EARLY MAN furnished with two or three more urns containing cremated human remains, lay in groups forming more or less irregular circles. Two sets or types of burials were identified at Ayles- ford. In the case of | the earlier burials, marking a period before continental influence set in, the pottery was doubt- less of native manu- facture, and based on models supplied by Bronze Age ex- amples. In the other type of burials the pottery was clearly made under strong continental influence, and its characteristic forms and ornamen- tations point to in- GRAVE-PtT, AtLESFORD. tercourse between Europe and the Britons. Some may have been imported, but it is more probable that setders from Gaul, etc., resided at Aylesford. The urns of this second type of burial are pear-shaped, pedestalled, cordoned, and zoned, features which Dr. Evans identifies with those of the pottery of the more eastern parts of Gaul and the Alpine and Italic region about the head of the Adriatic Sea. Burials of this second type occurred in the form of irregular circles. One of the most im- portant points established by this discovery is the ex- istence of a wholly new style of ancient British ceramic art. Dr. Evans, on this point, writes : ' The handi- work of the British potters of pre-Roman times has been hitherto almost exclu- sively associated with the coarse-grained hand -made vessels that represent the direct tradition of the cups and urns of our neolithic barrows. It is now generally recognized that the origin of this ruder class of vessels is to be sought in early 327 Sketch-plan of Grave-Pits, Aylesford.
