Abstract
YOUR note on the result of Gen. Pitt-Rivers' examination of the Pen Pits (Somerset) in this week's number of NATURE (p. 545) reminds me of a series of similar pits in this county of Berks, known as “Cole's Pits.” They are situated near the branch of the Great Western Railway which runs from Uppington to Faringdon. I have visited them more than once when on visits to Wadley, the residence of my friend Mr. T. L. Goodlake, J.P. They correspond generally with the description given in NATURE of the Pen Pits, are probably of quite equal extent, are similarly situated on rising ground forming the cap of a ridge of hills, and are on the same Greensand formation. Many and various theories have been propounded from time to time by antiquarians, and of course the name by which these pits have been known for generations has been appealed to as connecting them with the “merry King Cole,” and giving support to the views of those who regard them as traces of an “ancient British town.” The utter absence of order in the arrangement of these shallow holes and rude mounds (for they are nothing more) excited my suspicion, nor could I see much in them to suggest occupation by any race which has inhabited these islands even so late as the time of the ancient Britons. On further investigation of them I came across a more modern sort of hut, consisting of a space rudely roofed over, the back of which was cut into the side of one of these grass-grown banks. The idea occurred to me that this would help to furnish evidence, since, if these hollows were dug in the strata of the hill to be roofed over for human habitation (the notion which, I am told, finds general favour) we ought to find some traces of stratification in a section thus presented to us. Not a trace of this was to be found; the section showed nothing but a chaotic mass of rubbly material with no more order in its arrangement than is to be found in the waste heaps of any old quarry or in a terminal moraine.
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IRVING, A. Cole's Pits. Nature 30, 560 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030560a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030560a0
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