by the double tie of kindred and of policy, used sailing vessels instead of galleys for their ships of war, and in times of necessity took refuge in towns[1] placed at the extremities of the lofty cliffs overlooking the harbours in which their ships found shelter.
Just such a town once occupied the summit of the East Cliff, where several British remains have been found,[2] defended on the east by the lofty embankment which constitutes our oldest antiquity, still in a good state of preservation , and on the north by an artificial escarpment of the hill where its natural steepness was not deemed sufficient. Mr. SHARPE, in his paper on the subject, says, it is difficult to trace the line of the embankment, on the west, but that there must have been one. I, however, think that the British town or camp occupied the whole triangular space, and would be amply protected by the precipitous character of the hill. The apex of the triangle was somewhat south west of the point where the discovery of bones was made by Mr. Ross, which from the peculiar mode of burial would seem to be British,[3] unless the iron rivets be -
- ↑ " Erant ejusmodi fere situs oppidorum ut posita in extremis promontoriis...."
- ↑ Suss. Arch., ix. 366, xiii, 308.
- ↑ "The bodies lay on charcoal 2 inches in thickness, and by the right side of each were what appeared to be iron rivets having a head at each end, about the size of a half -penny with the remains of wood attached . Each body had besides five or six large headed nails roughly made. Under each skull was an oyster-shell, in the hollow of which the skull rested. Three of them differed in the mode of sepulchre : the head resting on a hollow boulder from the sea shore." Extract from a Paper by Mr. Ross, read Aug. 20, 1866, before the Congress of the British Archeological Association at Hastings.
