ANGLO-SAXON 
REMAINS 
F the centuries immediately succeeding the Roman withdrawal 
from Britain there is little to be learnt from history, and so far 
archeology has afforded no clear knowledge of the period, 
though such excavations as those conducted by the late General 
Pitt-Rivers in Wiltshire and Dorset have done something to lift the veil. 
On the chalk range of the Chilterns, which form the southern boundary 
of Bedfordshire, only a few faint traces of early Anglo-Saxon settlements 
have as yet been noticed. Some years ago a considerable number of 
human skeletons were found in extended positions on the Limbury 
side of Waulud’s Bank, an earthwork near Dunstable. A quantity of 
broken pottery that may have been Anglo-Saxon was found at the same 
time, but it is impossible now to decide on the date of the interments 
or the nationality of the interred. In this part of the country the new- 
comers seem to have preferred the plains and river-valleys. Groups of 
interments and sometimes large cemeteries mark the sites chosen by the 
Teutonic tribes when they first came to settle in this island, and it 
was not till the wide acceptance of Christianity, perhaps in the first 
half of the eighth century, that consecrated ground in the neighbourhood 
of churches was set apart for burials, and the haphazard selection of 
sites for this purpose in the open country prohibited by the Church. As 
a rule therefore interments, that from their contents or surroundings may 
be assigned to a pagan population, date from the obscure period between 
the Roman withdrawal and the establishment of Christianity in the 
various petty kingdoms in Britain; and it is to the early practice of 
burying with the dead their weapons, ornaments and utensils that is due 
our knowledge, scanty as it is, of the rise and growth of the various 
settlements. 
In Bedfordshire the alluvial soil in the valleys of the Ouse and its 
tributaries, the Ivel and the Ousel, certainly attracted many of the early 
comers; and, apart from considerations of water supply, facilities for 
agriculture no doubt constituted the main inducement. As will presently 
be seen, discoveries of this kind in the county are few and scattered, so 
that it is impossible to distinguish with any degree of certainty any local 
groups ; but it should be noticed that while to the north of the county- 
town only one interment is recorded, south of the Ouse a link between 
most of the sites as yet determined may perhaps be found in the road- 
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