Consisting of more than 180 lead bullets, the stash was found at Burnswark Hill near Lockerbie, in southwestern Scotland.
The site, rising to nearly 1,000 feet from the surrounding countryside, features on its flat-topped hill the remains of a 17-acre fort which experts believe originated in the Early Iron Age. Two Roman camps lie on the opposite sides of the fort.
For decades archaeologists have debated whether the Roman remains represent a siege or a training post. The 1,800-year-old sling bullets may help provide an answer.
"We have lemon-shaped sling bullets in the cache that are found in both Roman camps and on the hillfort," Andrew Nicholson, excavation director for the Burnswark Project, told Discovery News.
"However the large cache includes bullets of a globular shape, a type not thought to be in use until over a century later," he added.
Burnswark Hill in Britain has yielded a wide variety of Roman projectiles. Last year's dig revealed unusual lead bullets with circular holes drilled into them. It turned out they were meant to produce terrifying whistling noise in flight.
Although the large cache from the North Camp do not include any of such bullets, some more of those "terror weapons" were unearthed at the South Camp this year.
"We can now definitely link the sling bullets from both Roman camps with those found on the native hillfort," Nicholson said.
A lead or stone bullet could reach speeds of up to 100 mph when shot by expert slingers. The largest stones were the size of lemons, while the smallest were acorn-shaped and were slung in small groups of three or four as form of grapeshot.
Read more at Discovery News
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