98 Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire, 



as we are, with such remote ages, we must not expect a mass of 

 documentary evidence, but be content to glean from every available 

 source. 1 And here an unwritten indeed, but most invaluable record is 

 supplied in the relics of military, social, and domestic life, which have 

 been preserved to us in considerable abundance : 2 and these, I make 

 bold to say, are for the most part most unexceptionable guides, 

 speaking with no faltering accent, appealing to every man's senses, 

 most reliable, and beyond suspicion of error, as unpolluted by 

 transcriber or commentator ; in short, the most credible and unsus- 

 pected witnesses we could desire. And these eloquent records 

 of the earliest inhabitants of Britain abound on our Downs of 

 Wiltshire more perhaps than in any other locality in the whole 

 country. It is from this source, as well as from the few and 

 scattered hints of the earliest classical authors, that we are enabled 

 to fill in the outline of our most ancient predecessors here. 



Who those earliest ancestors of ours were, whence they came, 

 how they lived, and what were their habits and customs, and what 

 their appearance, we will now proceed to enquire: first premising, 

 that in treating of the earliest inhabitants of our county, it is 

 manifestly impossible to particularize, and therefore their description 

 will necessarily apply equally well to the whole scanty population 

 of the island. I would also observe at the outset, that it is useless 

 to attempt to define accurately the exact epoch of the colonizing 

 of this country, having no sure data to guide us ; but allowing a 

 wide margin of some centuries on either side, we shall not (I think) 

 be very far wrong, if we regard a thousand years before Christ as 



1 As the subject matter of this paper comprizes many points of dispute among 

 archaeologists, I have thought it advisable to give in the foot notes very copious 

 references to the authors whom I quote. I have also taken pains to compare 

 the habits of other early races whose history has been in any way preserved ; as 

 well as to point out the customs of modern uncivilized nations, where their 

 practices resemble those of the early Britons. In preparing the illustrations, 

 I have largely availed myself of the plates in Sir Kichard Hoare's Ancient 

 Wilts ; and thus the specimens figured from that work, as well as those taken 

 from the originals are, without exception, the produce of our own county. 



2 Sir Richard Hoare's Ancient Wilts, passim. The English at Home, by 

 Alphonse Esquiros, 1861. 



