Report of excavation of a twin-barrow, and a single round barrow at Sigwell (Six Wells), parish of Compton, Somerset / by Prof. Rolleston and A. Lane Fox ; with an appendix on the topography of Sigwell.

  • Rolleston, George, 1829-1881.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of excavation of a twin-barrow, and a single round barrow at Sigwell (Six Wells), parish of Compton, Somerset / by Prof. Rolleston and A. Lane Fox ; with an appendix on the topography of Sigwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    dependent on the larger fortress. But other and more cogent reasons may be urged in favour of this assumption. The occupiers of Cadbury had flocks and herds as proved by animal remains dis- covered in the interior and described first by Mr. Winwood* and subsequently by Professor Rolleston. These flocks and herds must have had pasture somewhere. To the west, as I have said before, the great valley is low, swampy, and probably at that time an im- passable jungle. The high, dry, and well watered Valley of Whit- comb, between the camp and the hills, would be the only place in the neighbourhood where these flocks could be pastured ; but with the commanding hills to the east, and the springs arising from them in the hands of an enemy, there could he no security against surprise by hostile neighbours who, approaching unperceived from the table land, might at any moment make raids upon the cattle from the hills above. The sources of water supply and the com- mand of the hills must therefore have been a matter of vital con- cern to the possessors of Cadbury, and the small camps of Sig- well and Charnwell appear to have been thrown up to command the springs and secure an uninterrupted communication with the plateau beyond. From these considerations it would appear that we have here evidence of a central fortress defended on one side, and that the most approachable, by a chain of detached but dependent out- posts, which affording as it does some insight into the social con- dition and military organisation of the inhabitants of this dis- trict at a very remote period, may be regarded as being of some in- terest to anthropologists. That Cadbury was occupied at a later date than that of which I have been speaking, appears certain from the discovery of horse shoes and other objects of iron within the camp ;f but if the evidence afforded by Sigwell camp and the adjoining tumuli is to be relied upon—and I see no reason why it should not be accepted, at least provisionally—the first erection of the fortress and its connection with the neighbouring outposts should date from a period not later than the Bronze Age. Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin’s Lane.