April 1 8th, lpl6.] PROCEEDINGS. xli 



industries. The discovery of a wooden wheel, with beautifully 

 turned spokes, proves that they possessed wheeled vehicles 

 while the snaffle-bits of iron imply the use of the horse. Their 

 commerce was carried on partly by land, and the possession of 

 canoes gave them the use of the water-ways. They were linked 

 with other settlements by the road running due east from Glas- 

 tonbury, that formed a part of the network of roads traversing 

 the country in the Prehistoric Iron Age, and more especially 

 with the lead-mines and the fortified oppida, or camps, of 

 Mendip, and of the rest of the county. 



They were also linked with the Bristol Channel by a water- 

 way along the line of the river Brue, and along this was free 

 communication with the oppidum of Worlebury, then inhabited 

 by men of their race. 



The Lake-villagers were undoubtedly in touch with their 

 neighbours by sea and by land. Their jet probably came from 

 Yorkshire ; their Kimmeridge shale from Dorset ; the amber 

 from the eastern counties or from the amber coast south of the 

 Baltic. The cocks for fighting were probably obtained from 

 Gaul, and the oblong dice are identical with those used in Italy 

 in Roman times. Some of the designs on their pottery are 

 from the south, and the bronze mirrors are probably of Italo- 

 Greek origin. The technique of the Glastonbury bowl is that 

 of the goldsmiths of Mykenae. The whole evidence points to 

 a wide intercourse with the other British tribes, as well as to a 

 commerce with those of the Continent, extending as far south 

 as the highly-civilized peoples of the Mediterranean. It falls in 

 line with that offered by other discoveries recorded in other 

 parts of Britain, in settlements and tombs, by General Pitt- 

 Rivers, Sir Arthur J. Evans, and others, proving that the inhabi- 

 tants of Britain were highly civilized, and were not isolated from 

 the higher Mediterranean culture, for some 200 years before the 

 Roman Conquest. 



We may infer from the absence of Roman remains that the 

 Lake-village was abandoned before the influence of Rome was 

 felt in Somerset. 



