ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS
with blunt blade may also be mentioned. [1] During the excavations it was noticed that the urns were placed too deep to be damaged by the ploughshare, and it was surmised that they were disturbed from time to time in digging the ordinary graves. In one case an urn had apparently been replaced above an unburnt body which rested, according to the rule observed in this cemetery, on the drift-gravel two or three feet from the surface. And it may have been a feeling of respect that suffered the ashes of the dead to remain in the base of an urn even when the upper part had been shattered.
These surmises however throw but little light on the connection between those who practised the different rites of burial. The urns do not appear to have been confined to any one part of the cemetery, though there were areas in which one or other method prevailed. It is highly probable that cremation was the earlier practice, but it has yet to be proved whether the change was due to the arrival of another tribe or to the growth of a new religion. Some important evidence on this point has been furnished by the excavation of another burial-ground in Berkshire at Frilford, only 7 miles from Long Wittenham.
The importance of the discoveries made at Frilford by Mr. Akerman is mainly due to the able manner in which they were described by
Professor Rolleston of Oxford, who, in a memoir published by the Society of Antiquaries, [2] furnished all necessary particulars as to the graves and the anatomical peculiarities of their occupants. The site may on this account be said to rank with Long Wittenham and Fairford as affording a valuable clue to conditions of life in the southern midlands during the post-Roman period.
The cemetery, which was excavated between 1864 and 1868, was situated in the angle between the left bank of the river Ock and the
road from Frilford to Wantage; and there was ample evidence that
Roman civilization had taken firm root in this locality. The inventory of the relics brought to light is unhappily not complete, [3] but sundry details of special interest may be noted. Many skeletons lying with the head westward were found to be destitute of relics, a point in favour of the common interpretation of orientated graves. As at Long Wittenham, the saucer type of brooch was plentiful, and an oval specimen of Roman character set with a glass-paste or carbuncle once more appeared.
Among the thirty-eight graves discovered, Professor Rolleston distinguished five classes, and there can be no doubt that the first, comprising five interments in leaden coffins [4] cased with oak, belongs to the period of Roman domination. An indication of their date is afforded by the discovery, in one or other of the coffins, of coins of the Roman emperors Constantine the Great (died 337), Valens (died 378) and Gratian (died
- ↑ (1) Knives without a cutting edge have been found in graves of men at Kempston, Beds (Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, vi. 171), and on the downs near Lewes (Castle Museum).
- ↑ (2) Arch. xlii. 417 ; xlv. 405. See also Cornell University Register, 1870-1, p. 50.
- ↑ (3) Proc. Soc. Antiq. ser. 2, iii. 136.
- ↑ (4) Part of one is preserved in Reading Museum. All were placed with the feet E.S.E. (Archælogia, xlii. 421).
