101 
THE LAKE-DWELLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 
BY JAMES W. DAVIS, F.S.A. 
The consideration of phenomena which have a tendency to 
illumine the history or hahits of the early inhabitants of this country 
must at all times be looked upon with a large amount of interest. 
From this point of view the discovery of the remains of a number of 
ancient Lake Dwellings in Holderness, the low-lying district between 
Hull and Bridlington affords a glimpse of the habits of a people who 
lived during ages of which there is no written history, and of whose 
existence there is no record but such as can be gathered from the 
remains of rude platforms built on the edge of a lake or mere, on 
which to erect dwellings affording a scanty shelter from the inclemency 
of the weather, some protection from the wild animals of the neigh- 
bourhood, or the attacks of their human but more dangerous foes. 
Living over the water they naturally found that the readiest method 
of disposing of the refuse was to throw it into the lake below : and 
so it happens, that in digging beneath the platform there are found, 
mixed with the natural accumulation of peat, large numbers of the 
bones of animals which had been used as food, charred wood from 
their fires, implements of stone used as adzes in shaping and pointing 
the piles, rounded stones for pounding and grinding corn, arrow and 
spear-heads, rudely-fashioned objects of bone used for fastening skins 
round the loins, or for personal adornment of the primeval inhabitants 
of our island, as well as other objects of less definite purpose. 
Holderness occupies an area circumscribed by the chalk hills 
which extend from Flamborough Head to the Humber on the one 
side and the sea on the other. It is a low-lying district, the almost 
uniform flatness of which is but slightly relieved by little rounded 
hills of gravel. The central part, extending north and south, is in 
some instances below the level of the sea, whilst along the coast the 
ground rises, so that the drainage instead of seeking an outlet towards 
the sea runs inland and is emptied into the Humber. Formerly the 
lower levels of Holderness formed a series of plant-laden meres, con- 
nected by streams one with another, and ramifying in every direction. 
