WORLE CAMP. 83 
three hundred feet above the sea, must have been brought 
there on purpose ; and many pieces of red earth, apparently 
containining ochre, one of which appears to have been 
rubbed down into the form of a small egg. 
Now the question naturally arises,—to what date and to 
what people are we to ascribe these curious relies of 
antiquity? and though we have as yet made but small 
progress in our investigations, I think we even now possess 
data suflicient to justify us in hazardıng a guess ; for a 
mere guess at present it must be, as to both these points. 
I am inclined then to think, that they are relics of two 
distinet dates, separated from each other by an interval of 
several hundred years. From the extreme coarseness and 
rudeness of the pottery, as well as the state of almost de- 
composition in which, while wet, some of it appeared to 
be, I am inelined to think that the greater part of it, 
together with the iron rings, (which were found put away 
with great care at the very bottom of the corner of one of 
the excavations, and the use of which, unless they were 
analogous to the ring money, which we know to have been 
in use before the introduction of coin, it would be diffieult 
to understand,) are the relics ofthe early inhabitants of 
the place, whether H=dui or Belg®, and more ancient 
than the time ofthe Roman invasion. AsfarasIcanjudge, 
with the exception of one very diminutive fragment of 
black ware, nothing has been found in the slightest degree 
indicative of Roman occupation ; not a fragment of brick, 
not a single coin, have we met with; from which I conclude 
that the place was deserted from the time that Ostorius 
Seapula took military possession of the country from the 
Avon to the Parret, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, 
— that the British inhabitants, reduced to slavery by their 
conquerors, and having learned to construct better habita- 
L3 
