Pottery.—Fragments of a coarse unornamented pottery were found, out of which one vessel has been restored, having the following dimensions:—11 inches wide at mouth; 12 inches in the widest, a little below the mouth; and 7½ at base. Height, 7½ inches.
About thirty yards distant from the lake-dwelling, in a peaty hollow in the field, Mr. Boynton found pottery of a similar character. It was buried about three feet in the peat. The depth of peat over the lake-dwelling was somewhat more, being nowhere less than 4 feet.
Fauna.—No expert has as yet made a report on the osseous remains, but they are believed to represent the following animals:—Bos longifrons and primigenius, horse (a small breed), dog or wolf, beaver, ox, pig, sheep or goat, deer, otter (?), goose, and some small birds.
One well-formed human skull, with portion of an upper jaw.
Round Hill.—So far as the excavation of this station has been prosecuted the woodwork appears to have been precisely similar to the former, but the area occupied is of larger dimensions. Mr. Boynton thinks that the piles here belong to different periods of time, and a curious fact which he pointed out to Canon Greenwell and myself seems to support this view. He showed us the point of one pile which had penetrated and terminated in the stump of another, from which he inferred that before the former had been inserted the latter had already been in a state of decay. The decayed brushwood had also a greater thickness than at West Furze. The station has not, however, yielded many relics, the principal objects being a small stone celt, portion of a perforated stone hammer, and the half of a jet bracelet. The latter appears to be unique. It is of a flattish form, and ornamented on its outer side by five prominent ridges, running circularly. The marginal ridges are separated from the three central ones by a wider interval, in which runs a smaller ridge or bead. These ridges were evidently manipulated without the use of a turning machine, as they are not perfectly uniform, though the artists intention was to make them so.
In regard to the other three stations there are only indications of their being of a similar character, such as piles and transverse woodwork along the bottom and sides of the drain. At Barmston, a stone axe, a perforated bone implement, like those from West Furze, and bits of charcoal were found. At Gransmoor a very large quantity of broken bones lay exposed in the bottom of the drain, amidst a profusion of oak piles and beams, but among them no implements have been found.
IV.—GENERAL REMARKS ON THE LAKE-DWELLINGS OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
Having placed before you, with a considerable amount of fullness, certain details of the investigations of ancient lake-dwellings that have been made within the British Isles during the last half century, I proceed now to the discussion of some facts bearing on the ultimate question of their origin and development. As my conclusions are of a somewhat argumentative character, involving the consideration of some collateral phenomena as well as a critical analysis of the special materials derived from archæological research, it will be advisable, in order to secure, as far as possible, precision, at least in methods, to concentrate attention on a few definite problems—convenient foci as it were for grouping my observations. I propose accordingly to deal successively with their structural peculiarities; their range in space and time, and how far this range coincides with ethnography; and, finally, their relation to analogous remains in Europe.
Except in a very few instances, which will be afterwards more specially referred to, all the lake-dwellings hitherto examined in Great Britain and Ireland were constructed on artificial islands made generally of wood, but sometimes of stones and such other materials as might be considered suitable. Although no such instructive examples as those at Lochlee, Buston, etc., have been recorded in Ireland, there can be no doubt that those of the latter country were built on the same general principles. Indeed, few of the writers on Irish crannogs have paid much attention to the structure of the islands, and, beyond the mere statement that they were stockaded, palisaded, or surrounded by one or more circles of piles, they have supplied no explanation of the attachments and proper function of the surrounding piles. But though the purpose of the mortised beams does not appear to have been at first well understood in Ireland, it is of importance to observe that their existence has not been entirely overlooked. Dr. Reeves, writing of a crannog in the county of Antrim, says: "These piles were from 17 to 20 feet long, and from 6 to 8 inches thick, driven into the bed of the lough, and projecting above this bed about 5 or 6 feet. They were bound together at the top by horizontal oak-beams, into which they were mortised, and secured in the mortise by stout wooden pegs." (Proc. R. I. A., vol. vii. p. 155.)
Mr. G. H. Kinahan in a paper on the crannogs of Lough Rea thus incidentally alludes to the subject:—"A little north-west of the double row, in the old working, there is a part of a circle of piles; and in another, a row of piles running nearly east and west. Mr. Hemsworth of Danesfort, who spent many of his younger days boating on the lake, and knows every part of it, informs me that on the upper end of some of the upright piles there were the marks of where horizontal beams were mortised on them. These seemed now to have disappeared, as I did not remark them." (Ibid., vol. viii. p. 417.)