ANCIENT BRITONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume LVIII, Issue 9670, 17 April 1923, Page 5

ANCIENT BRITONS.

BURIAL PLACES UNEARTHED

IvNLFE WITH EVERY BODY.

LONDON, April 15. Professor E. Parsons. Professor of Anatomy at London university, in an article in The Times, outlines tht results of explorations proceeding in ancient British burial places. He states that recent excavations enabled thorough investigations to be made. > „ , Tlie opening of a new road neai Margate exposed many rows ot skeletons evidently buried fully clothed, with ornaments and weapons. Many graves contained pairs of skeletons which may confirm Tacitus s story that pagan Saxon wives slew themselves when their husbands died. The average height of the men was 66 inches, compared with. 69 ot the middle class to-day, and the average of the women was 041 inches. Tlie skeletons’ well-worn teeth, showed that much of the food consumed by the people consisted ot o-rain. Apparently the ancients sutteied terribly from rheumatism. A maiority died before they were foity. The proportion of adolescents buried between the ages of fifteen and twenty was very great. The bodies, were normally buried with the feet towards the rising sun, and generally on the southern slope of a lull. Ornaments and precious stones found prove the people were by no means savages, lyivfc possessed, gems of refined taste. A‘knife was buried with every man, woman and child, with these men. there was also a spear and shield. In rare instances swords and battle-axes were found in the graves of the chiefs.—Times.