192 REPORT ON THE STAPENHILL EXPLORATIONS. 
grounds which have as yet been recorded bear no proportion to 
the population which may be assumed to have once occupied 
these respective localities ; whilst the number of cemeteries at 
present known are, with the exception of those in the eastern 
parts of Kent, extremely few. There can be no doubt that many 
such in the operations of agriculture and manufactures have been 
discovered, and most ruthlessly and wantonly destroyed all over 
the country. Nor is this greatly to be wondered at when we 
consider how very little real interest is excited when such a 
discovery is made; in a vast number of cases rare and yet 
numerous remains of British, Roman, and Saxon occupation 
having been carelessly and ignorantly tossed into the rubbish cart, 
or otherwise destroyed. 
Yet to archzologists who possess such scanty remnants of the 
early history of our race, this kind of evidence is most important, 
as by such means the veil enshrouding the obscure events of the 
past is in part torn away, revealing, it is true, but a slight glimpse 
perhaps of the tribes who once held sway in a certain locality, but 
nevertheless invaluable by the opportunity it affords of comparison 
with other similar discoveries elsewhere, for it is by thus com- 
paring similar remains found not only in this but in other 
countries that we can arrive at anything like a correct conclusion 
as to their character, and trace the connection between the people 
who used them and their habits, manners, and customs. 
On the other hand, many Pagan cemeteries have probably 
been absorbed or destroyed by succeeding generations. This 
must evidently have been the case at such places as Canter- 
bury and Repton, and many others throughout the country, where 
numerous Anglo-Saxon populations must have been located in 
these early times, and where their kings held court in rude 
magnificence, but where at the present day only a few isolated 
relics have been found insufficient in themselves to mark such 
places as scents of former greatness, victory, and conquest. 
That churches were built in the immediate vicinity, if not on 
the actual site, of Pagan temples and burial places, we have very 
decisive proofs at Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, at Lewes in 
