APPENDIX. . 939 



NOTES ON ARCHiEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES 

 MADE AT WYTHAM, BERKSHIRE. 



In the year 1869, in the course of digging gravel on Lord Abingdon's 

 property a little to the north of the village of Wytham, graves containing 

 human remains were found, and between that date and March 1878 

 many others were exposed. The graves were in the gravel, 5 feet or 

 even 1 1 feet deep, and in some instances so far down as even to reach 

 the subjacent clay. One grave is noted as about 3 feet long ; another 

 7 feet 7 inches long and 4 feet 10 inches in greatest width; a third 

 10 feet long and 5 feet 6 inches wide. Some of the graves were filled in 

 with humus, others with gravel ; probably the gravel dug out in making 

 the grave had been thrown in again. 



In some instances it is noted that the 'head was lying at the east 

 rather than towards the east ; ' in one the head was at the south with 

 the jaw pointing east ; in one the head was at the south-west, the feet at 

 the north-east; in another the skeleton was lying "W.N.W. by E.S.E. 

 The bodies were in the contracted or semi-contracted position, with the 

 knees approximated to the face ; and it is noted that the skeleton or head 

 was lying sometimes on its right side, sometimes on its left, and with the 

 hands sometimes up to the face. The skeletons were of both sexes and 

 of different ages, from old age to childhood. One grave on the south 

 side of the gravel-pit, exhumed in January 1870, contained the skeleton 

 of a child about six years of age. As many as three skeletons were in 

 one instance exposed in a single grave, but usually only a single body was 

 in each grave. The skulls are described as ' large, very like my globose 

 Romano-British type, and like the Sion type of His and Rutimeyer.' 



The following objects are noted as having been found in graves along 

 with the bodies : — the bones of a pig, the split tusk of a boar, another 

 split tusk (i. I. 19. 70) with a hole worked through it in company with 

 a worked flint, the horn of a red-deer, pottery both coarse and fine in 

 texture, amber-beads which had probably formed a necklace, and charcoal 

 about the head. 



Additional details are given in the following extracts from Dr. Rolleston's 

 notes : — 



* January 28, 1870. Found a large stone like a segment of a mill-stone, with many 

 traces of burning, above the gravel, with another smaller stone 4' i" below the surface 

 in mould. Also many animal bones, some burnt through and through. A large 



