Oct. 4, 1888] 



NATURE 



545 



Prof. Rolleston examined a number of skeletons from a 

 cemetery at Frilford, which he believed to be Romanized 

 Britons, and found that they were of large size, but in my 

 address to the Royal Archaeological Institute at Salisbury, last 

 year, I expressed some doubt about the period of these skeletons, 

 and in a paper since published by Dr. Beddoe I see that he 

 rejects the evidence of their being Romano- Britons upon the 

 same ground that I had doubted it, and he quotes Barnard 

 Davies and Thurnam for the occurrence of other skeletons of 

 these people of the same or nearly the same stature as those of 

 the villages that I have explored. 



We are therefore evidently beginning to accumulate reliable 

 information about these people, whose physical peculiarities are 

 less known to us than any other prehistoric, or rather non- 

 historic, race that has contributed to the population of this 

 country. 



Thurnam shewed that the large-sized, round-headed Belga: 



probably penetrated no further westward than the borders of the 

 district I am speaking of, and that the bowl barrows and the 

 long barrows of the Stone Age predominated to the westward 

 of it. 



Since the present volume of my excavations was in print, I 

 have quite recently made another discovery of considerable 

 interest bearing upon this question. 



J okerley Dyke is an ancient intrenchment which cuts across 

 the old Roman road from Old Sarum to Badbury Rings. It is 

 an earthwork of considerable magnitude, with a ditch on the 

 north-east side of it. It appears to have originally occupied all 

 the open downland spaces intervening between the ancient 

 woods, which latter probably, by means of felled trees, afforded 

 sufficient defence without earthworks. It extends with its 

 dependencies and detached prolongations more or less all the 

 way from White Sheet Hill, on the north-west, to Blagdon Hill, 

 on the southeast, a distance of about nine miles. Its origin and 



MAP SHEWING THE AREA FORMERLY OCCUPIED BY CRANBORNE CHASE, 

 WITH THE ANTIQUITIES CONTAINED IN IT. 



SCALE OF MILES. 



use have been frequently discussed by archaeologists, but no one 

 lias hitherto assigned a right date to it. I have now cut two 

 broad sections through it on either side of the Roman road, 

 models of which are exhibited, with the result of proving that it 

 is late Roman, or post-Roman, and is of the same date as the 

 villages ; Roman coins, to the amount of 500, of late date, ex- 

 tending to Constantinus and Gratianus, and pottery, having been 

 found in both sections, all through the rampart, down to the 

 old surface line. It appears that the dyke had been cut through 

 ground occupied at an earlier date by the Romanized Britons, 

 and that in forming the ditch they threw up the refuse from the 

 habitations to form the bank, including the scattered coins and 

 pottery. A human skeleton of similar character to those found 

 in the villages was also discovered beneath the old surface line 

 in one of the sections, the old surface line being clearly marked 

 over it, showing that it had been buried there before the rampart 

 was thrown over it. From this it appears probable that this 

 <lyke was thrown up to defend the Romano- British villages 



that are situated to the westward or rear of it, from an attack 

 from the east, and that this must in all probability have been done 

 at the time when the Saxon invaders were pressing upon them 

 from the eastward. 



This discovery throws a flood of light upon the history of this 

 part of the country at that time, and shows that the Britons must 

 have made a stout defence against their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, 

 sufficient perhaps to account for the apparent predominance of 

 British blood which has been noticed amongst the existing 

 population of the district. 



Wansdyke, which runs from a spot not far to the north of the 

 Bokerley Dyke in the direction of Bath, has the same defensive 

 attitude as Bokerley, and the examination of it, which it 

 is proposed to make, will show whether or not it is of the 

 same period. 



The observations of Dr. Beddoe and other physical anthropo- 

 logists upon the present population of the country show that 

 the, 'people of the South- West of England are, as a rule, shorter 



