Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/223

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS OF the centuries immediately succeeding the Roman withdrawal from Britain there is little to be learnt from history, and so far archaeology has afforded no clear knowledge of the period, though such excavations as those conducted by the late General Pitt-Rivers in Wiltshire and Dorset have done something to lift the veil. On the chalk range of the Chilterns, which form the southern boundary of Bedfordshire, only a few faint traces of early Anglo-Saxon settlements have as yet been noticed. Some years ago a considerable number of human skeletons were found in extended positions on the Limbury side of Waulud's Bank, an earthwork near Dunstable. A quantity of broken pottery that may have been Anglo-Saxon was found at the same time, but it is impossible now to decide on the date of the interments or the nationality of the interred. In this part of the country the new- comers seem to have preferred the plains and river-valleys. Groups of interments and sometimes large cemeteries mark the sites chosen by the Teutonic tribes when they first came to settle in this island, and it was not till the wide acceptance of Christianity, perhaps in the first half of the eighth century, that consecrated ground in the neighbourhood of churches was set apart for burials, and the haphazard selection of sites for this purpose in the open country prohibited by the Church. As a rule therefore interments, that from their contents or surroundings may be assigned to a pagan population, date from the obscure period between the Roman withdrawal and the establishment of Christianity in the various petty kingdoms in Britain ; and it is to the early practice of burying with the dead their weapons, ornaments and utensils that is due our knowledge, scanty as it is, of the rise and growth of the various settlements. In Bedfordshire the alluvial soil in the valleys of the Ouse and its tributaries, the Ivel and the Ousel, certainly attracted many of the early comers ; and, apart from considerations of water supply, facilities for agriculture no doubt constituted the main inducement. As will presently be seen, discoveries of this kind in the county are few and scattered, so that it is impossible to distinguish with any degree of certainty any local groups ; but it should be noticed that while to the north of the county- town only one interment is recorded, south of the Ouse a link between most of the sites as yet determined may perhaps be found in the road-