YORKSHIKE, EAST BIDING. 



THE WOLDS. 



THE barrows which I am about to describe are situated upon the 

 Wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire, a district lying on the 

 south side of the valley of the river Derwent, and opposite, at a 

 distance of some miles, to the range of oolitic hills upon which 

 some of the barrows described in other parts of this book are 

 placed. An extensive examination of the northern, north-eastern, 

 and south-western portions of this district has been made, and a 

 large number of its sepulchral remains, as the following account 

 will show, have been explored. 



This tract of country, consisting of swelling and rounded chalk 

 hills, interspersed with waterless valleys, and covered, before 

 cultivation had in recent times brought it under the plough, with 

 a stunted vegetation of short grass, furze and ling, but with little 

 wood, occupies a considerable space in East Yorkshire. It is 

 bounded, on the north by the valley of the Derwent, on the east 

 by the sea and the flat lands of Jlolderness, on the south by the 

 alluvial valley of the H umber, and on the west by the great plain 

 of York. 



A district such as this, wanting in one great requisite for 

 permanent occupation, namely water, and possessing, through a 

 want of shelter and its sparse vegetation, only a limited capa- 

 bility for harbouring and feeding any large number of wild or 

 domesticated animals, would appear to have been, at a time when 

 agriculture must have been exceedingly limited, but little adapted 

 to furnish a dwelling-place for an extensive population. Notwith- 

 standing these apparent disadvantages, however, the wolds show 

 manifold signs of having been occupied at an early period by a 

 numerous people. This appears, not only from the sepulchral 



