Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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The Marquis de Nadaillac >> Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
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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.
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