the counties of Essex and Bedford, and more recently in Hertfordshire, that belong approximately to the period ranging from fifty years before to about fifty years after Christ. In the first of these, at Mount Bures' halfway between Colchester and Sudbury, an Fig. 30.-Part of Amphora Stand, Capel Garmon iron frame (Fig. 31), with the verticals 42 in. high, terminating in ox-heads having the horns tipped with bronze, was discovered in 1849, with three amphora resting on the horizontal bar that linked them together. 1 Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, II, p, 25. In a second grave close by there was another frame, also supporting three amphora, along with them there were Romano-British pateræ, a glass bead, and fragments of bronze and of iron. A second case of the Fig. 31.-Part of Amphora Stand, Tomb Mount Bures, discovery of iron frames, of the same design, is presented by the two graves at Stanton Bury, Shefford, Beds.,' along with amphora, and Samian and Romano 1 Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, II, p. 28; Dryden, Trans. Cambridge Antiq. Soc., I, 1845. British pottery, vessels of bronze, and a pair of silver tweezers, an urn of violet glass, glass bottles, a glass bowl, and other things. There was also a horizontal bar that fitted on to the horns of the ox-heads of the verticals, and therefore probably belongs to the frames. The association of the amphora with the so-called firedogs, in both these cases, renders it likely that they were intended as iron supports for the amphora. This conclusion is confirmed by the discovery of similar frames in two graves, revealed at Welwyn in Hertfordshire, during the making of a new road in 1906-8, in which amphora were found inside the frames. Along with these were silver-gilt cups, beautifully chased, that may have been derived either from Greece or Southern Italy, pateræ, the remains of a late Celtic vase, or bucket, and other late Celtic vases, that leave no doubt as to the graves belonging to the time before the Roman Conquest. From all these facts it is clear that there was a close commercial connection between Britain and the South of Europe, and that amphorae full of wine were conveyed into Britain, and placed in the graves for the use of the dead in the world of spirits. In my opinion the find at Capel Garmon proves that the wine trade extended westwards as far as the Valley of the Conwy, and that in this respect the civilisation in Wales immediately before the Roman Conquest was similar to that in South-Eastern Britain. VIII. THE INCOMING OF THE BRYTHONS. The tribes who were, to say the least, the chief introducers of the civilisation of the Pre-historic Iron Age into Britain, belong to the later or Brythain section of the Celts, the Galata of Gaul, the P-Celts of Rhys.' They imposed their tongue more or less 1 Rhys, Rhind Lectures: "Early Ethnology of the British Isles," Scottish Review, April, 1890. upon the conquered peoples, and were sufficiently numerous to leave their mark in place and race names not only in Gaul and Spain, but in Northern Italy and in the whole of Britain. They did not invade Ireland. In our island tribe followed tribe from the Continent, the last wave of invasion consisting of the mixed Brythons and Germans who formed the Belgic Confederacy, and were extending their dominion from their base in South-Eastern Britain to the north and the west at the time of the Roman Conquest. They did not reach the boundaries of Wales. I know of no characters by which the Brythons can be defined from the Goidels except by their speech. Their settlement in Wales in the Pre-historic Iron Age was like that of the Goidels, a mastery over, rather than a general displacement of, the old possessors of the land. At the time of the Roman Conquest the Goidels were predominant' in North Wales, including Mona. In South Wales they dwelt side by side with the Iberic Silures, while, according to Rhys, the conquering Brythons (Ordovices) were in full force in Mid Wales. The population was mixed, the Iberic aborigines being largely incorporated into the Goidelic Celts, and both being so profoundly influenced by the Brythons that the speech of the last ultimately became dominant in the Welsh tongue. In later days the mixed population of Britain was rolled westwards into Wales by the English invaders; but there is no trace of the addition of any new ethnical element until the Scandinavian freebooters established themselves at various points along the coast, and Wales formed a part of the English dominion. IX. THE PRE-ROMAN ROADS. In the preceding remarks I have alluded to the prehistoric roads. Throughout Britain the Neolithic tracks 1 Rhys, Arch. Camb., 1895, p. 18. along the lines of easiest transit, mainly ridgeways, were followed in the Bronze Age by well-defined roads. that could be used by horses, and these were developed sufficiently in the Pre-historic Iron Age to allow of the use of carts and chariots. They formed a network throughout Britain, and were utilised by the Romans in their lines of military communication. These points are clearly established by the study of the roads in Britain, such, for example, as the Pilgrims' Way, connecting Canterbury with the network of roads of the Pre-historic Iron Age on the chalk downs of Southern England, and by the roads in Hampshire, Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset, as well as those of the Pennine chain, of the Wolds and Moors of Eastern Yorkshire, and of the Lake District, the pre-Roman Age being proved by the camps, habitations, and tombs.1 In Wales the history of the roads down to the time of the Roman Conquest has been the same. The Sarn Helens, for example, form a part of the general network of roads connecting one pre-historic centre with another. The old roads were repaired by the Roman engineers, and in many places replaced by short cuts, and new point-to-point roads were made, characterised by their straightness. CONCLUSION. In listening to this very imperfect outline of the fixed points in the Pre-history of Wales, my audience must have realised how little we know and how much work lies before the Cambrian Association before the pre-historic monuments can be made to yield their record of past events. There are but few of the oppida that have been explored, and most of the hill forts are 1 Dawkins, "On Bigbury Camp and the Pilgrims' Way," Arch. Journ, lix, 211; “On Pre-Roman Roads of Northern and Eastern Yorkshire," Arch. Journ., lxi, p. 309; "Notes on Durham, etc., Arch. Journ., lxvi, 171; Victoria History, Somerset-Hampshire. |