EARLY MAN are so well made that it would be impossible to improve upon them in these days, with all our modern appliances for working in metal. Market Bosworth has furnished one interesting relic of the Bronze Age which has since unfortunately been allowed to fall to decay and is now lost. This was an earthen pot with well-developed lip or rim ornamented with parallel horizontal lines, a somewhat deeply depressed waist, and a rather small body. In general character it closely resembled the regular Bronze Age cinerary urn, although the proportionate sizes of its various parts would cause it to be regarded as a somewhat clumsy and ill-shaped vessel. The drawing upon which these remarks are based, however, may be not quite accurate. Another feature which strikes one as somewhat unusual is the series of punctures at regular intervals on the waist and at the top and bottom edge of the rim. Here again, however, the artist may have added details in a somewhat different way from the original. The pot or urn was discovered in the year 1849 in the grounds of the rectory house at Market Bosworth during the work of grubbing up a hedge. It was broken into a number of pieces, and afterwards deposited by the Rev. N. P. Small in the museum at Leicester. In 1854, when the urn was figured in the publications of the Anastatic Drawing Society, the fragments could not be found. No particulars are forthcoming as to the size of the urn, but the general form, as shown in the drawing, suggests a cinerary urn of about lain, or 15 in. high. Pottery of the Bronze Age is not particularly abundant in Leicestershire. It is probable that some has shared the fate of that found at Market Bosworth; but there are a few interesting pieces in Leicester Museum. These include a cinerary urn nearly 6 in. high, found at Aylestone Park ; an urn of red earth, 4! in. high, probably a vessel belonging to the class known as incense- cups, found at Mountsorrel ; a cinerary urn of the regular Bronze Age type, i6jiti. high, found at the same place, and now in the museum at Leicester ; and a cinerary urn 13 in. high, found at a barrow called Round Hill, at Syston. In addition to these there were two vessels of pottery, presumably of the Bronze Age, found at Noseley, and exhibited at a meeting of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society in i863. 13 THE EARLY IRON AGE This period, which may be said to commence with the introduction of iron implements, utensils, and weapons in England, and to end with the Roman invasion and occupation, is at once the latest and the most interesting of the archaeological divisions of the prehistoric period. No definite date can be ascribed to the beginning of the early Iron Age, because although it is known to have commenced in central and western Europe at about the same time, and possibly about five centuries before the Christian era, there are no certain data upon which a precise opinion on the subject can be formulated. In Britain, separated as it is from the European continent, it is extremely likely that the knowledge of iron may have arrived somewhat later than in other regions of western Europe. u See Trans, ii, 275. 171
