the Red River[198] Gillman thinks that the
Michigan trepanations, which bad been made with clumsy tools, were
simply holes for hanging up skulls as trophies, as is still customary
amongst the Dyaks of Borneo; but this seems scarcely a tenable
hypothesis, for as a rule the skeletons lying in their last home are
complete. Quite recently were discovered, beneath a tumulus near Rock
River, eight skeletons, the skull of one of which bore a circular
perforation made during life, which rather upsets Gillman's theory.
But to resume our narrative. The trepanations reported from North
America are generally posthumous, and we can prove nothing as to their
origin. Were they marks of honor made in some religious rite? Were
they openings to allow the spirit of the departed to revisit the body
it had abandoned? or, to suggest a far more worldly and revolting
motive, were they merely holes through which to pick out the brains
of the dead. A missionary, in a letter dated from Fort Pitt (Canada)
in 1880, describes the mode of scalping practised by the Redskins,
and says that they often take a round piece of skull as well as the
scalp. May not this be a case of atavism, or the transmission of a
custom from one generation to another, for the origin of which we must
go back to the most remote ages? In the present state of our knowledge,
insufficient as it is, this explanation is the most. plausible.
It is even more difficult to come to a satisfactory conclusion
with regard to European examples of the practice we have been
describing. Trepanation was certainly practised in the treatment of
certain diseases of the bone, such as osteitis or caries. Professor
Parrot mentions a case worth quoting.[199] A few years ago several
skeletons were found at Bray-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne) with numerous
objects, such as polished stone hatchets, bone stilettos, shell
necklaces and ornaments, all undoubtedly Neolithic. One of the crania
had been trepanned, the position of the operation showing that its
object had been to treat an osteitis. The operation had succeeded,
and the cicatrization of the bones, both about the wound and in the
parts originally affected, shows that recovery was complete. This
is the only example we have of an operation executed with a view
to curing a disease that can actually be seen, and it enables us to
conclude that these men, of whom we know so little, had some notion
of surgery. Were trepanations also practised to cure epilepsy or to
heal mental affections? From the earliest times the seat of these
troubles was always supposed to be the brain, and an ancient book of
medicine recommends as a remedy the scraping of the outside of the
skull.[200] In a recent book ("De la Trepanation dans l'Epilepsie par
le Traumatisme du Crane"), Echeverria mentions several cases of cure by
trepanation when epilepsy had been the result of an injury. Observation
may have led our prehistoric ancestors to discover this. May we date
this custom then from prehistoric times? It is very difficult to
decide with certainty either for or against it.
Of one thing, however, we may be quite certain. The cranial
perforations so much like one another reported from districts so remote
and different in character, cannot be accidental. It is impossible
to attribute to chance the occurrence of injuries of exactly the
same size in crania of totally different origins. Setting aside
the Entre-Roches skull, the antiquity of which does not seem to us
sufficiently established, we find this custom maintained throughout
the period characterized by the use of polished stone weapons and
implements, the erection of megalithic monuments, and the domestication
of animals. It was practised by the men of the cave of L'HOMME MORT
at the beginning of the Neolithic period, and was still in use at
Moret when metals began to be known. The discoveries of Dr. Wankel,
the excavations of the tumulus of Guisseny, prove that trepanation
was continued throughout the Bronze age, whilst the Jeuilly and Limet
tombs show that it was not discontinued even in Merovingian times.
The long continuance of such a practice is a very interesting fact,
and we may mention a yet more curious one. How are we to explain
trepanations that had no apparent motive on crania showing no symptoms
of disease? How account for the repetition at different tunes of this
operation, first on the living subject and then on the corpse, as at
St. Affrique, Bougon (Fig. 82), at Feigneux (Oise), where Dr. Topinard
has recently made excavations in a Neolithic cave and reports that a
dolichocephalic skull of the same type as the crania of the cave of
L'HOMME MORT, belonging to a man of about thirty years of age, bore
two perforations, one made during life, the other after death? The
first measured two and a third by two and a half inches, and was
surrounded by scratches, showing how clumsy the operator had been.[201]
FIGURE 82
Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sevres), seen in profile.
In nearly every case the subjects operated on were young, and long
survived the operation. The knowledge of this fact was from the first
a very useful guide in the study of the subject of trepanation,
and eagerly pursued researches constantly confirm it. One skull,
for instance, from the cave of L'HOMME MORT (Fig. 83), had a
large opening produced partly by an old operation and partly by two
posthumous trepanations. The subject had been trepanned in childhood
or early youth. There could be no doubt on that point; cicatrization
had been complete, the bony tissue having returned to its original
condition. Then after death, at an adult age, the relations or friends
of the deceased had cut out further round portions of the skull as
near as possible to the old wound, probably with a view to keeping
these pieces as amulets.
FIGURE 83
Trepanned prehistoric skull.
This was to Broca a flash of illuminating light, and according to
him was in some cases a religious rite, a ceremony of initiation,
perhaps even a custom inculcated by an established religion. The
child who had been subjected to it and had survived -- as probably
most of the victims did survive, -- attained to a certain position and
celebrity in his life, and after his death the fragments of his skull,
especially those portions near the old wound, became treasured relics,
and were in the end buried with their fortunate possessor on his death.
This superstition appears to have long survived even in historic times,
and a Gallic chain is quoted[202] on which hung a round piece of skull
with three holes in it. In. deed, these ornaments were so much sought
after that counterfeits of them were made; at least, we cannot in any
other way account for the occurrence of objects exactly resembling
round pieces of human crania, but in reality made out of pieces of
a stag's antler found in the Baumes-Chaudes Cave.
Yet another point deserves mention. It was evidently considered
undesirable that the crania from which pieces had been taken should
be left in a mutilated condition, and therefore pieces front other
crania were taken to fill up the gap, so that, says Broca,[203]
a new life was evidently supposed to await the dead, for otherwise
what object can the restitution have served?
Dr. Prunieres is also of opinion[204] that the introduction into the
crania of certain deceased persons of round pieces from other skulls
implies the belief in another life. This explanation, hypothetical
as it is, is really very plausible, and it is a pleasant thought that
our remote ancestors had faith in a future life; which faith is alike
the greatest honor and the greatest comfort of humanity. Is not yet
another more striking proof of the belief in a second existence to
be found in the number of objects placed in tombs at all periods of
time and in every part of the world? It is this belief, raising man
as it does above the material needs of his daily life, which forms
the true grandeur of the human race, and if a nation once loses it
it is sure to relapse into barbarism.
When trepanning was the fashion there is no doubt that the operation
was performed in many different ways. Posthumous trepanations were
accomplished with the aid of a flint implement used as a chisel or
a saw. There was greater difficulty about an operation on a living
subject. Broca is of opinion that it was done with a drill turned
round and round in the skull in the way the French shepherds still
treat diseases of the crania in their sheep. The elliptical form
of the wound seemed to him to prove this, and he was further of
opinion that when an opening had been drilled in the skull at the
point chosen, the trepanation was completed by scraping the bone
with a small flint blade.[205] Discoveries made since the death of
the great French anthropologist, however, compel us to modify this
opinion. The inflammation of the bone noticed along the edges of the
trepanation proves that a notched implement was used to saw out the
piece of skull.[206]
However the operation may have been performed, it is not one
of great danger to the patient or of great difficulty to the
operator. Experiments on animals with Quaternary flint implements
have always been successful, and have had no tragic results, which
is the best proof we can possibly give.
The size of the perforations made varies ad infinitum. One, the
largest known, is described which is no less than sixteen inches in
diameter.[207] Examples are known of the trepanation of every part of
the skull, even of the forehead, which at one time was supposed to have
escaped. We have ourselves given instances of frontal trepanation,
and Dr. Prunieres mentions eleven cases in which the forehead had
been operated on.
To conclude, we must repeat that trepanation is not really a dangerous
operation, and the reason it is nearly always followed by the death of
the subject in our own time is because it is never attempted except in
desperate cases, and the fatal result is really caused by the cerebral
disease, on account of which the operation was performed. History
tells us of its practice in very ancient times; Hippocrates speaks of
it as often resorted to by Greek physicians. It is performed in the
present day by the Negritos of Papua and the natives of Australia and
of some of the South Sea Islands, where it is considered efficacious
in many maladies. We also find it practised by the rough miners of
Cornwall and the wild mountaineers of Montenegro.[208] An army doctor
who travelled in Montenegro a few years ago said that it was no rare
thing to meet men who had been subjected to trepanation seven, eight,
or even nine times. It is an interesting question, though we must not
enter into it here, whether many races could stand such a number of
operations as this.
The only instance we know in the present day of trepanation practised
as a religious rite, is met with among the Kabyles, who are established
at the foot of Mount Aures on the south of the Atlas. The operation
is performed among them by the THEBIBE, one of their priests, by
the aid of a simple gimlet which he turns rapidly round between his
fingers. Among the Kabyles are men who have submitted to an operation
of this kind several times.
We have now passed in review the weapons of prehistoric peoples,
the wounds they caused, and the modes of healing them known to our
ancestors; we have still to study the modes of defence resorted to
by them in face of the many dangers by which they were surrounded;
but the importance of this subject is such as to deserve separate
consideration.
CHAPTER VII
Camps, Fortifications, Vitrified Forts; Santorin; The Towns upon the
Hill of Hissarlik.
Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most
lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle
between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever
since the days of primeval man. History is but one long account of
wars and conquests, victories or defeats, and progress is chiefly
marked in inventions which made battles more sanguinary and added
to the number of victims slaughtered. At the very dawn of humanity
man learned to make weapons; very soon, however, weapons ceased to
appear sufficient. The first fortification was doubtless the cave,
which its owner strengthened by closing the entrance with blocks of
stone and piles of broken rock, or by digging deep trenches about it.
Population rapidly increased and war was declared between tribe and
tribe, nation and nation, race and race. Terrible must have been
the struggles between invaders and the original possessors of the
soil. Means of defence were multiplied to keep pace with new modes of
attack, and our ancestors of the Stone age were intelligent enough to
make places of refuge in which on necessity they could shelter their
wives and children, and later, when they became sedentary, their flocks
and their stores of grain. In many different localities we find the
remains of camps and fortifications, which, to avoid using a more
ambitious term, we may characterize generally as enclosures.[209]
These primitive enclosures, says Bertrand in his "Archeologie Celtiquc
et Gauloise," may have been very much more numerous than is supposed,
if we include amongst them, as it appears we ought, many ruins long
thought to date from the Roman era.
There is no doubt as to the purpose served by the camps, but we are not
prepared to speak as positively as does Bertrand as to their origin,
and the difficulty of deciding is very greatly increased on account
of these camps having been successively occupied at different epochs
by different peoples. Bearing in mind this reservation, we will now
sum up to the best of our ability all that is so far known about the
most important remains hitherto examined.
The residence of prehistoric man in the rich districts between
the Sambre and the Meuse is proved by worked flints, fragments of
pottery, and human bones dating from most remote times. The stations
successively occupied were situated near watercourses or copious
springs, and, where possible, on isolated escarped plateaux surrounded
by ravines. Hastedon, about a mile and a quarter from Namur, is one
of the best examples we can quote.[210] The camp, first made out in
1865, formed a long square, covering some thirteen hectares, or about
thirty-two acres. It is situated on an isolated mound connected with
the main plateau by an isthmus 227 feet long, and is protected on the
south and west by a deep ravine: To these natural defences men had
added important works to those parts that were accessible. The cutting
of trenches a few years ago brought to light walls of a mean thickness
of more than nine feet, formed of masses of rock and sand and round
pieces of wood parallel with a REVETEMENT of dry stones surmounted
by a palisade consisting of three pieces of wood parallel with the
walls, and seven perpendicular traverses. All the wood was charred;
the besieged had evidently been driven out by fire. Excavations led to
the finding of Roman coins; this and the resemblance of the palisades
to those described by Caesar,[211] the very name of Hastedon, and
the tradition everywhere prevalent in the district, that this bad
been the site of a Gallic Roman camp, led to the general adoption of
that opinion. In fact, Napoleon III. actually ordered excavations
to be made in the hope of finding traces of the Atuatuques, one of
the roost warlike of the tribes of northern Gaul; but side by side
with historic relics were no less than ten thousand flints. These are
chiefly merely chips or nuclei which had served as hammers, or long
thin slices, with some few arrow- and lance-beads often skilfully
cut, some polished hatchets, and saws with fine teeth. Nearly all
are notched and worn with use, which does away with the idea that
the place where they were found was the site of a workshop such as
I have already described. With these worked flints were found some
fragments of coarse pottery, which could not possibly be confounded
with Roman or Gallic work. The flints and pottery, and the walls put
together without cement, point to the conclusion that if the camp of
Hastedon was occupied by the Roman legions, it was long previous to
their day inhabited by some Neolithic race, ignorant of the use of
any but stone weapons and implements.
The camp of Pont-de-Bonn in the commune of Modave (Namur) very
much resembles in its arrangement that of Hastedon.[212] A mound
stands out upon the plain protected on the north and west by rocks
difficult of access and connected with the main plateau by a very
narrow tongue of land. Outside we can make out regular trenches
parallel with each other, and connected by a wall of masonry, at the
foot of which wall were picked up a good many iron nails. Inside the
ENCEINTE itself worked flints were associated with Roman coins. Are
not these proofs in the first place of a long Neolithic occupation,
then of the residence of Gallic Romans, and yet later of even more
modern people of whom the masonry walls and iron nails are relics?
Limburg also contains some defensive works, many centuries old,
which are as yet but little known. We may mention amongst them the
so-called dyke of Zeedyck, near Tongres, a formidable intrenchment
some 2,186 yards long by more than 325 feet wide at the base, and of
a height varying from 49 to 65 feet; the earthen ramparts of Willem
on the Geule, the not less important ones of Houlem, with many others
far away from the great highways of communication, but within the
limits of the two provinces of Liege and Limburg.[213]
A few years ago Bertrand said that there are in France some
four hundred earthen ENCEINTES, only sixty of which contain
relics connecting them with the Gallic Romans. Since Bertrand's
announcement this number has been greatly increased, thanks to eagerly
prosecuted local researches. De Pulligny mentions a hundred in Upper
Normandy[214]; Martinet says they are very numerous in Berry; one
of the most remarkable, the quadrilateral of Haute-Brenne, covered
an area of nearly three thousand acres.[215] Amongst the forests on
the Vosges Mountains were discovered long single and double walls,
the course of which follows the crest of the ramparts overlooking the
valley of the Zorn, between Lutzelbourg and Saverne.[216] At Rosmeur,
on Penmarch Point (Finistere), Du Chatellier excavated two tumuli
which appear to have been connected with a series of defensive works
encircling the whole promontory.[217] It would be merely fastidious
to multiply instances, we will content ourselves with describing a
few of the most interesting of these antique fortifications.[218]
The camp of Chassey (Saone-et-Loire) may be compared with those
of Belgium. It is situated on a plateau 2,440 feet long by a width
varying from 360 to 672 feet. A huge natural rocky barrier rises on
the south and east, whilst on the northeast and southwest we find
two important intrenchments made of huge blocks of stone with a
REVETEMENT of earth. One of these intrenchments is 45, the other
only 29 feet high. There is no trace inside of springs, and the
inhabitants must always have had to obtain their water-supply by
artificial means. The cisterns now in this camp appear to have been
dug out with iron implements, and are certainly of later date than
the first occupation of the plateau. Numerous objects picked up in
the Chassey Camp belong to Neolithic times, but the people who have
occupied it since those remote days, the men of the Bronze and Iron
ages, the Gauls, the Romans, and the Merovingians, have so turned over
the ground that products of industries, completely strange to each
other, are everywhere mixed together in inextricable confusion.[219]
There were originally a good many hearths about the camp, and it was
near to one of them that the spoon was found, figured in an earlier
chapter of this book (Fig. 25). With it were picked up polished
fibrolite, basalt, chloromelanite, serpentine, and diorite hatchets;
evidently made in the neighborhood, as is proved beyond a doubt by the
numerous chips and partly worked pieces lying about, as well as the
discovery of no less than thirty polishers, many of them showing signs
of long service. Bone implements of all kinds and whistles made of
the phalanges of oxen are also constantly found. Even if the presence
of these objects does not enable us to come to any final conclusion,
they are at least most useful and interesting in enabling us to put
together little by little a picture of the life of the most ancient
inhabitants of France.
The camp of Catenoy, Dear Liancourt (Oise) is arranged very much in the
same manner as that of Chassey.[220] CAESAR'S CAMP, as it is called
by the people of the neighborhood, forms a long triangle, the apex
of which rests on the eastern extremity of the plateau. Excavations
have yielded a number of Gallic-Roman objects, with some polished
hatchets, some broken, others intact, with stone and bone weapons,
resembling but for a few slight differences those we have described
so often. Numerous fragments of pottery were also picked up, which
pottery, hand-made and mixed with crushed shells, seldom has either
handles or any attempt at ornamentation. Weapons, implements, and
pottery are all alike totally different from any Roman or Gallic
work known. It is impossible to study the relics at Catenoy without
coming to the conclusion that the camp was occupied at periods prior
to Gallic and Roman times, and that there, as in many other districts,
the Latin conquerors had succeeded an unknown vanquished race.
De Quatrefages has accurately made out a series of works extending
along the left bank of the Nive, as far as Itsassou, and of which the
Pas-de-Roland marks the extreme limit. A merely superficial examination
is enough to show that these defences existed only on the side to which
access would otherwise have been easy, while the height overlooking
the river on the other side, which is impregnable by nature, has
been left untouched. Here too we find the name Caesar's Camp given
to the relics, a fact of common occurrence all over France, where
the great captain was long held in honor. Quatrefages is, however,
of opinion that the works are neither Roman, Gallic nor Celtic,
and he even arrives by a process of elimination at the conclusion
that they were erected by the Iberians, who preceded the Aryans, and
have left so deep an impress on all the countries they successively
occupied. We do not feel able to accept entirely this hypothesis;
but no suggestion of the eminent professor must be overlooked by
those who earnestly seek with unbiassed minds to ascertain the truth.
Gregory of Tours relates that at the time of the invasion of the
Vandals, the Gabali took refuge with their families in the CASTRUM
GREDONENSE, and there, for two years, energetically resisted the
invaders.[221] Greze, now a little market town of the department of
Lozere, is the CASTRUM of which the old French chronicler speaks,
and Dr. Prunieres there collected forty stone hatchets, differing
in no material respect from others found in such numbers elsewhere,
with flint knives and scrapers, bone stilettos, and millstones,
doubtless used for grinding grain, all of which are to the learned
French professor proofs of the existence there of a Neolithic station
before the historic period.
In the department of Alpes-Maritimes a series of defensive works
crown the circle of mountains which rise from the shores of the
Mediterranean. These intrenchments certainly date from a remote period,
though we cannot assign them to any definite time, and the fact that
they have been repaired at different epochs proves that they were
successively occupied.[222] They consist principally of circular or
elliptical ENCEINTES surrounded by walls of stones without mortar,
and they vary in diameter from some 39 to 328 feet. One of the largest
is that on the Colline des Mulets, above Monte Carlo.
FIGURE 84
Prehistoric spoon and button found in a lake station at Sutz
(Switzerland).
Although the pile-dwellings of Switzerland and of the TERREMARES of
Italy would appear to have been in themselves protection enough,
their inhabitants did not neglect other means of defence, from
which we may gather that they were engaged in constant and terrible
struggles. The TERREMARES were generally surrounded by a talus
or rampart of earth, with an external fosse which protected the
approaches to the dwellings. The rampart of Castione (Parma), which
dates from the Bronze age, was even strengthened inside with large
timber caissons.[223] In Switzerland, some works recently undertaken
to deflect the course of the Aar, on its exit from Lake Bienne, have
led to the discovery of a village of the Stone age, with the bridges
leading to it and the little forts intended to protect it.[224] As
have the neighboring settlements, this station has yielded a great
many arrows, hatchets, scrapers, and harpoons. We give an illustration
of a curious marrow spoon, and of a round object which seems to have
been a button (Fig. 84), as they mark the progress made.
Great Britain is intersected by lines of fortifications of unknown
origin, but certainly of extreme antiquity. We may mention Dane's
Dyke, Wandyke, the Devil's Dyke at Newmarket, and Offa's Dyke,
running from the Bristol Channel to the Dee, and dividing England from
Wales. Ancient camps and intrenchments, Sir John Lubbock tells us,
crown the greater number of the hills of England. General Pitt-Rivers
explored several of these camps in the county of Sussex. Many extend
over considerable areas, and all contain numerous worked flints and
other relics of prehistoric industry. These relics are met with in
great numbers at the base of the intrenchments, so that we may justly
conclude that they date from the same epoch.
The most celebrated of these camps is that of Cissbury, three miles
north of Worthing. We may also mention that of Hod-Hill in Dorsetshire,
which greatly resembles the one at Cissbury, but we will describe the
latter in some detail.[225] It is situated on a somewhat lofty plateau
of irregular form, its site having been chosen with great skill as
one offering great facilities for defence. The earthen ramparts and
the fosses protecting them cover an area of sixty acres, and their
importance varies according to the relief of the ground; thus the
thickness of the walls is very much greater on the eastern side where
an attack would have been most fraught with danger; four doors give
access to the interior, and on each side of these doors are ruins of
rectangular structures strengthening their defence. Archaeologists,
however, are of opinion that these redoubts, though their construction
is exactly similar to the rest of the fortifications, are of more
recent date. In fact Roman tiles have been found amongst the ruins,
but these really prove nothing, as every one is agreed that Cissbury
was occupied by the Romans after the subjugation of England by them;
and the only point at issue is really whether the walls of which
the ruins still remain date from the Roman period, or from times
prior to their arrival. We ourselves lean to the latter opinion,
as drinking-water is absolutely wanting; a very important point, as
the Roman generals always made it their first care to pitch their
camps near a good water-supply. On the western slope at Cissbury
on each side of the ramparts are fifty funnel-shaped depressions,
some of which are as much as seventy feet in diameter and twelve feet
deep. These holes may have served as refuges, and the larger ones were
certainly lived in, as is proved by the charred stones of the hearths
and the pieces of charcoal found near them; moreover, Tacitus[226]
tells us that the Germans lived in similar habitations. Whatever,
however, may have been their ultimate use, these hollows were in the
first place dug out with a view to obtaining flints in the marly chalk
forming the bill; and recent excavations have revealed the existence
of galleries connecting the depressions. When they became later human
habitations some of the inside openings were blocked up with lumps of
chalk, carefully piled up so as to make entrance extremely difficult,
greatly adding to the security of the inmates.
Thirty of these shafts were excavated in succession; and amongst the
rubbish of all kinds with which they were filled were found some well
cut celts, showing no trace of polish, and some weapons or tools of
the Mousterien type. The number of half-finished implements, and the
even greater quantity of chips, points to these shafts having formed a
centre of manufacture. Many of the implements were made of stag-horn,
and amongst them we must mention some picks which, curiously enough,
exactly resemble those of Belgium and the south of France.[227]
Similar wooden picks are found in the copper mines of the Asturias,
in the salt mines of Salzburg, and in a petroleum well recently opened
on the frontier between the United States and Canada. In all these
localities traces can be made out of ancient mining operations. But
to return to Cissbury: from amongst the prehistoric ruins there were
also taken, numerous fragments of pottery, not at all like Roman
ware, with the bones of the horse, goat, boar, and ox, all still
represented in the fauna of England; with oyster-shells, and the
shells of both land and sea mollusca, of species still to be found
in Great Britain. But no trace has so far been discovered of metals,
and neither the flint implements nor the bones of animals have any of
the marks of rust so characteristic of the Bronze and Iron ages. Must
we not then conclude that these shafts were sunk at a time long prior
to the earliest historic period?
The walls of the subterranean galleries of Cissbury bore not only
cup-shaped ornaments, strive, and curved or broken lines, recalling
those on the megalithic monuments of Scotland and Ireland; but Park
Harrison has made out some regular RUNES, or written characters, of
which a reproduction was shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1878. This
last fact is the more curious, as Sayce discovered in a passage giving
access to a cave near Syracuse some characters somewhat similar
in form, to which he assigns a proto-Phoenician origin. We may add
that certain characters made out at Cissbury, differing but little
from the modern letter B or the figure 6, are also found in the
most ancient Palmyrian, Copt, and Syrian alphabets. Were this fact
completely established, still more, if it were corroborated by other
analogous facts, we should in it have a very valuable indication of
the relations of England with the most ancient known navigators.
Germany also contains some ancient fortifications, of which the most
remarkable are the HEIDENMAUER of Saint Odila, near Hermeskiel,
between the Moselle and the Rhine. Huge stones, piled up without
cement, form a triple ENCEINTE, but there is nothing to connect these
remains with prehistoric times. It is the same with the intrenchments
in the Grand Duchy of Posen, the existence of which was announced
at a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Berlin.[228] Many
of these defensive works, notably those of Potzrow and of Zabnow,
bad been erected on piles. In the district between Thorn and the
Baltic are numerous mounds of the shape of a truncated cone, the
platform of which is surrounded by an embankment some 590 feet in
diameter.[229] Near many of these were picked up many broken human
bones, mixed together in the greatest confusion with weapon, hatchets,
and hammers, resembling Neolithic types. Everything bears witness to
the struggles of which these mounds were the scene.
Similar relies of a past still obscure are met with in the south
of Europe. Cartailhac has brought into notice the CITANIAS,
which are strange fortified towns in Portugal. On the plateau of
Mouinho-da-Moura, southwest of Lisbon, were found numerous polished
hatchets, associated with shells of marine mollusca and the bones
of mammals belonging to species still extant.[230] This station was
protected by intrenchments of so great an extent that it has been
impossible to examine the whole of them. There are also near the same
place several caves, now nearly choked up. One of them was originally a
regular tunnel; the cutting leading to the entrance was made of earth
and small stones; it contained the bones of animals, some cinders,
and four large vases of coarse workmanship. It is difficult to make
out what this cave was used for, the great confusion in which the
bones lay excluding all idea of its having been a tomb. Ribeiro had
already made out at Lycea an intrenched camp protected by clumsily
constructed walls. Inside the ENCEINTE he picked up numerous fragments
of ornamented pottery, with polished hatchets, shells, and a good
many bones of animals. He also made out several sepulchres.[231]
FIGURE 85
General view of the station of Fuente-Alamo.
The prehistoric station of LA MUELA DE CHERT in Maeztrago reminds us
of those of Portugal. It is situated on a little eminence, protected
on the north and east by the natural escarpment of the plateau,
and on other sides by a wall of some height made of stones without
mortar. Some foundations of an oval shape, on which doubtless were
built the homes of the inhabitants, can be made out in the middle of
the ENCEINTE. We can, however, but repeat here what we have said so
often elsewhere, that it is impossible to fix the exact date at which
these intrenchments were made. The discovery, however, of polished
flint hatchets, diorite lance-heads, and a few bones of ruminants
and cerviae unknown in Spain in prehistoric times, would appear to
point to a very considerable antiquity. Lastly, two young Belgian
engineers[232] have lately made out between Almeria and Carthagena a
considerable number of prehistoric stations in which can be traced
successively the different Stone ages and those of Copper and of
Bronze. Several of these stations (Fig. 85) are regular fortified
camps, protected by thick stone walls cemented with a thin layer
of clay. The fire which destroyed the habitations has left behind,
beneath the ashes and cinders, numerous objects, with the aid of which
we are able to form a picture of the life led by the men who built
the fortifications, and we know that they were agriculturists, for
the very stores of grain have been found charred and agglutinated by
fire. In the more recent stations flint, which was in the earliest time
the one material used, has disappeared and is replaced by the copper,
of which a plentiful supply was found in the rich mines riddling the
mountains. Excavations have even brought to light the workshop of
the metallurgist, with its moulds and vases converted into crucibles,
its essays at new forms, its scoriae, and lastly its finished weapons,
showing real skill in their production.
Although it is impossible to assign to them a definite date,
we must, to make this part of our work complete, say a few words
on the earthworks met with in Roumania. A former minister of that
principality, M. Odobesco,[233] classes them as VALLA, TUMULI, and
CETATI DE PAMENTU or citadels.
The VALLA include important works. One of them cuts across Valachie
parallel with the Danube and loses itself in Southern Russia. Another
crosses the north of Moldavia and Bessarabia, following a direction
convergent with the former. These VALLA, although they are known in
the country in which they occur as FOSSES DE TRAJAN, are certainly of
earlier date than the Roman occupation, and in fact Roman roads cut
across the intrenchments or fosses which have been levelled or covered
over to make way for them. Excavations of the large tumuli are not
yet sufficiently advanced for us to hazard an opinion about them. The
smaller ones, however, are seldom of Roman origin. The funeral vases
of calcareous stone which they contain bear witness clearly enough to
their destination, and also to the rite with which they were connected.
The CETATI DE PAMENTU are regular earthen fortifications set up
within short distances of each other on all the heights overlooking
the torrential rivers of Roumania. These intrenchments, generally
of round or oval form, are protected by deep fosses, parapets, and
palisades. Masses of cinders and burnt earth bear unmistakable evidence
to the cause of their destruction. All about, excavations have brought
to light coarse pottery, grindstones for crushing grain, stores of
millet which had been damaged by the flames, and a few primitively
constructed bronze idols. When the vanquished Roumanians were driven
from their intrenchments, they had evidently learned to use bronze,
but were still, as we have already remarked, unacquainted with iron,
as no object in that material has been found, nor does anything bear
any trace of rust.
Thus, throughout Europe, man, in the presence of the many dangers
surrounding him, endeavored in the very earliest times to protect by
similar means his family, his flocks, and his wealth. In America we
are able to quote facts of even more importance. The vast territory
comprised between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, between
the great lakes of Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, is intersected
with truly colossal fortifications, almost all of them made entirely
of earth. The ancient Americans knew how to protect every height and
every delta formed by the junction of two rivers with redoubts, walls,
parapets, fosses, and circumvallations. Not without astonishment we
make out a regular system of fortresses connected with each other by
deep trenches and secret passages, some of them hewn out beneath the
beds of rivers, observatories on the heights, and concentric walls,
some actually strengthened with casemates protecting the entrances. All
these works were constructed by the so-called Mound-Builders, of
whose ancestors or of whose descendants absolutely nothing is known.
All the strongholds of the Mound-Builders rise near abundant
watercourses, and the best proof that can be given of the intelligence
which guided their constructors in their choice of sites, is the
fact of the number of flourishing cities such as Newark, Portsmouth,
Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Frankfort, and New-Madrid, etc., which were
built upon the ruins of various earthworks.
It would take us too long merely to enumerate all the ancient
fortifications still existing in North America. Moreover they all
resemble each other so much that the description of a few of them is
really all that is needed to prove their importance.
Fort Hill (Fig. 5, p. 39) rises from an eminence overlooking a little
river called Paint Creek; the walls vary in height from eight to
fifteen feet, and exceed thirty feet in thickness.[234] Several doors
facilitate entrance, and one of them leads to a square ENCIENTE, the
walls of which have been almost entirely destroyed. This enclosure
probably contained the homes of the people, which may have been mere
cabins of adobes or sun-burnt bricks, or buts covered with rushes,
interlaced branches, or the skins of animals; on this point we are
reduced to guesswork. In the centre of the principal enclosure can
be made out, in almost every case, several much smaller enclosures,
each containing in their turn one or more mounds. Some think these
were consecrated to religious rites, but this is a mere conjecture,
for nothing is really known of the form of government or of the
religion of the Mound-Builders.
Forest trees have grown up on these abandoned ruins, succeeding other
vegetable growths; the huge girth of the decaying trunks proving their
longevity. Man, impelled by motives we cannot fathom, had abandoned the
districts where everything bears witness to his power and intelligence,
and the vigorous vegetation of nature once more has it all its own way.
The most remarkable group of prehistoric fortifications in North
America is perhaps that near Newark, in the valley of the Scioto. It
includes an octagonal ENCEINTE eighty acres in area, a square ENCEINTE
of twenty acres, with two others, one twenty the other thirty acres in
extent. The walls of the great circle are still twelve feet high by
fifty feet wide at the base. They are protected by an interior fosse
seven feet deep by thirty-five feet wide. According to measurements
carefully made by Colonel Whittlesey,[235] the total area covered
by these intrenchments is no less than twelve square miles, and the
length of the mounds exceeds two miles. The large entrances protected
by mounds thirty-five feet high, the avenues leading to them which are
regular labyrinths, the quaintly shaped mounds -- one, for instance,
represents the foot of a gigantic bird -- all combine to strike the
visitor with astonishment. We give a representation (Fig. 86) of a
group, not unlike that we have just described, which is situated at
Liberty (Ohio), and includes two circles and one square. The diameter
of the great circle is 1,700 feet, and it encloses an area of forty
acres, whilst that of the smaller ENCEINTE IS 500 feet; the area of
the square, each side of which measures 1,080 feet, is twenty-seven
acres. The walls are not strengthened by any ditch, and, contrary to
general usage, the earth of which they are made was dug out from the
inside of the ENCIENTE itself. We may also mention Old Fort (Greenup
County, Kentucky, successively described by Caleb Atwater, Squier, and
J. H. Lewis. It is situated forty feet above the river, and the total
length of the walls exceeds 3,175 feet. Six entrances give access
to it, and in the centre rises a mound representing some animal,
a bear probably, measuring more than 105 feet. Several small mounds,
beneath which were found human bones, cluster about the larger one.
FIGURE 86
Group at Liberty (Ohio).
FIGURE 87
Trenches at Juigalpa (Nicaragua).
We must not omit to name an extraordinary system of intrenchments at
Juigalpa, in Nicaragua, which so far as I know is quite unique. This
is a series of trenches extending for several miles (Fig. 87),
varying in width from nine and a half to thirteen feet; at equal
distances are oval reservoirs, the longest axis of which measures
as much as seventy-eight feet. In each reservoir are two or four
mounds, probably serving as watch-towers. We know nothing either of
the people who erected these singular structures or of the enemy from
whom they formed a protection. Nor can anything be guessed as to the
way in which the defence was conducted. All is involved in obscurity,
and at every turn we are compelled to repeat that prehistoric studies
are weighted with uncertainty, long and arduous study being necessary
to bring ever so little order into the chaos in which everything
connected with them is involved.
We must cursorily refer to some other fortifications which really
scarcely belong to our subject, though certain archaeologists claim
for them a prehistoric origin. We refer to the vitrified forts, which
are strange structures in which stones, such as granite and gneiss,
quartzite and basalt, have been subjected to a heat so intense as to
produce vitrification.
These vitrified forts are ENCEINTES, generally of round or elliptical
form, carefully erected where they were most needed for defence, and
protected by one or more ramparts.[236] The ramparts all bear traces of
vitrification, more or less complete, which has, so to speak, cemented
them together. The vitrification is very unequal, being complete in
some parts and scarcely noticeable in others. It is evident that the
builders did not know how to direct their fire uniformly.
Ever since 1777 vitrified forts have been known in Scotland, and
until 1837 they were supposed to exist nowhere else. About that time,
however, Professor Zippe called attention to similar ruins in Bohemia,
and later it was announced that discoveries of the same kind had
been made in various parts of France, Denmark, and Norway. Virchow
speaks of the SCHLAKEN WALLE, or ramparts of vitrified scoria, near
Kern[237] and Schaafhausen, and gave an account of them at a meeting
of German naturalists at Ratisbon. It would be easy to multiply
instances. Vitrified walls are known in the Puy-de-Dome, in which
the facing is of clay, and draught flues, for regulating and fanning
the flames, have been made out. At Castel-Sarrazin is a camp refuge
with similar dispositions,[238] and recently Daubree presented to the
Academie des Sciences a piece of porphyry artificially vitrified from
the prehistoric ENCEINTE of Hartmannswiller Kopf in Upper Alsace.[239]
It is in Scotland, however, that are situated the most remarkable
vitrified forts. A few years ago no less than forty-four were
counted. The most celebrated are those of Barry Hill and Castle Spynie
in Invernesshire, Top-O-Noth in Aberdeen, and a small fort which
rises from a lofty rock in the midst of the Strait of Bute. Vitrified
cairns also occur in the Orkney Islands, notably on the little isle
of Sanday, but the most interesting structures of the kind are Craig
Phoedrick and Ord Hill of Kissock, which rise up like huge pillars
on the hills at the entrance of Moray Firth, at a distance of three
miles from each other.[240]
Craig Phoedrick is now covered with a luxuriant vegetation of broom,
furze, and fern, with groves of firs and larches, amongst which the
explorer makes his way with difficulty to the fortifications, or rather
to the piles of massive blocks to which that name has been given. These
blocks form an acropolis of oval form, the upper part of which is a
flat terrace encircling a central basin some six and a half to nine and
a half feet deep, which may be compared to the craters of the extinct
volcanoes of Auvergne. The sides of the mound are strewn with cyclopean
blocks of vitrified granite, which evidently originally formed part
of the fortifications. It is on the eastern side, overlooking the
valley of the Ness, that the buildings are of the greatest importance;
two terraces can be made out, the lower projecting beyond the upper,
forming a double series of almost perpendicular fortifications,
constructed of vitrified blocks cemented together with thin layers of
mortar, spread without any attempt at regularity. The blocks form,
with the mortar, a conglomerate so compact that when struck with
a hammer they break without separating. Examination of fragments
under the microscope prove that they have gone through important
mineralogical transformations, under the influence of what must have
been an extremely high temperature. The heat must have been indeed
intense which could cause mica to disappear entirely, and feldspar
to melt almost completely.
The hill known as Ord Hill of Kissock is crowned, as is Craig
Phoedrick, with ruins still standing, but the vegetation about them is
so dense and thorny that it is difficult to make out the condition of
the remains. The ruins, which can only be seen from one side, appear
however to have formed part of fortifications, dating from the same
time and serving the same purpose as those of Craig Phoedrick. Were
they forts? There is certainly no sign of their having been used as
habitations. Or were they, as some archaeologists are disposed to
think, beacon houses used for warning the people of the approach of
the Norman pirates or Scandinavian Vikings, whose depredations were not
discontinued until the eighth century of the Christian era? Hypotheses
are always easy, but proofs of these hypotheses are difficult to find,
and we confess we have none to bring forward.[241]
Passing to France, we find the greater number of vitrified forts in
the Departement de la Creuse. At Chateauvieux is an ENCEINTE of oval
form, 416 feet wide at its broadest part.[242] An earthwork, 22 feet
wide at the base, serves as foundation to a wall, the outer and inner
portions of which consist of small granite stones, arranged in regular
layers. The space between the two series of small stones is filled
in with a sheet of melted granite, some twenty-four inches wide,
resting on calcareous tufa. The whole mass is completely vitrified,
and regular geodes or nodules lined with crystals and draped with
pendent drops of melted rock have been produced.
The ancient fortress of Ribandelle, of circular form, rises above the
Creuse, opposite Chateauvieux. It was successively occupied by the
Celts, the Romans, and the Visigoths, but we are unable to fix the date
of its erection or the name of the people who built it. There remain
but a few ruins at the present day, but we can make out in them the
same mode of construction as that followed at Chateauvieux. The walls
are faced with unhewn stones, the outer side of which still retains a
natural appearance, while the inner is corroded and disintegrated. In
the wall itself, separated from the facings by beds of peat mould,
are great blocks of vitrified granite. The traces of the action
of fire are specially noticeable in the upper part of the walls,
so that they were evidently finished when the fusion took place.
The site of the furnace in these forts is difficult to determine. It
was evidently not situated under any of the blocks, for the earthworks
on which they rest retain no traces of the action of fire. Nor was
it situated at the side, for the outer facings have retained alike
their original form and consistency. Nor can the furnace have been
lit on the blocks, as heat exercises its action by radiating in every
direction. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the fire was
spread with the aid of spaces left in the inside of the construction
at various points, for the vitrified mass is divided into blocks,
about nine and three fourths feet long, at very short distances from
each other.
These few examples will be enough to give some idea of the strange
vitrified forts. Many of them retain traces of Roman. occupation. The
Gueret Museum possesses a fragment from the Ribandelle walls in
which a Roman tile is completely imbedded; and M. Thuot picked up
other tiles in a similar condition amongst the ruins. This is a very
decided proof that the vitrification took place after the arrival
of the conquerors of Gaul. The weapons and tools discovered would
appear to confirm this idea, and to suggest similar explanations of
vitrification elsewhere. If so, we shall have. to admit that vitrified
forts date from the earliest centuries of the Christian era, and are
not prehistoric at all. We have, however, noticed them here on account
of the grave doubts in the matter, and because they furnish a striking
and valuable illustration of the relations existing from the most
remote tunes between widely separated races, and maintained until the
present time. In no other way can we account for the practice of the
extremely difficult and complicated operation of the vitrification
of bard rocks in districts so far apart as Norway and Scotland,
Germany and the midlands of France.
The more we think of the difficulties vitrification presents, the
greater is our astonishment. How was the fusion achieved of elements
so refractory alike in their structure and in the resistance offered
by accumulated masses of material? By what processes was heat brought
up to the 1300 degrees necessary for the fusion of granite? The
incineration and fusion of the materials of which the vitrified forts
are made, especially the granite ones of La Creuse and the Cotes du
Nord, bear witness, says Daubree, to a surprising skill and knowledge
of the management of fire in those who burned them, but these qualities
were manifested also in extremely ancient metallurgical operations. It
is quite impossible to suppose the vitrification to have been the
result of a conflagration. No fire, whether accidental or the work of
an incendiary, could be powerful enough to produce such results. The
use of petroleum in the most terrible conflagrations of our own time
-- those of the Commune in 1871, for instance -- did calcine and
disintegrate stone, but I know of no case of vitrification.
The Keramic Museum of Sevres contains several specimens which present
very notable differences to each other. Those from Chateau-Gontier
are formed of very close-grained quartzite granite of a greenish
color streaked with black. The conglomerate welding there together
is a vitrified scoria full of very small bubbles made by the escape
of gas which had not had sufficient strength to get out. The block
from Sainte-Suzanne (Mayenne) consists of quartz mixed with half
calcined grains of feldspar, bleached by the action of fused glass,
which once introduced filled up as it congealed all the vacant spaces
with a vitreous substance of light greenish-white color. The fractures
are green and bright, and are dotted with white points, which are all
that is left of the stones after their disintegration in the grip of
a heat that was alike intense and rapid in its action. The fragments
brought from Scotland differ from those just described. They consist
of small pieces of granite completely merged in a thick paste with
which they form the mass, the whole breaking together when it does
break; and the melted matter seldom has any bubbles in it.[243]
The process employed in cementing the materials of the vitrified
forts was then perfectly unique. The processes employed to obtain
the necessary heat varied according to circumstances and according
to the nature of the materials used. At Sainte-Suzanne and at La
Courbe marine salt was used as a flux. Captain Prevot[244] thinks
that the walls were smeared with a coating of clay, and that as in
the baking of bricks spaces were left between so as to produce more
intense heat. M. de Montaiglon is of opinion that the buildings were
in the first instance erected without the use of any calcareous or
argillaceous material, and that glass in a state of fusion was poured
over them afterwards, this glass consolidating them and forming with
them one indestructible mass. M. Thuot seems much disposed to share
this last opinion, but he thinks that some chemical materials such as
soda or potash were also used. Yet one other possible solution may
be mentioned, a solution which is becoming more and more generally
accepted, namely that the granite was not after all really melted,
but that the vitrification should either be attributed to the fusion
of the argillaceous mass, which has been subjected to an igneous
transformation, such as that which often takes place in furnaces for
baking bricks and in lime-kilns.[245]
Whatever explanation we may accept, however, the processes employed
certainly bear witness to a much more advanced state of civilization
than was acquired in the earliest ages of humanity. We have been
led by the great interest and mystery of the subject to dwell longer
on it than we intended, and we must hasten to return to prehistoric
times with a determination not to transgress again.
Fortifications are a proof of combined action leading to a common
end; they imply social organization, chiefs to command, workmen to
obey. A recent discovery enables us to form a very accurate picture of
prehistoric men gathered together not only for purposes of defence,
but in a society already rich, industrious, and, if we may so speak,
learning to cultivate the arts of peace.
The AEgean Sea has ever been the theatre of igneous phenomena,
and the three little islands of Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi,
which shut in the Bay of Santorin, are built up chiefly of volcanic
materials.[246] In 1573 an eruptive cone suddenly appeared; in
1707 the inhabitants of Santorin saw rise up a short distance from
their shores a rock that increased in size for several days and
then suddenly split up. This splitting up was succeeded by a great
eruption of incandescent materials; an eruption which lasted for
no less than five years, forming at the end of that time an island
some 400 feet high by 3,279 feet in circumference. In 1866, after
many violent shocks of earthquake, the ground was rent asunder on
this island and masses of volcanic matter were belched forth, whilst
on the other side of the island the soil sank to such a degree that
canoes were used to get to houses which but the day before were nine
feet above the sea-level. This eruption went on until 1870, and the
quantity of scoriae vomited forth during its continuance welded three
islets, which had hitherto been separate, to the principal island,
of which they now form part. On entering the Bay of Santorin we see on
every side banks of lava, beds of scoriae, and piles of cinders of a
purplish-gray color rising in cliffs to a height of more than 1,312
feet. All these materials are the result of innumerable eruptions,
and the central crater of the volcano is probably situated about
the middle of the bay. It is supposed that at one time a conical
mountain, from 1,958 to 2,600 feet high, rose where soundings now
give a depth of water of over 1,300 feet. A sudden break up of the
mountain probably produced this abyss, and formidable eruptions have
led to the pouring forth of immense quantities of pumice-stone. The
three islets mentioned above would be the remains of the old central
cone, and a bed of pumice-stone from 98 to 131 feet thick is spread
over the whole of their surface, telling of a violent cataclysm of
which neither history nor tradition has preserved the memory.
The letters of Pliny the Younger[247] say that the eruption of
Vesuvius which caused the destruction of Portici lasted five days,
and we know that the houses are covered with a uniformly distributed
bed of pumice-stone some thirteen feet thick, and of cinders about
three feet thick. Everything points to the conclusion that a very
similar catastrophe overtook Santorin; there too whole villages were
buried beneath cinders, stones, and molten lava, belched forth by a
volcano in action; there too men were the witnesses and the victims
of the eruption, as is proved by an accidental circumstance which
took place some twenty-three years after.[248]
The removal of the POUZZOLANA, so called after the volcanic ashes of
Pozzuoli in Italy for the works on the Isthmus of Suez, necessitated
important excavations, and the cuttings revealed the existence of
dwellings which had been bidden away from the light of day for many
centuries. The masses of rubbish hiding these prehistoric ruins
were some sixty-five feet high, and consisted chiefly of volcanic
ashes piled up, for some accidental reason, in comparatively modern
times. Beneath the POUZZOLANA a thin layer of humus contains fragments
of pottery of Hellenic origin; which marks the close of the historic
period, and covers over the mass of pumiceous tufa vomited out by
the volcano. It was in this tufa, which is eight feet thick, that the
first signs of buildings were discovered. Further excavation brought
to light two houses with doors, windows, and bearing walls. In one of
these houses there were five different rooms. Other discoveries rapidly
succeeded each other, alike in the island of Therasia and at Acrotiri,
the principal island, which has given its name to the group. The plan
of these houses is an irregular parallelogram, the angles of which are
rounded and the sides more or less curved. This arrangement differs
greatly from that adopted in Greece as well as from that in use at
Therasia after the time of the volcanic eruptions. The houses too are
quite different in their mode of construction. The walls consist of
great blocks of lava placed one above the other, without any trace
of cement or of lime, and are merely kept in place by a reddish
earth mixed with chopped straw or marine algae. Large branches of
olive or cypress trees, still with the bark on, are imbedded in the
masonry. These pieces of wood, the size of which varies considerably,
were probably added to give the necessary solidity to the walls in the
numerous earthquakes, the disastrous effects of which were only too
well known to the ancient inhabitants of Santorin. It is curious and
interesting to note the use of the same expedient among the inhabitants
of the islands of the Archipelago who are still exposed to the same
danger. The doors and windows are clumsily arched, and the roof seems
to have been a low vault. It was made of stones and coated with clay
and supported by the trunks of olive trees, the charred remains of
which lay upon the floors of the crushed homes. These trunks show
no sign of having been touched with metal tools; not a metal nail
or clamp has been found, and we cannot but conclude that the remains
belong to the age when stone alone was employed.
The inside walls were not glazed or decorated in any way, except in
one instance, that of a house at Acrotiri, from which the rubbish has
been cleared away, revealing on the walls a layer of lime on which
was some colored ornamentation which still retained an extraordinary
brilliancy when it was discovered.
In all the houses and in every room of each were found beneath the
tufa burying them masses of lava and volcanic scoriae, forming a
most eloquent witness of the cause of their destruction. Near one
of the houses of Therasia is a little cylindrical structure, about
three feet high; which cannot have been a well, as it rests directly
on impermeable lava, and was certainly not a cistern, as it is too
small for that. May it, as some think, have been an altar? We cannot
tell, and though the religious sentiment was probably no more absent
among these primitive races than it is among the barbarous peoples
of our own day, it does not do to express an opinion in the absence
of positive proof.
Successive excavations have yielded a number of objects which throw a
new light upon the manners and customs of the inhabitants. Terra-cotta
vases are more numerous than anything else (Fig. 88), and among
them preponderate large yellow vessels capable of holding about one
hundred quarts. Most of them have a clumsy brim, and a rough attempt
has been made at ornamentation by the potter with his fingers on
the damp clay. Other vases of finer clay, colored red or yellow,
are covered with ornaments and graceful arabesques; the garlands of
fruit and flowers are often of remarkably beautiful workmanship. Cups
with well-shaped rounded handles, made of some kind of red ferruginous
earth, others of gray material, were picked up in all the houses. These
various vessels were used for many different purposes; some to cook
food, the marks of the hearth being still on them, whilst others
retained some of the chopped straw with which the domestic animals
had evidently been fed. The most curious of all are those which are
supposed to represent a woman; the front part projecting and surmounted
by a narrow neck bent backwards, with two brown prominences supposed
to stand for breasts, and dots round the upper part representing
a necklace, while ear-rings are indicated by elliptical bands of
different colors. We shall have to refer again to these curious vases
when we speak of the discoveries made at Troy; we need only add now
that the pottery found at Santorin differs completely, alike in form
and ornamentation, from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan specimens,
of which the museums of Europe contain so many. They are evidently
therefore not of foreign origin, but of native manufacture. The
absence of clay in the island of Santorin has thrown some doubt
on this, however, but the researches of M. Fouque have revealed the
former existence of a large valley, at the base of the principal cone,
which valley ran down to the sea-shore near the island of Aspronisi;
and in which probably was found the clay which the potters of the
district soon learned to turn to account.
FIGURE 88
Vases found at Santorin.
With these vases were found some troughs for holding crushed grain, and
lava discs very much like those still in use among the weavers of the
Archipelago to stretch the woof of their tissues; skilfully graduated
lava weights, the correlation of which is very evident, as they weigh
8, 24, and 96 ounces; a flint arrow-head and a saw of the same material
with regular teeth; together with a great variety of other objects,
including many obsidian arrows and knives, reminding us in their
shape of those characteristic of the Stone age in North Europe.
Two rings of gold beaten very thin, and a little copper saw with no
trace of any alloy, are, so far, the only metal objects found in the
excavations. The origin of the former, moreover, is very uncertain,
and there has been much discussion as to where the rings came from. In
spite, however, of all the gaps in the evidence about them, there
remains no doubt that the inhabitants of Santorin were farther advanced
in civilization than the Lake dwellers of Switzerland, the builders
of the TERREMARE of Italy, or the Iberians of the south of Spain,
who were very probably their contemporaries; and we cannot refrain
from expressing our admiration of the wonderful progress made by the
inhabitants of the little group of volcanic islands under notice.
Before the catastrophe which overwhelmed them, Santorin was covered
with comfortable and solidly built houses. Men knew how to till the
ground, and gathered in crops of cereals, among which barley was
the most abundant, then millet, lentils, peas, coriander, and anise;
they had learned to domesticate animals, as is proved beyond a doubt
by the number of bones of sheep and goats; they kept dogs to guard
their flocks, and horses to aid in agricultural work; they knew how
to weave stuffs, to grind grain, to extract the oil from olives, and
even to make cheese, if we may give that name to the pasty white stuff
found at the bottom of a vase by Dr. Nomicos. They were acquainted
with the arch, and they used durable and brilliant colors. The copper
saw is an example of the first efforts of the natives at metallurgy;
the gold and obsidian which were foreign to the island bear witness
to commercial relations with people at a distance. They loved art,
as proved by the shape of their vases and the ornamentation on many
of them, which is really often worthy of the best days of Greece. All
around we see signs appearing as it were suddenly of a civilization,
the origin and tendencies of which are alike still unknown.
But one human skeleton has so far been found in Santorin, and that
is of an inhabitant who had evidently been overtaken in his flight
and crushed beneath the burning scoriae from the volcano. This man
was of medium height, and is supposed to have been between forty and
forty-eight years old. The bones of the pelvis are firmly consolidated,
and the teeth are worn with mastication.
Let us endeavor to guess at the period when the people of Santorin
lived. De Longperier tells us that vases similar to those left by
them are represented on the tomb of Rekmara amongst the presents
offered to Thothmes III., who lived in the eighth century B.C.,
but if so the people of Santorin appear to have borrowed nothing in
their intercourse with Egypt. The first invasion of Greece by the
Phoenicians is supposed to have been in the fifteenth century B.C.,
but the buildings, the pottery, and the various implements of Therasia
and Acrotiri differ essentially from those of the Phoenicians, who,
moreover, from the earliest times, used metals. Must we not therefore
conclude that the catastrophe which overwhelmed Santorin took place
before the fifteenth century B.C.? Conjectures as to the date of the
fatal eruption, however plausible, are of no use in anything relating
to the origin of the people, or the time of their first occupation
of the island. On these points all is still hopeless confusion, and
we must wait for further discoveries before we can hope to come to
any conclusions in the matter.
We have gone back to the very earliest days of man upon the earth;
we have shown that he was the contemporary of the mammoth and
the rhinoceros, of the cave-lion and the cave-bear; we have seen
him crouching in the deep recesses of his cave and fighting the
battle of life with no weapon but a few scarcely sharpened flints,
leading an existence infinitely more wretched than the animals about
him. Not without emotion have we watched our remote ancestors in their
ceaseless struggle for existence; not without emotion have we seen them
gradually growing in intelligence and energy, and attaining by slow
degrees to a certain amount of civilization. Santorin is a striking
and brilliant proof of their progress, and we shall appreciate this
progress yet more when we have examined the ruins piled up on the hill
of Hissarlik. There we shall close this portion of our work, for from
the time when the buildings of which these remains were the relics
met their doom, the use of metals, copper, bronze, gold, silver, and
iron became general. History began to be written, and it is her task
to tell us of the migrations of races, the early efforts of historic,
races, the foundation of empires. In a word, the prehistoric age was
over; that of self-conscious portraiture was now to begin.
A few years ago I was on the ancient Hellespont and my
fellow-travellers, grouped about the deck of our vessel, were trying
to make out on the receding coast of Asia the sites of Troy and of
the tumuli which were then still supposed to have been the tombs of
Achilles, Patrokles, and Hector, but which are now, thanks to the
able researches of Dr. Schliemann, known to belong to a comparatively
modern epoch. The streams, bearing the ever memorable names of Simois
and Scamander, were also eagerly pointed out by the watchers, recalling
the words of Lamartine:
Le nautonnier voguant sur les flots du Bosphore
Des yeux cherchait encore
Le palais de Priam et les tours d'Ilium.
Great indeed is the privilege of genius, immortalizing all that it
touches; for it must be pointed out that Troy was never an important
town, and the war in which it disappeared was in reality but one of
the incessant struggles between the petty princes of Greece and Asia.
When I visited the East, scholars were not at all agreed as to the
site of the town which was so long besieged by the Greeks; and certain
sceptical spirits even went so far as to deny that there ever was
such a person as Homer at all, or that if there were, he wrote the
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