342 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
The author would like to thank the owner Mr D. J. Human,
for permission to excavate, and Mr C. Knight, the tenant, for his
co-operation and assistance Mr F. Waightman for much
valuable local information and Messrs Bolter, Boynton, Bunn,
Jones, Radburn and Turner for assistance in digging.
The bones have been kindly donated by Mr Human to Saff-
ron Walden Museum.
The Excavation.
Having located the skeletons in the section of the narrow
sewage-pipe trench an area between the trench and the cottages
was opened up. The graves were found to have cut through a
thin layer of soil containing Romano-British coarse sherds of 1st
century A.D., fragments of roof tile and tesserae. Each grave
was dug to a depth of about 75 cms. (2 ft. 6 in.) from the present
ground level. There was some evidence to suggest that this
level had been lowered in recent years, probably in levelling the
site for the erection of the cottages (circa 1920). The lower legs
and feet of burial 1 were situated beneath the foundation wall
of the kitchen and a surface-water drain-pipe lay across all of
the skeletons (see plan). The bedding trench for this pipe was
only 5 cms. (2 in.) above the bones, but had not disturbed them.
On examing the section it was found that the graves had
been cut into a dark brown soil which constituted the fill of wide
shallow buried ditch cutting into the natural sub-soil of sand.
Within the narrow confines of the sewage-pipe trench it was not
possible to determine whether the ditch had been bisected at
right angles or obliquely by the trench. Allowing for this re-
servation, its width was found to be 4.5 metres (5 yds.) and its
depth 1 metre (1 yd. +).