THE ROMAN CONTINGENT 27 



north of Cambridge. One remarkable fact is 

 worth recording in relation to this skull. The 

 peat-diggers, as their long trenches approached 

 Reach Lode, always came upon a sort of bank, 

 where the peat was harder and mixed with earthy 

 material. This indicated that there had been a 

 fosse dug through the peat to the underlying 

 marl and clay, and that the bank was the upcast 

 from this fosse. It was in the direct line from 

 Reach to Upware, starting from near the great 

 quarries which may date from Roman times, and 

 from the end of the Devil's Ditch, along which 

 so many remains have been found, and pointing 

 straight for the southern end of the Upware 

 island, where also there are abundant traces of 

 Roman occupation. All the Roman pottery from 

 this part of the fenland which I have been able to 

 trace to its exact locality, was found along the 

 line of this raised bank." 



Starting from this hint, McKenny Hughes 

 went on to inquire into the kind of cattle most 

 likely to have been brought into Britain by the 

 Romans. They could not have been the native 

 cattle of France, for, being of the same type, 

 these could have brought about no change in the 

 character of the cattle in Britain. They must 

 have come either immediately or originally from 

 beyond the Alps. Having eliminated Italian 

 cattle of recent introduction to Italy, and con- 

 sidered the evidence from coins and similar 



