612 EXCAVATIONS IN AN ANCIENT 



hands from the excavations and quarrying carried on at Frilford at 

 various times during the years 1864-68 inclusive. In spite of the 

 ravages of fire in the cases of cremation, and the all but equally de- 

 structive working of the water containing carbonic and other acids 

 upon inhumation in ground with the rock (coralline oolite) at an 

 average distance of about a yard from the surface, it has been possible 

 to identify the sex and age in all but about a sixth of the skeletons, 

 or parts of skeletons, examined. Many skeletons, however, and 

 many urns had been lost to science, as may be gathered from Mr. 

 Akerman's report ^, during the various quarrying operations carried 

 on at various times previously to his investigations, and the arith- 

 metical results of my researches are much less valuable consequently 

 than they otherwise might have been. But I incline to think that 

 the tolerably exhaustive and complete collection which the great 

 kindness of the authorities at Frilford has enabled me to make of 

 the fruits of the excavations carried on during the last two years, 

 may be taken as a fair sample of what the entire series was. 



One of the most striking peculiarities of the series of 123 

 skeletons, as represented more or less fragmentarily in the Univer- 

 sity Museum at Oxford, is the very large number of old persons' 

 remains which it presents to our view. The most superficial ob- 

 server cannot fail to be impressed by this fact. A little more accu- 

 rate inspection shows that the proportion of aged persons varied 

 most surprisingly in accordance with the nationality, and that of 

 the persons of either sex who were interred with Anglo-Saxon 

 insignia only two could have been considered old. We are, un- 

 happily, even now too familiar with the history of invading armies 

 to feel it necessary to spend much time in excogitating an ex- 

 planation of this fact : it is worthy, however, of mention, that a 

 similar fact has been noted by the Abbe Cochet^ in the burial- 

 grounds of the kinsfolk of the Anglo-Saxons, the Merovingian 

 Franks. The preponderance of longevity being seen to attach to 

 the Romano-British population, the presence with these aged 



add here that the English reader can find a very clear account of the classification of 

 crania adopted by His and Kiitimeyer, and alluded to very frequently by myself, as 

 also by various writers in the periodical just mentioned, in the ' Prehistoric Remains 

 of Caithness,' pp. 104, 105, a work written by S. Laing, Esq. M.P. and Professor 

 Huxley, conjointly. 



^ * Proc. Soc. Antiq.' ubi supra. 



* 'Normandie Souterraine,' p. 183. 



