SPINK : LAKE-DWELLINGS IN THE VALE OF PICKERING. 23 
and sheep, along with crumbled twigs, nuts, &c. These extended 
two feet downward, after which was a layer of grey sand lying upon 
Kimmeridge Clay, and below this nothing was found. It should 
have been mentioned that the whole distance to the grey sand 
consisted of a dark brown (nearly black) peaty soil, the lower 
half being almost entirely peat. 
From the side of one of the diggings, about four feet from the 
surface, many bones of a young person were taken, the vertebrae and 
skull with the feet and hands, being the only portions missing. Near 
this was found a small and beautifully-shaped jar of fine black clay, 
sound, and in good preservation, and two pieces of deer's horn — 
probably neck ornaments, one fiat, of a crescent shape, and perforated 
with five holes ; the other a portion of a tine with a hole penetrating 
the broad end. In another place, at about the same depth, was a 
piece of fine black pottery, bearing the only attempt at decoration 
found, in the form of drops on the outside, about the size and shape 
of the pip of an apple. 
The pottery from the lower strata consisted of nearly sixty 
different patterns of jars or urns, ranging from six to about eighteen 
inches in height when complete, and many of them having what are 
called in this district lugs. This was of a very coarse kind, exhibit- 
ing plenty of thumb-marks, and evidently not turned on a wheel. 
There were a great many pins, made of splint-bones sharpened, 
and several pieces of bone ground flat, and in shape like a knife. A 
piece of wood was also unearthed like the handle of a child's toy 
spade, and having a hole diagonally bored just below the fork. 
A large number of pebble stones from two to four inches in 
diameter, nearly all split, and bearing distinct marks of fire, were 
evidently imt-boilers. There do not seem to have been any metal 
cooking utensils, or these stones would not have been required. 
Neither do the people seem to have had many (if any) metal tools, 
for on removing one of the piles it was found to have been 
sharpened in a very clumsy way, seemingly by wedges, first an outer 
layer and then a shorter piece, until the timber came to a rough 
point. 
