The fine collection of Late-Celtic horse-trappings, etc., now in the Duke of Northumberland’s private Museum at Alnwick Castle, was found in 1844, in a pit about 5 feet deep, within an earthen entrenchment at Stanwick, in Yorkshire, seven miles north of Richmond.[135] A few Late-Celtic objects have been derived from Roman towns[136] and stations[137] in England; and also from the _weems_,[138] or underground houses, and the _brochs_,[139] or Pictish towers of Scotland. The bone-caves which were the permanent habitations of Palæolithic and Neolithic man in Britain served as temporary places of refuge for the Brit-Welsh population during the troublous times immediately succeeding the Roman evacuation of this country. Gildas’ account of the Britons leaving their houses and lands, and taking shelter in the mountains, forests and caves, whence they were able successfully to repel the inroads of the Picts and Scots,[140] is fully borne out by archæological research.[141] [135] _Memoirs of the Meeting of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland at York in 1846_, p. 88; Dr. J. C. Bruce’s _Catalogue of the Antiquities at Alnwick_, p. 38. [136] As in Silchester. These have not been illustrated, but are to be seen in the Reading Museum. [137] As in Æsica (Great Chesters) (_Archæologia Æliana_, 2nd ser., vol. xvii., p. xxviii.). [138] As at Castle Newe, Aberdeenshire, and Grange of Conan, Forfarshire (see Dr. J. Anderson’s _Scotland in Pagan Times: Iron Age_, pp. 141 and 160). [139] As at Okstrow and at Harray in Orkney (_Ibid._, pp. 219, 236). [140] Gildas, xvii.; Bede’s _Eccl. Hist._, bk. i., chap. xiv. [141] Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins’ _Cave-Hunting_, p. 106. The principal caves which have yielded relics of this period are Kirkhead[142] Cave in Lancashire; the Victoria,[143] Kelko,[144] and Dowkerbottom[145] Caves in Yorkshire; Poole’s[146] Hole and the Deepdale[147] Cave in Derbyshire; Thor’s[148] Cave in Staffordshire; and Kent’s[149] Cavern in Devonshire. The character of the antiquities derived from the caves does not differ materially from that of the remains from the crannogs and the _oppida_, although a few things of peculiar form have been found in some of the caves, such as the spoon-shaped bone-pins from the Victoria and Dowkerbottom Caves, and the bone whistles from Thor’s Cave. The fibulæ from the Victoria and the Deepdale Caves are of remarkable beauty. Evidence of spinning is afforded by the long-handled comb from Thor’s Cave, and the numerous spindle-whorls from others. The discovery of Roman coins and Samian ware indicate the period at which the Brit-Welsh sought refuge in these recesses of the rock.