5i4 



NATURE 



{Sept. 2i, 1 88: 



opportunity of treating of some subject which lies within the 

 range of all observers of what is going on in the world around 

 them, which may even be of local interest, or to speculate on 

 which may give an additional zest to an evening stroll or a day's 

 relaxation from toil. It is not, however, easy to find a subject 

 of this kind ; and yet, perhaps, if I talk to you this evening of 

 those who, in times more or less remote from the present day, 

 have lived and laboured in this part of the globe, I shall at all 

 events have a theme of some general human interest. And if, 

 in addition to laying some particulars of their method of life 

 before you, I can point out the methods by which our knowledge 

 of the manners and customs of remote antiquity is obtained ; 

 if I show you the way in which the successive links in the chain 

 of circumstantial evidence relating to human progress are forged, 

 you will be able to appreciate the value of the application of 

 scientific methods to the study of the past, and to feel that our 

 present knowledge of antiquity rests upon something more secure 

 than vague conjecture. It is fortunate for me that in and around 

 this town of Southampton is what may be termed the home of 

 sinie of the witnesses I propose to call, so that if I am able to 

 interest you in what they have to reveal, many of you will have 

 the opportunity of examining them and cross-examining them 

 yourselves at your leisure. The subject of my lecture, " Un- 

 written History, and how to read it,' is, as you may imagine, 

 is one in which testimony of various kinds is admissible ; and, as 

 in the case of many of the most important trials, much may 

 depend upon what, at first sight, would appear to be a trivial 

 common matter. 



The term which I have used, " Unwritten History," is so 

 comprehensive that it might be made to embrace the whole series 

 of events which have happened in this world from it-, first 

 creation until the written annals of the historian begin. It might 

 be expanded so as to comprise the whole of the geological 

 record, as exhibited by the testimony of the rocks, and even to 

 go back to a time when it seems probable that the elements 

 composing our globe had not been consolidated, but existed in a 

 gaseous condition. I propose, however, to limit the term this 

 evening, so that it may not extend beyond the period during 

 which the human race has dwelt upon the earth. I need hardly 

 say that, compared with the time which geological facts prove 

 that the world has existed, this period of human occupancy is 

 relatively short, however vast it may appear when we come to 

 compare it with the few centuries embraced in our ordinary 

 chronology. But of this it will be time to speak when we have 

 traced back our evidence as far as our present knowledge will 

 enable us to go. 



With regard to that evidence, or the means by which we must 

 attempt to read unwritten history, one of the principal aids that 

 can be called in is the written history of the past. The ancient 

 writings of Greek and Roman authors carry us back sone three 

 thousand years ; while the annals of Egypt and Assyria, and 

 those preserved in the pages of our Bibles, make us to some 

 extent acquainted with the habits and customs of still earlier 

 times. And in the same way the accounts of recent travellers 

 who have been brought in contact with races of men unacquainted 

 with even the most simple appliances of modern civilisation, 

 serve to throw a light on what must have been the condition of 

 most of the occupants of other parts of the world before those 

 appliances were known. But, after all, our best evidence is to 

 be derived from the relics of the past which, from time to time, 

 we find buried in the earth, and from the circumstances under 

 which they are discovered. Such relics are often of much 

 service even in illu- (rating that portion of past time which falls 

 within the limits of written history, especially so far as relates to 

 the habits and customs of everyday life, as to which, except 

 incidentally, our chroniclers are usually silent. The "princes 

 and kings " who "flourish or may fade," "the unsuccessful and 

 successful wars" whose records make up the bulk of our histories 

 no doubt possess an interest of their own ; but all that relates to 

 the infancy and childhocd of the human family and the develop- 

 ment of its mental and material resources has for many minds a 

 far greater charm, and much that concerns it is only to be gathered 

 from a study of unwritten history. 



But before going back to any really prehistoric times, it will 

 be well to consider briefly a few points in connection with the 

 written history of the town in which we are assembled. It was 

 not always called Southampton, but was in Saxon times known 

 as Hamtune, and under that name appears upon coins s'ruck at 

 the local mint from the middle of the tenth until the middle of 

 the twelfth century. In the same manner Northampton was at 

 one time only know n as Hamtune, and it was to distinguish these 



two towns that the one received the prefix of North- and the 

 other of Southampton. 



Curiously enough, the name of Hamtune, which appears to 

 be compounded of two well known Saxon words — Ham, our 

 English home, a farm or possession ; and Tune, the modern 

 town — is more probably, both at Northampton and at South- 

 ampton, connected with the old British name of the river which 

 flows past the town. The Nene of Norlhamptonshire seems to 

 be called the Antona or Anton by the Roman historian Tacitus ; 

 and the Test of " Suthamtescire," as the country of this town is 

 called by the Venerable Bede, still retains in part of its course 

 this same name of Anton. The old geographer Ptolemy calls 

 Southampton Water the mouths of the river Tris-anton, or pos- 

 sibly the three mouths of the Anton ; and the Roman town 

 which stood near this place was known by the name of 

 Clausentum, which Camden interprets as a Latinised form of 

 the British Claudh-Anton, the port of Anton. 



I shall not attempt to determine the claims of Bittern, or Old 

 Hamtune, to represent the Roman town ; but the fact that 

 Roman remains still exist here may be cited as a proof that 

 whatever may have been the encroachments !of the sea since 

 Roman times, they have not destroyed all traces of the Roman 

 settlement on this site, nor can the relative positions of the 

 sea and the land have materially altered within the last 1800 

 years. It will be well to remember this when we hereafter come 

 to consider the antiquity of some of the earlier traces of the 

 presence of man in this part of the world. When, once, in 

 ascending the stream of time, we have passed the date of the 

 Roman occupation of this country, we enter upon the domain of 

 unwritten history, or at all events find ourselves within its border 

 provinces. 



Who were the people whom the Romans found here on their 

 arrival, and what was their civilisation? Historians give us 

 some information on this point, which is, however, to be supple- 

 mented from other sources. Caesar, whose invasions of 

 Britain date some ninety years earlier than the ac ual Roman 

 conquest, tells us that the southern part of this island was occupied 

 by Belgic tribes who had come over from the Continent, who for 

 the most part retained their original names, and were often 

 subject to the same chiefs as their brethren on the mainland. 

 Those who occupied this part of Britain appeir to have been 

 the Belga", whose name at least has on the other side of the 

 Channel survived in that of Belgium. The habits and cu toms 

 of these southern Britons were the same as those of the Gauls. 

 They were acquainted with iron, gold, silver, copper, tin, and 

 bronze, and had, moreover, a coinage'of their own. Our knowledge 

 of this c linage is not, however, derived from any ancient historians, 

 but from a study of the coins themselves. By a careful record 

 of the spots where coins of the Ancient Britons have been found 

 we have been able to show that particular forms belong to par- 

 ticular districts, and, in the case of some of the coins which 

 bear inscriptions, to determine the names of British princes, and 

 to fix the districts in which they reigned. Here in Hants, and 

 in the neighbouring county of Sussex, we find coins struck by 

 two Princes, Tincommius and Verica, as to whom written 

 history is silent, but who appear from their coins to have been 

 the sons of Commius, who probably is the Commius mentioned 

 by Caesar. 



It has been supposed, from a passage in Caesar's " Commen- 

 taries," that the Britons in his time were unacquainted with the 

 use of coined money ; but this pa sage may have been misread. 

 At all events, the oins themselves prove that the supposition is 

 erroneous, and, moreover, that long before Cre-ar's time a native 

 coinage existed in Britain. You may ask how this can be proved 

 by coins which bear neither dates nor inscriptions. I will 

 attempt to answer this question, and to show you in what manner 

 this chapter of unwritten history has been read. Coins such as 

 we now know them, struck of a certain weight and with some 

 established device upon them, were unknown even among the 

 most civilised nations of antiquity until about seven hundred 

 years before Christ; audit was not until about three hundred 

 and fifty years before Christ that any extensive c linage of gold 

 was issued at any one place. About that time some mines were 

 discovered in Macedonia which produced about ,£250,000 worth 

 of gold annually. Most of this was converted into coins rather 

 heavier than our sovereigns, by Philip II. of Macedon, the 

 father of Alexander ihe Great. These coins bore on the one 

 side a head w ith a laurel-wreath upon it, and on the other a 

 Victory, in a two-horse chariot. The coins were so well known, 

 aud gold from other sources was comparatively so scarce, that 

 the use of these pieces, which were known as Philippi, spread 



