EARLY MAN Age. There are several in the neighbourhood of Eastbourne, Lewes, near the Devil's Dyke, Brighton, and north of Chichester. Some have never yet been properly examined, but remains of actual burials, pottery, etc., have been recorded from barrows at Alfriston, Beddingham, East Blatchington, Hove, Lewes, Rottingdean, Storrington, etc. There are several pieces of sepulchral pottery in the Lewes and Brighton Museums. In the Lewes Museum are some very interesting sepulchral urns found at Mount Harry near Lewes.' In the British Museum are two Bronze Age palstaves and one socketed celt found in Sussex, but the exact locality is unknown. The Prehistoric Iron Age The period beginning with the introduction of iron and ending with the appearance of the Romans in Britain is in some respects the most interesting of all the prehistoric past. Although the antiquities are less numerous than those of two of the earlier periods, they bear witness to a higher degree of culture. The pottery assumes elegant and delicate shapes ; the metals are elaborately w^orked ; and an extremely beautiful form of conventional decoration makes its appearance. Among other clear evidences of advance in culture are the establishment of a system of metallic currency, the development of the art of enamelling, the institution of kingly government, and the introduction of a form of religious faith. The antiquities of this age found in Sussex illustrate all these phases of culture in a more or less complete manner. Commencing with metallic objects, attention may be drawn to what is supposed to be a gold toe ring ploughed up on land at Bormer near Lewes, and now in the British Museum. It is formed of two bars of gold, square or rect- angular in section, and thick in the middle with diminishing ends. These bars are twisted in the way one usually finds torques are twisted, and the four ends are amalgamated at the thinnest part of the ring. The ring may possibly be as late as the Roman period, but the style of manufacture is certainly earlier. A celebrated discovery of gold ornaments was made in January 1863, at Mountfield,^ a parish situated 4 miles north from Battle. A ploughman in the course of his ordinary work turned up a long piece of metal twisted in three grooves, about a yard long, and with trumpet- like terminations. He also found a great number of rings, some of larger size than the others. The larger kind were round and not com- pletely closed. Altogether the man found about 1 1 lbs. avoirdupois of metal, which he, supposing it to be merely old brass, sold for the sum of 5^. bd. Finally the metal passed into the hands of Messrs. Brown, the refiners in Cheapside, they purchasing it as Barbary gold for the sum of ^^529. The deposit turned up by the plough at Mountfield ' See list of barrows, etc., in the article on Ancient Earthworks. '•^ Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lend. (ser. 2), ii. 347-S. I 321 41
