Mortimer: Notes on our Ancestors in East Yorkshire. 315 
There is no trace of a long or short headed race having first 
occupied this district. 
During the Neolithic, Bronze, and the Early Iron periods, 
the raising of mounds to mark the resting-place of the dead 
person seems to have been generally practiced. No more 
enduring structure could have been devised than these huge 
earthen mounds of the Neolithic and Bronze ages. The mound 
at Skipsea Brough, the large one at the foot of Garrowby Hill, 
and Duggleby Howe, and others, will, if spared by the hand 
of man, long out-live the pyramids. These monuments are a 
lasting proof that Early man shared with his descendants the 
desire to do homage to the great and good by erecting a memo- 
rial to their memory. Proof is also afforded of his belief in a 
future life by the fact that he occasionally provided for it by 
having food, ornaments, tools, and even very rarely his chariot 
and whole animals buried with his body. Even his companions 
have occasionally been killed and placed in the grave. 
From these facts it is apparent that his future life was ex- 
pected to be similar to that from which he had just departed. 
It is probable that occasionally these early people indulged 
in cannibalism, and we have proof of this in the remains of 
food, consisting of portions of the human body as well as parts 
of animals, found deposited with the dead. This is perhaps 
not so very surprising as it is apparent that at one time or 
other, almost every race of man has practised cannibalism, 
and the practice would long survive in their revered funeral 
ceremonies. 
During the Early Iron Age the grave mounds were smaller, 
more uniform in size, and more closely grouped in larger 
numbers, than during the earlier periods. These later mounds 
generally contain one, or occasionally two inhumed bodies : 
but in no instance has there been any trace of a cremated inter- 
ment, neither has there been any sign of cannibalism or human 
sacrifice in any of them. Here we have a great advance in 
civilisation. Yet the belief in a future state seems to have 
survived, as food vessels containing the bones of pig, goat, and 
occasionally entire animals, as well as chariots, dress fastenings, 
and ornaments, have been buried with the dead. 
Later, during the Romano-British times, judging from the 
few discoveries belonging to this period, the custom of placing 
the flexed body in an oval grave much resembles the method 
adopted during the Early Iron Age. There were notable 
differences, however, as in the association of two extended 
bodies and two cremated ones, the absence of pottery and of 
the remains of food in the graves; neither were there any 
traces of mounds covering the closely grouped graves. 
To come to a still later period, the Anglo-Saxon remains are 
the latest in East Yorkshire that we are able to distinguish. 
191r Sept. t. 
