98 //. C. Lauloi- on 



persuaded that they were designed by anyone larger than what 

 we would regard to-day as a dwarf. 



I shall now refer in some detail to the anticjuarian remains 

 found in the caves excavated last season, which are all similar 

 to those exhibited in this room when my last paper on the 

 Souterrain was read. 



As you will see domestic pottery forms by far the most 

 numerous section of the finds, and I regard this as of great 

 importance. The quantity of pottery now accumulated, whether 

 in whole vessels or in mere fragments is enormous ; it is practically 

 all of a distinct type of its own. All the Souterrain pottery 

 clearly belongs to this type with the rare exception of fragments 

 of mediaeval ware occurring in Souterrains occupied up to later 

 times, but these do not constitute one per centum of the total. 



Fortunately, for comparative purposes we now know the 

 date of this type of fictilia to be the 6th to the 8th century. 

 As may be seen on examining the specimens on exhibition the 

 pottery is of the very crudest type, coarse in material, purely 

 hand-made, without handles, without the smallest attempt at 

 ornamentation or artistic development ; it displays in fact that 

 the potter's art in Ireland u.\) to the 6th. or 8th century was on 

 an exceedingly low level, lower in fact than that of some of the 

 rudest savages of to-day. It may be argued that the Souterrain 

 dwellers being serfs and in great poverty, had to make their own 

 pots, thus explaining their extreme crudeness. This, howevei-, 

 cannot be a correct solution of the matter, as I find in various 

 parts of the country Souterrain pots undoubtedly made at the 

 same pottery and even one could almost say with assurance, in 

 some cases by one potter. 



I have displayed to-night a small but representative collection 

 of pottery from the sandhill settlements of Whitepark Bay, 

 Portstewart, Dundrum, and near Donaghadee. My object in 

 doing so is to show the gradual progress in the potter's art, 

 beginning with the crudest type of all, so amply illustrated by 

 the Souterrain type of the 6th to the 8th century. This type is 



