By Lt.-Gen, Pitt-Rivers, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A. 213 



which it falls, and, unlike a bronze implement, or any object of use 

 or vahie, receives no further attention from mankind, so that its 

 " gisement" is dependant solely on natural causes, such as rain or 

 frost, and, like any stone in the soil, it lies in the stratified layer 

 into which it may have been washed, according to the period of its 

 deposition. As a ditch became gradually silted «p in the course of 

 ages, new kinds of pottery, as they were introduced, would be found 

 at higher levels; so that, if we know the periods to which the 

 several kinds of pottery belong, we have no difficulty in assigning 

 a date, or at any rate a place in sequence, to the successive strata 

 that have been deposited. The position of every fragment of pottery 

 and the depth below the surface was, as usual in my diggings, 

 measured, and noted on the plan kept on the ground. See Table, 

 PL II. 



The pottery foirad in the ditch and rampart is of six kinds ; their 

 position is recorded in the upper Section on PI. II. — three British 

 and pre-Roman, and three of the Roman Age. Dividing the 

 ditch into two halves by a horizontal 3ft, line, more pottery was 

 found below than above that line, but every fragment below that 

 line, all round the camp, was British and pre-Roman, whilst of 

 the one hundred and thirty-two fragments found above that line, 

 fifty-two — or nearly half — were of the Roman Age. Then, again, 

 of the total number of eight hundred and fifty-three fragments 

 found in the rampart, only orve — and that perhaps a doubtful 

 specimen of Romano-British pottery^ — was of the Roman Age ; all 

 the rest were British. All this pottery in the rampart, must have 



' This fragment was very small — only one inch aci'oss. It has been examined 

 frequently, and must, I think, be classified as Romano-British, but it has a 

 few small grains of quartz sand in its composition, and it might possibly belong 

 to the fourth quality of British, of which no other fragment was found ia 

 this camp, though it was found in a pit adjoining. But, assuming it to be 

 Eomano-British, nothing can be argued from the finding of one fragment out 

 of the eight hundred and fifty-three fragments, exclusively British, found ia 

 the rampart. It was at a depth of 2'4 foet only, and might therefore have 

 got down to that depth through some stake-hole or other disturbance of the 

 rampart in Roman times. It is possible also that this fragment may have 

 dropped from the top, although the workmen denied it. 



