and the sea. Here they could obtain in
abundance the flints for the manufacture of their polished stone
hatchets; while on the alluvial lowlands of Selsea and Shoreham they
could grow those cereals upon which they largely depended for their
daily bread. Neolithic monuments, indeed, are common along the range of
the South Downs, as they are also on the main mass of the chalk in
Salisbury Plain; and at Cissbury Hill, near Worthing, we have remains
of one of the largest neolithic camp refuges in Britain. The evidence
of tumuli and weapons goes to show that the Euskarian people of Sussex
occupied the coast belt and the combes of the Downs from the Chichester
marshland to Pevensey, but that they did not spread at all into the
Weald. In fact, it is most probable that at this early period Sussex
was divided into several little tribes or chieftainships, each of which
had its own clearing in the lowland cut laboriously out of the forest
by the aid of its stone axes; while in the centre stood the compact
village of wooden huts, surrounded by a stockade, and girt without by
the small cultivated plots of the villagers. On the Downs above rose
the camp or refuge of the tribe--an earthwork rudely constructed in
accordance with the natural lines of the hills--to which the whole body
of people, with their women, children, and cattle, retreated in case of
hostile invasion from the villagers on either side. It is not likely
that any foreigners from beyond the great forest belt of the Weald
would ever come on the war-trail across that dangerous and trackless
wilderness; and it is probable, therefore, that the camps or refuges
were constructed as places of retreat for the tribes against their
immediate neighbours, rather than against alien intruders from without.
Hence we may reasonably conclude--as indeed is natural at such an early
stage of civilisation--that the whole district was not yet consolidated
under a single rule, but that each village still remained independent,
and liable to be engaged in hostilities with all others. Even if
extended chieftainships over several villages had already been set up,
as is perhaps implied by the great tumuli of chiefs and the size of the
camps in some parts of Britain, we must suppose them to have been
confined for the most part to a single river valley. If so, there may
have been petty Euskarian principalities, rude supremacies or
chieftainships like those of South Africa, in the Chichester lowlands