464 THE BOMANS AT TAMAR MOUTH. 



However, within certain limits they seem to date themselves. 

 They were not big enough for interment by inhumation — indeed, 

 they were merely built kist-vaens, and built too as Eomans often 

 built them. Again, the fact that they lay north and south at 

 once suggests anon-Christian, if not a pre-Christian, origin. The 

 probability that they are Roman almost amounts then to 

 certainty ; and it seems quite likely that this spot was an 

 ustrinum, a place in which the Romans both burnt and buried 

 their dead. 



If so, we can understand further why in Saxon times Stone- 

 house had such an important building as its name indicates. It 

 must have been structurally far in advance of its neighbouring 

 manors ; and the existence of remains of a Roman building 

 would supply the needed explanation. 



