4G5 
ON THE REMAINS OF A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH- 
EAST CORNER OF YORKSHIRE ; WITH SOME REMARKS 
ON THE EARLY ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. BY THOMAS 
WRIGHT, ESQ., M.A , F.S.A., &C, CORRESPONDING MEM- 
BER OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
On the southern part of the coast of Yorkshire, there is 
a tract of country secluded by its natural features from the 
other parts of the county. From the coast on the north, 
the wild elevated district of the Wolds makes a sweep out in 
a south-westerly direction, until it descends into the district 
now called Holderness ; over which, formerly, thick and 
extensive forests and morasses stretched towards the south- 
east, to the mouth of the Humber. The Wolds must 
have been in early times almost uninhabitable, the forest 
forming a continuous line of barrier, resting at each 
extremity upon the sea. In the small district included 
within this barrier, the geographer Ptolemy places a tribe 
called the Uocpla-oi, who dwelt ws^i to* suxiptm xoXnov, round 
the well-havened bay, which, I have no doubt, we must 
identify with the present bay of Bridlington. Ptolemy has 
been quoted as further giving to this tribe a capital town, 
named Petuaria ; but to me the language of the ancient 
geographer does not seem to countenance such a statement, 
and I think that we must take Petuaria as a town coming 
next after the territory of the Parisi, and probably situated 
on the banks of the Humber. A not improbable suggestion 
has been made by our modern ethnologists, that the name 
of the tribe, Parisi, is only a corruption of that of Frisii, or 
rather that the two words represent the same original name, 
and that the primitive people who dwelt round the bay of 
Bridlington were originally settlers from the opposite coasts 
of Friesland. I mention this suggestion as being rather a 
happy one, for it seems agreeable to what we might expect 
in such a tribe so situated ; but at the same time I would 
