106 
DAVIS: THE L AKH-DWKLLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 
those of warlike character seems to indicate that they were peaceably 
disposed, and inclined to agricultural pursuits ; they were acquainted 
with the use of pottery, which they shaped into rude vessels without 
the use of the potter's wheel, and decorated by making incisions, 
either with the finger-nail or a pointed flint, on the surface. The 
nodules of flint, which occur abundantly in the neighbouring chalk, 
chipped into the form of an arrow-head, spear-head, and such other 
objects as they had skill to make or comprehension to use, served 
them for off'ensive and defensive purposes. The antlers of the red 
deer and the humerus of the ox, bn^ken diagonally, probably assisted 
in breaking up and tilling the soil/'' The harder bones of animals 
were scraped and carved into the form of pins and other implements 
for personal use and adornment. 
Tolerably safe from the attacks of wild animals, whicli prowled in 
the neighbouring woods, when in their habitations over the water, 
this hardy people protected themselves from the chill east wnnds 
whicli swept over the North Sea, as best they could, with the skins of 
wild animals caught in the chase, or killed for food. It may be 
desirable to consider the relationship of the pile-dwellers to the popu- 
lation existing in the adjacent parts of the country at the time the 
dwellings were erected. The objects found in the exploration of the 
pile structures indicate that they were used as the ordinary home of 
the people, and not merely as an occasional retreat for defensive 
purposes ; and we may conclude that they formed only a compara- 
tively small proportion of the entire population. Whilst in this 
particular district the circumstances were especially favourable to 
the construction of this species of dwelling, the adjacent district 
was occupied by branches of the same people who erected a quite 
different kind of habitation. The country surrounding the low-lying 
lake-covered area of Holderness is constituted of rounded chalk hills 
* Exactly as the writer saw the tenant of a small plot of arable land 
operating a short time ago. The grabsland had been dug with a spade and 
remained in hard clods ; to break up these the man had inserted a long stick in 
a solid piece of wood, pierced in a similar manner, and nearly the same size as 
the broken leg-bones of the ox, and with this was pounding away at the masses 
of dry earth ; a peculiar exemplification of an old-world custom revived by the 
force or necessity of circumstancee. 
