ON EXCAVATIONS ON ROMAN SITES IN BRITAIN. 235 
been previously located at the north-east of the hill fort, this ditch 
was found to curve slightly inwards, shallowing to less than two feet; a 
similar ditch further on was found to curve slightly outwards, without 
shallowing, so as to form an overlap on either side of the rock cause- 
way which leads up to the entrance. This ditch was found to be 
filled to the brim with limestone rubble and wall facing stones from 
the ramparts above. That these stones had not fallen merely from 
the natural decay of the wall, but rather that the ramparts had been 
deliberately thrown down into the ditch, was shown by the rubble being 
frequently clean and free from soil throughout. And that this throw- 
ing down took place not long after the ditch was cut was made plain 
by the fact of there being practically no silting upon the solid rock 
below the stones. At the south side of the hill-fort this year’s 
excavations showed three more or less parallel ditches across 
the level neck of land below the great main rampart; the inner 
one was V-shaped and the others nearly so. The dimensions of the 
inner one approximated to that of the ditch at the north end, but the 
outer ones were generally wider and sometimes deeper. Here also 
the inner ditch was found to be filled with the ruins of a dry masonry 
wall which formerly existed upon the top of the main rampart. The 
stones and rubble showed similar features to those described at the 
north end, again proving that the wall had not merely fallen from 
decay, but had been deliberately thrown down into the ditch not long 
after the latter was cut. At the south-east side only two parallel 
ditches were found on excavation, the first entirely, and the second 
at the end near the entrance, being filled with débris in a similar way. 
The ramparts also showed marks of destructionin many places. All 
along the main south rampart the whole of the wall just mentioned was 
thrown down the slope with the exception of a few foundation stones 
here and there. To the south-west not only the wall at the top, but the 
entire rampart, had been deliberately destroyed—shovelled down the 
slopes into the ditches below. At the north end the facing wall of 
the rampart had been removed to its foundation stones. At well-nigh 
every point where investigations have hitherto been made—in the south- 
east entrance, in the ramparts, in the ditches to the north, the north- 
east, the south-east, the south, and the south-west—destruction 13 
everywhere apparent; and, further, there are traces of a great con- 
flagration at some early period in the large quantities of burned 
limestone found in several places, e.g., below the floors and walls of 
the guard-chambers in the south-east entrance. A few human remains 
and some fragments of Roman pottery have been found deep in the 
ditches and upon the second road in the south-east entrance; but relics 
hitherto unearthed in definite strata of the ruins of the earlier forti- 
fications are disappointingly few, and do not include anything that has 
yet been accurately dated. 
Up to the present, therefore, no certain evidence of the time of 
this destruction of the hill fort is forthcoming, except that it was 
during an early period of its existence. But it is difficult to conceive 
of its having been the result either of local tribal warfare or of piratical 
raids, and itis suggested that it shows the work of the Roman armies, 
