Lucy Kleindienst, age 15, of Parma Heights, Ohio, for her question
Who were the Lake Dwellers?
The Lake Dwellers lived in the springtime of History. The weather w^s like a lovely April, teeming with life and full of warm promises. For the long cold winter of the Ice loges wos over. The glaciers started to retreat from Northern Europe some 30,000 years ago. Rivers and lakes were swell©n and the melting ice lifted the levels of the seas. Rich vegetation sprang up in the damp earth. And all kinds of animals came up from the south to feed on it and on each other. Into this teeming springtime world the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, Lake Dwellers. They thrived in Europe from 10,000 years ago until the rise of Rome.
We know haw the Lake Dwellers lived from the ruins of their villages. These have been found near the shores of lakes in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. We can reconstruct the buildings. All sorts of weapons, ' tools, ornaments and household utensils left in the ruins give us a clear picture of daily life in the New Stone age.
Floods were common at this time and large hungry animals prowled the land. So Neolithic Man solved these problems with a house over the water. Posts were driven into the muddy floor of shallow lakes, bays, marshes and rivers. A wooden platform was built across these pilings and on this was built a wooden, thatched house.
When the floods came, the house on stilts floated off as safe as a houseboat. The home on the water was safe from hungry animals. h boy could dangle a fishing rod from his front porch. A girl could sot up a weaving loom or dry skins there for clothing. Mother had a fireplace and cooking pots. Little boats were tethered to the pilings to carry passengers to and from the mainland. end some of the larger villages were connected to the mainland by wooden causeways.
At first the Lake Dwellers made tools and weapons from flint and bong. But life was easy and they had time to think. They learned to work metals. They discovered how to make bronze, work gold and finally how to make iron. We have found. their axes, knives, chisels, harpoons, arrowheads, spears, saws end oven an anvil. The ladies had combs, bracelets and fancy hairpins.
The Lake Dwellers were settled people. Hunting was easy and game was plentiful. But they liked to have supplies near at hand. They hunted elk, bear, horse and. bison. They fed and tended sheep, goats, swine and oxen. These Lake Dwellers were herdsmen as well as hunters.
They were also farmers. On the land. near the lake villages they grew wheats barley, flax and even apple trees. Life was easy, safe and full of wonderful discoveries.
Our European ancestors were Lake Dwellers for perhaps 10,000 years or morn. But other peoples also discovered this happy way of living. Old lake dwellings of the Indians have been found. near the Amazon and in the Carolinas. And the simple peoples of Borneo and New Guinea still choose to live over the water in houses on stilts.