Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1890-04-24
PEOPLE THAT CESAR KNEW.
fsemains OF the Inhabitants OF villages Of
tho stone and Irsn Ages.

The recent discovery Of tombs of the
lake dwellers has awakened renewed
interest in the people of prehistoric
Switzerland Tourists will hardly be
content any more to pass through
Switzerland without visiting one or
more of the museums where the col
iections made from the excavated lake
dwellings are exhibited.
Perhaps the most extensive exhibition
of these relics is the one at the 'Helm
House, in Zurich. There one sees
what are in fact the greatest antiquities
of the whole world. There are hun
dreds and thousands of specimens OF
stone. wood, cloth, weapons and orna-
ments, of people whose towns were
old a thousand years before gray old
excayated Pompeii was ever thought
Of.
To Professor Ferdinand Keller before
all others the world is indebted for q
knowledge of what it probably was be-
fore the time of history. All the later
years of his life were devoted to the in-
vestigation of the lake dwellers'
villages, and no man was so competent
as he to rejuvenate those dead old
skulls and relics. lifting a thousand
years from the forgotten past into the
middle of the nineteenth century.
Keller has translated the hieroglyph.
les of the dead ages. He has explained
how the antiquarians have divided all
the prehistoric past into the ages OF
stone, of bronze, and of iron; how the
lake dwellings of Switzerland were first
discovered at Meilen, on the lake of
Zurich. in 1929, and more fully re-
yealed in 1854; and how the world
at large shut its eyes, almost, to the
great contribution made to history. He
has told, too, how the patient, hard
working investigators, of whom he is
chief, have uncovered and dug out
enough of these buried towns to prove
that our "best families" don't need to
break off their ancestral line with
William the Conquerer, or with any
other William. Those of us who think
we might be proud of our far-of pro-
genitors may yet be gratitied to see
some shrewd Yankee following our
line clear back to Orgetorix, the
youngest offspring of our Celtic grand
fathers of the lake dwellers.
IL our American tourist will take
little more time, jump on the cars, and
ride out to Robenhansen, on the lake OF
Pfaffikon, he will there witness with his
own eyes the turf beds and the lake
giving up the secrets of the age of
stone. Robenhausen is town of the
stone-age period. 1t was perhaps
on q platform built on hundred
thousand piles driven into the bottom
of the shallow lake, about three hun.
dred yards from the shore. Like all
the other Swiss lake towns it was con.
nected with the land by long bridge,
also built on piles Of course the
visitor now will see little except
chopped-off piles sticking in the peat,
and among them the debris of the vii.
lagos that have gone to ruin. Roben.
hansen had been partly burned down
and built up again on the same site, but
at intervals of ages, probably, apart.
so that the peat bed shows on being
opened three sets of piles, one above
the other. The only way of judging OF
the probable age of these lake dwell.
ings is by estimating the centuries re.
quired for peat beds to form. Reck.
oned in this manner, the age of the first
town built at the bottom of Roben.
hansen must be prodigious.
In these lake villages once lived
people as much civilized, possibly, as
are the Mexicans of to-day. They
titled the soil, they dwelt in houses,
they wove fine linen, they had article:
of luxury, and traded more or less with
other countries. OF them there are nc
written ANIMALS. History stops stock.
still with Switzerland only sixty years
farther back than the birth of Christ
The nearest reference there is in history
to these Swiss lake jewellers is where
Caesar tells how quarter of million
armed Helvetians, under Divico. burnec
down their homes and marched into
Gaul. Caesar himself, after grea
battling, defeated them. and drov'
them back into their own country.
There is now much reason to believe
that these Hclvetians were the last OF
the lake jewellers. 1t is known that
most of the lake villages were de-
stroyed by fire, and it is altogether
probable that when Caesar compelled
the people to return they established
new homes on the shore, instead of re.
building their lake dwellings, which
they had left in search of q SUMMER
CLINE and more grateful soil than
were found amid the Alps. II. II
BgerS, IN Harper's Magazine.