The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races, page 149 by E.A. Allen
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great number of inhabitants. Calculations based on the area of one of the largest settlements in Lake Geneva, gives as a result a population of thirteen hundred, but manifestly nothing definite is known.
This brief description gives us an idea of a method of constructing villages which, as we shall soon see, extended all over Europe, though varied somewhat in detail. The condition of the remains indicate that these settlements were often destroyed by fire. At such times quantities of arms, implements, and household industries would have been lost in the water, and so preserved for our inspection.
This mode of building found such favor among the early inhabitants of Europe that it continued in use through the Neolithic Age, that of Bronze, and even into the age of Iron. Passages here and there in ancient histories evidently refer to them. Though they have long since passed away in Switzerland, the Spaniards found them in Mexico, and they are still to be seen in some of the isles of the Pacific. Remembering this, we need not be surprised if we find in one small lake settlements belonging to widely different ages. Here one of the Stone Age, there one of the Bronze, or even a confused mingling of what seems to be several ages in one settlement.<9>
There is scarcely a country in Europe that does not contain examples of lake villages. From their wide distribution we infer that a common race spread over the land. We will now mention some differences in construction discovered at some places, where, from the rocky nature of the bed of the lake, it was impossible to drive piles so as to form a firm foundation. They sometimes packed quantities of stone around the piles to serve as supports in a manner as here indicated. "In all probability the stones used were conveyed to the required spot by means of canoes, made of hollowed out trunks of trees. Several of these canoes may still be seen at the bottom of Lake Bienne, and one, indeed, laden with pebbles, which leads us to think it must have founde