12 The Bath of Dreen 



ornamented by the potter with dents made by his finger or 

 thumb nails. It is circular, but not wheel-turned, and measures 

 3'/ X 3 1'. The other vessel is a cooking pot, and is heavily 

 sooted inside and outside. It is whecl-tui'ned and bears a 

 I'emarkable reseml)Iancc in shape, decoration and material to 

 Mr. Young's find in the Sandhill near Groomsport, and the 

 fragments already described as having been found in the priest's 

 kitchen of Ballymartin Church. These three pots are so similar 

 in general form and in every important detail, that one is 

 compelled to conclude that they are approximately of the same 

 period. 



From deductions arrived at with regard to pottery in my 

 papers on pre-historic Dwelling Places of Man, in the reports of 

 the Society for 1916 and 1917, I placed the date of this class of 

 of vessel later than that of the Souterrain type, probably the 9th 

 to the 11th centui-y. The finding of a portion of an almost 

 exactly similar vessel in Ballymartin Church Priest's kitchen 

 curiously confirms the deductions arrived at in these articles. 



The deposit of refuse, etc., on the hut sides was not at all 

 deep, perhaps ten or twelve inches, including the hearth stones. 

 From this we must conclude either that the house refuse was 

 systematically cleared away by the dwellers, or that the place 

 had not been occupied as a dwelling for a long period. In many 

 lake dwellings hearth sites arc found superimposed one upon 

 another, in layers representing many successive periods, showing 

 long continuous occupation ; this was not the case here however, 

 and while some of the coarse pottery was found down on the 

 hard till and round the bottom of the stones, most of it was in 

 the soft upper level of the black soil. This applies in particular 

 to the drinking cup, the wheel turned pot, the three stone axes, 

 and the iron fragments, which were all found within a radius of 

 a few feet, about the centre of the western hut side. We must 

 conclude that all these articles were in use by the last occupiers 

 of the hut. 



It will doubtless be said that this is impossible, and that 



