Sepulchral deposits of the same period, which have also yielded mirrors, were brought to light in the course of military works at Mount Batten,[124] near Plymouth, in the spring of 1865. The burials, however, in this case were not in stone-lined graves near the surface, but in pits from 4 feet to 4 feet 6 inches deep, excavated in the disintegrated rock. In addition to a bronze mirror and the handles of two others, the following objects were obtained: two jointed bronze armlets, two plain bronze armlets, four fibulæ, three bronze rings, a bronze cup, an iron dagger, and a pair of shears, black pottery, and fragments of glass. Ancient British coins had been found previously at Mount Batten,[125] indicating a settlement here, perhaps in the first century B.C. The exploration of the Late-Celtic urn-field at Aylesford,[126] in Kent, three miles north-west of Maidstone, by Dr. Arthur Evans, has been the means of extending our knowledge of the art of this period in a most unexpected manner, and has supplied the missing links between the culture of Britain in the first three or four centuries B.C., and that of La Tène on the Continent, which in its turn can be shown to have been strongly influenced by the civilisation of the ancient Venetian country at the head of the Adriatic.[127] The shape of the tall, cordoned, pedestalled vases, and other peculiarities of the pottery from Aylesford, were things entirely unknown to archæologists previously, and enable a distinction now to be drawn between the fictile ware of the Late-Celtic period and that of the Romano-British period. The discovery also of bronze objects of Italo-Greek manufacture of the second century B.C., associated with Late-Celtic burials, clearly indicates that there must have been a much more intimate trade-intercourse between Britain and the southern parts of Europe, in pre-Roman times, than has hitherto been suspected. [124] See J. Spence Bate in _Archæologia_, vol. xl., p. 500. [125] Sir J. Evans’ _Ancient British Coins_, pp. 72 and 106. [126] _Archæologia_, vol. lii., p. 315. [127] Dr. Arthur J. Evans’ third Rhind Lecture on the “Origins of Celtic Art,” as reported in the _Scotsman_, December 14th, 1895. The Late-Celtic urn-field at Aylesford was uncovered in 1886, at Messrs. Silas Wagon and Son’s gravel-pit, in the course of removing the surface earth which here overlies the old river-deposits to a depth of 3 feet or so. One of the first burial-pits which attracted attention was circular, and about 3 feet 6 inches deep, the sides and bottom being coated with a kind of chalky compound. In the pit were found a bronze _situla_, or pail, splendidly ornamented with repoussé work in the Late-Celtic style, and containing calcined bones; an _œnochoe_, or wine-jug; and _patella_, or shallow pan, of imported Italo-Greek fabric; fragments of a second _situla_; a bronze fibula; and fragments of pottery.