By Mrs. M. E. Citnnington. 49 



The Plateau Enclosure. 



T!ie plan shows an irregular-shaped enclosure to the east of the 

 old camp, occupying the neck of land between Knap and Golden 

 Ball Hill. Excavation proved this to be a settlement quite distinct 

 from, and of considerably later date, than the old hill camp which 

 it so closely adjoins. 



This plateau enclosure was bounded by a ditch and slight ram- 

 part, or bank, but, judging by the size of the ditch, this bank could 

 never have been very high, and only slight traces of it now remain. 

 The ditch has become entirely silted up, and for fully three-quarters- 

 of its length no sign of it can be detected on the surface, and its 

 existence could only be proved by cutting sections every few yards 

 across its probable course. It was found to have been neatly cut 

 to a depth varying from four to five feet, and to a width of about 

 eight feet at the top, and not exceeding eighteen inches at the 

 bottom. 



The entrance to the enclosure was on the eastern side, and the 

 ends of the ditch were found on either side of it ; on the south 

 side of the entrance the ditch was fully five feet deep, but for the 

 last few feet on the northern side it shallowed up to two feet, and 

 the bottom widened out to three feet in breadth. This ditch as a 

 whole appears too slight to have been intended for defence, but 

 was apparently more in the nature of a boundary ditch. 



That the plateau enclosure is considerably later in date than the 

 old liill camp was shown not only by the entirely different character 

 of the pottery, but also by the excavations at the point of inter- 

 section of the two ditches, which clearly showed that the plateau 

 ditch had been cut through the silt that already filled the older 

 ditch. 



It will be understood that now both ditches have silted up quite 

 full, but that as the silted material varied in the two ditches, the 

 outline of the smaller and later ditch could be clearly traced 

 through the larger ditch which it intersected nearly at right angles 

 (Section D). The chalk silt in the older ditch was purer and whiter 

 than that of the later, which was more mixed with mould and 

 consequently darker in colour. 

 'VOL. XXXVIL — NO. CXV. B. 



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