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XXVII.—Lake-dwellings in Holderness, Yorks., discovered by Thos. Boynton, Esq., F.S.A., 1880–1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Reginald A. Smith
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Extract

The Holderness district is a vast accumulation of the great Northern Drift, a thick deposit of clay and gravel, with scratched and striated boulders of Scandinavian and other rocks marked by the grinding and drifting of glaciers and icebergs. This Northern Drift rested on the ancient surface of the chalk when that surface sloped from the Wolds, 600 ft. high, to 60 ft. and more below the sea-level. The vast bay that formerly extended from Flamborough Head to Spurn Point thus received the ice-sheets of the Glacial period, which in melting deposited debris frozen into their mass. There was thus formed an irregular crescentic area, 40 miles long and 20 miles in maximum breadth, reaching the foot of the Wolds which was then the seashore with creeks running inland. The tract rarely rises more than 30 ft. above the sea; and the natural drainage, on account of the slope of the drift, is from the seashore towards the centre line of the drift area. The surface drainage from the Wolds also tends to the same line of outflow. In ancient times the outlets of this drainage into the sea would have been higher, as the strata rise seaward; and consequently more water would have been penned up in the prehistoric lakes, and a larger proportion of the area flooded, than would now be possible, since the waste of land by the sea, at the rate of nearly two yards a year, has been going on for many centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , 1911 , pp. 593 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1911

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References

page 593 note 1 From an article in the Standard, 20 October, 1883; Clement Reid, Geology of Holderness, cap. 1.

page 593 note 2 Inquisition at Waghen, 1288: Poulson, , History and Antiquities of Holderness, pt. ii, p. 445.Google Scholar

page 595 note 1 These notes are from the Yorkshire Post, 26 July, 1883.

page 596 note 1 Evans, T. M., ‘The Ancient Britons and the Lake-dwelling at Ulrome in Holderness’ (Hull Quarterly and East Riding Portfolio, 1885)Google Scholar; Supplemented by the Standard, 20 October, 1883.

page 597 note 1 Quoted in the Yorkshire Post, 26 July, 1883.

page 598 note 1 Laing, and Huxley, , Prehistoric Remains of Caithness; Archaeologia, lx. 313, with refsGoogle Scholar.

page 599 note 1 One lump shows two series of striations.

page 600 note 1 Similar pitted stones from a neolithic workshop floor in Aberdeenshire are exhibited in the prehistoric section of the Glasgow Exhibition this year.

page 601 note 1 Sehested, N. F. B., Archaeologiske Undersögelser, 1878–81, 3Google Scholar.

page 601 note 2 Aarb.for Ndrd. Oldkynd. og Hist., 1891, 383; 1898, 125.

page 601 note 3 Antiquary, xli, 287, 291, 333Google Scholar. Piles in a pit-dwelling at Stoneykirk, Wigtownshire, are described with illustrations by Mr.Mann, in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xxxvii (1902–3), 382Google Scholar.

page 602 note 1 A Roman house with a maze-pattern pavement has been discovered at Harpham, five miles north-west of this site (Proceedings, xx. 215Google Scholar).

page 602 note 2 Like that figured in Proceedings, xxiii. 128Google Scholar.

page 602 note 3 The bone tools were found to the west of the structure in the drain and on the opposite bank before systematic excavation began. One vertebra of an ox was found with traces of a shaft in the orifice and, though showing no signs of use, had evidently been a mace-head.

page 604 note 1 Newbury District Field Club, 1886–95, 210.

page 606 note 1 Antitrichia curtipendula (now found near Braemar, Scotland) and Hypnum cupressiforme (common in temperate climates) have been identified.

page 607 note 1 Discoveries of 1856: those of 1851 are described below.

page 607 note 2 Col. Wood-Martin, Lake Dwellings of Ireland.

page 607 note 3 Archaeologia, xxxviii. 177Google Scholar.

page 608 note 1 Proc. Yorks. Geol. and Polyt. Soc, 1895, 21.

page 608 note 2 Journ. Anthrop. Institute, N.S., i (1898), 150Google Scholar; and Assoc. Archit. Socs, Reports, xxv. 240Google Scholar, where Mr. Thos. Sheppard mentions a lake-dwelling at Crowland (Miller and Skertchley, The Fenland, 578).

page 608 note 3 Mr. Boynton classifies this as Roman, and regards the site as of much later occupation than Ulrome.

page 608 note 4 Newbury District Field Club, 1872–1875, 123, 130Google Scholar; 1886–95, 206; V. C. H. Berks., i. 193Google Scholar.

page 608 note 5 On the Zoology of Ancient Europe, published by the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

page 609 note 1 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, xii. 355Google Scholar, where the Wretham discovery is also briefly recorded: see Archaeologia, xxxviii. 187Google Scholar. The piles are here said to have been found standing erect at a depth of 20 ft. from the surface, in peat below a deposit of peaty mud.

page 609 note 2 Fornuänncn, 1910, 29.