298 Inaugural Address by the President of the Society, 



it was evident that the coins and other relics were in the soil about 

 these pits at the time the rampart was made, and that their presence 

 in the rampart arose from their having been thrown up with the 

 soil, by the constructors, without any notice having been taken of 

 them. 



This discovery was amply sufficient to prove that the rampart at 

 this spot was constructed after the time of Claudius Gothicus, A.D. 

 268 — 270, and, in all probability, after the time of Constans, A.D. 

 337 — 350. But, in order to make matters more sure, I dug another 

 section of the same width, viz., 30ft,, on the other side of the 

 Salisbury Road and Roman Road, at a distance of 150yds. from 

 the first section, the position of which is also marked on the ac- 

 companying map as Section 2. This turned out even more prolific 

 of coins than the first, five hundred and eighty-four having been 

 found in the rampart and silting of the ditch, extending from 

 Gallienus to Honorius, A.D. 253 — 423, and proving that it must 

 have been made at the time or subsequently to the departure of the 

 Romans from the British Isles in A.D. 407. This was no longer 

 a matter for conjecture — it was a proved fact. This section, like 

 Section 1, was filled with Roman and Romano- British pottery, and 

 relics of various kinds. Only one ditch was discovered in this 

 section, and this naturally created some surprise, because, if two 

 ditches were thought necessary in one part of the line, they would 

 be equally necessary in another part, on the principle that a chain 

 is no stronger than its weakest link ; but this, as we shall see, was 

 explained afterwards. 



An interesting discovery was made in this section. At the north- 

 west corner of it, just on the edge of the escarp, a skeleton was 

 found extended. The old surface-line was seen lying over it, and 

 showing that it must have been interred and covered over with 

 soil before the rampart was thrown over it. The legs extended over 

 the crest of the escarp, and one of the tibia?, which had been cut 

 off by the constructors of the ditch wa6 found in the rampart behind 

 it, having evidently been chucked up by the Roman workmen. This 

 gave additional evidence of the previous existence of a settlement 

 on the ground, as it showed that interments had been made in 



