In this mere (West Mere) there was ordinarily about four feet of water, and beneath it, about eight feet of soft black mud, partly held in suspension and requiring to be removed in scoops. Near the centre of the mere, lying below the black mud, was found a ring or circular bank of fine white earth, sufficiently solid to allow Mr. Birch to ride upon it without yielding to the weight of his pony. Outside this ring the bottom of the mere was so soft and deep as to be almost impassable until the mud was cleared away. The ring was some twenty or thirty feet across, a foot wide at the top, and about four feet in height. Not far from its inner circumference was a circular hole, about four feet and a half in diameter and some six feet deeper than the bottom of the mere. It was marked out by a circle of stout stakes or small piles, apparently of alder, and it bore traces of having been wattled. Between these two circles were the remains of a wall, about two feet high and consequently lower than the top of the ring, composed of flints packed together with marl or soft chalk. In the same place was some earth of a bright blue colour, which, when dried, crumbled to powder, and was not preserved, though traces were still to be seen on the bones. In this interspace a still greater number of bones was found, and also the remains of a much decayed ladder, the sides and rounds of which were 15 inches apart. The stakes were about four inches in diameter, very hard, as heavy as stone, and of a dark grey colour. The fragments of the ladder, on the contrary, were very rotten and light, but the remains of both, after being kept some time, exfoliated and crumbled entirely to dust. In and around this ring there lay a vast number of bones, of which no small portion were the upper parts of the skulls of Bos longifrons, with the horn cores attached, and many antlers of the red deer, either entire or in fragments. All the former, excepting one unusually large example, had a fracture the size of half-a-crown in the forehead (Babington). Of the deer's antlers, some have certainly been shed in the due course of nature; but others, on the contrary, have been separated from the head by sawing. Of the other bones found in West Mere, and I am told there were hundreds of them, most of the larger ones have been fractured at one or other extremity, doubtless in order to extract the marrow they contained. Another bone, and, as far as I can make out, the only one found which presents this peculiarity, has been polished on one side; but the reason why is not very obvious, unless it has served, as I before suggested in the case of a similar specimen, for a skate. I must add that no weapons or implements of metal which can be referred to a period at all remote were brought to light in this or any of the adjoining meres, but a great number of flint discs were found, which, according to the description I have received (for unfortunately none of them seem to have been preserved), must have closely resembled those known to the Danish antiquaries as "Sling-Stones," from the probable use made of them. (B. 46, p. 17.)
Barton Mere.—In 1869 the Rev. Harry Jones communicated a paper to the Suffolk Institute of Archæology and Natural History "on the discovery of some supposed vestiges of a pile-dwelling in Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmund's," of which the following is an abstract:—
Barton Mere is situated in a natural depression, about four miles east of Bury St. Edmund's, and is mainly supplied by springs, but at some seasons water flows into it from the high land on the south, west, and north. When full it consists of about ten acres, and averages 7 feet in depth. On the north side of the mere there is a marly chalk, which, indeed, forms the main bottom of the mere, being overlaid with a dark clay deposit from 1 to 5 feet deep. The bottom layer of this deposit consists of a peaty coloured clay, so tenacious as to keep its shape upon the potter's wheel. Most of the bones and some fragments of pottery were found in this lower layer, which varies in thickness from a few inches to about a foot and a half. The mere is subject to occasional droughts. It has been dry at least four times in the last forty years. About thirty-eight years ago (1830), the mere being then dry, his grandfather, Mr. Quayle, who lived at Barton Mere, dug out a quantity of stuff for the purpose of laying it on the land. His digging resulted in a hole, which on two succeeding occasions when the water was low, saved enough to keep some of the fish alive, and provide a pond for the cattle. Bones and horns of deer, and several spear-heads and rings of bronze, were reported to have been found amidst six or seven stakes of wood sticking up out of the bottom and about as thick as the thin part of a man's leg.
The excavations conducted by Mr. Jones in 1867 were made by digging several holes about three feet square. In the first two holes nothing was found, but in the third an ox skull, broken bones, portions of pointed implements of bone, and a bronze socketed spear-head were disinterred. The latter, which was only 18 inches below the surface and above the peaty clay, measured 13 inches long and two inches at its widest part. The bones were of Bos longifrons, stag, pig, sheep or goat, large dog or wolf, urus (Bos primigenius), and hare. These were all in the peaty stratum. Beside, and along with the bones, were found two or three flint flakes, cores, and rude flint implements. There were several pieces of sandstone, burnt, with the mark of fire plainly upon them, and divers calcined flints. Also a fragment of a thin hand-made vessel. Besides the bones were several stags' antlers, one or two of which were gnawed, probably by dogs, and another had marks of some small-toothed animal, such as a rat. Others were cut by human hands. One antler had a hole rudely worked in it at its broadest part. There were also divers horns of the Bos longifrons, and, curiously enough, one of the vertebræ of a Saurian. The latter was a short distance off from the chief "find," and it was suggested that it might have been used as a hammer by some of the natives who brought it to the spot.
The portion of the "find" which caused most conjecture was, however, a fabric of stake and wattle. "I found one stake 2½ inches thick, and 2 feet long, lying close over the spot where we found most of the bones, but the fabric to which I now allude occurred some twenty-eight inches below the surface of the deepest part of the mere. The soil in the neighbourhood of it had been disturbed, so I took a spud and trowel and worked the thing out with my own hand. It resulted in an oval or egg-shaped structure of wattle, 5 feet 7 inches long, and 3 feet 10 inches wide. There were 14 uprights, varying from 2 to 2¾ inches in thickness, at nearly equal distances apart. Twigs and sticks were worked in these like the side of a very rough basket. At first I thought it might have been a sunken coracle, but on scooping out the clay with which it was filled, I found that the wattle ceased about 14 inches down, and that the uprights were merely stakes, from 21 to 27 inches long, driven originally into the chalk marl. The bottom of this fabric was filled with broken flints which were also found outside the lower part of the uprights and between them. The flints must have been put in, the points and edges of the points of the stakes being so sharp and clean that they could not have been driven through the bed of flints."
"The top of the wattle was on the level of the chalk marl, on which most of the bones, fragments of pottery, etc., were strewn, and which had been covered over to a depth of from 2 to 4½ feet of dark clay. No more stakes were found, but there occurred divers holes in the chalk marl, some of them nearly in line, in which we could not help thinking they might have once stood. Yet we found no remains of wood in these holes." (B. 161, p. 31.)
Professor Boyd Dawkins, under the heading "Habitations in Britain in the Bronze Age," writes as follows:—
"Sometimes, for the sake of protection, houses were built upon piles driven into a morass or bottom of a lake, as for example in Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmund's, where bronze spear-heads have been discovered, one 13 inches long, among piles and large blocks of stone, as in some of the lakes in Switzerland. Along with them were vast quantities of the broken bones of the stag, roe, wild boar, and hare, to which must also be added the urus, an animal proved to be wild by its large bones, with strongly-marked ridges for the attachment of muscles. The inhabitants also fed upon domestic animals—the horse, short-horned ox, and domestic hog, and in all probability the dog, the bones of the last-named animal being in the same fractured state as those of the rest. Fragments of pottery were also found. The accumulation may be inferred to belong to the late, rather than the early, Bronze Age, from the discovery of a socketed spear-head. This discovery is of considerable zoological value, since it proves that the urus was living in Britain in a wild state as late as the Bronze Age. It must, however, have been very rare, since this is the only case of its occurrence at this period in Britain with which I am acquainted." ("Early Man in Britain," p. 352.)
LAKE-DWELLINGS IN THE FENLAND.
The discovery of so many submarine dwellings in Holland and the adjacent coasts of Germany which I have already described suggests that similar remains might be found in the Fens and other low-lying districts in Britain. The only reference, however, to such dwellings with which I am acquainted is the following short notice by Mr. Skertchly:—