EARLY BRITAIN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3828, 2 November 1936, Page 6

EARLY BRITAIN

discoveries at maiden CASTLE. FORTRESS AND CITY. Wiithin the next few weeks (writes a correspondent of the London Observer at Dorchester) the excavations at Maiden Caskle, Dorset, will come to an end. By that time well over 10,000 visitors will have inspected this vast pre-historic earthwork, and Dr R. E. Mortimer Wheeler and his party of students will have found the materials for a new chapter in British history. Until fifty years ago, historical evidence was based almost entirely upon the writings of contemporary scribes and local historians. Since the development of modern archaeology the spade has come to the help of the written word, and in manycases excavations have brought to light evidence which is akin to written history itself in precision and informativeness. In the case of Maiden Castle, which is the most elaborate earthwork of its kind in Western Europe, the excavations carried out during the past three years under the supervision of Dr Mortimer Wheeler —and until last year by his lamented wife—have been of the utmost importance in the reconstruction of early European history.

When I visited Dr- Mortimer Wheeler at Maiden Castle recently he told me the excavations were being conducted with two main objectives—first to explore the earthwork, secondly as a training ground for students from Great Britain and elsewhere. In the latter capacity there aref at the present moment between fifty and sixty students working regularly upon the site, including representatives not only of British universities, but of India, China, Australia and America. The students are put through a regular course of training in the technique of archaelogical excavation and are gradually trained for the work of supervision. THE EXCAVATIONS. “The excavations on Maiden Castle covdr a wide range of material and period,” Dr Wheeler informed me, “extending from the Neolithic period of 4,000 year;s ago to the later part of the Roman era in the fourth century A.D. The results to date include the uncovering of a part of a Neolithic town, a dozen acres or more in extent, surrounded by intermittent ditches cut with deer-horn picks into the chalk and subsequently used to some for habitation. Within the area enclosed by these entrenchments, Neolithic cooking pits and storage pits are being exposed and are revealing remains of both the principal Neolithic periods now recognised in this country. Evdienc: has been found to prove that the Neolithic people welre farmers. They giiew corn, kept flocks and herds, cattle and sheep. The women made pottery and probably helped to till the fields, as in other primitive communities.” “In exploring the remains of this ancient town, the excavations are in fact investigating a primary factor in the history of modern England. “Our modern cities—London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and the rest, are, in a real sense, the direct heirs of Maiden Castle and its fellows.”