112 
DAVIS: THE LAKE-DWELLINGS IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 
there was probably erected a number of huts. As to the character of 
the huts there is no information. The several operations in connec- 
tion with so large an undertaking, conducted by a people possessing 
no mechanical appliances and only the rudest tools, implies a large 
amount of intelligent co-operatioii, and consequently a comparatively 
advanced stage of civilization. The men appear for the most part to 
have been peaceable and industrious, dividing their time between the 
chase and the cultivation of the soil ; whilst the women attended to 
household duties, cooked the flesh of animals caught in the chase, or 
pounded the corn with rounded stones to make bread. Probably 
they spun the wool of sheep, as indicated by the presence of whorl 
stones, and made a coarse cloth. But the skin of the sheep with the 
wool attached Avas most likely to be the ordinary covering for the 
body. They appear to have had all the essential elements of happi- 
ness, and unfettered by the trammels of the intensely complicated 
civilization of their successors of subsequent centuries, to have 
pursued a tranquil and easy existence. This picture has its shadows, 
and no doubt occasional disagTeements arose, and neighbouring 
tribes would quarrel and fight ; or perhaps combine against some 
more distant foe. After such engagements there is the probability 
that, like nearly all existing peoples in a similar stage of development 
from rudest barbarism, the captives were killed. The presence of 
the skull and bones of a human being amongst the debris found in 
the excavations of the lake-dwelling at Ulrome, as well as other 
evidences in the neighbouring "Wolds, goes a long way to show that 
the people were cannibals. 
Mention has been made of the principal lake-dwellings found in 
the British Islands ; it would be interesting, did space permit, to 
trace their relationship with others found on the Continent of Europe, 
and more especially with those, the remains of which exist, on the 
shores of the lakes of Switzerland, so admirably investigated and 
described by Dr. Ferdinand Keller, and which have afforded so good 
an opportunity for investigation during the past year by the low 
level of the waters of Lake Constance. The Swiss lake-dwellings 
are, with few exceptions, of an older type than those found in Great 
Britain, and extend throughout the stone age, the succeeding period 
