EARLY MAN
or the sides of valleys were the favourite situations. In the numerous small depressions called hut-circles, which are now found on the surface of the ground in Norfolk and other parts of England, we see all that remains of the dwellings in which Neolithic families lived. These hut-circles generally occur in clusters, but sometimes singly. The depression in the ground is surrounded by an annular mound composed of the removed earth, and generally broken at one point where the entrance to the hut was situated. The construction of this mound was probably the first step towards making a Neolithic house. The next step was to build over the hollow a kind of beehive hut made of intertwined branches. In the case of the smaller dwellings this was accomplished without difficulty, but when the hut was made upon a large scale with a diameter of twenty feet or upwards a conical mound in the centre is generally found, and this was apparently intended to receive a central support such as the stem or bough of a tree.
The purposes of making the depression of the ground were obviously to procure sufficient head-room and some degree of warmth, and the encircling mound was clearly intended to throw off the rain which fell upon the roof.
The inflammable character of such a structure as this rendered it impossible to have within the hut such a fire as would be necessary for cooking purposes without incurring a great danger of setting the whole dwelling alight. The cooking-fire was therefore made outside the hut[1] at a convenient and safe distance from it. Remains of such fires have been found in exactly this relation to the floors of Neolithic dwellings,[2] and from the marks of great heat and the amount of charcoal found within them it is evident that cooking was carried on in Neolithic times in much the same way as among some modern savages, the ground being made sufficiently hot by long continued firing to cook whole animals.
The methods of hut-building varied in different places according to the nature of the soil and the supply of materials.
Many examples of these ancient hut-floors have been discovered in Norfolk. One of the most important groups of such floors is at Weybourne, and has been well described by the late Mr. Henry Harrod, F.S.A. His account, which was published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society,[3] contains much valuable information.
The Weybourne pits, several hundreds in number, are situated upon a sandy bed, and but for the fact that they were constructed with great care there is no doubt they would have been destroyed long ago by the influences of the weather. In making the pits one uniform plan seems to have been adopted. A ridge of stones was first placed around the space to be dug out. The soil from the interior was then thrown out, and the
- ↑ W. Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 273.
- ↑ G. Clinch, 'Prehistoric Man in the neighbourhood of the Kent and Surrey Border: Neolithic Age,' Journal of the Anthropological Institute (new series), ii. pp. 127, 134.
- ↑ Norfolk Archæology, iii. pp. 232–40.
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