PRE-HISTORIC MAN IN HOLDERNESS. 75 
They lived on wooden platforms or artifical islands on the edges of 
the lakes at some distance from the shore. These dwellings were 
sometimes connected with the mainland by a causeway, usually 
concealed below the water, and sometimes zig-zagged so as to make 
the approach of strangers a matter of difficulty. In other instances 
canoes hollowed from a single trunk were used as a means of 
communication. Such canoes are frequently found in the vicinity 
of Lake-dwellings. 
Objects accidentally lost from the dwellings, or which fell into 
the water during conflicts, or were discarded as useless, (under such 
conditions the easiest method of disposing of refuse was by 
dropping it into the lake below), fell to the bottom, sank into 
the soft mud forming the bed of the lake and were embedded in an 
excellent material for their preservation. 
The probable former aspect of the country suggests that it 
would be fairly thickly studded with these Lake-dwellings, and 
such indeed we find to have been the case, though unfortunately 
in few cases has a thorough investigation been possible, as there is 
a great difficulty in keeping the water way during the digging. 
In Holderness there are indications of five distinct settle- 
ments, viz., at West Furze, Round Hill, Barmston, Gransmoor 
and Little Kelk.1 At several places also in the courses of streams, 
piles and other indications of dwellings are occasionally visible, 
though implements, etc., are rarely seen to occur in such situations, 
probably on account of the excavations not being deep enough. 
The encroachment of the sea also now and then reveals traces of 
such occupations. In June, 1894, on an excursion of the Hull 
Geological Society to Skipsea, the end of a stake, which had 
certainly been pointed artifically, though in a very rude manner, 
was found at a depth of about four feet in the peat near the 
northern end of the Skipsea lacustrine deposit which is exposed 
in section in the cliffs. It was at an angle of 45°, with the point 
downwards, beneath a dense mass of twigs and ‘brushwood’ a foot 
in thickness, containing hazel nuts and acorns.” A precisely similar 
bed was discovered during the excavations of the dwellings at 
Ulrome, of which I shall have to speak presently, 
Several years ago a bone implement, said to be of British 
workmanship, was found in the cliffs at this point, at a depth of 
about six feet below the surface. This instrument, which was 
probably a spear head, is figured in Poulson’s History of Holderness, 
vol. i,, p. 460. 
(1) Munro’s Lake Dwellings of Europe, 1890, p. 470. 
(2) Trans, Hull Geol. Soc., Vol. 2, 1894-5, p. 12, 
