On the Excavations at Botkerley, Woodcuts, and Bokerly Dyke. 309 



or departure of a still earlier dyke branching off to the westward 

 from this spot, or a shoulder, covering* the termination of the en- 

 trenchment at some previous time. A section was therefore cut, to 

 the south-east of the epaulement, at which spot two ditches were 

 again found, as in Section 1. But in the rampart no coins were 

 found, and the pottery was of an earlier and coarser kind than in the 

 other sections. No distinctly Roman pottery was found in the body 

 of the rampart, and only a few doubtful fragments near the surface. 

 A long strip was then cut along the gap, where the upper part of 

 the rampart had been removed, and where the old surface-line conse- 

 quently could be got at quicker, but with the same results. Nothing 

 distinctly Roman was found. 



We then attacked the epaulement itself. The rampart of the 

 dyke had, at some time, been thrown over the ditch of the epaulement 

 continuously in the line of the Main Rampart ; but this must have 

 been done subsequently to the time when it served as the northern 

 termination of the entrenchment, if it ever did so serve. The part 

 of the rampart which runs across the ditch of the epaulement I call 

 the " Traverse." Was the old ditch to be found beneath the 

 Traverse ? If so, it would prove that it once formed the termination 

 of the dyke before it was extended further to the north. I cut a 

 section along the length of the Traverse into the rampart at the 

 shoulder of the epaulement, and found the solid chalk sides of the 

 old ditch beneath the Traverse. The section showed that the ditch, 

 had silted up to a great extent by denudation from the rampart 

 before the Traverse was thrown over it. In the Traverse nine 

 fragments of Samian pottery were found, and at 2*4ft. from the 

 summit of it a well-preserved coin of Magnentius. This proves 

 that the Traverse was erected in Roman times, but on digging 

 further into the old rampaft beneath, and at the end of the Traverse 

 where it abuts upon the epaulement, no Samian or other Roman 

 remains were found. The difference in the contents of these two 

 deposits is made more striking by their juxtaposition. Similar 

 differences in parts of the entrenchment that were remote from one 

 another would prove only a difference in the previous occupation of 

 the ground, but in this case it is evident that, at the time when the 



