THE END OF THE LAST ICE AGE

 

Our history begins about 8,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The ice sheet, miles thick in places, that had covered much of northern Europe for more than 100,000 years was retreating, exposing a Britain that was still connected to the European land mass.

The area that we know as Holderness would have consisted of boggy glacial deposits (till) interspersed with lakes (seas). These 'seas' were formed when huge blocks of ice remained unmelted and the till built up around them. The till was transported from places as far afield as north east England, the Lake District, Scotland and Scandinavia. It contains important deposits of sand and gravel.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

POPULATION

 

As the ice retreated northwards, celtic tribes (of which there were around thirty) moved up across the land bridge from the European mainland. The area that now approximates to East Yorkshire was occupied by the Parisi. They were surrounded on the north and west by the Brigantes and to the south, across the Humber, by the Coritani.

The marshy nature of Holderness may be a clue to the etymology of the name of the tribe, possibly derived from the Gallic par (district) and is (stream, water, etc).

 

The scattered hamlet of what is now Old Ellerby began life as an Iron Age settlement. Archaeological excavations in connection with the laying of gas pipelines have unearthed remains of an Iron Age village of round houses.