The Story of the East Riding of YorkshireBrowne, Horace B. (Horace Baker)
History
The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire
Browne, Horace B. (Horace Baker)
Yorkshire (England) -- History
Of the former kind of _pit-dwelling_ an example has been discovered in
the hollow known as Garton Slack, the pit measuring rather less than 9
feet by 6 feet in length and breadth, and 5 feet in depth; while one of
the latter kind has come to light under Kemp Howe, a few miles north of
Driffield.[3] The underground chamber here measured 25 feet by 4½ feet,
had a depth of 6 feet at its deeper end, and was approached by a sloping
passage 11 feet in length, the entrance to which would doubtless be
hidden with scrub. The roof had been supported on six upright posts, and
for twelve feet along one side of the chamber ran a stone ledge—this
last being evidently a luxury.
Footnote 3:
Groups of circular _pit-dwellings_ have been discovered at Bempton and
at Atwick—the latter by Mr. William Morfitt, whose house at Atwick
contains many ‘treasures’ which he has unearthed in the district
around Hornsea.
It is probable that these two kinds of dwellings may have been
respectively the summer and winter houses of the same people. For the
Roman historian Tacitus says of the ancient tribes on the other side of
the North Sea:—
Besides their ordinary habitations, they have a number of
subterranean caves, dug by their own labour and carefully covered
over with soil, in winter their retreat from cold and the repository
for their corn. In these recesses they not only find a shelter from
the rigour of the seasons, but in times of foreign invasions their
effects are safely concealed.
Of the men who lived on the Yorkshire Wolds we know a great deal; for it
was their custom to raise over the burial places of their chiefs
circular mounds of earth, some still very large, others now only a foot
or two high. The relative size of a burial mound, which we speak of
either by the Latin name _tumulus_ or by the English names _barrow_ and
_howe_, marks the importance of the chieftain whose body or ashes once
lay under it.
These _tumuli_, or barrows, are very plentifully strewn over the
Yorkshire Wolds, and for more than fifty years the late Mr. J. R.
Mortimer, of Driffield, devoted all his leisure time to their
excavation. The results of his labours are to be seen in his private
museum—the Mortimer Museum—and details of his ‘finds’ are recorded in
his large book on the _Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire_, some of the
illustrations in which are here reproduced.
A general idea of how a barrow has been constructed, and of what it may
contain, can be gained from the illustration on the next page.
Howe Hill, Duggleby, is one of the larger barrows, built on a sloping
hillside, and having at its base a diameter of 125 feet and at its
flattened top one of 47 feet.
[Illustration: SECTION OF HOWE HILL, DUGGLEBY.]
A-K. Skeletons in position as buried.
O. Cremated remains. Y. Band of blue clay impervious to
water.
W. Inner mound of clay. Z. Outer mound of chalk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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