40 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF YORK AND DISTRICT 



grant of a gild merchant, which was confirmed by John. Subsequently 

 it enjoyed the full activity of vigorous civic life, controlled, as in other 

 large towns, by the gilds of the various crafts, but possessing its strong 

 organisation of merchant traders with a monopoly of foreign trade. It is 

 probable that in prehistoric days it was a trading settlement in which the 

 flint- workers of the Wolds found their market, and that its commercial 

 advantages were thus recognised before it became a great political and 

 ecclesiastical centre. So long as merchant ships could come up the Ouse 

 to the wharves of this inland port, it retained a position in trade independ- 

 ent of its significance from other points of view in national history. With 

 increase in the tonnage of ships, it lost the eminence which it held in this 

 department, and its commerce shifted to more convenient ports. Similarly, 

 the industrial revolution, which converted the villages of the West Riding 

 into great towns, left York on one side and created new emporia for trade 

 which far surpassed it in size. York, however, secure in its long prestige 

 and rich in the possession of historic monuments of unsurpassed interest, 

 the centre of a wide agricultural district untouched by modern develop- 

 ments of industry, survived the decline of its former commercial prosperity. 

 Its accessibility from all parts of the county by an admirable system of 

 roads and its position midway between the manufacturing region of the 

 Pennine valleys and the great expanse of rural countr)' which stretches to 

 the coast still made it the natural centre of the public life of Yorkshire. 

 With the coming of railways, as already indicated in Chap. I, York, on a 

 main line from London to Scotland, developed new activity and became 

 the nucleus of a system which sent out branches following with little 

 variation the historic routes which had carried traffic for centuries. With 

 railway communication, the way was open for new manufactures ; and 

 to-day, with the revival of road traffic on a scale undreamed of by the 

 promoters of railways within the last century, the geographical situation 

 of York is a permanent asset to her prosperity which no passing changes 

 can alter. 



VII. 



PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY IN 

 YORKSHIRE 



1906-1931 



BY 



FRANK ELGEE. 



During the quarter of a century since the British Association last met 

 in York, our knowledge of prehistoric Yorkshire has been considerably 

 extended. The year 1905 had seen the publication of J. R. Mortimer's 



