520 REPORT— 1895. 



II. Reiwrt on the Work carried on dewing the Past Year. 

 By Arthur Bulleid. 



The digging at the Glastonbury Lake Village was discontinued last 

 year in October, and resumed this season towards the end of April. Since 

 presenting the report of the third year's exploration at the Oxford meet- 

 ing of the Association, 1-5 dwelling mounds have been examined, making, 

 with those previously laid open, 30 in all. Besides the 15 dwelling 

 mounds, 500 feet of the palisading, forming the west border of the village, 

 has been traced, together with from 15 to 25 feet of peat adjoining and 

 outside it. This, with the like distance of 500 feet dug in 1893-94, com- 

 pletes the examination of about two-thirds of the total circumference of 

 the village, the remaining unexplored portions of the palisading being 

 situated at the north and south sides. Of the original 65 dwelling mounds 

 there still remain about one-half for future examination, as well as the 

 large spaces of ground between them. The palisading examined this 

 year, bordering the west side of the village, was similar to that exposed 

 in previous years, both with reference to the arrangement of the piles 

 and the irregularity of outline, but it was not so strongly made as that on 

 the east side. At one spot, bordering a space between two dwellings, 

 the palisading was discontinued for 60 feet, and a bank of peat substi- 

 tuted for it ; the peat wall was kept in place by a single line of upright 

 piles driven down near its centre, the upper parts of the posts being 

 evidently bound together with hurdle work. During the examination of 

 the dwelling mounds the following structural discoveries were made. 

 With reference to the construction of the floors it was noticed that 

 the clay was covered with planks of split timber, and that the method 

 of arranging the wood varied in different dwellings ; in two floors 

 the planks were placed in a circular fashion round the hearth, 

 and parallel to the wall of the house. On another floor the boards 

 were lying diagonally across the dwelling in a south-east and north- 

 west direction. In one dwelling mound four superimposed and 

 complete stone hearths were found, having a layer of clay one foot deep 

 intervening between each. In another dwelling a good door-step was 

 unearthed. The timber foundations of the dwelling mounds recently 

 examined have been found to vary little from those previously explored, 

 with this exception, that one of the small mounds was found to be 

 covering a beam of oak fourteen feet in length, with a mortise-hole near 

 each end, one end lying on and at right angles to a large tree trunk, the 

 two pieces of timber being kept in place by a pile, the upper end of which 

 was found a short distance below the hearth of the dwelling. Other 

 mortised beams were discovered in the vicinity, but it has not been 

 possible as yet to make out their original arrangement, but the one just 

 mentioned, although in situ, was evidently not intended, in the first place, 

 for part of the substructure of a dwelling. A number of important 

 objects have been unearthed from the peat outside the village border, as 

 well as from the floors of the dwellings and the ground between them. 

 As during the seasons of 1892, 1893, and 1894, large quantities of hand- 

 and wheel-made pottery, clay sling pellets, and bones of animals have 

 been dug up. Among the things that may be specially mentioned are the 

 following : — 



Flint. — A small saw. This was found near the arrow-head mentioned 

 in last year's report. 



