CEMETERY AT FRTLFORD. 587 



Legions, inasmuch as the departure of the Romans may he reason- 

 ably supposed to have entailed the collapse of the civilisation and 

 customs which they had introduced and supported-^. 



II. Of the Boman or Romano-British Interments without leaden, hut 

 in most cases, jprolably, with wooden coffins, and in semi-oriented 

 graves. 



The second and most numerous class of interments that we meet 

 with in this cemetery are found occupying parallel, or nearly 

 parallel^ rows of trenches, running, to speak generally, from a point 

 more or less north of west to one more or less south of east, and 

 containing, very commonly, besides the skeletons, bones and teeth 

 of domestic animals (though not in the great abundance noted in 

 other Romano-British cemeteries), fragments of charcoal, oyster- 

 shells, shards, flints, and nails, with woody fibre adhering to them. In 

 some of these graves coins were discovered, in addition to the other 

 objects just specified. Now, we are not justified by the presence of 

 any, nor, indeed, by the presence of all, of these peculiarities, in 

 concluding that any interment is Roman or Romano-British, the 

 imitative tendencies ^ of the Teutonic races having led them some- 

 what slavishly into copying the customs of the world they sub- 

 dued, even in points relating to such matters as the burial of the 

 dead. Each and all of the objects have been found all but in- 



^ For a note of a discovery of leaden coffins in the neighbourhood of other 

 Eoman remains, see Schaaffhausen, 'Die Germanische Grabstatten am Ehein,' 1868, 

 p. 131. 



"^ For the imitative tendencies of the Teutonic races generally, see Coote's * Neglected 

 Fact in English History,' p. 44; Worsaae's 'Primeval Antiquities of Denmark,' 

 Eng. Trans. 1849, p. 140 ; Engelhardt, 'Denmark in the Iron Age,' Preface, p. viii; 

 Von Sacken, 'Leitfaden zur Kunde des Heidnischen Alterthums,' p. 158; Wylie's 



* Fairford Graves,' p. 30 ; Merivale's ' Conversion of the Northern Nations/ p. 92 ; 

 Koach Smith, ' British Assoc. Eeport for 1855,' p. 145. For the presence of bones of 

 animals and their teeth in Anglo-Saxon graves, see Wylie, 1. c, p. 24 ; Akerman, 



* Pagan Saxondom,' Introd. p. xvii. For that of charcoal, Wylie, 1. c, 29 ; Akerman, 



* Further Eesearches at Long Wittenham,' Archaeologia, vol. xxxix. For that of shards 

 and flints, Douglas' ' Nenia Britannica,' pp. 10 and 34 ; Wylie and Akermann, 11. cc. 

 For that of the Portorium, Lindenschmit, ' Archiv fiir Anthrop.' ii. 3, 1868, in review 

 of Wanner's work, and in his own work, * Die Germanische Todtenlager beim Selzen,' 

 p. 51 j Von Sacken, 1. c, p. 154; Akerman, ' Proc. Soc. Antiq.' 2 S. iii. 165. See 

 also Abb^ Cochet, ' Tombeau de Childeric,' passim, and ' Normandie Souterraine,* 

 p. 31. 



