No known archaeological evidence supports the existence of Ælle and his three sons in the Chichester or Selsey area. The absence of early Anglo-Saxon burial-grounds in the Chichester area indicates that the Saxons did not arrive there until more than a hundred years after Ælle's traditional lifetime; Some have proposed that Chichester had an independent region of Britons (known as Sub-Roman) in the late fifth century, but no archaeological or placename evidence supports that hypothesis either. Furthermore, only two early Anglo-Saxon objects have been found west of the River Arun and they can be firmly dated to the sixth century, rather later than Ælle's time. One of those objects was a small long brooch from the Roman cemetery, in the St. Pancras area of Chichester. Its isolation suggests that it belonged to a Saxon woman who lived and died in a British community rather than in a Saxon settlement.