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IX.—On Ancient British Barrows, especially those of Wiltshire and the adjoining Counties. (Part I. Long Barrows)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

John Thurnam Esq.
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Extract

The results of explorations in the sepulchral tumuli of the pre-Roman or ancient British period of this country have never been exhibited in a distinct manner, or in a form useful for the purpose of comparison. Numerous investigations of these barrows, in nearly every part of England, some on a larger and some on a smaller scale, have at different times been made; but, if we except Sir John Lubbock's analysis of the results obtained by Mr. Bateman in Derbyshire and the adjoining counties, and of part of those obtained by Sir R. C. Hoare in Wiltshire, no one has been at the pains of analysing the results arrived at, or of pointing out the inferences to which they lead. As is well known, “Wiltshire is the county where the monumental remains of the ancient occupants of Britain are at once the most numerous and characteristic;” in no other district of the island are the barrows so numerous, and no examinations of them perhaps so important as those conducted by Sir R. C. Hoare and his coadjutor Mr. Cunnington; whether we consider the number excavated, the results obtained, or the character of the district, the seat of great Druidical fanes and places of resort, the ruins of which are found at Avebury and Stonehenge. In the magnificent but ponderous and costly folios of his “Ancient Wiltshire,” Sir Richard Hoare printed the details of his researches; but in this work they are exhibited in a far from convenient or accessible form, and they have never been subjected to a full and complete numerical analysis.

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Research Article
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Archaeologia , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , 1869 , pp. 161 - 244
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Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1869

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References

161 Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 1865, chap. iv. Tumuli, pp. 83–118. Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N.S. 1865, iii. 307; 1867, v. 114.

161 Dr. E. G. Latham, in Diet, of G. and R. Geography, article “Beigœ,” i. 387.

161 Akerman, J. Y., “On the Opening of Four Ancient British Barrows in South Wilts.” Archæologia, xxxv. 480Google Scholar.

162 See also Leland's Assert. Inclyt. Arturi, eds. 1540, 1715, and Collect. 1770, v. 44; where he attributes the barrows to the Saxons who fell in battle.

162 Comment, de Script. Britann. De Ambrosio Merlino Cambro. 1709, p. 44.

162 Stukeley, who profited more by Aubrey' unpublished labours than he had the candour to avow, so designates Aubrey. Itin. Cur. ii. 169.

162 Inigo Jones's Stonehenge, ed. 1725, p. 62. Another author of the 17th century, Sir Thomas Browne also regards barrows as “the sepulchral monuments of eminent persons, especially such as died in the owars.” Tract IX. On Artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, 1658.

163 In other places in the Monumenta Britannica, Aubrey seems to adhere to the old opinion, that barrows are an indication of battles. This opinion was more decidedly contested by Stukeley.

163 Examination of Barrows on the Downs of North Wilts. Wiltshire Arch, and Nat. History Magazine, vi. 1860, 332.

163 “Within the circles,” says Aubrey, “everybody was not permitted to enter; ‘procul ô procul ite profani.’ ” … The tump in the centre “was perhaps the remainder of the ashes of the wood, or perhaps it might be an elevation for the priest or general to make his harangue.”

163 Stukeley, Stonehenge, 1740, p. 43. Abury, 1743, p. 40.

164 No doubt Knighton Long Barrow, two miles due north, from Stonehenge. “Stonehenge,” p. 46; “Abury” p. 41. Stukeley maintained that the use of bronze celts was for cutting the mistletoe. Stonehenge, pp. 39, 46, tab. I. In speaking of another long barrow, likewise supposed by him to have been that of an Arch-Druid (loc. cit. p. 38), Stukeley pleads for “liberty in these kind of conjectures,” in which he says “there is this present use, to affix thereby names to things, that we may talk more intelligibly about them.”

164 In the two Plates (xi. and xii.) Stukeley's sketches are very exactly reproduced. His names are repeated (in inverted commas) merely as a matter of curiosity. To eleven of the thirty-nine figures he has attached no titles; to these I have supplied designations, included within brackets. Most of these sketches and sections are very accurate: but for one or two I am not aware that there is any authority: especially I question Nos. 5, 6, and 7, in Plate xi.

165 In the two disc-shaped barrows opened by Stukeley, No. 149 and No. 159 of Sir E. C. Hoare's large map, he found a deposit of burnt bones in a hole scooped out of the chalk rock, but no urn; though in another place (Stonehenge, p. 10) he states that there “is commonly an urn” under the “small tump of earth in the middle.”

165 The four bell-shaped barrows are two sets of twin-barrows, No. 29 and No. 147 of Hoare (Ancient Wilts, i. 161, 200). The other barrows, bowl-shaped, of slight elevation, opened by Stukeley, were one of Group 14 and No. 16 of the same map. In both of these, as well as in another on Windmill Hill, near Avebury, he found the primary interment of burnt bones. (Stonehenge, p. 45, plate xxxi. Abury, p. 45.) In the Bodleian MSS. Stukeley names having opened “the little long barrow near Stonehenge;” but whether he means by this designation No. 17, No. 165, No. 170, or No. 173 of Hoare's map there is no evidence.

165 I believe the first trace of this term is in the Itinerarium Curiosum, vol. i. 1724, p. 40; where Stukeley names “a curious barrow” seen by him at Souldern, Oxon, in 1712, which was “neatly turned, like a bell.”

165 Itin. Cur. i. 133, 180. Stonehenge, p. 9, plate iv. Abury, pp. 26, 45, plate VIII. ix. The surveys of Sir R. C. Hoare fully confirm Stukeley, and supply other examples. (Ancient Wilts, i. 243. Comp. pp. 181, 187, 232, vol. ii. p. 36, Eoman iEra, pp. 29, 39, 88, and accompanying maps.) Stukeley's statement, that the Roman road near Kennet deviates from the straight line in order to avoid Silbury Hill, has, as now proved, been needlessly questioned; though that it was posterior in date to the ancient works of Avebury is clear from its bisecting the eastern avenue of that great temple, just as the Roman road near Woodyates crosses the curious British “cursus” of Vindogladia. (Ancient Wilts, Roman Æra, p. 29). Stukeley, with reason, employs a similar argument to prove the British character of the Wansdyke, in his account of the curious junction of the Roman road with that celebrated boundary on Calston Hill, where “the bank of the dike is thrown in (down a precipice) in order to form the road.” (Abury, p. 27.)

166 Ancient Wilts, i. 20–23, with three folio plates of the several forms.

166 I do not include No. VI. or “Pond-barrow,” a misnomer introduced by Sir R. C. Hoare, it not being a barrow at all, but a circular excavation in the surface, similar to what might be made for a pond. The name “barrow” (Anglo-Saxon beorh, a hill,) necessarily involves the idea of a mound or heap, and, as applied to sepulchral monuments, implies a grave-mound: it is entirely inapplicable to such hollows as are here referred to. These circular excavations are often found among or adjacent to the barrows of Wiltshire, but the area within has scarcely ever yielded traces of interment. Sir Richard (Ancient Wilts, i. 22), and, as I find from the MS. notes kindly lent me by his son, the late Rev. E. Duke, of Lake House, Wilts, excavated the centre of three without finding sepulchral or other remains; in a fourth, however, in a hole in the chalk, ther was a deposit of burnt bones. Dean Merewether opened others in North Wilts, and the Rev. J. H. Austen one in Purbeck, Dorset, (Salisbury vol. of Arch. Institute, p.85; Papers of Purbeck Society for 1858,) and found nothing. I have also dug into two or three, including that marked No. 14 on Winterbourn Stoke Down (Ancient Wilts, i. 121), with the same negative result; save only that in one (No. 94 or 97, Ancient Wilts, i. 168), a mile to the north of Stonehenge, I found the skull and bones of the right arm of a woman in situ. The absence of the left arm and of the lower part of the skeleton was remarkable, and showed that the body had been dismembered before burial, which was probably long subsequent to the formation of the cavity. Stukeley opened one near Stonehenge (Stonehenge, p. 45), and found nothing but a bit of red pottery. He speaks of them as “circular dish-like cavities dug in the chalk, like a barrow reversed;” and elsewhere calls them “barrow inverted.” (Abury, p. 12.) His view of their use as “places for sacrificing and feasting in memory of the dead ” is not unlikely. The earth and chalk excavated from them would be employed, we may suppose, in the completion of one or more of the adjacent barrows, whilst the hollow itself was perhaps temporarily roofed in, so as to form a place of shelter during the time occupied by the funeral ceremonies and in the formation of the barrows.

167 Ancient Wilts, ii. 1821, 109. Modern Wilts. Ambresbury, 1826, p. 54. Compare Tumuli Wiltunenses, 1829, p. 5.

167 Edinburgh Review, “Bards and Druids,” July 1863, p. 59.

167 Celt, Roman, and Saxon, 1852, p. 50. 2nd ed. 1861, p. 50. Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. 1847, vol. ii. p. 50.

167 Arch. Journal, 1855, xii. 387.

168 Nos. 5, 6, 7, 11, 23 and 24 in Plate xi., and Nos. 2 and 15 in Plate xii. are not classed. The occurrence of 5, 6 and 7 may be questioned; Nos. 23 and 24 are not barrows, and No. 15, Silbury Hill, has not been proved to be sepulchral. No. 11 in Plate xi. and No. 2 in Plate xii, are rare and exceptional forms.

169 “Stanzas of the Tombs of British Warriors,” in Myvyrian Archaiology, vol. i. “There is here a remarkable confirmation of the theory which places the long barrows in the first class of sepulchral earthworks, a theory founded not only on the primeval form of the ground following the form of the human body, but also on the fact that the relics discovered in such graves indicate the lowest stage of civilization; … and never, as it appears, include any metallic implements ” The Rev. John Williams (Ab Ithel, (Arch. Camb. 1852, N. S. iii. 81) here seems to refer to Dr. Daniel Wilson's excellent Pre-Historic Annals of Scotland, ed. 1, pp. 48, 54.

169 The Rev. W. C. Lukis enumerates only “about thirty long barrows in Wilts” (Wilts Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mag. 1864, viii. 156); but there are, in truth, considerably more than this number, or at least forty-five, within the area of Sheet XIV. of the Ordnance Map, which embraces about half the county. The Ordnance Surveyors themselves show xon this sheet twenty-four, or, counting those which though really long are shown by them as circular, thirty long barrows.

169 In this rough estimate I include the barrows levelled since the explorations of which there is the record in “Ancient Wilts.”

170 Warne, On the Primeval Archæology of Dorsetshire, Proc. Gloucester Congress of Archæological Association, 1846; Celtic Tumuli of Dorset, 1866, p. 8; Dorsetshire, Index to its Vestiges, &c. 1865, p. 28, Illustrated Map. Mr. Warne observes that “the long barrow (of Dorset) has been, of the whole sepulchral series, the least explored, its colossal size presenting obstacles of a comparatively insuperable character.” 1846. In his recent work he says, “The extent of labour attendant upon an efficient exploration of the long barrows has hitherto prevented my undertaking the task; an important and interesting inquiry is therefore still open, and awaiting a systematic investigation.” Celtic Tumuli of Dorset, p. 8.

170 Stukeley, in his “Itinerarium Curiosum,” names two long barrows in the Midland Counties, viz. that called Mill Hill, standing east and west near Dunstable (vol. i. p. 109), and that known as Shipley Hill, at Cossington, in Leicestershire (p. 102). This last is of very great size, and equals, or exceeds, in some of its dimensions that near the Old Ditch, Tilshead, Wilts.

171 Dr. Young (History of Whitby, 1817, ii. pp. 657, 676) writes of the long barrows of the northern moors of Yorkshire in general, and of those at Scamridge in particular, as follows:—“A very few (of the houes) are of the shape which Dr. Stukeley calls pyriform, being oblong, and rounded at both ends, but broader at one end than at the other. The only instances of this kind which I have noticed are (two) at Scamridge, near Ebberston. They are of stone, and of a considerable height and length, and have a circular depression on the top near each end.” The larger, called Robhoue, is described as 40 yards long, 20 broad at the east end, and 9 or 10 at the west; the other as not much above half this size. They seem to have been two or three hundred feet apart. The smaller, apparently, was “much mutilated” when Dr. Young wrote, “a great part of the stones having been carried off, by which means many bones have been thrown out.” It was the larger mound which, nearly half a century later, was excavated by Mr. Greenwell. (Arch. Journal, xxii. 102.) Another Yorkshire long barrow was supposed to be that at Dinnington, near Rotherham, excavated and levelled by the proprietor, J. C. Athorpe, Esq., of which some account has been given in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society, i. pp. 132, 478, —On the Two Principal Forms of Ancient British Skulls, 1865, pp. 13, 68. This would seem, however, to have been really a circular barrow, the sides of which had been cut away. Rolleston, , Journ. Anat. and Phys. 1868, iii. 254Google Scholar.

171 Pre-Historic Annals of Scotland, 1851, p. 48.

172 Ancient Wilts, i. 121. “Group of Barrows on Winterbourn Stoke Down,” (see our Plate xiii.); and p. 209, plate, “Barrows on Late Down.” In a MS volume in the Stourhead Library (vol. iii.), the elder Cunnington, describing the various forms of barrows in the group of eighteen on Wilsford Down, adds, “but wanting a long harrow we cannot consider this a perfect group, like that on Winterbourn Stoke (and, he might have added, like that on Lake) Down.”

172 Our Plate xiii. Bird's-Eye View of Barrows on Winterbourn Stoke Down, is copied, by the kind permission of Messrs. Nichols, from that in the Ancient Wilts, certain errors therein only being corrected. The artist had shown trenches round several of the bowl-shaped barrows, which trenches have no existence.

173 It is not adverted to in his formal descriptions, but Sir Eichard refers once to this characteristic in the body of his work (Ancient Wilts, i. 89).

173 The Rev. W. C. Lukis enumerates three Wiltshire long barrows (Wilts Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mug. viii. 156) as lying north and south. I count, however, as many as eleven; viz., 1. Horton; 2. Shalbourne; 3. Fittleton; 4. Stonehenge (No, 165); 5. Stonehenge (Cursus); 6. Knook; 7. Scratchbury; 8. Arne Hill; 9. Brixton Deverell; 10. Knowl Hill; and 11. a small long barrow about a mile south of the inn on the Plain called the Druid's Head. In Nos. 2, 9, and 10, I rely on Sir R. C. Hoare's, and on other, maps and descriptions; in the rest on my own observations.

173 Stukeley, Abury, p. 45.

173 Hoare, Ancient Wilts, i. 92, ii. 109. Sir E. C. Hoare here quotes the description of Olaus Wormius, “Regii tumuli, ad magnitudinem et figuram carinæ maximæ navis." Ol. Worm. Mon. Dan. p. 43.

174 I have described the Oval barrow in the Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 s. ii. 427, June 16, 1864, where several examples are noticed.

174 Ancient Wilts, i. 22, 242.

174 Crania Britannica. Descriptions of Skulls, pl. 51, xl.

175 Archæologia, xxxvii. 432. The subsequent researches justify, it will be seen, Mr. Akerman's conjecture that this sepulchral mound is “of the late Romano-British period.” It has, however, as I have shown in the text, no claim to be regarded as “one of the class termed by antiquaries long barrows,” though, regarding merely its form, it might be so termed.

175 Arch. Journal, 1854, xi. 95.

175 Ancient Wilts, i. 90. This ditch is described by Dr. Guest, in his paper “On the Belgic Ditches,” Arch. Journal, 1851, viii. 147, 148. “When these mounds” (Dr. Guest gives two mounds to the dyke) “approach the ‘long barrow,’ which lies about a mile from Tilshead, they turn at right angles, and, after having half inclosed the mound, pursue their former course. Our best chance of explaining anomalies like these would be a really critical edition of the ‘Gromatici veteres.’” In this paper, the barrow in question is designated “Tilshead Old-ditch Long-barrow.” (See Table 1, post.)

176 Ancient Wilts, i. 233. On this page Sir Richard gives good reasons for believing that Bokerley Ditch is of earlier date than the Roman road from Old Sarum to Dorchester, by which the former is crossed, near this long barrow. The long barrow referred to appears to be the same as that noticed by Mr. Warne, and illustrated with a wood-cut at page 5 of his “Dorsetshire, its Vestiges; Index to Illustrated Map.” What Sir R. C. Hoare calls a branch of Bokerley Ditch Mr. Warne, probably more accurately, regards as a “trackway.” Dr. Guest (ubi supra) regrets “that Sir R. C. Hoare was not more alive to the importance of distinguishing between the trackway and the boundary-dike.”

176 The earliest opening of a long barrow of which I find any record is of that at Chilham, in Kent, called “Julaber's grave.” Julaber, popularly fancied to have been a giant or a witch, was by Camden conjectured to have been the same as the Quintus Laberius Durus named by Caesar (B. G. v. 15), and this to have been the grave of that military tribune (Camden, Britannia, by Gough, i. 314, 354). Stukeley gives representations of the tumulus, from which it is evident that it is a true ancient British long barrow (Itin. Cur. ii. plate 56, 57; cf. plate 54). It was explored in 1702, at the desire of the first Lord Weymouth, by Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Winchelsea (Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, 1822, iv. 96. See also Battely, Antiq. Rutupin. 1745, p. 109; Antiquities of Richborough, 1774, p. 109; Hasted, Kent, 1790, iii. 140). Mr. Finch describes the barrow as lying nearly east and west, as more than 180 feet long, 40 feet broad, and 7 or 8 feet high. It was examined by digging trenches from the centre, 21 feet in length, towards the east. This most probably fell short of the actual sepulchral deposit, but sufficient was disclosed to show its conformity with other true long barrows. After digging five feet through chalky earth and finding pieces only of the thigh-bones of a large animal (ox ?), a stratum of dark moist earth, two feet thick, regularly spread over the natural chalk rock, was met with. In this were a few bones, mostly so rotten that they crumbled in handling, but whether those of men or animals was not determined. There were also some pieces of deer's horns; two or three large teeth, supposed to be those of horses; and some bones of birds, in size and form like the thigh-bones of pullets. Mr. Finch was of opinion that the barrow must have been “thrown up at once,” and not “without a great many hands.” He did not think it could be the burial-place of a family, in consequence of the regularity of the dark stratum, which in such case he rightly thought would have been “in patches, and not in a straight line.” I will only add, that it is not improbable that the true sepulchral deposit of skeletons may yet remain intact at the east end of this long barrow.

177 Ancient Wilts, i. 87. Mem. Anthrop. Soc. 1865, i. 472.

177 Ibid. i. 92.

177 Modern Wilts, Hundred of Ambresbury, 1826, p. 54.

177 Ancient Wilts, ii. 110. Comp. Tumuli Wiltun. 1829, p. 5.

177 Ancient Wilts, i. 92.

177 Modern Wilts, Ambresbury, p. 57.

177 Archœologia, xxxviii. 407.

178 Vol. xv. p. 345; comp. 340. On abstracting and comparing the description of the sixteen long barrows in “Ancient Wilts ” I cannot make the analysis accord, so far as was to have been expected, with the brief summary given by Mr. Cunnington in the Archæologia.

178 Ancient Wilts, i. 21, 92; ii. 110; Modern Wilts, Ambresbury, pp. 54, 57; Tumuli Wiltun. p. 5. In the text I have combined into one Sir Richard's statements found in these various places in his works.

178 A seventeenth was attempted without success; see B. xv., in Table 1, post. There are notices of the excavation of five or six other so-called long barrows; but these were, I believe, all oval or multiple circular barrows, as defined above.

179 I have likewise re-opened No. IV. and, I believe, ascertained the true position of the interment, left somewhat doubtful by the vagueness of Sir R. C. Hoare's description, (Ancient Wilts, i. p. 66,) where, for “near the centre,” we ought, I think, to read, near the east end. Here, at least, we discovered a “cist” or hole in the chalk rock, and, close by, the fragments of a disturbed skeleton.

179 From one of them, Bowl's barrow (IX.), I obtained several skulls left behind by Mr. Cunnington.

181 Ancient Wilts, i. 92.

181 Odyssey, x. 516; xi. 25–28, 35. The hole or pit, βόθρος, dug out by Ulysses with his sword, was not smaller than some found in our long barrows. Such holes are still made by barbarous tribes, both in India and Africa, to receive the blood of human victims (Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan. 1863; Wilmot, Despatches presented to House of Commons, (Dahomey,) 1863). Further on we may see reason for admitting that the holes in the long barrows may have served for the same purpose.

182 The less perfect skull and cervical vertebræ are in the Museum of Anatomy of Oxford, as are likewise specimens of metatarsi and phalanges from barrow No. 26. I have also presented metatarsi, or metacarpi, or both, to the British Museum, the Museum of the College of Surgeons, and to that of the University of Basle.

183 The latest authors who treat of this species, and of Bos Urus, are Professor Rutimeyer, Archiv für Anthropologie, i. and W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S. Proc. Geol. Soc. March 21, 1866, pp. 391–451; Feb. 20, 1867, pp. 176–184.

183 Ancient Wilts, i. 83. This skull, and the horns of deer found with it, were in a much more superficial position than usual, and just below the summit of the barrow.

183 The skeleton of a horse is stated to have been found in the skirt of a long barrow. (Ancient Wilts, i. 73.) There is some doubt, however, whether this was a true long barrow.

183 Archœlogia, xv. 345. Comp. Hoare, Ancient Wilts, i. 72, 83, 90, 91.

183 Bell. Gall. v. 12. This statement of Caesar's is somewhat vague and general; and in particular it must be regretted that he does not say whether he is speaking of the maritime Britons or of the less civilized inhabitants of the interior, or of both. On this subject, see papers in the Trans, of the Ethnol. Soc. N.S. v. 162, 210.

184 There was great trouble in finding the interment in this mound, it being so exceptionally remote from the eastern end.

185 See the description of the skull of a Charca, from Bolivia, in which death had resulted from “blows upon the head made by a blunt instrument of stone, which have fractured the cranium in different places.” Davis, Thesaurus Craniorum, No. 1425, p. 248. For Feejees and Tahitians, see pp. 314, 318.

185 Bowl's Barrow, No. 8; see Ancient Wilts, i. 87. Comp. Archœologia, xxxviii. 419; Memoirs Anthrop. Soc. i. 472; Arch. Journ. xxii. 106, 107. The connection of cleft skulls with human sacrifices was first maintained by the writer, in the description of the Chambered Long Barrow at West Kennet, in the 38th vol. of the Archœologia, as quoted above.

185 Reference may be made to the stone axes, one of which is figured in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (2 S. i. 103), as to which the Hon. Robert Marsham tells us “the Gaveoes (Indians of Brazil) do not use the axes in actual battle, but after the fighting is over, deliberately hack their prisoners with them.” As has been well observed by Mr. Greenwell, the ordinary “accidents of war do not account for the scattered state in which the broken bones are found in the long barrows.”

185 Bell. Gall. vi. 19; Mela, iii. 2. Among modern English investigators, the late Mr. Bateman and Sir John Lubbock both freely admit the existence of such sacrifices among our British ancestors. In all times the abolition of human sacrifices implies a strong government and a vigorous administration. In Ancient Italy their suppression was attributed to Hercules. At Gades, it was effected by Julius; and in Gaul and Britain, by the Ceesars who succeeded him. In India, the British Government has only of late years effected their abolition (Suttees and Meriahs), if indeed it have every where done so.

186 Pliny, vii. § 2. “Nuperrime hominem immolari gentium earum more solitum: quod paulum a mandendo abest.” He is speaking of Britain when he connects the eating of human flesh with a supposed benefit to health; lib. xxx. § 4; comp. xxviii. § 2. “In quibus hominem occidere religiosissimum erat, mandi vero etiam saluberrimum” Cannibalism, as practised by modern savages, seems often to be caused by the desire of embodying the physical and mental qualities of the dead. In olden times it seems to have been the same. Thus, in the Norse Saga, Sigurd is represented as giving his wife a portion of the roasted heart of Fafnir to eat; a dish which, it is said, inspired her with ferocity. Like is still done, and for like purpose, by the Chinese. Tylor, Early Hist. Mankind, 131. Waitz (Anthropology, i. 161) appears to reverse the true order of connection when he says, “Where men eat each other, the gods are generally blood-thirsty, and receive their share.” Well might Lucretius say of pagan systems of religion, “Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.”

186 Diodorus, v. 32; Strabo, iv. 5, § 4; Hieron. Adv. Jovin. lib. ii.

187 Archœological Journal, 1865, xxii. 107. Mr. Greenwell adds, “The flesh must have been removed from the bones before they were buried; or they would not have been found displaced in the manner described.” On this subject a paper by M. Garrigou, L'Anthropophagie chez les Peuples des âges du Benne et de la Pierre polie, dans les Cavernes de la France, may be consulted. Bull, de la Soc. d'Anthrop. 2 Ser. ii. 326.

187 See a paper by the late John Crawfurd, Esq. F.E.S. Cannibalism in relation to Ethnology, Trans. Ethnol. Soc. N.S. iv. 108. See, in the same volume, an excellent paper by the Eev. F. W. Farrar, F.R.S., in which the anthropophagism of the ancient Britons is expressly asserted, p. 117.

187 Trans. Eihnol. Soc. N. S. iv. p. 124.

188 Hieron. adv. Jovin. lib. ii. For the Attacots, see the author's “Historical Ethnology of Britain,” being chap. v. of Crania Britannica, pp. 152, 153.

188 Herod, iv. 106. Comp. Quarterly Review, Oct. 1868, p. 418.

188 Pliny, iv. 26; vi. 20; vii. 2.

188 Herod, i. 216.

188 Ibid. iv. 26.

188 Ibid. iii. 99. Strabo tells us (xi. 12, § 8) that the Derbices (a people of Scythian origin) also killed and ate the bodies of those who exceeded 70 years of age, and that the nearest relatives ate them. What the same writer says (iv. 5, § 4) as to the Kelts and Iberians eating human flesh during the severities of a siege, is not conclusive, though the comparison with a passage in Caesar (B. G. vii. 77) makes it probable that it was by no means in the last extremity that the old people were killed and eaten by the Gauls when besieged by the Cimbri and Teutones.

188 As to this worst kind of cannibalism, see Bickmore's East Indian Archipelago, pp. 111, 446.

189 Bell. Gall. vi. 19. Capital punishment by burning was common amongst the Gauls. Ibid. i. 4, 53.

189 Strabo, xv. 1, § 30.

189 Herod, iv. 190.

189 Diod. Sic. iii. 2. Comp. Strabo, xvi. 4, § 18. These Troglodytes were those called Megabarei.

189 Diod. Sic. v. 18. In the three cases named in the text we have, perhaps, only different degrees of the same custom; the crouched, doubled-up, and neck-and-heels positions, were in all aimed at, but most completely attained by the Baleares.

190 Lubbock, Pre-Historic Times, 1865, p. 384. In the same work (p. 431) the strange process of making skeletons of the dead among the Patagonian Indians, is described, after Falkner. See, however, Prof. Nilsson's argument against such a practice in the case of the chambered long barrows of the North, as maintained by M. Bruzelius, M. Boye, and Prof. Hildebrand. Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, by Sir J. Lubbock, pp. 160–168.

190 Weld, Vacation in Brittany, 1856, p. 119, and passim. Miss B. E. Parkes, in Gent. Mag. Oct. 1867, N.S., vol. iv. p. 485. The same practice also obtains in certain parts of sub-alpine Italy. (Kev. S. W. King, Pennine Alps, 1858, p. 471). Any collecting of the bones of the dead was forbidden by the Laws of the Twelve Tables. (Cic. De Leg. ii. 24.)

191 I am not aware that it has been suggested that slaves were sacrificed to any great extent during our round-barrow or bronze period, which was also that in which cremation was principally practised. This, however, is the view which seems to be objected to by the Rev. W. C. Lukis. (Wilts. Arch. Mag. 1866, x. 98.) Where we have reason to believe that the custom of immolating dependents did obtain, as during the long-barrow and stone period, there, it will be seen, is no difficulty in showing “what was done with the victims all the while that the mound was forming.”

191 Archœologia, xv. 345; Hoare, Ancient Wilts, i. 83.

191 The interment found by Cunnington at the extreme west end, if not secondary, may have been a subsidiary primary interment.

192 Hoare, Ancient Wilts, i. 55; Camden, by Gough, i. 146.

193 I am here speaking, as generally in this paper, entirely of Wiltshire and the south-west of England. Mr. Greenwell's researches in two long barrows, one in the North Biding and the other in the East Biding of Yorkshire, and the appearances disclosed on the levelling, by the occupiers, of one or two others, would seem to show that in this part of the North of England “cremation was the rule of the long barrows, but cremation after a singular and imperfect fashion.”

193 II Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. 1865, iii. 169; Wilts Arch. Mag. 1867, vol. xi. p. 47. Sir John Lubbock has made the same observation: “So far as stone implements are concerned, I must confess that Sir R. C. Hoare appears to have overlooked the ruder instruments and weapons.”

193 A hard violet-coloured stone, polished, with the edge broken off, is however named as having been found in one of the long-barrows (No. 5), opened by Cunnington. Ancient Wilts, i. 73.

194 Memoirs Anthropol. Soc. 1865, i. 142; to the courtesy of the Council of which Society we are indebted for the use of the wood-block in the text.

194 See Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 170, where this arrowhead is described and figured, but not satisfactorily.

196 In Ell Barrow (No. 15), likewise, I found a large male skeleton stretched at length, a foot or two below the turf, which was probably Anglo-Saxon. The long cleft in the skull (No. 148 of my collection) presents quite a different appearance from that observed in the skulls from the primary interments in the long barrows. It had probably been inflicted by a sword, in battle or other fight. Ecker (Cran. Germ. 37, Taf. xviii. 1, 2, 3) describes an ancient skull from Oberflacht, in which there is a distinct axe or sword-cut.

197 Nos. 11, 25; comp. No. 8.

197 In no case whatever has urn-burial after cremation been found at the base of, or as the primary interment in, a long barrow.

198 Vol. i. 1865, p. 145, plate ii.

198 Memoirs Anthropol. Society of London, 1864, i. 144, plate i.

199 See vol. i. and vol. iii. of Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London; and Two Principal Forms of Ancient British Skulls. London, 1865 and 1869.

199 Archœologia, 1817, xix. 43.

199 Sir Richard repeatedly distinguishes the cistvaen or sepulchral chamber from the cromlech; the former being, as he observes, always sepulchral, whilst the true nature, of the latter, he says, he had not evidence to determine. Ancient Wilts, ii. 114.

199 Ancient Wilts, ii. 99, 102, 114. Roman Æra, p. 101.

199 Gents. Mag. Feb. 1822, xcii. 160. See note d on the following page.

200 Of these diggings I think there is some notice in the MS. Collections in the Library at Stourhead, to which, several years since, I had access, through the kind permission of the late Baronet, Sir Hugh Hoare.

200 Arch. Journal, xi. 315. See also Crania Britannica. Decade i. 1856. Description of Skull from chambered tumulus at Uley, Plate 5, xxiv. In the exploration of this tumulus I was associated with E. A. Freeman, Esq., at that time resident near the adjacent town of Dursley.

200 See account of “The Barrow at Lanhill,” Wilts Arch. Mag. iii. 67.

200 “On the Cromlech-Tumulus called Lugbury, near Littleton Drew.” Loc. cit. p. 164; and Cran. Brit. Dec. iii. 1858. Description of Skull from Littleton Drew, pi. 24, xxv.

200 Archœologia, xxxviii. 405. Cran. Brit. Description of Skull, pi. 50, xxvi.

200 Archœologia, xxxviii. 410. Salisbury Memoirs, Arch. Inst. 98.

200 For Nympsfield and Woodchester (Bown Hill), see Proc. Cotteswold Naturalists' Club, iii. 184, 199; for Rodmarton, Proc. Soc. Ant. 2 S. ii. 275; Lysons, Our British Ancestors, 1865, p. 150; and Cran. Brit. “Description of Skull,” pl. 59, xxvii.; and for Charlton Abbot's, Mem. Anthrop. Soc. i. 474, Proc Soc. Ant. 2 S. iii. 275.

201 Nempnet, near Butcombe, Gents. Mag. 1789–1792, lix. i. 392, ii. 605; Ixii. ii. 1082, 1180. County Histories of Collinson, Rutter, and Phelps; and Sayer's Bristol.

201 Hoare, Ancient Wilts, ii. 116; Roman Æra, 102. Phelps's Somersetshire, vignette, p. 137. I have sketches of the stones, three in number. The ground-plan of the barrow is still quite visible.

201 Ancient Wilts, ii. 100. Hoare here quotes Aubrey and Childrey.

201 Stukeley. Abury, p. 46, Tab. xxx. Salisbury Mem. Arch. Inst. 1850, p 93. Aubrey's rude sketch in Mon. Brit., shows a distinct chamber of seven stones at the east end. In 1863 I dug on the site of Mill-barrow, but without result. When levelled by the farmer, only a few human teeth, a jaw-bone and some teeth of horses, were met with.

201 Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 213.

201 Ibid. ii. 309.

201 Wilts Arch. Mag. viii. 155.

201 Salisbury Mem. Arch. Inst. 1850, p. 93.

201 Mem. Anthrop. Soc. i. 473.

201 Rudder's Gloucestershire, 1779, p. 306. Aubrey, Mon. Brit.

201 Archœologia, xvi. 361, pi. 55, 56. Gent. Mag. 1806, lxxvi. 871.

201 Archœologia, xvi. 362, pi. 57. Fosbrooke, Encyclop. Antiq. 1843, pp 544, 547. Etching by T. Burden.

201 Bigland's Gloucestershire, 1791, p. 92.

201 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. iii. 64. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 53. Anthropol. Review, iii. lxvi., lxxi.

201 Our British Ancestors, 1865, p. 318.

201 Rolleston, Journ. Anat and Phys. 1868, iii. 252.

201 “On Wayland's Smithy and the Traditions connected with it;” by Thurnam, J., M.D. Wilts. Arch. Mag. 1862, vii. 321Google Scholar. “Plan of Wayland's Smithy,” by Professor Donaldson. Ibid. p. 315. A good Plan, with a sketch of the stones, made for Sir R. C. Hoare early in the present century, is preserved in the library at Stourhead. “Sketch-Book, Wiltshire,” vol. iii.

202 Similar chambered tumuli may exist in Oxfordshire, and perhaps the Hoar-stones at Enstone in that county once formed a trilith on the broad end of a long barrow containing sepulchral cists or chambers. I understood, from Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., that, in his diggings about these stones in 1842, no human interment was found; but only the bones of lower animals, including the metatarsus and horn-cores of a small ox, the bones of fowls, and the horns of deer. With these were many worn fragments of coarse pottery, apparently Roman. Comp. Gent. Mag. 1824, xciv. 125. Lukis, Bircham Barrows, 1843, 12. Archœologia, xxxvii. 433.

202 Cassiodorus Variarum, lib. iv. c. 34. “Dudæ Sajoni Theodoricus Rex”—[decernit ut loca adeat, ubi thesauri lateant, et si inventi fuerint, fisco addicat publico.] This Gothic prince plainly tells us—“Aurum enim sepulchris juste detrahitur, ubi dominus non habetur; immo culpæ genus est inutiliter abditis relinquere mortuorum, unde se vita potest sustentare viventium.” This sentence was no doubt in his thoughts, when, referring to the searching of tombs for treasure, Sir Thomas Browne says, “for which the most barbarous expilators found the most civil rhetoric.” (Hydrotaphia, cap. 3.) The remains of the dead, were, however, to be left undisturbed. “Ita tamen ut abstineatis manus a cineribus mortuorum; quia nolumus lucra quæri, quæ per funesta possunt scelera repetire.” And the search was to be made “sub publica testifications.” The decree, indeed, bears some similarity to the license, a.d. 1324, of our own king Edward II., “De Terrâ fodendâ pro thesauro abscondito querendo.” See Patent Rolls of 17th Edward II. The document is printed in Sir Henry Ellis's “Letters of Eminent Literary Men,” published by the Camden Society, 1843, p. 32. See also Arch. Journal, xi. 322. Royal licences to dig barrows were still granted, temp. Henry VIII., and treasure was sought in them even by the clergy, with the rites of sorcery. (Mr. Dawson Turner, Norfolk Archœology, i. 41.)

204 Beowulf, c. 34, 36, 37.

204 Haigh, Anglo-Saxon Sagas, ed. 1861, p. 84. Mr. H. Morley (Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1868, p. 121–130) holds similar, though not identical, views as to the topography of Beowulf.

204 Thom. Walsingham, Hist. Brevis Angl. ed. 1574, p. 155. T. Wright, F.S.A., History of Ludlow, 1841, p. 27. Mr. Wright thinks the barrow referred to by Thomas of Walsingham may even now be identified. Ludlow probably derives the last syllable of its name from a tumulus, apparently chambered, described as a very large mound on the site of the present churchyard, which, in the year 1199, was cleared away. In effecting the removal three stone chambers or cists—“tria mausolea lapidea”—were discovered, containing skeletons, which the clergy of the place maintained were the relics of three Irish saints, and buried them within the Church, in the faith of the thaumaturgic powers of the relics. Leland, Collect, iii. 407. Wright, loc. tit. p. 14.

204 Life of St. Guthlac, sec. 4. Guthlac, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, died a.d. 714.

205 The Vikings of Norway were great riflers of grave-mounds. (Keyser, Religion of Northmen, 306.) In the Annals of Ulster, a.d. 862, is the record that the great chambered tumulus of Dowth on the Boyne was searched by the Norsemen of Dublin.

205 Arch. Journ. xiv. 119, and re-printed in Horœ Ferales, p. 107.

205 Arch. Journ. xiv. 129, 134. The Ceósulburne of this charter (printed in Codex. Diplom. No. 730, a.d. 1019), was clearly identified by Kemble with Cheselborne in Dorset. See Index to God. Dipt., sub vocibus Ceósulburne, Berteswell, Gretindún, and Holancumb, all places named in the charter. It was perhaps by a mere slip of the pen that Kemble wrote “Chiselden in Wiltshire” in the article in the Archœological Journal.

205 “Welandes Smiððan.” Cod. Diplom. No. 1172, temp. Eadred. a.d. 955.

205 Vol. vii. 321. “On Wayland's Smithy, and on the Traditions connected with it.” Sir R. C. Hoare had already correctly described it as having been “a long barrow with a cistvaen of stones within it.” Ancient Wilts, ii. 47.

205 The term Hünenbetten (Germ.), Hunebedden (Dutch), has been erroneously supposed to mean the Huns' graves. (Archœologia, xxxiv. 442.) Hüne, in German, is a giant.

206 The best examples—Minning-low, and that at Five Wells, Taddington—both appear to be circular tumuli, but the megalithic structures covered by them are true chambers. Vestiges, 39, 91. Ten Year's Diggings, 82. Long-low, near Wetton (Vestiges, 144), though containing a cist, rather than a chamber, is perhaps a true long barrow, notwithstanding the doubts as to this, which arise from Mr. Carrington's latest diggings. (Reliquary, 1864, v. 27.) Mr. LI. Jewitt believes that the elliptical barrows of Derbyshire were originally circular. Intellect. Observer, Oct. 1867, p. 181.

206 In Caithness there are, however, long as well as circular chambered cairns; but they are probably contemporary, as the principle of construction in the two is identical. See the descriptions and plans of these singular structures in Mem, Anthrop. Soc. ii. 226. That at Yarhouse, of the chamber in which a ground-plan is given in our Plate XIV. fig. 8, is a long cairn, 240 feet in length.

206 See paper by Rev. W. C. Lukis “On some Peculiarities in the Construction of Chambered Barrows.” Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. 1866, xxii. 249.

207 This “hill-country of Gloucestershire” has been described by the Rev. Sydney Smith, as “one of the most desolate countries under heaven, divided by stone walls, and abandoned to kites and crows.” He is contrasting its sterility and nakedness with the comfort, opulence, and beauty of the adjacent deep and shaded vale of Severn. Sketches of Modern Philosophy, p. 213.

208 Though formed chiefly of liassic stone, this tumulus stands on the oolite, but the lower lias comes to the surface in the valley, about a quarter of a mile distant. Mr. Moore tells me that the two slabs which form the sides of the central chamber immediately within the entrance differ from the rest in being of a silicious sandstone of oolitic age. The smaller roofing stones and those of the original inclosing walls are of lias. Mr. Moore suggests that the two silicious stones may have been supplied when the tumulus was in part restored.

209 A plan of this barrow, termed Belas or Bellers Knap, will be found in Mem. Anthrop. Soc. i. 474, and in Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 276.

209 At Rodmarton, “a double wall appears to have been erected entirely round the tumulus.” (Lysons, Our British Ancestors, p. 138.) It was double also at Ablington, and further researches may show that it was so generally. It is so at least in the chambered cairns of Caithness. Mem. Anthrop. Soc. ii. 242.

210 Fergusson, Architecture, p. 290.

210 Iliad, xxiii. 255. Mr. F. A. Paley (“On Homeric Tumuli,” Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. xi. 2) gives reasons for thinking that the tumulus of Patroclus and Achilles, here described, was not circular, but like our chambered long barrows, and the “ship barrows” of Scandinavia, of elongate form.

210 Iliad, ii. 604. Pausanias, lib. viii. c. 16, λίθου κρηπῑδι ἐν κύκλῳ περιεχόμενον, Comp. Herod, i. 93.

210 Beowulf, c. xliv.

210 Lysons, Our British Ancestors, pp. 138, 318; also letter to the writer, of July 2, 1864; and see our woodcut on a subsequent page.

211 Lysons, Our British Ancestors, p. 318. In the Caithness chambered cairns the external basement walls form large double concave curves where they abut on the entrances. They have, hence been designated “horns.” Mem. Anthrop. Soc. ii. 227, 241.

211 Archœlogiz, xxxviii. 410, where will be found descriptions of the remains of such peristaliths at West Kennet and Walker Hill. Peristaliths, though rare, occur in the chambered long barrows of Britany, as at Mané-Lud and Kerlescant. In those of Scandinavia they are found not only at the base, but likewise high up on the summits of the tumuli, as seen in the ground-plan of that of Hammer, in the island of Zealand. Proc. Soc. Ant. 2nd S. iii. 309.

211 Politico, viii. 2. The term used is ὀβελίσκοι.

212 As a general rule, the narrow ends of the chambered long barrows are entirely devoid of any sepulchral chambers or deposits, for which many, if not most of them have been searched in vain. In those of Charlton Abbot's and Ablington, however, cists containing skeletons, apparently contemporary with the principal chambers in the former, have been found at the narrow end.

213 For which, see the works of Worsaae, the late Lord Ellesmere, and the ground-plans by M. Boye, in Sir John Lubbock's “Pre-Historic Times,” p. 105, in Proc. Soc. Ant. 2 S. iii. 309; and lastly those in Nilsson's Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia—Stone Age, by Sir J. Lubbock, p. 124, pl. xiv. figs. 243–245. For views of gallery and chambers at West Kennet, see Archceologia, xxxviii. 411.

213 Both oval and circular chambers do, however, occur, but in all the approach is by a longer or shorter passage or gallery. Hence their Swedish name of Göng-grifter, passage or gallery tombs. Nilsson, 1. c. 147.

214 At St. Guenolé, Finisterre, there is a circular chambered barrow, with two pairs of side chambers, like those at Nympsfield and Uley. (Rev. W. C. Lukis, Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxii. 259, pl. xvii. fig. 12.) Such complex chambers, however, appear to be rare in the tumuli of Britany. They are generally very simple, often more so than that of Mané Lud, selected for illustration in Plate XIV. fig. 9.

214 Kenrick, Ancient Egypt, i. p. 121. In the chambered barrows of Scandinavia, we are told,—“At the entrance to the chamber, and sometimes also in the passage itself, it was most commonly the practice to place a door or shutter, which, if still remaining, must be carefully drawn up or out of the grooves into which it was inserted.” Sometimes this door had been of wood, and not stone, as seen by the mouldered remains. Guide to Northern Archceology, p. 101. “The pyramids are but huge petrified barrows, and the same general principle of internal construction may hold good for both.” Rev. A. C. Smith, Nile and its Banks, 1868, i. 87.

215 Archœologia, xix. 46, pl. 3.

215 Arch. Journal, xi. 319, 326.

215 Edited by the Earl of Ellesmere, 1848, p. 78.

215 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxii. 256, 262. See plate 16, figs. 6, 9, for such arched roofs, in the chambered barrows at Mané Lud and at Moustoir-Carnac, both in Morbihan, Britany. The presence of this horizontal arch, as it is technically termed, in the Pyramids of Egypt, is one of several features which would suggest the possibility of their having been the prototypes of the comparatively rude and insignificant chambered tombs of North-Western Europe. The chief passage in the Great Pyramids is roofed over with the help of eight over-lapping courses of stone; for, as Mr. S. Sharpe (“History of Egypt” and “Description of Egyptian Court,” p. 45) tells us, “though the form of the arch had been admired, its principle was not yet understood.”

216 The chambered tumulus at Fontenay, near Caen (Mem. de la Soc. des Antiq. de Normandie, 1831–33, p. 275, pl. xix.–xxii., Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond. i. 134), had ten domical chambers arranged in pairs opposite to each other, each with its gallery of approach opening on the exterior of the tumulus. The mound was circular, but the principle on which the chambers and their entrances were arranged is identical with that seen in this type of chambered long barrow.

216 Rudder's Gloucestershire, 1799, p. 306.

216 At Rodmarton the passage leading to the north chamber was constructed in the former, that to the south chamber in the second manner. At Charlton Abbot's the entrance to the two chambers (C. and D. on Plan, Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 276) were likewise formed in this latter mode, the inclosing wall dipping inwards, and leaving a passage between of about two feet in width.

217 T. D. Fosbroke, F.S.A. Encycl. Antiq. 1843, pp. 544, 547. In the Nempnet barrow there was “a perforated stone shutting up the avenue between the unmortared walls,”—another variety of the tolmen entrance.

217 From Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. ii. 277.

217 A similar method for entering the chambers is described by the Rev. W. C. Lukis in two parts of the chambered barrow at Kerlescant, in Britany. Here Mr. Lukis thinks that the hollows in the stones which, placed side by side, form the oval entrance holes, just large enough for a person to creep through (2ft. × lft. 8in. and 3ft. × lft. 6in.), are not natural, but formed by cutting away the edges of two contiguous props. See his paper “On a Chambered Long Barrow at Kerlescant, in Britany,” Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. 1868, xxiv. 40, Plates 2, 3.

217 Mem. Anthrop. Soc. i. 475; Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 278.

218 Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, &c. 1867, p. 136. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. App. vi. 119.

219 Aubrey, Mon. Brit. (MS. Bodl.) Under the head of “Sepulchres,” Aubrey here gives rude sketches of several of the chambered long barrows of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. (Comp. Wilts Arch. Mag. vii. 322.) They are chiefly interesting as showing the progressive spoliation in the course of two centuries of these curious monuments. Nearly the same may be said of the three or four sketches by Stukeley of some of the same tumuli in his “Celtic Sepulchral Monuments at Abury,” reproduced in Plate XII. 3, 4, 5. In the margin we give (by permission of the Rev. S. Lysons, F.S.A.) a small cut of the Ablington monolith.

216 For the στήλη, or pillar-stone, as the usual accompaniment of the sepulchral tumulus among the ancient Greeks, see the tomb of Elpenor in Homer, Odyss. xii. 14. Comp. Iliad, xi. 371; xvi. 457; xvii. 434.

220 In the Ordnance Map, sheets xxxiv and xxxv, several of the chambered barrows of Gloucestershire and North Wiltshire, those of Littleton Drew and Luckington amongst the. number, are laid down as “tumulus with cromlech.” See the lithographic plate of the “Tumulus with fallen Cromlech at Littleton Drew,” in Cran. Brit. pl. 24, XXV.; and Wilts. Arch. Mag. iii. 164.

220 The woodcuts in the text, showing the exact relation of these stones, have been lent by the Eev. S. Lysons from Our British Ancestors, pp. 138, 139. Another view will be found in Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. ii. 276.

220 Gents. Mag. Feb. 1822, xcii. 160. It must be remembered that the cists full of skeletons had not been discovered when Sir Richard wrote, nor, indeed, until thirty-three years later.

221 Our British Ancestors, p. 140.

221 Crania Britannica, Description of Skull from Rodmarton, Plate 59, xxvii. p. (2).

222 A trilith arranged in precisely the same fashion was found on excavating the broad east end of the ruinous chambered barrow at Lanhill near Chippenham (No. 2), Wilts. Arch. Mag. iii. 68. Possibly in this case there was originally an incumbent stone which had been removed.

222 The trilith at Littleton Drew was probably of the same character as this at Charlton Abbots. The two pillar stones remain; the stone which may have stood edgewise between them has disappeared, whilst the large slab, resting originally on the two pillars, having been undermined by the removal of the stone-like rubble, has slipped down behind them. There can be little doubt that these changes in the position of the stones were effected by the mound-breakers of a distant age, by whom the large stones were naturally mistaken for the entrance to a sepulchral chamber.

222 The bones of these five infantile skeletons were examined and classified with great care by Mr. L. Winterbotham, M.R.C.S., of Cheltenham.

222 Had the decapitated trunk been left on the battle field, or had it served for the gratification of anthropophagous tastes ? The five children's skeletons seem pretty clearly indicative of infanticide; they were, perhaps, the children of an aggressive enemy of the encroaching Belgic tribe.

222 Memoirs Anthrop. Soc. i. 474. Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 275. There were no traces of burning or of charcoal.near these four stones, as around the corresponding stones at Rodmarton. At some distance from them, however, and near the centre of the tumulus, a broken circle of stones, having a diameter of about seven feet was discovered. The soil all around was deeply impregnated with wood ashes, but no other remains were found near it.

223 As by Mr. H. Harrod, F.S.A., Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. ii. 311. I have not space here to enter into the vexed question as to the distinction between the Cromlech and the Kistvaen or subterraneous chamber. Sir R. C. Hoare repeatedly insists on the essential differences in the two structures; but these have been of late years more satisfactorily illustrated by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xvi. 116; xvii. 47; and by Mr. Du Noyer, Proceedings Kilkenny Arch. Soc. N. S. v. 474, 496. The opposite view respecting these megaliths held by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A. is maintained by that zealous explorer, in a contribution to the same journal, p. 492.

223 Primitive Inhabitants, &c. 132, 152, pl. xiv. fig. 246, compared with fig. 243. Compare Lubbock, Pre-historic Times, p. 88.

223 The entrance to “Picts' houses ” is generally by a long passage often less than two feet wide and three feet high. Archœologia, xxxiv. 127.

224 Diod. Sic. v. 21.

224 Tacitus, Germania, 16. “Subterranei specus, suffugium hiemi.” See also what Virgil says of other Northern nations, Georgic iii. 376.

224 In at least four (Table 2, Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16). I have likewise met with it in the unchambered long barrows of Fyfield (Table 1, No. 19), The cave or pit-dwellings discovered at Highfield, near Salisbury, in 1866, may have been the abode of the people by whom some of our Wiltshire long barrows were erected.

224 This peculiar morbid condition of vertebræ from the long barrows is described in Further Researches and Observations on the Two Principal Forms of Ancient British Skulls, p. 33, Mem. Anthrop. Soc. iii. 73.

224 The proof of not having been previously disturbed is finding the chambers free from earth and rubble, with which they are necessarily filled when they have once been opened by raising the covering stones, the usual method with treasure-seekers, who were ignorant of their actual construction, and of the position of their entrances.

225 See the remarks of M. Boye as to the Giant's Chamber of Magleby, in the Isle of Möen (Annaler for Nordish Oldkyndighed, 1858, p. 202, and Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, p. 106), and as to that of Hammer, in Zealand, Annaler, 1862, and Proceedings Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 310. “Some of the corpses appeared to have been buried in a sitting posture along the side stones, and others extended on the bottom.” See also Nilsson's Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, by Sir J. Lubbock, p. 128. M. Boye, however, suggests that the confused state of the bones favours the opinion that the chambered tumulus of Hammer was, in fact, an ossuary, destined to receive, not the entire bodies, but only the bones after the flesh had decayed from them. The same view is entertained by Prof. Hildebrand in regard to two chambered tumuli, one at Luttra, the other at Slöta, in Sweden, and both of which, he thinks, were ossuaries. These opinions are strongly contested by Prof. Nilsson (Primitive Inhabitants, §c. Eng. ed. 160–168); and the usually received view that the bodies were interred entire derives further confirmation from the report, in regard to Luttra, of Prof. Hildebrand's own colleague, the distinguished anatomist, Baron von Düben. See Antiquar Tidskrift för Sverige, i. 279.

226 Dr. Bird says that the burnt bones were in a separate cist on the north side of the chamber, which did not seem to have been opened before, Journ. Anthrop. Soc. iii. lxii. If so, this does not appear in Prof. Buckman's report.

226 Crania Brit. Description of Skull, pl. 59, xxvii. p. (3).

226 In the chambered barrow at Fontenay, near Caen (ante, p 214, note), there were human bones imperfectly burnt scattered amongst the skeletons.

227 Proceedings Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 315, 310. Professor Nilsson, writing of the chambered tombs of Sweden, says that no traces of burnt human bones have ever been found in them, loc. cit. p. 146. On the other hand, Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A., in describing the contents of the large chambered tumulus ar L'Ancresse, in Guernsey, expresses the opinion that “the bones were, from their position, brought to their final resting-place after the flesh had been removed by burning or some other means,” Arch. Journal, 1845, vol. i. p 149.

227 Crania Britan Description of Skull, pl. 24, xxv. p. (3). Wilts. Arch. Mag. 1856, iii. 173.

228 In the twelfth century Henry of Huntingdon, enumerating the praises of Britain, quotes the line—

“Salisbury for the chase renowned;”

confirmed in the next century by our earliest poet, Robert of Gloucester, who says—

“Most chase of wild beast about Salisbury, I wis.”

The red deer has only become extinct in the neighbouring New Forest in our own times.

230 This woodcut, as well as several others in these papers, is reproduced, through the kindness of Dr. J. Barnard Davis, from the pages of Crania Britanniva. See Proc. Soc: Antiq. 2 S. iii. 168. In this paper, at p. 171, note (b), for “Roman Barrow” read “round Barrow.”

231 No flint arrow-head with separate tang and barbs has been found in any English long-barrow; but M. Boye describes one with a tang from the chambered barrow at Hammer, in Denmark (Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 312); and Mr, Lukis obtained two with both tang and barbs from the chambered tumulus at Kerlescant, in Britany. (Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxiv. 43, pl. 4, figs. 2, 3.) What is true of one district or country in respect of these monuments is not necessarily so of another.

231 See Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 215.

231 Archœologia, xxxviii. 417, where see woodcuts of several of the fragments of pottery.

232 Since the above was written, it has been suggested by Mr. Albert Way (Arch. Camb. 3 S. xir. 284), that the chamber in the West Kennet tumulus had been appropriated as a dwelling-place by the living. This, I think, is not at all improbable, and is not inconsistent with the view in the text.

232 The pottery from the chambered barrows of Britany is of a decorated character, and to some extent resembles that from our round barrows, if we may judge from the figures in Revue Archéolog. 1865, n. s. xi. and from those given by Mr. Lukis, Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxiv. 43, pl. 5. A basin-form, however, seems to be prevalent.

232 Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1858, p. 202, and 1862, published 1864. For Magleby, see likewise Sir J. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 75, 103, figs. 86, 101–103; and for Hammer, Proceedings Soc. Antiq. 2 S. iii. 308, where is a ground-plan of the tumulus.

233 Rapport sur la Grotte Sépulchrale dans la Butte de la Tumiac, Vannes, 1853, p. 4.

234 M. de Galle's Report of the examination, as abstracted by the Rev. E. L. Barnwell, Arch. Cambrensis, 1863, 3rd s. x. 47.

234 See the ground-plan of this barrow in the paper “On the Construction of Chambered Barrows,” by the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S.A., Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. 1866, xxii. 258, pl. xv. fig. 3. Mr. Lukis has lately devoted much time to the careful survey and planning of the chambered barrows of Britany, and has been aided in the work by Sir Henry Dryden. He is of opinion that most, if not all, of the elongate tumuli of this part of France were originally circular, and enlarged by subsequent additions. He finds likewise, I believe, that the orientation of the chambers differs from that of the English ones.

234 In the course of my excavations in Wiltshire I have often found among the peasantry the notion that there is abundance of gold in the barrows. At the tumulus called Ell Barrow (Table 1. No. 15,) I was told of a dream that a gold chair was concealed in it. I need scarcely say that the dream was not verified, as was the case at the Fairies Hill, near Mold, where the gold corselet was found. Archœologia, xxvi. 425.

235 The capital of the Dobuni, the Corinium Dobunorum of Ptolemy, the modern Cirencester, is situated almost exactly in the centre of the area occupied by this tribe, and which area is likewise that of the chief distribution of chambered long barrows.

237 Ergo instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens

Aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant Manibus aræ,

Cæruleis mœstae vittis atraque cupresso,

Et circum Iliades, crinem de more solutæ.

Inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte,

Sanguinis et sacri * pateras; anitnamque sepulchro

Condimus, et magna supremum voce ciemus.

Æneid, iii. 62.

237 Læti

Dona ferunt; onerant aras, mactantque juvencos;

Ordine aëna locant alii, fusique per herbam

Subjiciunt veribus prunas, et viscera torrent.

Æneid, v. 100.

237 Id est, “de victimis sumpti.” Servius in loco.

238 Et statuent tumulum, et tumulo solemnia mittent;

Æternumque locus Palinuri nomen habebit.

Æneid, vi. 380.

The poet describes particularly the offerings in the case of the visit of Æneas to the tomb of his father Anchises, on the anniversary of his death,—“diem semper acerbum, semper honoratum,”—

Hic duo rite mero libans carchesia Baccho

Fundit humi, duo lacte novo, duo sanguine sacro,

Purpureosque jacit flores, ac talia fatur.

Æneid, v. 77.

238 Odyssey, xxiv. 80. Comp. Strabo, lib. xiii. c. 1, s. 32.

238 Plutarch, Vit. Alexandr. No doubt Alexander passed round the tomb, in the direction of the sun, from right to left. Even the rude Esquimaux, as we learn from Parry, walks slowly round the grave, in the direction of the sun, five times, and then at the last circuit stops for a few moments at the head. According to Arrian (i. 12), Alexander placed chaplets on the tumulus. Mr. Lukis (Bircham Barrows, p. 10) tells us that “on the Continent processions and superstitious rites are still performed annually round tumuli, such rites originating perhaps with a remote pagan worship.”

238 De Civ. Dei, iv. 31. The custom seems to be referred to in one of the apocryphal books, where “messes of meat set on a grave ” are spoken of. (Ecclus. xxx. 18.) When, several centuries after Augustine, many of the tribes of northern Europe had accepted Christianity, these pagan customs were everywhere prevalent. In the “Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum ” appended to the Capitulary of Carloman (a.d. 743), in the epistles of our own St. Boniface, and in the edicts of different provincial councils, such feastings and “sacrificiæ mortuorum” (Psalm cvi. 28) are repeatedly condemned. Boniface (Ep. 82) refers to sacrilegious priests who even offered oxen and goats to the pagan gods, and eat these sacrifices of the dead. In one passage of the Capitulary (vi. 197), the faithful are admonished not to join in the pagan funeral ceremonies, nor to presume to eat or drink on the barrows; “et super eorum tumulos nee manducare nee bibere præsumant.”

239 Ellis, Madagascar Revisited, 1867, p. 404.

239 Handbook for Spain.

239 Æschylus, Persæ, v. 609. See many other cases from Greek writers collected by Buckley in his note on Œdip. Colon. 998 (Bonn's Sophoc. 87), where in particular the ghosts of the dead are invoked to declare their murderers.

239 Deuteron. xviii. 11.

239 Herodot. iv. 172. The Augilæ of Pomp. Mela (i. 8,) so termed by mistake, are the same people as the Nasamones. “Augiœ.—Manes tantum Deos putant: per eos dejerant; eos ut oracula consultant; precatique, quæ volunt, ubi tumulis incubuere, pro responsis ferunt somnia.” So common was the practice that the Emperor Julian accused the Christians of magical purposes in their visits to the tombs of the martyrs, and of seeking prophetic dreams by sleeping on their tombs. Neander, Church History, Eng. ed. iii. 121.

240 Herod, v. 92, § 7.

240 Augustin. Civit. Dei. i. 40.

240 Morris, Life and Death of Jason, xv. 449.

240 Tertullian, De Anima, c. 57. “Et Celtas apud virorum fortium busta, eadem de causa (propria oracula captare) abnoctare ut Nicander affirmat.”

241 Torfæus, Orcades, c. xxiii. The story is also given from an original saga, in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 1858, ii. 279. The sagas are full of stories of attempts to make the dead speak, or of necromancy. It may also be remarked that, according to Professor Rafn's interpretation of the Runic inscriptions in the great chamber of the tumulus of Maeshow, some of these state that the “barrow was formerly a sorcery hall erected for Lodbrok.” There is at least nothing improbable in such an application of the chamber.

242 Audoëni Rotomag. Vita Eligii, ii. c. 16. Quoted by Thorpe, Mythology and Popular Traditions, 1852, i. 255, to which work I am indebted for several of the authorities I have referred to. With the passage from the Life of St. Eloy agrees one in the Collection of Decretals (Burchard, xix. 5), in which are the following questions: “Venisti ad aliquem locum ad orandum nisi ad ecclesiam, i. e. vel ad fontes, vel ad lapides, vel ad bivia, et ibi aut candelam aut faculam pro veneratione loci incendisti, aut panem, aut aliquam oblationem illuc detulisti, aut ibi comedisti?”

242 Thorpe, loc. cit. i. 257, from Vita St. Remaeli, c. 12.

242 “Lapides quos in ruinosis locis et sylvestribus dæmonum ludificationibus decepti venerantur, ubi et vota vovent et deferunt, funditus effodiantur, atque in tali loco projiciantur, ubi nunquam a cultoribus suis inveniri possiut”

243 Rudder, in his Gloucestershire (1799, p. 244), says that “Long Stone,” like Tingle Stone, stood on the top of a tumulus or barrow. When I visited the spot in 1860 the barrow was scarcely visible, and the second “short stone ” was found built into a stone wall which runs over the site of the mound, where it answers the purpose of a stile.

243 See the same custom, as regards the tolmen called Odin Stone, at Stenness, Orkney. Archœologia, xxxiv. 101. For tolmens and their uses, see a paper On Holed Stones, by Mr. R. R Brash. Gents. Mag. Dec. 1864, pp. 686–700