870 REPORT— 1902. 



At this Conference the following paper was read : — 



A Plea for ait Ordnance Map Index of Prehistoric Remains. 

 By Charles H. Read, F.S.A. 



During the past few years there has been no little discussion with 

 regard to the preservation and accessibility of the best known and most 

 important of our prehistoric monuments, viz., Stonehenge. The discussion 

 seems to be still proceeding, but it has had one good result in the preserva- 

 tion from wanton injury of this precious relic of prehistoric Britain. A 

 monument so widely known over the whole civilised world, and with an 

 entire literature devoted to its study, would be little likely to fall either 

 into complete oblivion or to be the subject of mischievous spoliation 

 without public attention being vigorously called to the fact. 



It is not therefore of Stonehenge that I wish to speak — nor is my plea 

 on its behalf — but rather for its humbler brethren whom the breath of 

 fame has for the most part passed over. I plead for the preservation and 

 intelligent exploration of the many hundreds of remains and sites, of 

 approximately the same period, that are scattered nearly over the whole 

 of our islands. 



Britain is not very extensive when compared with the domains of our 

 Continental neighbours. . In Roman times it was regarded as very distant 

 from the centres of civilisation, and the very name spelt something like 

 exile to the luxurious Roman officer. But the Roman never thought, 

 and we ourselves, nearly twenty centuries later, are only beginning to 

 realise, how many races had peopled these distant misty islands, one race 

 overcoming the other, intermarrying or supplanting each othei-, but in 

 any case living their lives here, building their houses, exercising their 

 simple crafts, and finally laying their dead to rest in tlie manner prescribed 

 by their own peculiar customs. Of all these primitive peoples who lived 

 in Britain for many, many thousands of years before the Roman invasion 

 we have scarcely a word of history. One after another they passed in 

 succession, leaving no mark in the world's history and no trace in the 

 land beyond the humble tumulus for their burial-place or the sacred ring 

 of stones for their temple. Practically until the Roman historians take 

 up the stoi-y of Britain there is nothing existing that can be called history. 

 Britain before the Christian era was regarded as a dangerous and entirely 

 inhospitable land whither no sane man would willingly go, only valuable 

 in fact for what could be brought away from it. 



By what means therefore are we of this twentieth century to realise 

 the conditions in which our pre- Roman forefathers lived ? How are we 

 to construct a true history of their arts of life, their beliefs, their 

 dwellings, or their handicrafts 1 Unless we are far more careful in the 

 future than we have been in the past, the evidence now available will be 

 swept away, and the story of the Britain of the Britons can never be 

 told. 



Our only means of elucidating and making clear the prehistoric condi- 

 tion of our country is by the careful and intelligent exploration of the sites 

 of the dwellings, camps, burial-places, or religious structures raised by the 

 people of those times. By no other method than this can we attain to the 

 knowledge we need, and it should be borne in mind by all who undertake 

 exploration of this character that they have in hand, as it were, a unique 

 record ; a record, moreover, that is destroyed in the reading ; and if the 



