ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS specimen mentioned above, being 3^ inches long. Other small brooches were found, some faced with garnets, others of plain bronze, and among various minor articles were two large melon-shaped Roman beads of blue glass. Mr. Cecil Brent,' in 1881, continued his brother's exploration of the site, and found three graves, lying east and west, at the bottom of a trench 10 feet deep cut in soil that had been washed down from above. Of these one was that of a warrior, as shown by a truly conical shield- boss, the only relic ; the second was a female interment, with the usual beads of glass, amber and crystal ; while the other contained only a few bones. Another group of four graves was discovered, one of which was north and south, and contained the remains of a man who seemed to have been buried in a sitting position ; with him had been placed a spear on the right, and on the left a knife 15 inches long and another about half the length evidently in one sheath ; also part of an ivory (bone ?) comb, an iron oval ring, and a boar tusk, worked. Another of this group contained a small tusk with a small gold earring, buried over a male body by which was a fine iron spear-head. The others contained nothing of interest. North-west from Stowting, the high ground overlooking the Stour valley had evidently been appreciated by the Romanized popula- tion. The excavations conducted by Faussett^ in 1757 and 1759 on Tremworth Down in the parish of Crundale, though they resulted in but few additions to his Anglo-Saxon collection, are of interest as pointing the contrast between Romano-British and later interments. It was doubtless this early experience that led him to assign all the cemeteries he explored to the Romanized inhabitants of Kent, though he specially remarks on the differences of orientation in this and other localities. His words are : ' The position of the skeletons here, with their feet to the west or south-west, I am quite at a loss to account for, it being a direct contrary one to what I have met with in all other places where I have since dug — at Ash, Chartham, Kingston, Bishops- bourne, Sibertswold and Barfreston ; at all which places they were found, in general, with their feet pointing to the east or near it. Some few, indeed, I have met with at some of those places which pointed with their feet to the north or near it ; but I have never found above one (at Kingston, see p. 345), which pointed, as these all did, with their heads to the east and their feet to the west.' There were besides unburnt burials, a number of cinerary urns evidently of Roman manu- facture in this cemetery ; and though it is not stated in the original account, it may be taken that the latter belong to the first two or three centuries of our era, the practice of burying the body entire dating in this country from about the middle of the third century onwards. There was, however, at least one Anglo-Saxon burial here, and to judge from the associated relics it was that of a woman. An urn at the feet contained a coin of Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius, » Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxxix. 84. * Inv. Sep. pp. 177-98. 367
