described as a period of democrati¬ sation. The intensification of agriculture is likely to have been to meet an increase in population beyond the existing food supplies. There was also a shift of emphasis of both settlements and burials from the Wessex Chalk areas to the adjoining heaths, and to the Middle Thames valley region where Later Bronze Age metalworking is much in evidence. These areas are well placed for marketing by water transport and for communication with the rest of the south coast and with the continent. Decline

The evidence suggests that Wessex II was followed by a final flicker of small and degenerate round barrows of bell and disc types containing primary or near-primary Deverel-

Rimbury cremations. In this category are bell-barrows WINTERBORNE KINGSTON 14 (Dorset), which contained a (primary or secondary?) cremation in an urn o f Drakenstei n type ; and BROADCHALKE 1 (Wiltshire), which contained a probably primary cremation in a Deverel-Rimbury barrel-urn (Rahtz, Wilts. A. M. 1970). The evidence from discbarrows is less clear. In Dorset BINCOMBE 2 and 3 ('Dorset' types?) yielded probably primary cremations in bucket-urns. In Surrey WORPLESDON 1, excavated by Pitt-Rivers, contained two cremations in bucket-urns (one probably primary), the barrow being smaller than usual for a disc-barrow. The problem is however complicated by the evidence from KINGSTON RUSSELL 3a ('Dorset' type), which contained a primary contracted interment with beaker and a secondary cremation in a bucket-urn. Perhaps it was a earlier barrow reused and reconstructed.

Conclusion

The 'model' here suggested remains flexible and is likely to be modified in the next decade or two by further study; but old-fashioned though parts of it may appear to some of the New Archaeologists, it receives much support from recent publications including Colin Burgess, The Age of Stonehenge (1980) and various essays in Barrett and Bradley (eds), The British Later Bronze Age (B.A.R. 83 i, 1980).

Leslie Grinsell, 32 Queens Court, Bristol, BS8 1ND

LEICESTER

ONE of the most remarkable recent discoveries of Roman wall plaster has been at the Norfolk Street Roman villa, Leicester. There is a theory that in the immediate vicinity of every Roman town there was one 'special' villa that was more grandiose than those further away and which may have been used for some official function. If there is any validity in this theory, then the Norfolk Street villa is the 'special' villa of Roman Leicester. It lies only half a mile outside the town walls on gently rising ground with a magni­ ficent view of the city (see photo overleaf). It was originally excavated in 1851, when it was first swallowed up by the Victorian suburbs and Norfolk Street was laid out across it. The Leicester Literary and Philoso-

phical Society carried out an excavation and left behind a charming description of their work and also a water colour drawing of the mosaics. No walls were unfortunately inserted on the drawing but it showed what appears to be a typical corridor villa with an apse at the centre from which they removed the mosaic that is still in the Jewry Wall Museum. But there was also an isolated corridor type mosaic running at right angles, hinting that it had been a courtyard building.

Thus when the area became ripe for redevelopment into council flats in the 1970s, Jean Mellor and John Lucas carried out extensive excavations for the Leicestershire Museums Archaeological Unit between 1975 and 1980. In the course of this she

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revealed most of the original parts of the villa as well as a Roman cellar into which the wall above had collapsed, complete with its wall plaster.

The excavations began in 1975 on the east side of Norfolk Street. At first the results were disappointing for they were in what turned out to be the courtyard of the villa. However they eventually succeeded in finding the wall that closed off the courtyard to the east, and then further to the south they found an aisled barn which had very flimsy outside walls but massive postholes in the interior. Things began to look up in 1979 when they extended their excavations to the north and found a range of rooms fronted by a corridor; a tessellated floor of this