EUROPE TO-DAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 41, 17 January 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

A LAKE VILLAGE COMES TO LIGHT. One day in 1934 a schoolmaster at Biskupin in Roland stopped to look at some wooden piles in the bed of a lake. He remembered being told that carved wood had sometimes been found thereabouts, and, being curious to know what the piles were, he wrote to Erofessor J. lvostrzowski at the University of Rosen,, telling him what he had seen. It was this chance piece of information which led to one of the most interesting discoveries of its kind in recent years. For the piles were part of a lake village so old that it goes back a quarter of a hundred centuries. Excavations at Biskupin have been going forward rapidly since 1934, and now over 3000 square yards of the lake village have been brought to light, though it is estimated that seven times as much remains to be unearthed. There is no doubt that Biskupin’s ancient lake village—it is thought to have been inhabited somewhere between 700 and 400 years before Christ —will become one of tbe most important archaeological sights of the country. Built as a fortress, this wonderfully preserved relic of the days before history, covers a small peninsula with the water of the lake on three sides and. a wooden rampart to defend it on the fourth. Built of logs and massive boards fitting very cleverly into grooved posts, the dwellings have stood firm all these centuries without a single' nail. Most of the houses are about 30 feet square and have two rooms, though some have only one. There are no windows, and the roofs were thatched with straw and reeds. About 40 of the dwellings have already been excavated by Professor lvostrzowski and his assistants.