J.Y. Akerman, Esq., F.S.A., Local Secretary for Berkshire, communicated the following report of excavations in an ancient cemetery at Frilford, near Abingdon, Berks.

  • Akerman, John Yonge, 1806-1873.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: J.Y. Akerman, Esq., F.S.A., Local Secretary for Berkshire, communicated the following report of excavations in an ancient cemetery at Frilford, near Abingdon, Berks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Romanized population occupied this tract of country before the ainval of the Saxons. The two exceptional interments lead us to this inference. The number of graves in which neither weapons nor personal ornaments were discovered is somewhat remarkable, and may be compared to the graves found at Arne Hill, near Lockinge, Berks. (Proceedings, 2nd s. ii. 320), for, though in that case the labourers doubtless overlooked some objects,^ the greater part were evidently without relics. Chris- tianity in fact seems to have warred successfully against the prac- tices of heathenism, and the heath and the hill-top would appear to have been eventually abandoned for the consecrated precincts of the churches, to the extinction of the grosser superstitious practices of our Saxon forefathers, although some of them are denounced by the canons enacted under King Edgar.’^ The following remarks by Professor Rolleston were appended to Mr. Akerman’s communication :— Fkilfokd Ceania. Th» fragments of lower jaw and of calvarium from the two leaden coffins indicate the possession by their owners of much greater muscular strength and of much greater size than that which the other male relics lead us to think their owners possessed. CRANIUM (male) MARKED A. The male skull, marked A, which was found with a portion of a fibula but two feet above it, is very nearly perfect, the exterior being merely a little burrowed into superficially by roots, and the lower ends of the nasals having been broken away. It is a moderate sized skull, of the brachy- cephalic type, and belonged probably to a man about the middle period of life. The extreme length of the skull, as given with other measurements, is likely to deceive, as the squama occipitis superior is of great thickness, and occupies a well nigh vertical plane some considerable way posteriorly to the posterior edge of the parietals, which drop away rapidly from the roof of the skull towards their junction with the occipital. The length from the glabella to the occipital spine being 6'% the length from the glabella to the apex of the occipital is 6|. The roof of the skull slopes away gently from the middle line, the zygomatic breadth is not great, and the temporal ridges are not very prominent. The supraeiliary eminences are moderately and the underlying sinuses largely developed; the orbital edges of the frontals are convex; the nasals appear to have been prominent, and probably rose into a bold curve at their lower ends, whieh are broken away. The teeth are of moderate size; the posterior molars above must have been lost early, if de- veloped at all; there is only one on each side below, that on the right side being probably molar No. 3, that on the left molar No. 2. The teeth are much worn, especially on the right side, where the left molar No. 1 above must have been lost long before death. The lower jaw is slight as compared with the fragments of jaws from the leaden coffins, but its symphysis and angle can touch'the same flat plane as they lie upon it, and the chin is fairly prominent. The ramus forms an oblique angle with the body of the bone. A line joining the centres of the two auditory foramina passes in front of the occipital forameni