A cemetery of this period was found at Sulham, and many earthenware urns from it are in the Reading Museum. There are also in the Museum some urns from Neolithic barrows at Sunningdale.
The extensive deposits of peat at and around Newbury show that it was a marsh and lake district until historical time, and remains of pile dwellings have been found in the market-place, in Bartholomew Street, and in Cheap Street. Their date cannot be fixed with certainty, but they are almost certainly prehistoric in age.
The substitution of iron for bronze indicates a considerable advance in knowledge, for, except in meteorites, pure iron is not found in nature, and no small skill is required to separate the metal from the earth or rock in which it occurs. There is, however, no definite division between the Bronze and the Iron Age, for implements and ornaments of both bronze and stone continued to be used. Nor is there any definite end to the Iron Age: it passes onwards into the period of written history.
A number of bones and various objects found in a grave on Hagbourne Hill seemed to show that a man, a horse, and possibly also a chariot had been buried there.
Ancient British coins have been found at Brightwell, Newbury, Wallingford, and at other places in Berkshire. Many of them bear on one side a rude representation of a horse, probably an imitation of the horse on the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, who became king in B.C. 359. These gold coins, known as Philips, were current in Greece and in the East for a long period, and have been occasionally found in circulation even in modern times. The White Horse, which is cut in the turf on the chalk hill above Uffington, bears a considerable resemblance to the horse on the British coins, and may very probably be of the same date.
The White Horse
There are a great number of mounds and earthworks scattered over Berkshire, and it is exceedingly difficult to assign to them their proper dates. We have already mentioned Wayland Smith’s Cave as the remains of a long barrow of the Neolithic Period, and we have also referred to the round barrows of the Bronze Age. Some of the fortifications may date from these early times but many are probably of later date. It was for a long time needful to provide defence for the dwellings, not only against men, but also against wild animals, and the earthworks were no doubt used over and over again by successive peoples.
As we have said, the chalk district was at one time the most populous part of the county, and we consequently find the downs dotted over with mounds and earthworks of very ancient date. Perhaps the best known of these is the fine earthwork named Uffington Castle on White Horse Hill (see p. 7). Alfred’s Castle is a circular earthwork close to Ashdown Park and three miles south-west of Uffington Castle. Letcombe Castle is another fair-sized work on the Ridge Way, rather more than five miles east of White Horse Hill. There is a large earthwork called Danish Camp on Blewburton Hill to the south of Didcot.
