U)i DAVIS: THK LAKE-DWELLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 
horizontal timbers of the superstructure are held in position by piles, 
which may be distinguished from the earlier ones by the long and 
sharp point, evidently cut by a sharp metal instrument. The points 
of the later piles are not unfrequently found piercing the timbers of 
the earlier stage, wliich may be taken as an indication that the latter 
were more or less decayed, and consequently had become depressed 
beneath the water, hence the reason for the erection of the second 
structure. The two platforms together are between four and five 
feet in thickness. The top of the upper one is four feet beneath the 
surface of the ground, the intervening strata consisting of three feet 
of peat immediately overlying the wooden platform, and a foot of 
warp and soil. Beneath the base of the lower platform the thickness 
varies with the position ; near the edge it rests on a bed of sand and 
gravel wliich forms the bottom of the old lake ; further out it is 
separated from the sand by an increasing thickness of peat. The 
gravel forming the bottom of the old lake is about ten feet beneath 
the present surface of the ground. 
Amongst the sticks and bark filling up the interstices between 
the timbers of the lower dwelling a number of implements and some 
fragments of pottery have been found. The latter is dark-coloured 
and possesses all the characters of pottery made by the Celtic 
inhabitants of the country of the earliest period. The implements 
are made either of stone or bone, and consist of pointed or sharpened 
stones pierced in the middle for the introduction of a wooden handle, 
used as hammers ; picks and hammers are also made from the antlers 
of the red deer. The large leg-bones of oxen, broken diagonally 
midway between the two extremities, and pierced near the joint with 
a circular hole for the insertion of a stick, appear to have been used 
as hoes ; the diagonal fracture is more or less smoothed by use, and 
an implement of this form would serve very well to break up the 
light soil on the higher ground adjacent to the mere. Flint flakes, 
used as knives and for other purposes, such as cleaning the skins of 
animals, have been found. A large stone of oval form and coarse 
granitoid texture, with a flat smooth surface exceeding a foot in 
largest diameter, may have been used for grinding food, and other 
smaller rounded stones were apparently used for pounding grain. 
