466 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 



abatement, so far as we know, till late in the fourth century. In Anglo- 

 Saxon times the region was again a wilderness. 



The particular interest of the occupation is its size, intensive character, 

 and the various types of native agriculture displayed. The suggestion is 

 that the population was drawn from more than one part of Britain and that 

 it was entirely peasant in character. No administrative centre is known, 

 but this may have been at Durobrivae (Castor, Water Newton) on the 

 western fringe of the region. There is no positive evidence of Roman 

 drainage works on any scale and the occupation and abandonment of the 

 region appears to have depended in the main on the operation of natural 

 causes. 



Mr. T. C. Lethbridge. — Weapons from Fenland waterways and their 

 relationship to ancient warfare (3.45)- 



Weapons of many periods are frequently dredged from Fenland rivers 

 or excavated from the beds of extinct watercourses (roddons) in the Fens. 

 These have usually been regarded as casual losses, but it will be shown 

 that, although they are seldom actually found in association, they frequently 

 fall into groups which can be correlated with recorded military actions in 

 historical times, or with invasions and other movements deduced from 

 archaeological evidence in earlier periods. Thus a number of Late Bronze 

 Age spears and an early La Tene sword found at a certain point on the 

 river Wissey may be the result of fighting during one of the invasions 

 that broke up the Bronze Age civilisation of East Anglia ; and later groups 

 may be correlated with Hereward's defence of the Isle of Ely against William 

 the Conqueror, and with local incidents in the Barons' Wars, the Peasants' 

 Revolt, etc. 



Dr. Henry Field. — The physical characters of the modern peoples of Iran 

 and Irak (4.20). 



Anthropometric data obtained in Iran (Persia) by the Field Museum 

 Anthropological Expedition to the Near East, 1934, reveal that the modern 

 Iranis belong for the most part to the Mediterranean race although Alpinoid, 

 Armenoid, Proto-Nordic, Mongoloid and Negroid elements are present in 

 the population, which numbers about twelve million individuals. The 

 Iranian Plateau dolichocephals can be divided into three groups, the most 

 important being the convex-nosed individuals. This type appears to have 

 developed on the Iranian Plateau. Among the brachycephals, who migrated 

 into Iran at an early date, there is a concave or straight-nosed, square-jawed 

 type, possibly Proto-Alpine, as well as a convex-nosed, high-vaulted head 

 of Armenoid type. 



A brief comparison is made with the peoples of Iraq. 



Friday, August 19. 



Symposium on The Swanscombe find (lo.o). 



Mr. A. T. Marston. — The Swanscombe find. 



The human remains consist of the complete occipital and left parietal 

 bones of a young adult which were found in June 1935 and March 1936 

 respectively, 24 ft. below the surface in the stratified Middle Gravels of 

 the Barnfield Pit, Swanscombe, Kent. Both bones lay in the same seam 



