TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 95 
course for some weeks, arrived on a continent where the inhabitants differed from 
Europeans. He returned to Wales, and subsequently equipped a fleet of ten vessels, 
and sailed for the same continent; but of that expedition no tidings were ever re- 
ceived. All the information we have on this point at present must be deemed only 
probable conjecture. 
On a quantity of Human Bones discovered in a Field near Billingham, in 
the County of Durham. By Joun Hoce, M.A. F.RS., FLAS. 
The author exhibited several human bones, selected from many which were dug 
up this spring in an arable field, situate about half a mile to the west of Billingham, 
in the county of Durham. These bones consisted of supra-occipital and parietal bones 
of the skull, a humerus, portions of the upper and lower jaws with the teeth, &c.: 
they were in excellent preservation, though some were more decayed than others. 
The teeth being worn down in a remarkable manner, led to the belief that they were 
those of a very early and primitive race, which had chiefly fed on hard substances, 
such as parched pulse, nuts, acorns*, and the like. They were dug up at a trifling 
depth with a common spade, 
__ For many years past a vast number of human bones have been ploughed up; so 
_ much so that women whilst weeding in that field have collected them, and sold them 
_ at the neighbouring water-mill, where machinery is used for crushing bones for ma- 
nure. The field is called Nution, or Newion Heads, which has probably been so 
_ named from the skulls or heads of men having been at times discovered in it. There 
_ was nothing whatever to show that these remains had been interred in coffins, or 
4 after any regular plan of sepulture; nor is there the least likelihood of the spot ha- 
ving formerly been a burial-place belonging to any church or convent. 
___In the year 1804, a skull and several human bones were turned up when draining 
in a grass-field near the same mill; and about the year 1830, in an adjoining grass- 
field, three skeletons of men were found while some workmen were excavating a part 
of the field for a line of railway; they however rapidly crumbled to dust on exposure 
to the air. 
Mx. J. Hogg, in endeavouring to account for the appearance of these remains in 
the fields respectively pointed out, attributed their interment in those spots to one of 
_ the following causes, which several local histories have handed down to us :— 
First. Hutchinson, in his ‘ History of Durham,’ vol. iii. p. 106, says, “ Billingham is 
memorable for a great battle fought there by Ardulf, king of Northumberland ;” and 
the same is related by a later author} more fully thus: ‘a civil war broke out in the 
kingdom of Northumberland, when the mal-contents assassinated Ethelred the king 
at Corbridge, a.v. 795. Wada was chief of the conspirators, and was attacked by 
Ardulf, who after a short interval had succeeded Ethelred (about a.p. 800), and a 
pitched battle was fought near Billingham, which is represented to have been attended 
_ with a very great slaughter.” 
__ Second. In one of the irruptions of the Danes, about a.p. 910, a king called 
Reingwald landed a great force (according to Symeon Dunelmensis, lib. 2. cap. 16) 
1 the coast of Northumberland, and expelled or murdered several of the principal 
abitants; and one of his generals, called Scula, laid waste the country from Eden 
| Dene to Billinghamt. 
_ Third. In the tenth century, between a.p. 920-25, Edward the Elder reduced the 
Danes throughout Northumbria. 
_ The great quantity of human bones however that have been brought to light within 
the last few years in the before-mentioned arable field, renders the first of these 
causes the most probable. Yet some persons might perhaps be induced to assign 
ir appearance in all those places, either to some battle consequent upon a later 
ursion of the Danes or other hostile nation, or to a more recent fight between the 
| natives of that district and some marauding party of freebooters, although of any such 
| having actually occurred nothing whatever is known. 
t } 
_* Many suppose that the common acorn could not be eaten on account of its great bitter- 
ess; but it is probable that there was some method adopted by the earlier inhabitants to 
act it. For a mode still used by the Sardinian peasantry, see Tyndale’s Island of Sar- 
dinia, vol. iii. p. 191. 
| ‘+ Brewster, Hist. Stockton, edit. 2, p. 10. 
t See Brewster, Hist. Stock. p. 11, and Surtees, Hist. of Durham, vol, iii. p. 144, 
L 
