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A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 383) ; while the practice, illustrated both here and at Long Wittenham, of placing a coin in the mouth of the deceased is presumptive evidence of Roman origin. The second class was considered Romano-British, inasmuch as three Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns and four Anglo-Saxon skeletons were found deposited above interments of this kind ; and though it is conceiv- able that the urns had been disturbed and replaced, this cannot have been the case with the skeletons, which were found with the bones in due anatomical order. On the lower level the interments had taken place apparently in parallel trenches, which ran for the most part from a point north of west to one south of east, and it has been suggested that the majority of deaths occurred in the winter months when the rising sun, which the dead were intended to face, would be seen to the south of east. These graves of Romans or Romanized natives frequently contained, in addition to the skeletons, bones and teeth of animals, oyster-shells and potsherds, all perhaps the refuse of funeral feasts ; and also charcoal, 1 such as occurred in many of the Long Wittenham graves. Such remains would not of themselves prove a connection with Roman civilization ; but the arrangement of these ' grave-rows ' practically east and west, not to mention the remains of wooden coffins here and there, seems to point to a period before the Christian orientation had been superseded by the pagan rites of the barbarian invaders. Though these comparatively deep interments are generally of a less expensive character than those made in coffins of lead, there can be no great difference of date, and an examina- tion of the skeletons shows that the Romanized population, or at least the male portion of it, generally attained a considerable age. In this respect the contrast with the Anglo-Saxon settlers is very marked. The third class consists of cremated burials that may be safely referred to the invading Teuton. As at Long Wittenham, the cinerary urns were in some cases entirely plain, but the ornament on others is sufficient proof of a racial connection with the ' Anglians ' in other parts of the country. The fact that a certain number of urns were found above burials of the preceding class is fair evidence of later date, and it is in any case improbable that a population imbued to any extent with Christian teaching would bury their dead in ground already desecrated by the cremated remains of pagans. Of the burials at Frilford belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period about half were by way of cremation. The remainder were disposed in two different ways and formed two more distinct classes. In the fourth class the graves are shallow and without orientation, the body being laid at full length and provided with the usual grave furniture. These may be referred perhaps to half-converted proselytes who had indeed dis- continued the essentially pagan rite of burning, but were careless as to the direction of the graves and the decent interment of the dead. The other graves referred to the Anglo-Saxons constitute the fifth class at Frilford, and were more in accordance with those of the 1 Arch. xlii. 426. 236