. Surrey archaeological collections. Museum. Henry Lambert. Find of Skeletons at Banstead.—On January 14, 1925, in digginga trench for an electric light cable in the footpath at the side of FirTree Road (the Epsom Road), Banstead, about 250 yards east of theentrance of the Kensington and Chelsea School {, not very farfrom Banstead Station), the workmen discovered a skeleton lyingfull length with the head to the west and a small vessel of pottery oneach side of the head; one of these was broken, the other recoveredintact. Nothing else was found. I did not myself see the skeleton in situ, bu
. Surrey archaeological collections. Museum. Henry Lambert. Find of Skeletons at Banstead.—On January 14, 1925, in digginga trench for an electric light cable in the footpath at the side of FirTree Road (the Epsom Road), Banstead, about 250 yards east of theentrance of the Kensington and Chelsea School {, not very farfrom Banstead Station), the workmen discovered a skeleton lyingfull length with the head to the west and a small vessel of pottery oneach side of the head; one of these was broken, the other recoveredintact. Nothing else was found. I did not myself see the skeleton in situ, but subsequently submittedit to Sir Arthur Keith, who has kindly furnished me with the followingopinion: The two food vessels found with the skeleton show that its burial was carried out under Pagan conditions. The exact date of the food vessels has not yet been fixed, but they will probably turn out to be early Saxon—early sixth century. The skeleton is that of a slender man 5 feet 5 inches in height, 9i 92 ROMAN AND SAXON and between thirty and forty years of age. His head is particularlysmall, being only 178 mm. in length; its width 133 mm.; the widthis approximately 75 per cent, of the length. He was shape is the common one in Saxon cemeteries. The volumeof his brain, instead of being about 1480 , the average size forEnglishmen, is only 1300 , but such small-headed men are notrare in our modern population. His teeth, although most have fallen out, must have been sound,for their sockets show no sign ofdisease. The bones of this skeleton areshaped just as in modern English-men; he possesses none of thefeatures found in the limb bonesin many pre-Saxon has a squatting facet at hisankles, showing he was not anhabitual user of stools or chairs. On the roof of the skull thereis an oblong hole caused by ablow of an instrument shapedlike a pick. It has not been pro-duced recently, for the edges ofthe fracture are decayed and yet
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookidp1surreyarch, bookyear1858
