CHAP, x.] LAKE DWELLINGS IN IRELAND. 353 



and domestic hog, and in all probability the dog, the 

 bones of the last-named animal being in the same 

 fractured state as those of the rest. Fragments of 

 pottery were also found. The accumulation may be 

 inferred to belong to the late rather than the early 

 Bronze age, from the discovery of a socketed spear-head. 

 This discovery is of considerable zoological value, 

 since it proves that the urus was living in Britain in a 

 wild state as late as the Bronze age. It must, however, 

 have been very rare, since this is the only case of its 

 occurrence at this period in Britain with which I am 

 acquainted. 



Lake Dwellings in Ireland. 



The crannoges, 1 or platforms of clay and stone, inter- 

 laced with or supported by timber, and based on small 

 shallows or islets in the Irish lakes, have been inhabited 

 from the Bronze age to as late as A.D. 1641. In that 

 year the crannoge in Koughan lake, near Dungannon, 

 afforded shelter to Sir Phelim O'Neill, and it is proved 

 to belong to the former age by the discovery of bronze 

 spear-heads in the old refuse-heaps. In Mr. Kinahan's 

 opinion some of these platforms supported a circular 

 stockade within which the huts of the inhabitants were 

 arranged under one roof common to all, which sloped 

 from the stockade to a courtyard in the centre. 2 



The wooden cabins or huts, constructed of wattles 

 or tempered clay, and the small stone houses, called 

 cloghauns, in which the Irish peasantry have lived 

 within the Historic period, are probably survivals from 



1 See Wilde, Cat. R. I. Acad., vol. i. Keller, Lake-Dwellings, transl. 

 J. E. Lee, 2d. edit. vol. i. Archceol. Journ., vi. p. 101 ; i. p. 425. 



2 Proceed. R. Irish Acad., x. part i. 31. 



2 A 



