A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



iron remains from the marsh village, and then travel up to Reading while 

 they are fresh in the memory and compare them with the iron articles 

 in the museum where are displayed all the finds of the buried Roman 

 city of Calleva at Silchester, which has lain undisturbed for centuries 

 under the soil. But to return to our comparison of the articles from 

 Hunsbury with those from Duston, no coin has been found at the camp, 

 while over a thousand Roman coins ranging from Claudius to Honorius 

 have been found at Duston. The pottery is entirely different, the 

 brooches are made upon different systems, the spearheads and swords 

 from Hunsbury are not represented at Duston, and if we bring in other 

 negative evidences to help us, at Hunsbury, though there are numerous 

 remains of the red deer and roe deer, there is not a single fragment 

 of the fallow deer which was introduced into Britain by the Romans. 

 Are they Saxon or Danish ? No ; not a single article ; as can be at 

 once proved by comparison with remains of these two peoples. The 

 evidence goes clearly to establish the fact of its being a camp made 

 and occupied by a tribe of ancient Britons at a time when iron had 

 supplanted (for general purpose) the use of bronze, not going farther 

 back than 200 years B.C., and perhaps inhabited down to the time 

 of the Roman conquest of this part of Britain about the middle of the 

 first century after Christ. Dr. Munro says : ' The presence of querns 

 and long-handled combs in the Glastonbury lake village and in the 

 Hunsbury camp associated with the debris of continued occupancy, in 

 which no characteristic Roman remains are found, points to a pre- 

 Roman civilization probably due to an immigration of Belgic or Gaulish 

 tribes ' ; and Mr. Arthur Evans' opinion is ' that it is probable that 

 the bulk of the objects found in the ancient British oppidum (Huns- 

 bury) belong to the latest pre-Roman period, and are slightly posterior 

 to those of the Aylesford cemetery.' What do we learn from these 

 remains ? That these people were no mean agriculturists, as they grew 

 four kinds of corn ; and as so many querns were found, probably each 

 family had its own set of stones. The spindle whorls and carding 

 combs denote a knowledge of spinning and weaving. This would show 

 that they wore clothing, and did not travel about in a suit of blue paint, 

 as Caesar relates of the inland tribes. There is that fine series of iron 

 weapons and implements to show their proficiency in ironwork, and 

 as remains of slag have been found in the camp we may conclude that 

 the ironstone was smelted — that same ironstone which was not re- 

 discovered until about 1857. The remains of animals tell us the flesh 

 they consumed ; while as for their art, what can be more beautiful in 

 design than some of the patterns of this period ? Evidence goes to 

 show that the departure from the camp was sudden, or how are we 

 to account for the finding of all the millstones in the rubbish pits ? It 

 may be that the inhabitants of the camp put into force the old adage : 

 ' He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.' 



Besides the camp at Hunsbury there are other camps in the county 

 which may belong to this period or to an earlier one, viz. Rainsborough 



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