Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/299

] generally made of wattle-work, like those of the Swiss lakes; but of this work the only trace discovered in Britain is the fragment of the covering of the hut described above, at Fisherton.

From Captain Mudge's subsequent discoveries it is very probable that this is one of a group of wooden houses, connected with each other by paths, and surrounded by a breastwork about five feet high, made of rough spars piled up and compacted together by stakes driven into the bog. He found the sill of a door, and, about a hundred and fifty feet off, two doors or gates cut out of solid logs of oak lying side by side, of which one was perfect, being four inches thick, two feet seven inches broad, by four feet six inches long, with a piece of solid wood protruding at each end to act as pivot to the hinges. From their size it may be inferred that they belong to one of the cabins. A flint arrow-head, two inches long, and "a wooden sword" have also been met with in the peat close by.

The Neolithic inhabitants of Britain also used caves for habitation, such as those of North Wales (described in my work on Cave-hunting), the Victoria Cave in Yorkshire, and Kent's Hole in Devonshire. The refuse-heaps in each of these contain the remains of the same wild and domestic animals, and, in addition, those of the bear and the wild boar.

If we could in imagination take our stand on the summit of a hill commanding an extensive view, in almost any part of Great Britain or Ireland in the Neolithic period, we should look upon a landscape