834 REPORT— 1888. 



The Romano-Britons are also considerably shorter than the skeletons of the 

 Anglo-Saxons found in the cemetery at Winkelbury, which are described in my 

 second volume. 



The problem, therefore, with respect to these Romanised Britons, appears to be 

 this : — are they the descendants of the long barrow people, and do they owe their 

 small stature to that circumstance, or is their small size to be attributed to their 

 largest men having been drafted away into the Roman legions abroad ? 



Professor Rolleston examined a number of skeletons from a cemetery at Fril- 

 ford, which he believed to be Romanised Britons, and found that they were of 

 large size, but in my address to the Royal Archaeological Institute at Salisbury, 

 last year, I expressed some doubt about the period of these skeletons, and in a 

 paper since published by Dr. Beddoe, I see that he rejects the evidence of their 

 being Romano-Britons upon the same ground that I had doubted it, and he quotes 

 Barnard Davies and Thurnam for tht^ occurrence of other skeletons of these 

 people of the same or nearly the same stature as those of the villages that I have 

 explored. 



We are therefore evidently beginning to accumulate reliable information about 

 these people, whose physical peculiarities are less known to us than any other 

 prehistoric, or rather non-historic, race, that has contributed to the population of 

 this country. 



Thurnam showed that the large-sized, round-headed Belgse probably pene- 

 trated no further westward than the borders of the district I am speaking of, and 

 that the bowl barrows and the long barrows of the Stone Age predominated to 

 the westward of it. 



Since the present volume of my excavations was in print, I have quite 

 recently made another discovery of considerable interest bearing upon this 

 question. 



Bokerley Dyke is an ancient entrenchment which cuts across the Old Roman 

 road from Old Sarura to Badbury Rings. It is an earthwork of considerable 

 magnitude, with a ditch on the north-east side of it. It appears to have originally 

 occupied all the open downland spaces intervening between the ancient woods, 

 which latter probably, by means of felled trees, afforded sufficient defence without 

 earthworks. It extends with its dependencies and detached prolongations more 

 or less all the way from "White Sheet Hill on the north-west to Blagdon Hill on 

 the south-east, a distance of about nine miles. Its origin and use have been fre- 

 quently discussed by arcbgeologists, but no one has hitherto assigned a right date 

 to it. I have now cut two broad sections through it on either side of the Roman 

 road, models of which are exhibited, with the result of proving that it is late 

 Roman, or post-Roman, and is of the same date as the villages, Roman coins to the 

 amount of 500, of late date, extending to Constantinus and Gratianus, and pottery, 

 having been found in both sections, all through the rampart, down to the old 

 surface line. It appears that the dyke had been cut through ground occupied at 

 an earlier date by the Romanised Britons, and that in forming the ditch they 

 threw up the refuse from the habitations to form the bank, including the scattered 

 coins and pottery. A human .skeleton of similar character to those found in the 

 villages was also discovered beneath the old surface line in one of the sections, the 

 old surface line being clearly marked over it, showing that it had been buried 

 there before the rampart was thrown over it. From this it appears probable that 

 this dyke was thrown up to defend the Romano-British villages that are situated 

 to the westward or rear of it, from an attack from the east, and that this must in 

 all probability have been done at the time when the Saxon invaders were pressing 

 upon them from the eastward. 



This discovery throws a flood of light upon the history of this part of the country 

 at that time, and shows that the Britons must have made a stout defence against 

 their Anglo-Saxon conquerors, sufficient perhaps to account for the apparent pre- 

 dominance of British blood which has been noticed amongst the existing popula- 

 tion of the district. 



Wansdyke, which runs from a spot not far to the north of the Bokerley Dyke in 

 the direction of Bath, has the same defensive attitude as Bokerley, and the exami- 



