EARLY MAN 



Kilham, are some 200 mounds called in the neighbourhood Danes' 

 Graves. Some of them being opened by Canon Greenwell and other 

 gentlemen in 1896 proved to be the interments of people in the 

 same state of culture as the occupiers of Hunsbury Camp, viz. Late 

 Celtic. 



The fortification near Flamborough called Danes' Dyke has been 

 shown by the late General Pitt-Rivers not to be the work of the Danes. 

 The earthwork in Somersetshire called Danesborough is probably pre- 

 Roman, and other instances could be adduced. 



Hunsbury Camp was scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act 

 of 1882, but it was found that owing to the mineral value of the ground 

 it could not be brought under the Act. The excavation of it was due to 

 a commercial undertaking ; for underlying the soil was a bed of iron- 

 stone about 12 feet thick (this ironstone is the Northampton Sand of the 

 inferior oolite series of beds) which the Hunsbury Hill Iron Ore Co. 

 began to dig towards the end of 1882. No such thorough excavation 

 of any camp of this period has been undertaken before, or is likely to 

 be undertaken again except for a similar purpose, that is, commercial 

 enterprise. The cost of removing the soil and obtaining the ironstone 

 amounted to several thousand pounds, a sum which would prevent any 

 private digging operations. Over the whole camp, that is as far as it was 

 dug (for a small portion on the southern side was left on account of the 

 poorer quality of the ironstone), the navvies found in what they call the 

 ' on bearing,' that is the soil above the Northampton Sand, numbers of 

 pits sunk in many cases to the ironstone. Most of these pits resembled 

 in shape long beehives turned upside down ; a few of the pits were walled 

 round with flat limestone of the Great Oolite. The usual measurement 

 of these pits was from 5 feet to 6 feet in diameter and about 6 feet in 

 depth. They were filled with black earth and mould, and in them were 

 found numerous articles all of which are claimed to belong to the Late Celtic 

 period. In shape the camp is a somewhat circular oval, with an area of 

 about 4 acres. It was fortified by a ditch or fosse from 50 feet to 60 feet 

 in width and about i 5 feet deep. This ditch with its sides has long been 

 planted with trees, as was also probably the area of the camp previously 

 to its being converted into an arable field. In later digging operations 

 outside the camp on the north side remains of a second trench were 

 found : this was much shallower than the fosse round the camp. In a 

 paper by the late Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., published in the Report of the 

 Northampton Architectural Society for 1885, he gives a plan and sections 

 of the camp showing some of the pits, and seven plates of the more 

 important articles obtained from them. He says : ' There is no reason to 

 suppose the remains at Hunsbury differ widely in date from one another, 

 and if so probably the occupiers were also the constructors of the camp.' 

 Sir Henry in his paper was inclined to attribute the camp to the 

 Romanized Britons, but it is only fair to state that since he wrote it 

 various additional evidences came to light to verify and substantiate the 

 opinion of those who hold that the remains are all pre-Roman. It is 



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