as part of a coherent tribal group, and that the self-identification of the people of the region as Angles seems to have emerged from a later period of ethnogenesis. The new culture of the Anglo-Saxons replaced the culture of the Romans and ancient Britons. The number of Brittonic place names in this area is extremely low. Though the first written record of most of the place names in the county is the 11th-century Domesday Book, most were coined at a much earlier date. Places with names ending in -ham in Norfolk (but not those ending -ingham) are generally sited favourably by rivers or near fertile soil and grew in importance from large vills into the county's modern market towns. Comparatively less important settlements tended to end with the suffixes -ton, -wick or -stead. Excavations and place-name evidence indicates that the early Anglo-Saxons (pre-800 AD) seem to have occupied the south and south-west of Norfolk most densely, with settlements concentrated along river systems. A settlement and a cemetery at Spong Hill, containing both graves and inhumation pots, is an example of one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon sites to have been found in Norfolk. During the 7th century East Anglia adopted Christianity and the custom of burying grave goods, found at numerous sites, eventually ceased. Evidence of early Anglo-Saxon settlement exists in the form of Ipswich ware pottery and coins (sceattas) that are unique to the period. The Anglo-Saxons eventually expanded across Norfolk. By 850 AD the majority of the county's current pre-Danish placenames had been created, although only two names – Deorham (modern West Dereham) and Cnobheresburgh (the site of an unidentified monastery on the east coast) – exist in early Anglo-Saxon documents. Evidence of the importance of the emerging trade settlements of Thetford and Norwich is still being discovered. Numerous other sites in the county have revealed evidence of Anglo-Saxon settlement, for instance at North Elmham (where there is evidence of timber buildings and roadways), or at Bawsey (with finds of pottery, coins and metalwork). Six late Anglo-Saxon silver brooches were discovered at Pentney in 1978, that may have belonged to a local maker or dealer. Suggestions have been made that higher concentrations of Britons continued to live in the Fenlands. There, some place names containing putatively Celtic elements can be found, such as King's Lynn. The kingdom of the East Angles Norfolk was part of the kingdom of the