(3.) In addition to the entrenchments, the country is thickly studded with tumuli, especially in connection with the strongly fortified posts of Aldro, Settrington, and Garrowby. It is difficult to say which of the two, the tumuli or the entrenchments, were first constructed. There is evidence to show that, in three or four cases out of some hundreds, the tumuli were raised first, because the entrenchments are diverted out of their natural course to pass round them; but on the whole it seems almost impossible to doubt that they were both thrown up by the same people, and during the same period.

4. This being the case, we have to seek evidence of the date from the tumuli, there being no evidence available from the entrenchments, except in one case to which I shall refer presently. Now most of the tumuli have been opened by my friend Mr. J. R. Mortimer, whose splendid collection of prehistoric remains at Driffield is almost unrivalled; and, with this result, that the tumuli on the High Wolds are the burial mounds of a race of people who used only flint weapons, and who were so far unacquainted with the use of bronze that only some half-dozen bronze pins have been found in the whole of the mounds. Many cremated interments have, however, been met with, and as these are said to mark the introduction of the bronze age, it may be fairly inferred that the tumuli date back to the stone age, and the beginning of the bronze age, whenever that might have been.

A further indication is obtained from a study of the skulls. It is generally admitted that a long-headed race preceded a round-headed race. It may be so. Anyhow both kinds of skulls are met with on the Wolds, though the round-headed predominate. From a recent investigation by Dr. Garson of the skulls obtained from the Duggleby Howe, opened two years ago by Sir Tatton Sykes, it appears that all of them belonged to the long-headed race, though interred in

round barrow. The great antiquity therefore of the tumuli can hardly be called in question.

My argument being that the tumuli and entrenchments go together, it follows that the entrenchments were the work of a people who lived long preceding the Roman occupation, and who possessed only flint weapons and utensils wherewith to construct these stupendous monuments of antiquity.

5. So far I have dealt only with my own observations, during a residence of nearly thirty years: but additional light has been thrown upon the subject by excavations made at Danes' Dike, in the year 1879, by Major-General Pitt-Rivers. You will find his paper published in the journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1882.

The General caused a series of trenches to be cut through the mound, a little to the north of the modern road to Bempton, close to a stream of water, which here passes inside the rampart, thinking this to have been a likely place of resort. The section was twenty feet wide. In this limited area, upwards of 800 worked flints were obtained, consisting of arrowheads, axes, celts, and flakes. They were found almost entirely just below the surface of the mound, partly on the top, and partly in the silt, which had been washed down on the interior slope; proving conclusively that the earthwork had been thrown up previous to the flints falling upon it. Moreover, the flints on the top were lying in every case horizontally, and not at all angles, as they would have been if thrown up from an old surface in the process of construction. It was also noted that no flints were obtained from the exterior slope, whilst they were abundant on the interior, showing that the defenders manufactured their weapons on the spot, probably inside a stockade.

This important evidence establishes the fact that Danes' Dike was constructed by a race of people who

used flint weapons, and were, apparently, unacquainted with the use of bronze. It agrees remarkably with the evidence from the tumuli above mentioned, and goes to prove that on the Yorkshire Wolds we have the records of a race who lived long anterior to the Danes, the Angles, the Romans, or the Celts.

6. The question remains, Whence came they? General Pitt-Rivers is undecided as to whether they advanced from the coast, or retreated from the interior. It may be presumed that, on the first supposition, the earthwork at Flamborough is older than the entrenchments to the west; whereas taking the other alternative, those at Aldro', Garrowby, etc., were first constructed, and Flamborough is the last. For my own part, I venture to express a strong opinion that invaders from the sea first seized on and entrenched Flamborough Head, and then spread themselves over the High Wolds, fortifying as they went. Other invasions followed in succession, Brigantes, Parisi, Romans, Angles, Danes; and whilst each in turn utilized no doubt the grand old earthwork, the dread memory of the last was permanently preserved in the nomenclature of the people, "The Danes' Dike."

IN

East Riding Field-Names.

BY REV. M. C. F. MORRIS, B.C.L., M.A.

N the few remarks I have to make on this head, I can hope to do but little more than draw attention to, and if it may be, create a deeper and more extended interest in this wide-spreading branch of archæological study. Even were I competent to deal with the subject in an adequate manner, the intricacies and difficulties connected with it are so great that a long series of papers would probably be required to give anything like a full idea of the vast amount of information of various kinds that lies concealed in our local fieldnames. I use the term concealed advisedly, for although there are those to be found who have taken up this line of research with more or less earnestness and skill, yet, so far as I know, we have but few specialists who can be classed as authorities upon the subject, and thus a good deal of the more detailed geographical history of our country is hidden from us.

The elaborate ordnance survey of recent years has perhaps done more than anything else to preserve, and present to the public in readable form, our parochial field-names; still, I think it will not be too much to say that there is scarcely a parish in England where anything like a complete record is even by this means kept of the traditional names of the fields bearing particular designations, while in many cases the number marked on the ordnance maps is but scanty.

A more complete nomenclature is preserved in the old tithe awards; but this source of information does not tell us by any means all; it has, moreover, the disadvantage of not being always accessible. If we wish to acquire a wider knowledge of local field-names,

we must mainly gain it on the spot from those to whom such names have been handed down from father to son through a long line of generations. A knowledge, too, of the local physical characteristics of the land, as well as of the folk-speech of the district, is often an important factor in determining the derivation of a field-name. To give a single instance of the former :-In the parish where I resided till lately, there was a field which always went by the name of Thackray, or, as it was probably more correctly termed in the dialect, Thackra. The nature of the land did not appear different to that which immediately surrounded it, but on enquiring of one of the oldest inhabitants, who knew the district well, and had lived there all his life, I learnt that the field was formerly a wet one, and from what I was told, it was evident that something of the nature of a pond had at one time existed there, which modern drainage had quite effaced. Thack being the local pronunciation of thatch, it was not unreasonable to gather that this pond had been used in connection with material used for thatching the houses in the neighbourhood, and that the name thackra meant thatcher water. Whether this derivation be correct or not may be uncertain, but it at least illustrates what I wished to show, viz., that a knowledge of the physical geography of a field is often necessary in order to aid us in determining the meaning of its name.

As already stated, it is impossible in a paper of this kind to touch upon more than one or two points. There is one, however, in connection with the term field itself which should not be passed over. We are

so accustomed to look upon a field in the light of the common usage of the word, that its earlier meaning is apt to be lost sight of. England is now cut up into hundreds of thousands of fields of greater or lesser size, all enclosed by hedges or fences of some kind, else we should not call them fields. Time was when the face of the country wore a very different aspect from what