Jeff Hinton, age 15, of Utica, N.Y. his question:
WHO BUILT THE ANCIENT LAKE DWELLINGS?
Lake dwellings are homes or buildings, usually on platforms supported by wooden piles or posts, that have been built in the shallow waters of lakes, rivers and other inland waters. The first lake dwellings were built in ancient times by peoples of many cultural levels.
The most concentrated settlements, and the scenes of the most intensive archeological study of ancient lake dwellings, are among the lakes of Switzerland and adjacent parts of Germany, France and Italy.
In the New World, important Indian lake dwelling sites still exist among the estuaries of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers in South America.
Designers of lake dwellings followed two main plans: the crannog style, found in its most typical form in Ireland and Scotland and based on terraced stone, brush or mud mounds shored by retaining wails and short piles; and the pile dwelling proper, resting above the water on posts.
Crannog foundations were generally confined to lakes where the surf was not too strong for the primitive sea wall.
Pile structures, on the other hand, proved quite steady in rough weather and adaptable to a variety of lake bottoms, because shoring stones could be heaped about the bases of piles resting on hard bottoms, and pontoon like frameworks of logs could be fitted to the bases of piles to prevent them from sinking too deeply into soft bottoms.
Stone Age builders completed settlements of remarkable size, such as that at Wangen, Switzerland, for which more than 50,000 plies were used. Not until the Bronze Age, however, when axes were developed capable of felling trees six inches or more in diameter, did individual pile dwellings reach their height of elaboration and stability, when a settlement might cover more than two acres and include 50 houses.
The earliest builders of the lake dwellings around Switzerland are thought by archeologists and ethnologists to have been members of a short, brown haired, brachycephalic (short headed or broad headed) race, probably of Asian origins, who moved westward into Europe many thousands of years ago, reaching Switzerland, Belgium and even Ireland.
During the period of their European development they lived in middle Europe between various dolichocephalic (relatively long headed) peoples, mainly blond to the north, and dark haired to the south.
Although almost nothing is known of their social organizations, the high level of culture they attained, together with their success in repelling the aggressive and persistent attacks of their less wealthy neighbors, gave evidence that as a people they displayed skill in war and solidarity in purpose and action.
Study of lake dwelling ruins has made possible the reconstruction of the Stone, Bronze and early Iron Age cultures of their inhabitants.