Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/540

418 must have been brought thither for some purpose; we noticed also many pieces of red earth, apparently containing ochre, one of which seems to have been rubbed down into the form of a small egg. Nothing has been found, as far as I can judge, indicative of Roman occupation. This fact, together with the nature of the cuts on the skulls, which are such as might have been inflicted with the Saxon broad sword, and also the circumstance that the wounded skeletons were found nearly opposite to a spot where it is evident that a breach had been made in the south rampart, has induced me to suppose, that the place was probably deserted immediately after the occupation of the country from the Avon to the Parret, by Ostorius Scapula, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The fortress had remained, possibly, in a state of ruin till the West Saxon invasion, in the sixth century, at which time it might have been used by the Romanised Britons as a place of refuge, and the corn and pigs might have been part of their slender stores of provision. The place, as I imagine, was taken by storm, and in the desperate struggle that ensued, some of the killed and wounded fell into these huts, which, having been deserted for some centuries, were then open holes; their wattled roofs, covered with brushwood, having fallen in, furnished the dark mould and blackened sticks, which have been found in almost every instance. The skeletons of these bodies being in some degree protected from the weather, and covered by the loose stones and earth, which in the lapse of 1200 years have filled up the excavations, had been preserved to the present time; whilst those which remained uncovered on the surface have totally disappeared, through the action of the elements, or have been destroyed by beasts and birds of prey. I shall thankfully receive any information or suggestion on this subject which members of the Institute will give me. I have Mr. Pigott's permission to proceed with the investigation in the course of next summer."

The cavities described in this interesting relation of Mr. Warre's recent researches, appear to be of that curious class of early remains, regarded by some archaeologists as primeval habitations. Sir Richard Colt Hoare gives a description of the most extensive assemblage of these supposed sites of British huts, existing at Pen, on the borders of Somerset and Wilts. (Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 35.) He appears to have considered the evidence insufficient to prove that they were dwelling-places. Daines Barrington, in his Account of Cole's Pits, at Little Coxwell, Berks, has asserted the notion that such excavations were habitations; and the same opinion is maintained, with much probability, by Mr. Bateman, in his curious description of Pit Steads and vestiges of huts discovered on Harthill Moor, Derbyshire. Pits of a similar nature surrounded by walls or margins of stones laid without mortar have been noticed on the moors near Whitby, and are described by Mr. Young in his History of that place.

exhibited (by favour of George Borrett, Esq., of Southampton) an ancient signet, set in gold as a ring, stated to have been found in the year 1845, in the episcopal city of Sessa (the Suessa Auruncorum of the ancients,) situate in the Terra di Lavoro, kingdom of Naples,