269 
GEOLOGICAL EXCURSION TO HOLDERNESS, THE KILNSEA SHELL 
MOUNDS, SPURN POINT, AND THE PILE DWELLINGS AT 
ULROME. BY JAMES W. DAVIS. 
An excursion of the members of the society was made 
on July 21st to 23rd to Patrington, Easington, Kilnsea, and 
Spurn Point, and to Hornsea, Skipsea, and Ulrome, all in the 
district of Holderness. The party, on arriving at Patrington, 
were conveyed in carriages to the Neptune Inn, at Easington, 
where Mr. Lawton, the landlord, had tea in readiness. This part 
of the proceedings being completed, the carriages were re-entered, 
and the party drove to Kilnsea, a small village at the commencment 
of the narrow ridge of sand constituting Spurn Point. Two 
examples of the old refuse heaps or kitchen middens were visited, 
the first on the coast washed by the German Ocean, the second 
about 200 yards up the Humber, beyond the point where the 
road reaches the village. The early inhabitants appear to have 
selected or constructed a hollow in the glacial clays, about nine or 
ten feet broad, perhaps 60ft. in length, and four or five feet deep in 
the centre, with sloping sides. In this hollow they deposited the 
refuse from cooking, and other matters. The situation of the midden 
is usually indicated by a layer of oyster shells. The loamy soil 
above these is soft and comparatively loose, frequently a dark 
brownish black colour. It contains broken bones of the cow and 
sheep; and to a less extent of some other animals, of birds, &c., 
which served for food. Broken pottery of a coarse material and 
only partially burnt, thin • Roman-like bricks and pieces of glass, 
and more rarely flint, bone, iron, and bronze implements are 
discovered. The whole is covered by a greater or less thickness 
of soil. 
It unfortunately happened that the tide was at its highest point 
when the party first reached the middens. Considerable collections 
were however made, a bronze buckle and an iron instrument being 
the principal finds in addition to bones and pottery. 
The amount of denudation on this part of the coast is very 
