By itrs. M. E. Cuniiington. 55 



The Seventeenth Century Occupation. 



After that of the Komano-British, there is no evidence of the 

 occupation of the site until more than a thousand years later, when 

 some seventeenth century folk seem to have taken up their quarters 

 here. These people appear to have smoked a good deal of tobacco^ 

 and fortunately their clay pipes, although brittle, are as inde- 

 structible as pottery itself. Some of these pipes bear the stamps 

 of Bristol makers, whose dates are known, and it is, therefore, 

 possible to date this latest occupation of the spot with more accuracy 

 and certainty than could be done from the remains of the pottery 

 alone, which, however, it may be interesting to add, was independ- 

 ently pronounced to be of the seventeenth century. {See relie 

 tables at end.) 



Judging by the distribution of their pottery and tobacco pipes, 

 these people lived on a much smaller area than the people of Roman 

 times, and chose the one most sheltered spot they could find 

 without altogether going off the hill. The seventeenth century 

 pottery and tobacco pipes were almost entirely restricted to the 

 surface of the dais and the strip of ground adjoining, between the 

 dais and the long mound. The surface mould on the dais was 

 exceptionally deep, and measured with the turf about lift, in 

 thickness. Roman and seventeenth century relics were mixed in 

 the mould below the turf in complete confusion. To give one 

 example — a pipe stem was found sticking out of the side of one of 

 the cuttings, and a piece of Samian ware immediately below it. 



The only explanation of this greater depth of soil, and of the 

 confusion of the relics of such widely-separated periods, seems to 

 be that the dais was under cultivation by the seventeenth century 

 people. In this way the older relics that had been lying in, or 

 just under, the turf, would naturally get dug into the soil to the 

 same depth as tlie pipes and other debris scattered by the latest 

 people who dug the ground. 



Wedged in the corner between the long mound and the dais are 

 the foundations of a small rectangular building 23ft. long by loUt. 

 wide. The only parts of the walls now remaining are roughly 

 built of squarish blocks of chalk, not cut with any regularity, but 



