est and at another occasion his
examination revealed more pottery and mixed up with the fragments were the
bones of animals. Some piles forming two parallel rows about 4 feet apart
were also discovered crossing the stream at right angles to its course.

The diagram given here shows the position of the piles as far as they were
revealed in one of the excavations and it also shows their presumed
continuation, but no reliance can be placed on anything but those actually
dug out and indicated with a solid black spot. The piles were made of oak,
birch and alder, with very rough pointed ends, and they measured from 6 to
10 inches in diameter. Three other rows cross the Costa in the same
neighbourhood separated by a few hundred yards and as they lie at right
angles to the stream which there forms a concave bend, they appear to
converge upon one point. This would be what may roughly be termed an
island between the Costa and a large drain where water in ancient times
probably accumulated or flowed.

There can therefore be little doubt that the island was the home of
prehistoric lake-dwellers who constructed their homes on rude platforms
raised above the water or marshy ground by means of piles after the
fashion of the numerous discoveries in Switzerland, and the present habits
of the natives of many islands in the Pacific. Among the quantities of
skulls and bones of animals, pottery and human skeletons, no traces of
metal were brought to light and the coarse jars and broken urns were, with
one exception, entirely devoid of ornamentation. The ground that was
removed before the chief discoveries were made, consisted of about 8 or 10
inches of cultivated soil, below which came about 2 feet 6 inches of stiff
blue clay, and then about 6 feet of peat resting on the Kimmeridge clay
that formed the bottom of Lake Pickering. Most of the relics were found
resting on the clay so they must have remained there for a sufficient time
to have allowed these thick deposits to have formed, and it is possible
that they may be associated with some of the Neolithic people who took to
this mode of living when the Celtic invaders with their bronze weapons
were steadily driving them northwards or reducing them to a state of
slavery. A complete account of the discoveries was in 1898 read by Captain
Cecil Duncombe at a meeting of the members of the Anthropological
Institute and in the discussion which followed,[1] Mr C.H. Reid gave it as
his opinion that