66 



Description of the Opening of a 



Amongst the ashes under the earthen cooking 1 vessels there were 

 six singular egg-shaped nodules of burnt clay, about an inch-and- 

 a-half long, probably used as sling-stones. Mr J. Evans has 

 kindly presented to the museum one of the sling-stones now in use 

 among the inhabitants of New Caledonia. It is made of steatite, 

 or soap-stone, and admirably illustrates the burnt clay missiles 

 found in the dwelling-pit at Beckhampton. Similar sling-stones 

 are still in use among many savage nations, and can, by the practised 

 hand, be thrown with great precision, as mentioned in Judges, 

 chap, xx., verse 16: — "Among the tribe of Benjamin there were 

 seven hundred chosen men, left-handed; every one could sling stones 

 at an hair breadth, and not miss. - ''' 



Mr. Cunnington, in page 84 of " Ancient Wiltshire/' says : — 

 " We have undoubted proof from history and from existing remains, 

 that the earliest habitations were pits or slight excavations in the 

 ground, covered and protected from the inclemencies of the weather 

 by boughs of trees or sods of turf. The high grounds were pointed 

 out by Nature as the fittest for these early settlements, being less 

 encumbered with wood, and affording a better pasture for the nu- 

 merous flocks and herds from which the erratic tribes of the first 

 colonists drew their means of subsistence; but after the conquest of 

 our island by the Romans, when, by means of their enlightened 

 knowledge, society became more civilized, the Britons began to 

 quit the elevated ridge of chalk hills, and seek more sheltered and 

 desirable situations. At first we find them removed into the sandy 

 vales immediately bordering on the chalk hills. At a later period, 

 when the improved state of society under the Romans insured them 

 security, the valleys were cleared of wood, and towns and villages 

 were erected in the plains, near rivers, which, after the departure of 

 the Romans, became the towns of the Saxons. But a considerable 

 period must have elapsed before these important changes took 

 place ; for on our bleakest hills we find the luxuries of the Romans 

 introduced into the British settlements, flues, hypocausts, stuccoed 

 and painted vases, &c, &c. Yet not a single inscription has ever 

 yet been discovered, in any one of the British dwellings that might 

 throw some positive light upon the era in which they flourished, 



