Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/140

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132
PREHISTORIC BRITAIN

considered as it has a relation to other periods of occupation in the Stone Age in this district, and it must not be attempted to give it a place in chronological time. If the occupation of the pits is considered with reference to other and later periods, when the country was inhabited by early man, it is evident that the people, who had their abode in them, must have been living there a long time before the Neolithic men of the polished Stone Age were settled in the district."

It is scarcely possible to put any other interpretation on the above facts than that the Holderness pit-dwellers belonged to the transition period. As to the presence of rough pottery, it may be observed that pottery was well represented in the débris of the hut-village of Campigny described as typical of this period in France (Rev. de l'École d'Anthrop. 1898, p. 402).

Similar evidence of sites inhabited in former times, but now submerged, is abundantly met with in several localities along the shores of Brittany, as at Mont-Dol and the little island of Er Lanic, near Gavr'Inis. From the facts disclosed on the former site M. Sirodot infers that man was an inhabitant of the district when the sea washed the foot of Mont-Dol, that upon the retreat of the sea its exposed bed became overgrown with great forests, and that after a long interval the sea again encroached on the land and submerged the forests within early historic times (Études Critiques d'Archéologie préhistorique). M. de