Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/231

DESCRIPTION OF AN ANCIENT TUMULAR CEMETERY. 131 the cases of apparent old age. This pecuHarity may be easily accounted for. The Britons led a pastoral life, feeding upon the milk of their flocks and the venison of their forests, and the sweets of the West Indies were to them totally unknown."* In the Anglo-Saxon barrows at Breach Downs, already referred to, the same condition of the teeth with that observed in the remains from Lamel-hill appears to have existed. Thus, we arc informed that the "• state of the teeth in these barrows indicate that the people had lived chiefly on grain and roots."^ Animal food, amongst the Anglo-Saxons, appears to have been very much restricted to the more wealthy ; and barley-bread, pulse, and other vegetable food to have constituted the prin- cipal fare of the poorer class, wdiich frequently included even the inhabitants of monasteries. If there be reason, as some suppose, for thinking that parched peas were a staple article of their food, we cannot be surprised that their teeth should be worn down in this w^ay. In the very interesting account of the discovery of the early conventual Saxon cemetery at Hartlepool, belonging probably to the latter half of the seventh century, the teeth are also described as being worn quite smooth, as if they had been filed down. As the skeletons were chiefly those of females, many of them probably of the upper class, such a condition of the teeth is the more remark- able, and seems to prove that the early Saxon Christians of the North lived on the same land of food as their Pagan brethren in Kent had previously done.^ The condition of the teeth now described cannot, how- ever, be regarded as positively distinctive of Anglo-Saxon skeletons. It is certainly sometimes observed in early British, and lioman-British, skulls.'^ Depending, as it does, on the character of the food, it is met with amongst various bar- barous tribes, and even in certain classes of modern Euro- peans (e. g. sailors), down to the present day. It is, however, a condition which appears to have been more prevalent amongst the Anglo-Saxons than their immediate predecessors ; ^ For notices of the state of the teeth of British Archaeological Association, m British and Roman-British places of vol. i., p. lfi.5. sepulture, see Archaeologia, vol. xviii., ' See Medical Gazette, 1838-J), vol. i., p. 4'21 ; Archaeological Journal, vol. iii., p. 288, N. S. ; vol. i., pp. 867, 94!», 1041^, pp. 114, 223. 1170. Journal of British Archaeological ■^ See Archaeological Journal, vol. i., Association, vol. ii., p. 1 71 ; vol. iv., p. 65, p. 272. 69. I find, from personal inspection, that "Archaeologia, vol. xxvi.,p. 4 79; Journal in the British skeleton from Gristhorpe,