20 The Ethnology of Wiltshire, as illustrated in the Place-Names. 



M. Littrej the great French philologist, speaking of the Celtic 

 invasion of Western Europe, says " parmi ces noms celtiques, il en 

 est sans doute, qui n' appartiennent pas k la langue des Celtes. 

 Leur etablissement dans la Gaule, si aucien h, un point de vue, est 

 moderne ^ un autre ; ils y trouverent des populations d'un developp- 

 ment inferieur, et Ton peut croire qu' ils n'en expulserent ni tous 

 les hommesj ni tous les noms/^ ' 



Modern investigation has pretty clearly established the fact that 

 long preceding the Celtic immigration, the west of Europe was in- 

 habited by a race of inferior development, probably of Euskaritln 

 or Esquimo affinity. The name of Britain, which is certainly not 

 Celtic, has been traced to this source, and many names of places in 

 Spain and the south of France bear testimony to the existence of a 

 race which has, long ages ago, entirely passed away as a separate 

 people. Let us now endeavour to apply these principles to the an- 

 tiquities and nomenclature of Wiltshire. No county in the kingdom 

 is richer, if so abundant, in prehistoric remains. They are dis- 

 tributed over the surface, of all classes and periods, from the earliest 

 rude attempts at habitations at Pen Pits, near Stourton, on the 

 borders of Somerset, through the various descriptions of barrows, 

 tumuli, ditches, and earthworks up to the noble relics of Avebury 

 and Silbury and the magnificent structure of Stonehenge. The 

 earliest pits and earthworks bear all the marks of an extremely rude 

 and primitive people ; that these people were conquered and driven 

 westwards by the advancing Celtse has every confirmation short of 

 written records. Even at the present day the pits, the remains of 

 primitive habitations which are found in abundance in Wales, bear 

 traditionally the name of " Cyttiau Gwyddelod," the huts of the 

 wild men or savages. 



The description of the Fenni given to us by Tacitus exactly 

 describes a people of this class, and the name Fenni may without 

 much violence be applied to the occupants of the Pen Pits. He 



* " Amongst these Celtic names, without doubt there are some which do not 

 belong to the Celtic language. Their establishment in Gaul, so ancient from one 

 point of view, is modern from another. They found there a population of an 

 inferior development, and it may be believed that they neither exterminated all 

 the people nor all the names." 



