479 
Passing over the Sewerby fields, numbers of sets of dress- 
fastenings and weapons can be found leading in two directions, 
one towards old Bridlington, and the other towards ITilde- 
thorpe, past the quay. There is a cross road leading from 
the sea to the upper Sewerby road. A limekiln on this road 
marks where there were some huts that were inhabited by 
people who used gray and white flints. The women of the 
neighbouring village of Sewerby appear to have fled for 
refuge to a field a little below these cottages, which was very 
low ground, and was probably covered with underwood and 
rushes, and to have been pursued there and slaughtered ; as 
I found in this field a great number of women’s dress-fasten- 
ings, and a number of sling- stones which they had used in 
their defence. 
On the other side of this low ground, which is now inter- 
sected by the railroad embankment, I found on an elevated 
mound an entire set of what I suppose to be coopers’ and 
basket-makers’ tools* (see note), formed of gray flint; and 
* [As basket-making may appear to some persons too modern a process, or 
trade, to ascribe to the primitive inhabitants of this country, I venture to extract 
a few passages bearing on the subject from a valuable paper in the fifteenth 
volume of the Journal of the Archaeological Association, by G-. J. French, “On 
the Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Ireland, &c.,” in which the interlaced 
ornamentation so common on these ancient relics naturally suggested the origin 
of such decorations from the earlier basket-work: — “The aborigines of this or 
any other country of corresponding climate, after discovering some natural cave, 
or making for themselves a rude hut, would probably take their next step in 
constructive art by attempting to form such utensils as might contain the seeds 
and fruits necessary for food. Assuming that they were then unprovided with 
even the rudest tools — for we refer to a time before our far-off ancestors knew 
the use of bronze or iron, — they would form these utensils by twisting together 
the long pliant osiers with which the land abounded. . . . No other branch of 
art is even now so independent of tools, and none has been so universally diffused, 
or so long and uninterruptedly practised, as basket-making. It is the humble 
parent of all textile art — the most elaborate tissues produced by the loom or the 
needle being but progressive developments proceeding from the rude wattle- work 
of unclothed savages. . . . The earliest authentic records of Britain refer to its- 
inhabitants as expert basket-makers ; their houses were made of willows and 
