part of the enclosure, with a fragment of coarse British pottery. Three
of the bodies were in a crouched position. The remaining three had been
deposited as bones, not in sequence, the long bones being laid out by
the side of the skulls; and careful measurement of these bones shows
that their owners were the short people of the long-headed or Neolithic
race, which confirms the first part of Dr. Thurnam’s axiom: “Long
barrows long skulls, round barrows round skulls.” Nineteen secondary
interments of a later date were found in the upper part of the barrow
and in the surrounding ditch, with numerous pieces of pottery, flint
implements, fragments of bronze and iron, and coins, proving that the
barrow was used as a place of burial down to Roman times.
In Dorset the round barrows are generally found on the summits of the
hills which run through the county, more particularly on the Ridgeway,
which roughly follows the coast line from near Bridport to Swanage,
where may be seen some hundreds of all sizes, from huge barrows over
100 feet in diameter and 15 feet in height to small mounds, so little
raised above the surface that only the tell-tale shadows cast by the
rising or setting sun show where a former inhabitant lies buried.
In the western part of the county they may be traced from Kingston
Russell to Agger-Dun, through Sydling and Cerne Abbas to Bulbarrow, and
in the east, from Swanage Bay to Bere Regis; and also near Dorchester,
Wimborne, Blandford, and other places.
In the Bronze Age cremation and inhumation were both practised; but
in Dorset burials by cremation are the more common. The cremated
remains were sometimes placed in a hole or on the surface line, with
nothing to protect them from the weight of the barrow above; at other
times they were covered by flat slabs of stone, built in the form
of a small closed chamber or cist. Often they were placed on a flat
piece of stone, and covered with an inverted urn, or put in an urn,
with a covering slab over them; and they have been found wrapped in an
animal’s skin, or in a bag of some woven material, or even in a wooden
coffin.
The inhumed bodies are nearly always found in a contracted posture,
with the knees drawn up towards the chin; and a larger number face
either east, south or west, than north. In the case of an inhumation,
when the body was deposited below the old surface level, the grave
was often neatly hewn and sometimes lined with slabs of stone, and
it was the common custom to pile a heap of flints over it, affording
a protection from wild animals; above the flints was heaped the main
portion of the mound, which consisted of mould and chalk rubble.
A ditch, with or without a causeway,[6] usually surrounds each barrow,
but is so often silted up that no trace of it can be seen on the
surface; it probably helped to supply the chalk rubble of the barrow.
Bronze Age sepulchral pottery, which is hand-made, often imperfectly
baked and unglazed, has been divided into four classes: the beaker or
drinking vessel, the food vessel, the incense cup, and the cinerary
urn. The two former are usually associated with inhumations; the two
latter with cremations.
As a type of prehistoric ceramic art in Britain, the Hon. J. Abercromby
says that the beaker is the earliest, and the cinerary urn the
latest.[7]
Plate II., fig. 2, is a typical drinking vessel or beaker which was
found in the hands of a skeleton during alterations to the Masonic
Hall at Dorchester. It is made of thin, reddish, well-baked pottery,
and from the stains inside it evidently contained food or liquid at
some time. The beaker is more often met with than the food vessel,
being found on the Continent as well as in England. The food vessel,
on the other hand, is a type unrepresented outside the British
Isles, and is entirely wanting in Wiltshire,[8] although common in
the North of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the Dorset County
Museum at Dorchester there are several fine examples found in the
county, and Plate I., fig. 1, represents one taken from a barrow near
Martinstown.[9] It is of unusual interest, as one-handled food-vessels
are rare. In this inhumed primary interment the vessel was lying in
the arms of the skeleton, whilst close by was another and much smaller
vessel, with the remains of three infants.
The terms “drinking-vessel” and “food-vessel” may possibly be accurate,
as these vessels may have held liquids or food; but there is no
evidence to show that the so-called “incense cups” had anything to do
with incense. The more feasible idea seems to be that they were used
to hold embers with which to fire the funeral pile, and the holes with
which they are generally perforated would have been most useful for
admitting air to keep the embers alight.[10] These small vessels are
usually very much ornamented, even on their bases, with horizontal
lines, zigzags, chevrons, and the like, and occasionally a grape-like
pattern. They are seldom more than three inches in height, but vary
much in shape, and often are found broken, with the fragments widely
separated, as if they had been smashed purposely at the time of the
burial. Plate II., figs. 3 and 4, are from specimens in the Dorset
County Museum, which also contains several other Dorset examples.
There can be no doubt as to the use of the cinerary urn, which always
either contains or covers cremated remains. The urn (Plate II., fig. 1)
is from the celebrated Deverel Barrow, which was opened in 1825 by Mr.
W. A. Miles. The shape of this urn is particularly common in Dorset,
as well as another variety which has handles, or, rather, perforated
projections or knobs. A third and prettier variety is also met with,
having a small base, and a thick overhanging rim or band at the mouth,
generally ornamented.
It is rare to find curved lines in the ornamentation of Bronze Age
pottery, but sometimes concentric circles and spiral ornaments are met
with on rock-surfaces and sculptured stones. Mr. Charles Warne found in
tumulus 12, Came Down, Dorchester, two flat stones covering two cairns
with incised concentric circles cut on their surfaces.[11]
There is no clear evidence of iron having been found in the round
barrows of Dorset in connection with a Bronze Age interment; but of
gold several examples may be seen in the County Museum, and one, which
was found in Clandon Barrow, near Martinstown, with a jet head of a
sceptre with gold studs, is shown in Plate I., fig 2. Others were
discovered in Mayo’s Barrow and Culliford Tree.[12] Bronze, which is
an alloy of copper and tin, is the only other metal found with primary
interments in our Dorset round barrows.
The County Museum possesses some excellent celts and palstaves; a set
of six socketed celts came from a barrow near Agger-Dun, and look as
if they had just come from the mould. They are ornamented with slender
ridges, ending in tiny knobs, and have never been sharpened (two of
them are figured in Plate I., figs. 3 and 4); another celt, from a
barrow in the Ridgeway, is interesting as having a fragment of cloth
adhering to it. Daggers are found, generally, with cremated remains,
and are usually ornamented with a line or lines, which, beginning
just below the point, run down the blade parallel with the cutting
edges. The rivets which fastened the blade to the handle are often in
position with fragments of the original wooden handle and sheath.[13]
These daggers seem to be more common in Dorset than in the northern
counties, and many examples may be seen in the County Museum, and two
are illustrated in Plate I., figs. 5 and 6.
Bronze pins, glass beads, amber and Kimmeridge shell objects, bone
tweezers and pins, slingstones and whetstones, are occasionally met
with; but by far the most common objects are the flint and stone
implements, weapons, and flakes.
In making a trench through a barrow near Martinstown,[14] more
than 1,200 flakes or chips of flints were found, besides some
beautifully-formed scrapers, a fabricator, a flint saw, most skilfully
notched, and a borer with a gimlet-like point.
Arrow-heads are not common in Dorset, but six were found in a barrow in
Fordington Field, Dorchester. They are beautiful specimens, barbed and
tongued; the heaviest only weighs twenty-five grains, and the lightest
sixteen grains. Mr. Warne mentions the finding of arrow-heads, and also
(a rare find in Dorset) a stone battle-axe, from a barrow on Steepleton
Down.
Charred wood is a conspicuous feature, and animal bones are also met
with in the county, and in such positions as to prove that they were
placed there at the time of the primary interment. Stags’ horns, often
with the tips worn as though they had been used as picks, are found,
both in the barrows and in the ditches.
So far only objects belonging to the Bronze Age have been mentioned;
but as later races used these burial-places, objects of a later date
are common. Bronze and iron objects and pottery, and coins of every
period, are often found above the original interment and in the
ditches. This makes it difficult for an investigator to settle with
certainty the different positions in which the objects were deposited;
and unless he is most careful he will get the relics from various
periods mixed. Therefore, the practice of digging a hole into one of
these burial-mounds, for the sake of a possible find, cannot be too
heartily condemned. Anyone who is ambitious to open a barrow should
carefully read those wonderful books on _Excavations in Cranborne
Chase_, by the late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, before he puts a spade
into the ground; for a careless dig means evidence destroyed for those
that come after.
Most Dorset people will remember the late curator of the County Museum,
Mr. Henry Moule, and perhaps some may have heard him tell this story,
but it will bear repeating. A labourer had brought a piece of pottery
to the Museum, and Mr. Moule explained to him that it not only came
from a barrow, but that it was most interesting, and that he would like
to keep it for the Museum. The man looked surprised, and said, “Well,
Meäster, I’ve a-knocked up scores o’ theäsem things. I used to level
them there hipes (or heäps) an’ drawed awaÿ the vlints vor to mend the
roads; an’ I must ha’ broke up dozens o’ theäse here wold pots; but
they niver had no cwoins inzide ’em.” Those who knew Mr. Moule can
imagine his horror.
Much more remains to be done by Dorset people in investigating these
most interesting relics of the past, for we know little of the builders
of these mounds; and, as Mr. Warne says in his introduction to _The
Celtic Tumuli of Dorset_:—
If the Dorsetshire barrows cannot be placed in comparison with many
of those of Wiltshire ... or Derbyshire, they may, nevertheless,
be regarded with intense interest, as their examination has
satisfactorily established the fact that they constitute the earliest
series of tumuli in any part of the kingdom; whilst they identify
Dorset as one of the earliest colonised portions of Britain.
THE ROMAN OCCUPATION
BY CAPTAIN J. E. ACLAND
_Curator, Dorset County Museum_
Although we are dealing with historic and not prehistoric times in
describing the occupation of the County of Dorset by the Romans, it is
to the work of the spade and not of the pen that we must turn for the
memorials of that most interesting and important period, which lasted
nearly four hundred years; when the all-powerful, masterful race, the
conquerors of the world, held sway, enforced obedience to their laws,
and inaugurated that system of colonisation which was perhaps the best
the world has ever seen—a system designed and developed according
to exact regulations, which savoured more of military discipline
than of that civil liberty which we associate with the profession of
agriculture.
The Roman occupation was indeed an admirable combination of military
and civil rule; and the memorials fall naturally into two distinct
classes, corresponding with two distinct periods. There is, first, the
period of conquest, embracing the years during which the Roman Legions
drove back the native levies, and captured their strongholds; not in
one summer campaign we may well believe, but year after year, with
irresistible force, until the subjugated tribes laid down their arms
and yielded the hostages demanded by the conquerors. Then followed the
period of peace, of civilisation, and of colonising; of improving the
roads, and marking out of farms; the days of trade and commerce, and
of building houses, temples, and places for public amusement.
Now both aspects of the occupation are to be seen as clearly at this
day as if they were described in the pages of a book; and yet what is
the fact? Scarcely a sentence can be found of written history which
deals with it. General Pitt-Rivers, who, living in Dorset, devoted
many years of his life to antiquarian research, asserts that having
read with attention all the writings that were accessible upon that
obscure period of history, some by scholars of great ability, nothing
definite can be found to relate to the Roman Conquest. It is, however,
generally assumed that it fell to the lot of Vespasian, in command of
the world-famous “Legio Secunda,” to commence, if not to complete, the
subjugation of the Durotriges, the people who are believed to have
inhabited the southern portion of the county. The only reference to
Vespasian’s campaign by contemporary historians is made by Suetonius.
He says that Vespasian crossed to Britain, fought with the enemy some
thirty times, and reduced to submission two most warlike tribes and
twenty fortified camps, and the island (Isle of Wight) adjacent to
the coast. In this statement, which is all too brief to satisfy our
curiosity, may lie the main facts of the passing of Dorset into Roman
power. The work begun by Vespasian may, indeed, have been completed by
others—by Paulinus Suetonius, the Governor of Britain about the year
60, and by Agricola; and where so much is left to conjecture, it is
at least worth while to give once more the theory propounded by the
well-known antiquary, the late Mr. Charles Warne, F.S.A. In a paper
read before the Society of Antiquaries in June, 1867, he suggests that
as the south-eastern parts of Britain had been previously visited by
Roman armies, Vespasian directed his course further to the west, and
either made the Isle of Wight the base of his operations or anchored
his ships in the harbours of Swanage or Poole. Close by is the
commencement of the long range of hills, The Ridgeway, which, with few
interruptions, follows the coast line, and still shews by the number of
the burial-mounds the district inhabited by the British.
Mr. Warne proceeds to enumerate the various camps along this route,
all at convenient distances from one another, some of which shew by
their construction that they were Roman camps, and others British
camps, captured by the conquering legions, as narrated by Suetonius.
If Vespasian had pursued this plan of campaign, it would have had
the additional advantage of enabling him to keep in touch with his
transports. As one hill fortress after another was captured in the
march westward along the Ridgeway heights, so the fleet might have
changed its anchorage from Swanage Bay to Lulworth, from Lulworth to
the shelter of Weymouth and Portland, and finally to the neighbourhood
of Charmouth or Lyme Regis.
There is this also to be said in favour of Mr. Warne’s conjecture.
An attacking force must find out and capture the strongholds of the
defenders, which would naturally be made more strongly, and therefore
last longer than the camps of the invaders. And this is what we see in
the suggested line of the Roman advance. First, on the east, Flowers,
or Florus Bury Camp, and Bindun, then Mai-dun (Maiden Castle), after
that Eggardun, and finally, at the western limit of the county, Conig’s
Castle and Pylsdun. All these are (as far as can be seen now) British
camps of refuge; all of them must have been captured before the Roman
generals could feel secure in their own isolated position on a foreign
shore. That they were one and all occupied by the conquerors is also
most probable, and would account for the discovery of Roman relics
within their areas. No Roman camps can be seen at all approaching in
strength or size these magnificent hill fortresses. It is, of course,
well known that the armies of Rome never halted for a night without
forming an entrenchment of sufficient size to include not only the
fighting men, but the baggage train, and though traces of these still
remain on the hills of Dorset, the majority have long ago disappeared.
Perhaps the most interesting example of the military occupation of
the two races is to be seen at Hod Hill, near Blandford, where a
well-defined Roman Camp is constructed within the area of a previously
occupied British fortress, and here have been found spear heads, arrow
heads, spurs and portions of harness, rings and fibulæ, and fragments
of pottery, all indicating the Roman occupation; iron was found more
generally than bronze, and the coins are those of the earlier emperors,
including Claudius, in whose reign Vespasian made his conquests.
Badbury, four miles north-west of Wimborne, Woodbury, near Bere Regis,
and Hambledon, five miles north of Blandford, may be referred to as
memorials of the time of the Roman occupation, though not of Roman
construction.
Poundbury Camp, with its Saxon appellation, deserves special mention,
for, being situated on the outskirts of Dorchester, it has been studied
more frequently perhaps than any other earthwork in the county. It
has the form of an irregular square, with a single vallum, except on
the more exposed west side, where it is doubled, and traces have been
discovered of other ramparts now obliterated. On the north the camp
overhangs the river and valley, once probably a lake or morass, and
here the defences are slight. The area within the vallum is about
330 yards from east to west, and 180 yards from north to south.
Some authorities affirm that it was raised by the Danes about A.D.
1002, when they attacked Dorchester. Stukeley regards it as one of
Vespasian’s camps when engaged in his conquest of the Durotriges, while
other antiquarians claim for it a British origin, prior to the Roman
invasion. Mr. Warne, whose opinions are always worthy of most careful
consideration, “holds it to be a safer speculation to regard it as a
Roman earthwork,” and, no doubt, in form and general outline and size
it is very similar to other Roman camps, and altogether different to
the magnificent British fortress Maiden Castle, not two miles away.
Many Roman relics have been found, including coins ranging from the
times of Claudius to Constantine, and a tumulus is still to be seen
within the vallum, which alone would be an argument against its Celtic
origin.
Poundbury is insignificant indeed when compared with Mai-dun, and it
is impossible by mere description to convey an adequate impression
of this great earth fortress, singled out by many as the finest work
of its kind. It certainly surpasses all others in the land of the
Durotriges, and probably nowhere in the world can entrenchments be
seen of such stupendous strength. This camp, which is said to occupy
120 acres, is in form an irregular oval, embracing the whole of the
hill on which it stands; its length is nearly 800 yards, and width
275 yards. On the north, facing the plain, there are three lines of
ramparts, with intervening ditches, the slopes being exceedingly steep,
and measuring over 60 feet from apex to base. On the south the number
of ramparts is increased, but they are not so grand, and, indeed, as
Mr. Warne remarks, they appear to have been left in an unfinished
condition. At the east and west ends are the two principal entrances,
and here the ingenuity of the designer is manifested in a surprising
manner. At one end five or six ramparts, at the other as many as seven
or eight are built, so as to cover or overlap one another; vallum and
fossa, arranged with consummate skill, to complete the intricacies of
entrance, and to compel an enemy to undertake a task of the utmost
difficulty and danger.
In later times this camp was, no doubt, occupied by Roman troops as
summer quarters, its healthy position rendering it very suitable
for the purpose. Perhaps, still later, it became the residence of
some Roman magnate, who selected that fine eminence for his country
villa; at any rate, there should be no difficulty in accounting for
the discovery of Roman coins and implements, or even of villas, on
the sites of the camps and castles of the British. Many a hard fought
battle must have raged around their earthen walls.
Ever and anon, with host to host,
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,
Shield breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash
Of battle axes on shattered helms.
Many a shout of victory must have been heard as the conquering legions
forced their way over the ramparts and planted their eagles on the
summit of the captured fortress. And once captured they must have
been retained, at first perhaps by a fairly large garrison sufficient
to prevent re-capture, then as the tide of battle ebbed from the
neighbourhood the numbers might have been reduced; but the sites,
always in some commanding position, would have been long utilised as
points of observation and centres of control over the conquered tribes.
No revolt is recorded as taking place in the west of Britain such as
that led by Queen Boadicea in the east, in the year 61; so in looking
back to the Roman occupation, it is reasonable to suppose that before
the end of the first century it was reduced to the condition of a Roman
province. Trade would soon commence with this, the latest, addition to
the Empire, and the soldiers, no longer necessary except as garrisons
and guardians of the peace, would be employed in improving the means
of communication. The warlike Briton (in these parts at any rate) was
transformed into a peaceful husbandman, who sowed and reaped, and paid
his taxes, grumbling perhaps, but on the whole contented with his lot.
Roads, or trackways, of some kind there certainly were in use by the
British, linking tribe to tribe, or camp to camp, and, judging by the
line of what we now term Roman roads, it is most probable that to a
very great extent the ancient routes were taken as the foundation of
the new system developed by the Romans. The details of this system
are given by an authority of contemporary date in _The Itinerary
of Antonine_, which is believed to have been compiled in the third
century, and possibly corrected and added to later. In this work we
find, as regards the County of Dorset, a description of roads which
are easily recognised to-day, roads which are still in use throughout
a considerable portion of their length. It must not be lost sight
of that these roads are in very close connection with some of the
principal British hill-fortresses, which fact would stamp them as being
originally constructed by the British race, though to all appearance
they are grand examples of Roman skill and energy. The main road, the
Via Principalis, of the third and fourth centuries, comes to Dorset
from Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, one of the grandest of British camps;
it passes close to Badbury Camp, and then makes for Maiden Castle,
and onwards to Eggardun, all of earlier date than the Roman invasion.
But notwithstanding this obvious connection, the roads as we see them
now bear witness to the power of Rome, and are, perhaps, some of the
most obvious of the memorials of the past. They are described in the
_XV. Iter._ of Antoninus, with the names of the Roman stations and the
distances between them along the road from Silchester (Calleva) to
Exeter (Isca Dumnoni), which forms a portion of the great Via Iceniana.
After passing Old Sarum, this road crosses the north-east border of
the modern county of Dorset at a small hamlet called Woodyates (near
Cranborne), taking a south-westerly course; it passes over Woodyates
and Handley Down, and is described by Sir R. Colt Hoare as being at
that point “the finest specimen of a Roman road I know.” It runs by
Badbury Camp, and thence to Dorchester, where the direction changes to
due west, parallel with the coast line, and after leaving the county
near Lyme Regis proceeds towards Exeter.