Archaeology 87 



has been found in the County, and only one fragmentary winged 

 axe. 



Although exotic influences resulted in a revolution of the metallurgical 

 industry at this time, it is likely that the change was mainly brought about 

 by trade rather than by etluiic uwasion, since the County is strictly 

 marginal to the area of the so-called Deverel-Rimbury pottery. Finds of 

 pottery of this class consist only (i) of a few sherds from a circular trench 

 (2-3 ft. deep with a diameter of 68 ft.) at Swaffham Bulbeck, (2) the lower 

 part of a fnigcr-printed barrel urn from Chesterton, and (3) the upper 

 part of a small pot with slashed rim and applied bosses from the Little 

 Thetford-Fordham causeway. Evidence -that the Middle Bronze Age 

 overhanging-rim urn pottery in this part of the country continued into 

 the succeeding period is supplied by the material from a setdement site 

 in Mildenhall Fen, only just over the Suffolk boundary, where a fusion 

 between the two wares can be detected. It is thus probable that some of 

 the "Middle Bronze Age" burials from the County really belong to 

 this period. 



THE EARLY IRON AGE 



The material available for the study of the Early Iron Age in Cambridge- 

 shire is scanty, and only an insignificant proportion has been obtained from 

 scientific excavation. This is largely due to the scarcity of " hill-forts ", or 

 other prominent sites, that might have invited excavation. There are no 

 certainly established Early Iron Age defended sites in the County, apart 

 from (i) Wandlebury, a circular triple-banked site with a diameter of 

 about 1000 ft. crowning the crest of the Gogmagog Hills, and (2) the War 

 Ditches, a smaller single-ramparted site on a spur of the same hills. The 

 sUght excavations carried out at the War Ditches, prior to the partial 

 destruction of the site, prove that the ditch was quarried by people of Early 

 Iron Age "A" culture, although the surviving material is meagre. The 

 key to the interrelations of the Early Iron Age cultures of Cambridgesliire 

 must be sought in further digging in the sur\dving portions of the War 

 Ditches and in Wandlebury, a site that encloses a private house, and 

 which has yet to be excavated. 



The normal setdement was open and undefended, generally without 

 surface indication, but sometimes delimited by a low bank as at BeUus 

 HiU, Abington Pigotts. It is perhaps for this reason that little systematic 

 work has been done, and that the discovery of settlement sites of tliis 

 period has invariably been accidental. From the meagre information 

 available it would appear (Fig. 19) that settlement was concentrated in the 

 valleys of the Cam above Cambridge, the sites commonly being placed 



