Camulodunum pavements. It may have reached a population of 30,000 at its height. It was not until the late 18th century that historians realised that Colchester's physical Brythonic (British Celtic) and Roman remains were the city mentioned in ancient literature as "Camulodunum". The earliest Iron Age defensive site at Colchester is the Pitchbury Ramparts earthwork north of the town between West Bergholt and Great Horkesley. The main earthwork defences of the Brythonic Celtic oppidum of "Camulodunon" were built later, beginning in the 1st century BC but most date from the 1st century AD. They are considered the most extensive of their
Brittonicisms in English kinds of word form (called weak and strong). This system is partially retained in modern Germanic languages. Brittonic, however, was already a highly analytic language and so Brittonic peoples may have had difficulty learning Old English. It has been suggested that the Brittonic Latin of the period demonstrates difficulty in using the Latin word endings. Today, Welsh and English are conspicuously analytic compared with the other Indo-European languages of Western Europe. Language innovations occurred primarily in texts from Northern and South-Western England — in theory, the areas with the greater density of Brittonic people. In the Northern zone of that