EARLY MAN
EARLY MAN direction for many miles. The name Icknield Street may indicate that it was the main road to the country of the Iceni. PILE DWELLINGS Remains of ancient pile-dwellings, probably belonging to pre- historic times, have been found in the county, principally in the neighbourhood of Newbury. As Newbury was the centre of a lake- district, as is evident from its peat-deposits, such a mode of building is natural. Further evidence suggestive of ancient dwellings was found in 1870,' when, in digging in Fence Wood, near Hermitage, a kind of pyramidal dwelling beneath the ground was discovered. The roof was covered with clay about i foot in thickness, and was supported by a large piece of timber about 26 feet long. The dwelling appears to have been constructed in what had originally been a lake or morass, and which had in time become covered by a deposit of peat, and at a depth of from 15 to 1 6 feet were found three causeways by which the dwelling had formerly been approached. Unfortunately the remains were too much damaged by the inrush of water for any careful examination of the site to be made. In Newbury a a good many traces of pile-dwellings were discovered during the drainage operations in 1894. In Bartholomew Street, Market Place, and Cheap Street were found underground pile-structures, consisting for the most part of solid balks of unbarked oak, roughly hewn, with massive beams crossing from side to side and resting on vertical piles. The piles were placed sometimes close together, some- times in pairs, and sometimes tolerably far apart. In most instances their tops were brought to a level, so as to support the beams of the platform laid upon them. The vertical piles were roughly morticed in order to receive the tenons of the cross-beams, a feature which may point to the use of metallic tools in the work of constructing the dwellings. Generally speaking, the Newbury pile-dwellings were more numerous on the southern side of the river than on the northern, and their situation was found to vary considerably in relation to the present course of the Kennet. In prehistoric times, however, the site of New- bury was occupied by a lake or morass. In the peat at about 7 feet from the surface in Bartholomew Street, opposite the Coopers' Arms, a platform of fir poles, about 5 inches in diameter and about 1 8 inches apart, was met with. The stakes, which were rudely pointed, had been firmly driven into the peat. The antiquities found in the peat comprise numerous flint implements of characteristic neolithic types, as well as bones of the horse, pig, goat, red-deer, dog, wolf, marten, short-horned ox (bos taurus, var. longi- frons), bear, boar, beaver, etc. 1 Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, i. 123. 2 Ibid. iv. 206-8. I 193 25
