DAVIS: THE LAKE-DWELLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 105 
Hazel nuts were numerous. In addition to the bones of animals 
already mentioned, there have been found the jaws of wolves, tusks 
of wild boars, portions of the head of red deer and horse, and the 
bones of sheep, dog, and smaller animals, as well as the bones of birds. 
They were mostly at a depth of about six feet below the surface, and 
four feet from the bottom of the lake. 
Between the first and second platform a fine bronze spear-head 
was discovered. The occurrence of bronze, together with the form of 
the pointed piles, evidently cut by a metal instrument, naturally 
leads to the inference that the later platform was erected during the 
period usually termed the Bronze age. An approximate idea may be 
formed of its age if it be remembered that the knowledge of bronze 
was succeeded by that of iron ; of the latter metal there is no evi- 
dence in the lake-dwelling, but it was known to the people whom 
Julius Caesar found occupying this country, and was probably in use 
for two or three centuries previously. It will be safe, therefore, to 
fix the date of the more recent portion of the pile structure not later 
than the second or third century B.C. The objects found beneath the 
lower platform indicate a much earlier period, when the use of bronze 
had not been discovered, and the articles and implements were made 
from either flint or bone ; the older structure is probably of the 
earlier portion of the later stone age. Its great antiquity is shown 
by the depth at which the objects already mentioned were found, and 
by the circumstance that the parts of the lake surrounding the pile- 
dwellings became filled up to a depth of four or five feet with peat, 
before the second platform was constructed. The Barmston and 
Skipsea Drain follows the course of what was undoubtedly, in pre- 
historic times, a chain of lakes extending from Skipsea to its present 
termination on the sea-shore. Along this line five or six other pile- 
structures have been found, in some instances considerably larger than 
the one explored at Ulrome. There is every probability that careful 
examination of the surrounding districts will disclose the fact that 
numerous other erections exist over a considerable area, and as each 
of the platforms afforded space for several dwellings, it is reasonable 
to suppose that the pile-dwellers were a somewhat numerous people. 
The great preponderance of implements useful for tilling the soil over 
