252 REPORT ON THE DENEHOLE EXPLORATION
not have been pits for chalk, flint workings, or columbaria. On the
other hand it is not easy to say with anything like certainty for
what purpose they must have been mainly used, though on the
whole, it seems most likely that they were intended to serve as
granaries. In Mr. Spurrell's well-known paper 12 so indispensable to
everyone interested in deneholes, the prevalence of underground
granaries in almost every part of the world, and in all times, ancient
and modern, is amply demonstrated, and Mr. Spurrell's paper on
"Ensilage," forming Appendix V. to this Report, gives in a con-
venient form a vast amount of information on the subject. Great
numbers are known to have existed in northern France, and in our own
country they have been detected at Winklebury, and in the Isle of Port-
land, also in E. Norfolk.13 The British examples were all very much
smaller than our deneholes, either because the nature of the rock pre-
vented more roomy excavations, or because the corn was not stored in
the ear but as grain alone, or for some unknown reason. Repre-
sentations of the Isle of Portland pits are here shown (Figs. 8 and 9)
for the purpose of comparison, and particulars of somewhat similar
pits in Oxfordshire are given by Mr. H. B. Woodward in Appendix
IV. to this Report. In pits such as those at Hangman's Wood,
corn was probably stored in the ear with much straw around it,
both to aid in preserving the corn, and as itself fodder for
cattle, and the lofty chambers were thus amply utilized. The
abundance of corn in South-eastern Britain was noted by Pytheas
in the middle of the fourth century, B.C. ; and some two
centuries later another Greek named Posidonius visited our island
and is supposed to have been the authority of Diodorus Siculus for
the statement that the people of Britain had mean habitations, made
for the most part of rushes and sticks, and that their harvest consisted
in cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in pits underground,
some of the corn which had been longest stored being taken out
each day for food (see Elton's "Origins of English History").
And when it is remembered that among the very few human relics
found during our exploration were fragments of two millstones,
it will be evident that the hypothesis that the Hangman's
Wood deneholes were mainly used as secret storehouses for
grain, furnishes perhaps the most probable explanation of their
existence.
12 "Archaeological Journal," Nos. 152 and 153. Read April, 1881.
13 See Trans. E.F.C. vol. iv., pp. 108—9. Also Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. viii, pp. 404—10.