THE LAKE VILLAGE AT GLASTONBURY. 519 



The Lake Village at Glastonbury. — Second Report of the Committee, con- 

 sisting of Br. K. MuNKO (Chairman), Professor W. Boyd Dawkixs, 

 Sir John Evans, General Pitt-Rivers, and Mr. A. Bulleid 

 {Secretary). (Brawn up by the Chairman and the Secretary.) 



I. Report. By Dr. R. Munro. 



The site of the Lake Village at Glastonbury occupies some three or four 

 acres of a flat meadow, within the boundaries of what is supposed, on 

 good grounds, to have been formerly a lake or marsh. Before excavations 

 were begun all that the eye could discern on the undisturbed surface 

 were sixty or seventy low mounds huddled in the corner of a field. Only 

 about one half of these mounds has as yet been systematically explored, 

 but, so far, the original surmise that each mound formed the site of a hut, 

 resting on a substratum of beams and brushwood, is entirely confirmed. 

 The operations of the last two summers have been largely confined to 

 tracing the village border, which has now been uncovered to the extent 

 of about two-thirds of its circumference. A vast amount of the hetero- 

 geneous debris of human occupancy has been gathered on and around its 

 site, including five complete skulls and other bones of man. These skulls 

 were found outside the stockaded margin, and it has been remarked that 

 no other bones of the body were associated with them. One of them 

 shows a deep cut, as if made by a sword, and another bears evidence of 

 having been supported on a spearhead, which had been inserted vertically 

 through the first cervical vertebra and the occipital foramen. A full 

 account of the technique and purposes of these relics and a list of the 

 flora and fauna collected during the excavations are given in the previous 

 report and in a small guide-book lately published by the Glastonbury 

 Antiquaria.n Society. Suflice it for the present to say that the relics are 

 of various materials — stone, flint, bronze, iron, bone, horn, glass, pottery, 

 &c. Among the bronze objects are many fibulse of La Tene forms, spiral 

 finger-rings, penanular brooches, and an elegant bowl. Of bone and horn 

 we have needles, pins, handles, long-handled combs used for wearing, and 

 many other articles. Among the objects of wood are a canoe, the frame- 

 work of a loom, the staves of buckets, one of which is decorated, part of 

 the axle of a wheel with a couple of spokes in their place. The pottery 

 is very abundant, and often highly ornamented with devices which 

 unmistakably show ' late Celtic ' art. Many of the industrial relics 

 exhibit some of the special characteristics of this style of art, the 

 importation of which into Britain preceded, by two or three centuries, 

 the occupation of the island by the Romans ; nor does it appear that any 

 of them had been influenced by Roman art. This, indeed, is one of the 

 most interesting features of the Glastonbury find, and this collection of 

 antiquities cannot fail to shed an unexpected light on one of the obscurest 

 periods of British civilisation within prehistoric times. On a previous 

 visit to Glastonbury I observed a leaden weight, shaped like a cheese, 

 having the middle of the rim bulging out It weighs 4 oz. 229 gr. This 

 is the only metallic article hitherto found of which there may be enter- 

 tained a suspicion that it had a Roman origin. I understand that Sir 

 Augustus W. Franks has pointed out a piece of pottery recently found 

 which may also have a similar origin. This shows that the village existed 

 as an inhabited place up to Roman times, and it is possible that it was 

 the intrusion of the Romans into this district which put an end to it. 



