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water, a condition that would most likely result from the frequent use 
of heated stones with water contained in the vessels. The Highfield 
pit-dwellers were supposed to have resorted to stone-boiling in cooking 
food; and a similar method had been adopted by various uncivilized 
. nations whose pottery was not sufficiently reliable to bear the direct 
. contact with fire. To those interested in the various methods of 
‘¢ stone-boiling ” resorted to by different races of savages, be begged 
to refer, for want of space, to Tylor’s Early History of Mankind. pp. 
262—269. 
With traces of Roman occupation, we had, then, at this early 
settlement, rude remains, which showed residence by an earlier people, 
_ who, doubtless, lived on after the advent of the Romans, He had, as 
ae: yet, observed no intrenchments in the field ; but there was no doubt 
that similar circles occupied a large space of the upper slope of the 
valley. The flint implements stamped the remains as Neolithic, and 
they differed in no respect from the wrought flints occupying the sub- 
soil of the yard, as well as occasionally occurring on the surface of 
the adjoining fields. The settlement was favourably situated to have 
enabled the occupants to obtain water from the river Test ; and along 
the same side of the valley, within the distance of two miles, he had 
discovered more than one working site of flint implements, at which 
he had obtained a varied collection of tools and weapons ; some of 
them polished, but by far the larger number shaped into form by 
chipping. 
These huts must have been covered in, some with stones, others, 
perhaps, had a wooden or wattle superstructure plastered with clay or 
coated with sods of turf ; and their poor inhabitants, as the remains 
testified, cultivated, toa small extent, some of the cereals, had an 
early knowledge of weaving, and lived domesticated with oxen, goats, 
_ and swine. The red deer were most likely obtained by hunting in the 
dense forest that then occupied the deep claylands of North Hamp- 
shire, as an extension of the ancient forests of Harewood, Chute, 
‘ and Finkley. Further, these shallow pits might have been the sum- 
_ mer residences of a people whose winter habitations were in some 
_ more sheltered situation. 
