pieces of sarsen stone, burnt flints, fragments of bones of animals, including the jaw bone of a pig (4ft. deep), and fragments of antlers of red deer, were found scattered all through the silt of the ditch. A human jaw bone, rather small, and with worn teeth, was found 5ft. deep, but no other human bones. The majority of the finds were in groups within a foot or so of the bottom of the ditch. At one spot seventy-two flint chips were found (6ft. deep) all within the space of a foot or so. In a similar group were found forty-four flint chips, a round hammer stone and a core of flint, burnt flints, a sarsen chip, a fragment of pottery, and a piece of a large bone (ox ?). In another group were two shoulder blades of a small ox (not of the same individual), two flint flakes with good bulbs of percussion, other broken flints, and a piece of pottery; and again a flint scraper with good secondary working, a rough flint hammer, and a flint core. The most interesting group contained some twenty fragments. of pottery, including rim pieces (Figs. 14-15), and two bosses or lugs (Fig. 13), resembing those sometimes found on Bronze Age cinerary urns, ox bones (including one horn core) representing at least five individual animals; forty flint flakes and rough pieces of flint, a scraper with secondary working; a nodule of brown stained flint that has been much used for rubbing and hammering; a piece of sarsen shaped like a split pear, with chipped edges, 41in. × 32in.; and a nodule of iron stone that has been used as a hammer. The bones were sent to Professor Mc Kenny Hughes who very kindly identified them, and pronounced them to belong to a small specimen of the Bos taurus, or domestic ox. That they are certainly not those of the Bos longifrons is proved by the one horn core (Fig.17) that fortunately was found in fair condition. This discovery would seem to be of considerable interest in connection with the vexed question as to the various breeds of ox domesticated in preRoman Britain. The condition of the flints found in the ditch is interesting. A very few of them are weathered quite white like surface flints. These are smooth and blunt to the touch, and appear to have been undoubtedly weathered and worn before they were covered up in the ditch. But by far the greater number are only a soft pale grey in colour, and are rough and sharp to the touch like freshly chipped flints. This, together with the suggestive way in which these chips and flakes were found together in groups or clusters, seems to prove that they were actually worked on the spot where they were found. Lying in the chalk silt they have become discoloured, but their sharp edges and roughnesses have not been worn down. In some cases it appears that they were worked on the actual floor of the ditch, and in others after it had become partially filled in. The worked bone (Fig. 12) was found on the floor of the ditch. There was no sign of a fire ever having been lit on the actual floor of the ditch, but in two places there had been a fire after it had partly silted in, in one case to a depth of 4ft. and in the other 3ft. RELICS FROM THE PLATEAU DITCH AND RAMPART. Fragments of the skull and limb bones of an infant were found imbedded in the rampart of the plateau enclosure. Forty rim pieces and one hundred and sixty-three other pieces of bead rim bowls, were also found under this rampart on the old turf line, together with a particularly good specimen of a sarsen muller, and a piece of another one of flint. A much rusted iron brooch was found 21ft. deep in the ditch of the plateau enclosure; it is made out of strong iron wire, all in one piece, like a modern safety pin. Of Late Celtic type (Fig 4). It closely resembles an iron brooch found in the Late Celtic rubbish heap at Oare, dating from circ. 50 B.C., -50 A.D. Except fairly numerous fragments of pottery of the bead rim bowl type nothing else was found in the plateau ditch.1 RELICS FROM THE SURFACE OF THE PLATEAU ENCLOSURE. Not only within the plateau enclosure, but over the whole area, between Knap and Golden Ball Hill, the ground is thickly strewn 1 Twenty-one pieces of bead rim bowls were found in the last foot above the bottom of this ditch. with sherds of pottery. The great majority of these are RomanoBritish or Late Celtic in character, but occasionally there occur fragments of coarse hand-made "Bronze Age" type, and of glazed modern or medieval ware. By means of a little search handfuls of such fragments may be gathered from the mole hills that are numerous on the spot. The pottery found in the various sections in and about the plateau enclosure includes numerous pieces of the various kinds of pottery that are commonly found associated with Roman remains, grey, black, red, cream, and buff, including several pieces of mortaria. The better quality wares of the period were represented by a few fragments of New Forest, and of Castor ware with "slip" decoration, and forty-two pieces of Samian ware. Among this latter is a piece with a mending rivet-hole, a piece of a small bowl of first century form (Form 27), a base of a large bowl, with an illegible maker's stamp, a base of a very small bowl with a rosette stamped on the interior, a base of a small bowl chipped out to form a roundel, and stamped with the maker's name SEAERIM.1 (Fig. 6.) A good many of the pieces of the Samian ware are blackened and discoloured by fire. The following objects were also found: An iron key, 3 in. long. Roman (Fig. 3). Pair of bronze tweezers, length 24in., probably Roman (Fig. 11). Three sarsen mullers, or pounding stones. Iron nails (Figs. 1-2). Five pieces of hones or sharpening stones. Fragments of small glass vessel, much oxidised. Roman. Probably Several pieces of Roman incised tiles and circular bricks. 1 There seem to have been several potters of this name, and there are several entries of it in the "Catalogue of Roman Pottery" published by the British Museum, but I can find no record of a stamp quite the same as this one. Mr. Reginald Smith tells me that “ OF SEAERI" is in the "Corpus," and that "o SEAERI occurs at Caerwent (with the letter v reversed as at Knap.) |