COLE : NOTES ON THE DANES' GRAVES NEAR DRIFFIELD. 301 
This year, 1897, Mr. Mortimer fortunately obtained permission 
from Mr. Harrison-Broadley, the owner of the soil, to make an 
examination of the Danes' Graves. Some twelve or more mounds 
were opened by experienced workmen. The result was highly 
satisfactory. In one grave a beautiful enamelled bronze pin was 
unearthed (plate xliii.), characteristic of the late Bronze Age ; in 
another, two chariot wheel tyres of iron, with iron bits, and bronze 
trappings for the horses. Such remains of British charioteers 
have, as far as I know, only been found in the East Biding of 
Yorkshire, and those at Arras.* The date may be assigned to 
100 years before or after the Christian era. 
This discovery does away with the popular nomenclature Danes' 
Graves. The mounds situated in Danesdale are not those of Danes 
at all. They are far more ancient than the incursion of the Danes, 
or Vikings, on the East coast of Yorkshire, which occurred in the 
8th or 9th century. Like the Danes' Dike at Flamborough, which 
was carefully examined and tested by Major-Gen. Pitt-Bivers in 
1879, and proved by him to have been the work of men using 
flint weapons only, the name of Danes' Graves has simply been 
preserved in popular tradition because the Danes were the last dread 
marauders who ravaged the East coast, and destroyed hamlets and 
churches alike. Doubtless the formidable Dike which runs from end 
to end across the promontory of Flamborough, was utilized by the 
Danes, as it was by the Bomans before them, but it was thrown up 
by an earlier people using flint weapons, and so with the graves in 
Danesdale. They are the remains of a race existing in almost 
prehistoric times, and if I might venture to offer a suggestion 
I think it not unlikely that they represent a burial place of the 
Parisi, who, as distinguished from the Brigantes, are said to have 
occupied Holderness. 
A chariot wheel was fouud by Mr. Kendal on the moors, N. K. 
