Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/115

Rh an acre. Near it are five barrows of the Bronze Age, previously opened. The rampart and the entire surface of the camp, and its immediate surroundings, save a small part where the roots of growing trees interfered, were carefully removed, and the ditch excavated down to the undisturbed chalk. Preliminary sections resulted in the discovery of practically nothing but part of a single urn—an argument for thorough excavation, or none at all. In the more extensive labours which followed, abundant remains were found to date the entrenchment as one of the Bronze Age. In the upper silting of the ditch and the interior there came to light sufficient Roman and Romano-British relics to show that it was in use (visited, if not actually occupied) during Roman times, though perhaps not by the Romans themselves. The animal remains were those of the ox, deer, and sheep. The ox and sheep were both small animals, the former about the size of a Kerry cow and the latter like the St. Kilda sheep. Some bones of a small kind of dog were found, pointing to the probability that the occupiers were hunters. No human bones were discovered.

The next excavations described were on Handley Hill and Handley Down, about four miles from the South Lodge entrenchment. The same plan of thorough excavation was adopted. Another entrenchment, one of a large number scattered over the Wiltshire and Dorsetshire downs, was explored. Like the South Lodge Camp it was square, or rather lozenge-shaped. The rampart was low, being only 0.6 foot above the old surface-line at the crest, and the ditch proportionately shallow. It was found to be of the Bronze or Roman Age, the doubt being caused by the discovery of a silver denarius of Trajan on the old surface-line beneath the rampart. This would have been conclusive if the rampart had been higher. It may have been that the spot was occupied, but not entrenched, before the Roman conquest. A large ditch of the Bronze Age, called by General Pitt-Rivers the Angle Ditch, from its shape, and a drain, probably older, which crosses it, were also uncovered, together with some considerable areas adjoining. The discoveries here, especially of pottery and flints, disclosed traces of occupation during the Bronze Age and Roman times. And, speaking generally, it is clear that a considerable population was settled at those periods all over this part of the country.