A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



383) ; while the practice, illustrated both here and at Long Wittenham, 

 of placing a coin in the mouth of the deceased is presumptive evidence 

 of Roman origin. 



The second class was considered Romano-British, inasmuch as 

 three Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns and four Anglo-Saxon skeletons were 

 found deposited above interments of this kind ; and though it is conceiv- 

 able that the urns had been disturbed and replaced, this cannot have been 

 the case with the skeletons, which were found with the bones in due 

 anatomical order. On the lower level the interments had taken place 

 apparently in parallel trenches, which ran for the most part from a point 

 north of west to one south of east, and it has been suggested that the 

 majority of deaths occurred in the winter months when the rising sun, 

 which the dead were intended to face, would be seen to the south of east. 

 These graves of Romans or Romanized natives frequently contained, in 

 addition to the skeletons, bones and teeth of animals, oyster-shells and 

 potsherds, all perhaps the refuse of funeral feasts ; and also charcoal, 1 

 such as occurred in many of the Long Wittenham graves. Such remains 

 would not of themselves prove a connection with Roman civilization ; 

 but the arrangement of these ' grave-rows ' practically east and west, not 

 to mention the remains of wooden coffins here and there, seems to point 

 to a period before the Christian orientation had been superseded by the 

 pagan rites of the barbarian invaders. Though these comparatively deep 

 interments are generally of a less expensive character than those made in 

 coffins of lead, there can be no great difference of date, and an examina- 

 tion of the skeletons shows that the Romanized population, or at least 

 the male portion of it, generally attained a considerable age. In this 

 respect the contrast with the Anglo-Saxon settlers is very marked. 



The third class consists of cremated burials that may be safely 

 referred to the invading Teuton. As at Long Wittenham, the cinerary 

 urns were in some cases entirely plain, but the ornament on others is 

 sufficient proof of a racial connection with the ' Anglians ' in other parts 

 of the country. The fact that a certain number of urns were found 

 above burials of the preceding class is fair evidence of later date, and it 

 is in any case improbable that a population imbued to any extent with 

 Christian teaching would bury their dead in ground already desecrated 

 by the cremated remains of pagans. 



Of the burials at Frilford belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period 

 about half were by way of cremation. The remainder were disposed in 

 two different ways and formed two more distinct classes. In the fourth 

 class the graves are shallow and without orientation, the body being laid 

 at full length and provided with the usual grave furniture. These may 

 be referred perhaps to half-converted proselytes who had indeed dis- 

 continued the essentially pagan rite of burning, but were careless as to 

 the direction of the graves and the decent interment of the dead. 



The other graves referred to the Anglo-Saxons constitute the fifth 

 class at Frilford, and were more in accordance with those of the 



1 Arch. xlii. 426. 

 236 



