CHARCOAL BURNERS IN EPPING FOREST. 71
abandoned, the structure was taken down, the disturbed ground
levelled over, and the whole site left neat and tidy.
It appears to me that, in this accumulation of turf and soil
round the margin of the hut, we have a practical illustration
of the formation of the hut-circle. I do not refer to the
larger pit-dwellings, which are somewhat different, but to
those smaller basin-shaped depressions about ten or twelve
feet in diameter which occur, usually in groups, in different
parts of the country. In many cases, these groups have
been found to be the sites of prehistoric villages, and the
circular depressions themselves, with their encircling mounds, to
be the sites of the huts.
Figure 2 is a diagrammatic section through the site of such
a hut-circle. It shows the partially-filled-up depressions, within
and around the hut, from which the turf to form the roof was
FlG. 2.—DIAGRAMMATIC SECTION OF A HUT-CIRCLE.
originally dug. The raised ring marking the site of the hut is
an accumulation formed by the sliding of the turf down the
slope of the roof.
It has been suggested that the disturbed ground near
Loughton (or Cowper's) Camp in Epping Forest is the site of
prehistoric pit-dwellings; but it seems to me quite obvious that
this disturbance has been caused solely by gravel digging of a
much later period. At the same time, there is a fair number of
the smaller circular depressions with encircling mound in various
parts of Epping Forest. I am inclined to think that some, at
least, of these are genuine hut-circles, although not necessarily
in all cases prehistoric. The fact that, but for artificial clearing
away, such a hut-circle would have been formed in the present
year must sound a note of warning against a too hasty refer-
ence of these remains to the prehistoric age. Some of these
circles may very well be the remains of huts of charcoal-burners,