On the Relative Age of the Remains of Man in Yorkshire

Abstract

It is proposed to give some account of the evidences of the presence of man in Yorkshire, and so far as possible to collate those evidences and ascertain their relative sequence. There was a people who inhabited the Yorkshire Wolds, erected defences against neighbouring or more distant foes on their summits, and buried their dead in rude graves dug in the surface of the ground, after burial they erected above them mounds of earth and stones, named tumuli, and which occur in considerable numbers scattered over the East Riding. A branch of the same tribe, or by whatever term we may choose to designate those people, occupied rude structures built on the trunks of trees, laid horizontally one above the other, in the lakes and meres of Holderness, very similar to the lake dwellings found in Ireland and Scotland. The latter appear to have been a peaceably disposed people, given to agricultural pursuits, protecting themselves from the chill east winds which swept over the North Sea, as best they could, with the skins of the animals they killed for food; tolerably safe from the attacks of the wild animals, which ranged in the neighbouring woods, when in their habitations over the water; and retreating to entrenched strongholds on the approach of human but more dangerous foes. The men of this age were acquainted with the use of pottery, which they shaped into rude vessels by hand, without the use of a potter’s wheel, and decorated by making incisions either with ...