Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples Part 9

Crannoges are artificial islets raised above the level of certain lakes in Ireland and Scotland[129] by means of a series of layers of earth and stone, and strengthened by piles, some upright, others laid down lengthwise. Wylde counted forty-six in Ireland in his time, some of them of considerable extent. That of Ardkellin Lough (Roscommon) is surrounded by a wall of dry stones resting on piles. In other places have been found the remains of stockades very intelligently set up in such a manner as to break the force of the shock of the water.

To add to the difficulties of dealing with the subject of crannoges, they were successively occupied for many centuries. They are mentioned in the most ancient Irish legends, and even in the sixteenth century they served as refuges for the kings of the country in the constant rebellions that took place. The objects taken from the lakes belong to very different epochs, and it is impossible to say anything positive as to the time of their construction.

A but found in Donegal may, however, date from an extremely remote age.[130] It rested on a thick layer of sand brought front the neighboring sh.o.r.e, and was covered over by a bed of peat slot less than sixteen feet thick. Since the hilt was deserted by man the peat had gradually acc.u.mulated till it had at last invaded the dwelling itself. The but included a ground-floor, and one story about twelve feet long by nine wide and four high. The walls consisted of beams scarcely squared, joined together with wooden mortices and pegs. The roof, which was probably flat, consisted of oak planks, the s.p.a.ces between which had been filled in with mortar made of sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements, showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel, the discoverers say, corresponded exactly with the notches around the mortices. A regular paved way, formed of sea-beach pebbles placed on a foundation of interlaced branches, led up to a hearth made of flat stones measuring some three feet every way. All about lay fragments of charcoal and broken nuts, the latter partly burnt. Another but, with an oak floor resting on four posts, has recently been discovered in County Fermanagh, beneath a deposit of peat about twenty feet thick. No trace of metal has been found in either of these Irish buts, and the thickness of the peat beneath which they lay is another proof of their great antiquity. One serious objection, however, is this: Were the Irish sufficiently advanced in prehistoric times to be able to erect dwellings implying so considerable an amount of civilization?

Crannoges are met with in Scotland as well as in Ireland, and excavations in Loch Lee have enabled explorers to make out their mode of construction. The Lake Dwellers began by piling up a number of trunks of trees in the shallower waters of a lake. They then strengthened these trunks with branches or beams about which the mud collected till the whole formed an islet. All about this islet, beneath the waters of the lake, were found various objects in stone, wood, and horn, as well as some canoes several feet long. Similar crannoges are to be seen on the lakes of Kincardine and Forfar, which Troyon thinks date from the Stone age.[131] If he be right, and we should not like to make any a.s.sertion one way or the other, the bronze objects and the enamelled gla.s.s bowls found near these dwellings prove that they were occupied by several successive generations.

It is probable that Lake dwellings were also used in Asia and in Africa from prehistoric times. History tells us that the inhabitants of Phasis, the Mingrelians of the present day, lived in reed huts on the water, and that they went from one islet to another in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oak-trees. A bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib, preserved in the British Museum, represents warriors fighting on artificial islands made of large reeds. But here w e enter the domain of history, and we must return to Neolithic times, and speak of the habitations built of more durable materials and the ruins of which are still standing.

It is impossible to say with any certainty to what period the most ancient of these structures belong. It is probable that man early learned to pile up stones, binding them together at first with clay, and then with some stronger cements. The BURGHS of Scotland, the NURHAGS of the island of Sardinia, the TALAYOTI of the Balearic Isles, the CASTELLIERI of Istria, are all ancient witnesses of the modes of building employed in the most remote ages.

BURGHS, BROCKS, or BROUGHS are numerous in Scotland,[132] and also in the islands of the Atlantic. For a long time they were supposed to be of Scandinavian origin, but Sir J. Lubbock[133] remarks With reason that no building at all like them exists in Norway or in Denmark, and it is difficult to admit the idea that the Scandinavians set up in the islands tributary to them buildings which were unknown to their own mainland. We are therefore disposed to think that these curious structures, which were inhabited until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era, are of much earlier date than the first invasion by the Northmen, and that the burgh still standing on the little island of Moussa, one of the Shetlands, is one of the best examples that we can quote. A tower, forty-one feet high, rises on the borders of the sea. The walls are of unhewn stones, piled up without cement, and they form two circles, separated by a pa.s.sage four feet wide. In each story are a series of very small openings, intended to admit air and light to the cell-like rooms inside, and to a staircase that leads to the top of the tower. The only way into this burgh is through a door only seven. feet high, and so narrow that it is impossible for two people to go in abreast.

The regularity of the building of this burgh, and the architectural knowledge. it implies, prevent our ascribing it either to the Stone or even to the Bronze age; but we find in Scotland itself more ancient examples, if we may so express ourselves, of domestic architecture. These examples are subterranean dwellings, made of rough-hewn stones of considerable size, laid down in regular courses, to which the names of EARTH-HOUSES, PICTS' HOUSES, and WEEMS have been given. The walls converge towards the centre, leaving an opening at the top, which was covered in with large flat stones. These dwellings are certainly of earlier date than the burghs, and the discovery of a PICTS' HOUSE actually beneath the ruins of a burgh enables us to speak with certainty on this point.

In Ireland similar proofs have been found of the great antiquity of roan. More than one hundred towers have been found in that country, all built of large stones, and varying in height from seventy to one hundred and thirty feet, with a diameter of from eight to fifteen feet. The most diverse origins have been attributed to these towers, from prehistoric times to the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era; from the time of the Druids to that of the Friars. According to the point of view of different archaeologists, they have been called temples of the sun, hermitages, phallic monuments, or signal towers.

We meet with a similar problem in considering the NURHAGS, as in considering the burghs. They have been justly called a page of history, written all over the surface of Sardinia by an unknown people. Count Albert de la Marmora counted three thousand of them a few years ago, and more recent explorers tell us that this number is greatly exceeded. Like the burghs, which they strangely resemble, the NURHAGS are conical towers with very thick walls made of huge stones, some Hewn, others in their natural state, arranged in regular courses without mortar. On entering one of them we find ourselves in a vaulted room, which looks exactly like one half of an egg in shape. In the upper stories are two, and sometimes three rooms, one above the other, to which access is gained by steps cut in the walls. The whole structure is crowned by a terrace (Fig. 53). We must add that the entrance to the NURHAG is through an opening on a level with the ground, and so low that one can only go in by crawling on the stomach.

Many conjectures have been made as to the use of these towers. Were they temples in which to worship, or trophies of victory? Their number is against either of these hypotheses. Were they then habitations or towers of observation? Not the former certainly, for no one could live between walls sixteen or twenty-two feet thick, shut out from air and light. Some travellers think they were tombs, but excavations have brought to light no bones or sepulchral relics. We can compare them to nothing but the Towers of Silence, on which the Pa.r.s.ees expose their dead to the birds of heaven, which are ever ready rapidly to acquit themselves of their melancholy functions.

FIGURE 53

Nurhag at Santa Barbara (Sardinia).

The origin of the NURHAGS is as uncertain as their use. Diodorus Siculus considered them very ancient, and one fact has come to light in our day which enables us to arrive at a somewhat more exact decision. The island of Sardinia was taken by the Romans from the Carthaginians in 238 B.C., and an aqueduct, the ruins of which can still be seen, was built by the conquerors on the foundations of an ancient NURHAG, so that the latter must belong to an earlier (late than the third century before our era. Fergusson, who speaks with authority on everything relating to the monuments of the Stone age, a.s.signs the NURHAGS to the mystic times of the Trojan War. In all probability they were built by an invading people. La Marmora thinks these invaders were the Libyans; M. de Rougemont, in his history of the Bronze age, says that the curved vault is the characteristic feature of Pelasgian architecture, which is often confounded with that of the Phoenicians. Although any final conclusion would be premature, we ourselves think that the builders of the NURHAGS belonged to the great stream of emigration from the East, the course of which is marked by megalithic monuments in so many parts of the world. In some instances, NURHAGS were surrounded by cromlechs, of which most of the stones have now been thrown down. Some of these stones bore prominences resembling the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a woman.

The acc.u.mulations of earth and rubbish about the NURHAGS are, some of them, from six to ten feet high. In the lower deposits have been found coa.r.s.e pottery, with no attempt at ornamentation, fragments of flint, and obsidian hatchets of black basalt, or porphyry of the Palaeolithic type, arrow-head, flint knives, stones used in slings, and numerous sh.e.l.ls; whilst in the upper deposits were picked up black pottery and fragments of bronze belonging to the transition period between the Stone and Metal ages.

All over the island of Sardinia, side by side with the NURHAGS, rise tombs to which have been given the name of SEPOLTURE DEI GIGANTI. They are from thirty-two to thirty-nine feet long by a nearly equal width, and are built,. some of huge slabs of stone, some of stones of smaller size. They are in every case surmounted by a pediment, formed of a single block, and often covered with sculptures dating from different epochs. These sepulchres are certainly of later date than the NURHAGS, and in them have been found numerous implements of bronze, but none of stone.

FIGURE 54

"Talayoti" at Trepuco (Minorca).

The TALAYOTI, of which one hundred and fifty are still standing in the island of Minorca, are circular or elliptical truncated cones, built of huge unhewn stones, laid one on the other without cement (Fig. 54). The most remarkable of all of them, that at Torello, near Mahon, is thirty-three feet high. In many cases there are two stone, one placed upright, the other across it, in front of the TALAYOTI. The meaning of these biliths is unknown.

Yet another series of cyclopean monuments are known under the name of NANETAS, and are not unlike overturned boats. Seven such NANETAS are still to be seen in the Balearic Isles. The one which is best preserved consists of large unhewn stones of rectangular shape, enclosing an inner chamber about six feet in width. The roof having fallen in, its height cannot be exactly determined; we only know that the lateral walls are some forty-five feet high.

In Algeria also have been preserved some towers built of stones without cement. Some of them are square (BASINA) and surmounted by a small dolmen, others are round (CHOUCHET) and closed at the top by a large slab of stone, as in the NURHAGS we have just described.

It is difficult to bring this account to a close without mentioning the TRUDDHI and the SPECCHIE of Otranto.[134] A TRUDDHI is a ma.s.sive conical tower consisting of a heap of scarcely hewn stones piled up without cement and with an exterior facing. Inside is a round room, the roof of which is formed by a series of circular courses of stone projecting one beyond the other. Sometimes a second chamber rises above the first, which IS reached by steps cut in the facing, which steps also lead to the platform on the top of the tower. Thousands of TRUDDHI are to be seen in Italy; they date from every epoch, and the people of Lecce and Bari continue to erect them as did their fathers before them. Side by side with the TRUDDHI rise the SPECCHIE, which are conical ma.s.ses of stone, of greater height and probably of more ancient date than the towers. Lenormant thinks they were used to live in; but his opinion has been much questioned, and it is necessary to speak on this point with great reserve.

The CASTELLIERI of Istria, which the Slavonian peasants call STARIGRAD, are as yet but little known. Doubtless an examination of them will bring out their resemblance to the NURHAGS and TALAYOTI. They are, however, more than mere towers, forming regular ENCEINTES between walls formed of two facings of dry stones, the s.p.a.ce between which is filled in with smaller stones. There are fifteen of these CASTELLIERI in the district of Albona, a little town on the southeast of Trieste. They were at first attributed to the Roman epoch, but later researches relegate them rather to prehistoric times, and the discovery near them of numerous stone implements rather tends to support this latter opinion, but it must not be considered conclusive.

Perhaps we ought also to connect with the earliest ages of humanity the stations recently discovered in Spain by MM. Siret.[135] These were evidently centres of population, surrounded by walls of a very primitive description. We shall have to refer again to these discoveries; we will only add now that in the black earth forming the soil were found worked flints, polished diorite hatchets, pierced sh.e.l.ls, with various pieces of pottery, and mills for grinding corn. So far, however though many of the stations have been explored, no trace has been found of the use of metals.

A vast period of time, countless centuries, indeed, have pa.s.sed away since the close of the Paleolithic epoch. The burghs, NURHAGS, and CASTELLIERI show the progress of civilization, and at the same time prove that this progress extended throughout Europe, and that at a time not so very far removed from our own. The close resemblance between buildings of different dates enables us to speak with certainty of the connection between the races which succeeded each other in Europe. The importance of these conclusions is very great, and will be brought out still more in our study of megalithic monuments.

CHAPTER V

Megalithic Monuments.

Megalithic monuments are perhaps the most interesting of all the witnesses of the remote past, into the history of which we are now inquiring, and of which so little is known. From the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, from the frontiers of Russia to the Pacific Ocean, from the steppes of Siberia to the plains of Hindustan, we see rising before us monuments of the same characteristic form, built in the same manner. This is a very important fact in the history of humanity, and of which it is difficult to exaggerate the importance.

What is the age of all these monuments? Were they all erected by one race, which has thus carried on its traditions front one generation to another? Were they the temples of the G.o.ds of this race, or the tombs of their ancestors? Did the people who set them up come from the East, or did they come from the North, on their way to the warmer regions of the South? These and many other questions are eagerly discussed, but in the present state of our knowledge not one of them call be answered in a perfectly satisfactory manner. SCIRE IGNORARE MAGNA SCIENTIA, said an ancient philosopher, and this is a truth which we must often repeat when we are dealing with prehistoric times.

FIGURE 55

Dolmen of Castle Wellan (Ireland).

Under the name of megalithic monuments we include TUMULI, DOLMENS, CROMLECHS, MENHIRS, and COVERED AVENUES. It may at first sight appear strange to include tumuli amongst stone monuments, but they almost always enclose a dolmen, a cist, or a crypt communicating with the outside by a covered pa.s.sage. The excavation of more than four hundred tumuli in England has brought to light now, a stone coffer made of a number of stones set edgeways and called a KISTVAEN: now of a, tomb hollowed out beneath the surface of the ground, and enclosed by huge blocks of stone.[136] Mounds are as numerous in Portugal as tumuli in England, and the fact that they are of low height has led to their being called MAMOAS or MAMINHAS, which signifies little mounds. In Poland, tumuli consist of piles of ma.s.sive stones; beneath each is a cist made of four large slabs, and containing as many as eight or ten urns full of calcined bones. The excavation of a tumulus in the plain of Tarbes brought to light an enormous block of granite resting on blocks of quartz. The s.p.a.ces between these blocks were filled in with rubble made of small stones cemented into one ma.s.s with clay. Edwin-Harness Mound, near Liberty (Ohio), is 160 feet long by eighty or ninety wide, and thirteen to eighteen high in the middle. It contained a dozen sepulchral chambers.

FIGURE 56

The large dolmen of Coreoro, near Plouharnel.

More rarely tumuli are merely artificial mounds of earth, sometimes rising to a great height. Those of North America are the most remarkable known. That of Cahokia is now ninety-one feet high,[137]

and was formerly surmounted by a low pyramid, now destroyed. Its base measures 560 feet by 720, the platform at the top is 146 feet by 310 feet wide, and it has been estimated that twenty-five million cubic feet of earth were used in its construction. Major Pea.r.s.e mentions a tumulus near Nagpore, which is 3,900 feet in circ.u.mference, and 174 feet high. Another between Tyre and Sarepta, is 130 feet high by 650 in diameter. It has never been excavated.[138]

FIGURE 57

Dolmen of Arrayolos (Portugal).

The dolmen type of monument is a rectangle of u hewn upright stones covered over with a slab laid across them; this slab being the largest block of stone that could be found in the neighborhood or obtained by the builders.

Dolmens are generally found either on the top of a natural or an artificial mound, in the middle of a plain, or on the banks of a watercourse. We must mention, amongst others, those in Persia, which are some 7,000 feet high and from twenty-one to twenty-six feet long by six wide; that near Mykenae, that of Aumede-Bas, excavated by Dr. Prunieres; that of New Grange, in Ireland, surmounted by a cromlech of stones of considerable size, many of them brought from a distance; that of h.e.l.lstone, near Dorchester, consisting of nine upright stones supporting a table more than twenty-seven and a half feet in circ.u.mference, seven feet wide and two and a half thick. The dolmens near Saturnia, one of the most ancient Etruscan towns, include a quadrangular room, sunk some feet into the earth, and having walls made of blocks of stone and a roof of a couple of large slabs, sloped slightly to let the rain run off. We give ill.u.s.trations of the dolmens of Castle Wellan in Ireland (Fig. 55), of Coreoro near Plouharnel (Morbihan) (Fig. 56), of Arrayolos in Portugal (Fig. 57), and Acora in Peru (Fig. 58), which will enable the reader to judge of the different modes of construction employed in building these megalithic monuments.

FIGURE 58

Megalithic sepulchre at Acora (Peru).

In some cases the dolmen, which alone is visible from without, is placed upon a mound, covering a hidden sepulchral chamber, whilst in others the crypt is replaced by a simple stone cist, generally of rectangular shape. We may mention in this connection the dolmen of Bekour-Noz at St. Pierre Quiberon, which is remarkable for its great size, and rises from the midst of a cemetery in which a great many coffins have been found. The bones they contained were unfortunately dispersed at the time of their discovery.