By the Rev. John Adams. 285 



Various articles belonging to the modern era have also been 

 found m the peat marshes/ but the greater part of them, it is 

 much to be regretted, have been dispersed and lost. Had they 

 been preserved in the local museum, they would form an extremely 

 varied and interesting collection, and would illustrate all the periods 

 of human progress into which arch^ologists are wont to divide 

 the earliest ages of our race. We should have, e.g., implements of 

 the stone age, such as rude knives and arrow points wrought out 

 01 the chalk flmts by our remotest ancestors, before they knew the 

 use of metals. A muller of this character was found last year in 

 the peat at Speen, and is now in my possession ; and some are 

 mentioned by Dr. Buckland in his paper "On the Formation of 

 the Valley of Kingsclere," etc. "A human skull of high antiquity," 

 he says "has been found in it (the peat near Newbury), at a depth 

 of many feet, at the contact of the peat with a substratum of shell 

 marl. It was accompanied with rude instruments of stone, which 

 lead us to conclude that it was the skull of one of the aboriginal 

 inhabitants of the island, who had not the art of working mettls." 

 Of the bronze age the peat has furnished several good examples. 

 Perhaps the most noteworthy are two Celtic weapons discovered in 

 the turbary at Speen in the year 1825, and now in the possession 

 of Captain Bunny. One is a looped spear head, seven inches long, 

 the ordinary type. The other is thus described in the Journai 

 of the British Arch^ological Association, December, 1860, p. 322 

 It IS of great interest and rarity, being only the second example 

 of Its kind that has been brought to light. In form it may be 

 ikened to a huge lancet-shaped barbed arrow-head, measuring 

 10,, inches m length by 2'A inches in its greatest breadth. The 

 socket extends up the centre of the blade, and will admit a staff 

 ten twelfths of an inch in diameter. The only other known 

 example of this curious weapon was in 1844, dredged from the 

 bed of the Severn, about a mile and a half below Worcester." A 



th^ ^';.^'^.r' "\ ^''^'''7' ^^° ^^^ ^'' "^^y y^^" taken scientific interest in 

 SnlvT T ' °(;'^^-«'gl^bourhood, exhibited, it will be ren.embered at the 

 fn th Veal"^"'' """'"^ '"^ ^^" ^* ^^^^^-'i' --^ --us art^^le's 4d 



