MORTIMER : PRE-HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE <)F FIMBER. 221 
trenched road had been disused, and half filled up by slowly accumu- 
lating debris, before the potsherds had found their way into it. This 
is strong proof that it was constructed in Pre-Roman times. Besides 
the above evidence of the antiquity of these sunk-ways we find the 
two, marked Nos. 1 and 4, are sharply cut by the old entrenchments 
which enclose the village of Fimber, and Nos. 8 and 5 appear to 
atford similar evidence ; these are unquestionably ancient British, 
thereby proving that these sunk-avenues are older than the entrench- 
ments, and that they belong to a period of still more primitive 
culture. 
They have, at some remote period, been excavated, and almost 
certainly used as roads, leading in nearly every direction to and from 
a small, and probably rudely entrenched settlement, the site of which 
is now occupied by the little village of Fimber ; and the demolished 
barrow, pi. viii., on which, as will be shown, three succeeding 
churches have stood, was probably within this enclosure ; indications 
of such an enclosure seem yet to remain in places. 
In a wild and wooded district these narrow sunk-ways would be 
safe and sure guides by day and by night to a rude settlement, to 
which they undoubtedly lead. They would also protect the primitive 
settlers during their travels in what was probably then more or less 
a forest, against sudden attacks of the wild and ferocious animals of 
that period, which would not choose to enter these narrow trenches. 
They would likewise assist the hunter to approach unobserved, any 
animal in the vicinity, he wished to capture ; and any large game he 
might surprise and force into these narrow and deep ditches would 
have great difficulty in extricating itself, and might be readily driven 
along the ditches into the central and inhabited enclosure, where 
its capture would be more easily accomplished. Lastly, they un- 
questionably denote the fixed settlement of a rude and primitive 
commune in pre-historic times, earlier even, as before named, than 
the period of double dykes (entrenchments), of which, let me remark, 
there is no written or oral history, and whose use is entirely forgotten. 
Still older than these hollow-ways are what the writer terms 
" Habitation Terraces," generally situated on the sides of deep 
valleys facing the morning or mid-day sun, a few of which exist near 
