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XXVII.—On the Examination of a Chambered Long-Barrow at West Kennet, Wiltshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

John Thurnam Esq.
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Abstract

The investigation described in the following paper may perhaps throw some light on the nature of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as “long barrows,” which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare; but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised. In another part of his “Ancient Wiltshire,” he tells us that he and his colleague “had at length given up all researches in them, having for many years in vain looked for that information which might tend to throw some satisfactory light on their history.” In the various long barrows which were opened by these investigators, we find that, with very few exceptions, human skeletons were discovered on the floor of the barrow, at the broad, or east end, “lying in a confused and irregular manner, and generally covered with a pile of stones or flints.” The total absence of bronze weapons, of all personal ornaments, and of urns of pottery, such as were constantly found by them in the circular barrows of the same district, is repeatedly noticed by Sir Richard Hoare, who observes that “their original purport is still involved in obscurity, and a further explanation of them would be a great desideratum.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , 1861 , pp. 405 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1861

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References

page 405 note a Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 21.

page 405 note b Ibid. p. 93. Mr. Cunnington's own observations on the Long Barrows will be found in the Archæologia, vol. xv. p. 345.

page 405 note c Wilts, Ancient, vol. i. loc.cit. vol. ii. p. 110.Google Scholar Modern Wilts; Hundreds of Ambresbury, Everley, &c. 1826, pp. 54, 57. Tumuli Wiltunenses, 1829, p. 5.

page 406 note a Ancient Wilts vol. ii pp 99, 116.

page 406 note b Wilts, Ancient, Roman Era, p. 102.Google Scholar

page 406 note c Archæologia, vol. xix. p. 43. Account of a Stone Barrow at Stoney Littleton. The Chambered Tumulus at Uley, Gloucestershire, described by the writer in the Archaeological Journal, vol. xi. p. 315 closely resembles that at Stoney Littleton.

page 406 note d Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcii. Feb. 1822, p. 160. See Wilts Archæological and Natural History Magazine, 1856, vol iii. p 164, for the completed account, by the writer, of this long barrow, with its contained cists and the remarkable truth still standing at its east end

page 407 note a Since 1836, the MS of this unpublished work of Aubrey's has been preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

page 407 note b Abury, p. 46. Tab. xxxi. compare Tab. xxx. for the date; and Tab. xxi. and xxn. or distant views of the barrow. In a collection of unpublished sketches and papers of Stukeley's, which fell into the hands of Gough and are now in the Bodleian, are two or three plans and drawings of South Long Barrow, showing the position of the stones on the surface at the east end, much as they still remain.

page 408 note a Meaning no doubt the Doctor Toope, whose letter to Aubrey is preserved in his “Monumenta Britannica.”

page 408 note b Ancient Wilts, vol. ii. p. 96.

page 408 note c Proceedings Arch. Inst. at Salisbury, 1849, p. 97.Google Scholar A very similar description is that by Mr. Long, in his paper on Abury in the Wilts Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mag. vol. iv. p. 342. Mr. Long's measurements, however, are much more accurate than those of the Dean.

page 409 note a A considerable excavation was made near the West end of the Barrow, but without discovering any trace of interment.

page 409 note b In taking these measurements and in the accompanying plans, the writer had the valuable assistance of Mr. W. Hillier, Mr. J. Robinson, architect, and the Rev. W. C. Lukis, F.S A.

page 410 note a Ante, p. 406, note c. For a description of the inclosing wall of the tumulus at Littleton, Stoney, see the Rev. H. M. Scarth's paper, in Proceedings of Somerset Archæological Society, vol. viii. p. 52Google Scholar.

page 411 note a Homer, II. lib. ii. 604. Pausan. lib. viii. c. 16., λίθυ κρηπῖδι έν κύκλῳ περιεχόμενον.

page 411 note b For the sanction to excavate, the writer must express his obligation to the proprietor, the Eev. R. M. Ashe, of Langley Burrell, near Chippenham.

page 413 note a A layer of black earth was very commonly found at or near the bottom of the long barrows without chambers which were examined by Sir E. C. Hoare, and gave rise to various conjectures. Some of the black earth was analysed by Mr. Hatchett and Dr. Gibbes, eminent chemists of that day. Dr. Gibbes was of opinion that “it arose from the decomposition of vegetable matter; if,” it was said, “it had undergone the process of fire, the colour would have been converted into red, and not black.” Sir Richard conjectured that it consisted of the decayed turf on which these mounds had been raised; though, if this were tjhe case, it would be difficult to explain the absence of such a stratum in the circular barrows. Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 92. Mr. Cunnington appears to have regarded it as consisting of “charred wood and ashes,” with which, he says, the floor of the long barrow which he opened at Sherrington was covered. Archæologia, vol. xv. p. 344. Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 100.

page 413 note b Bones of the badger have been previously found in barrows. See Archæologia, vol. xxxii. pp. 358, 361. As, however, the badger is a burrowing animal, it is not always easy to determine whether its remains, so found, formed part of the original deposit. They, perhaps, rarely if ever do so.

page 414 note a That the malar bone had really been severed before burial, and probably during life, is curiously proved by an angular fragment of this bone, which remains attached to the superior maxillary, and has the same yellow colour and friable character as the rest of the skull.

page 414 note b This implement is that referred to in the Archæological Journal, vol. xvii. p 170. It is slightly concave on one side, and has some resemblance to the objects of flint found in Ireland and Denmark, which have been compared to spoons by Professor Worsaae (Afbildninger, 1854, p. 15, No. 60), and by Mr. Wilde (Catalogue of Antiquities, 1857, p. 16, fig. 8), who describes them, as “of a very unusual shape, presenting the appearance of a circular disc, with a prolonged handle, not unlike a short spoon.” Like other less perfect objects of a similar kind, (see wood-cut, p. 416, fig. 12,) they are probably knives, the prolonged thick ends of which were intended for handles, to be held between the finger and thumb, or possibly for attachment to a short wooden shaft.

page 416 note a It is a peculiarity of fractured chalk flints to become deeply and permanently stained and coloured, or to be left unchanged, according to the nature of the matrix in which they are imbedded. In most clay beds they become outside of a bright opaque white or porcelainic; in white calcareous or silicious sand their fractured black surfaces remain almost unchanged; whilst in beds of ochreous and ferruginous sands the flints are stained of a light yellow or deep brown colour.” —Prestwich, On Flint Implements, &c. Proceedings Royal Society, 1859, vol. x. p. 55.

page 417 note a These are the implements referred to in a preceding note, p. 413. In excavating what was probably a hut-circle, about two miles from Kennet, Dean Merewether, in 1849, found numerous flint objects of this description, two of which he has figured in the Salisbury Volume of the Archseological Institute, p. 106. He describes them as “pieces of flint of about l½ inch across, evidently chipped into form, as if to be held in the hand or fastened to some handle.”

page 417 note b Knives were but little used for this purpose by the rude Celtic tribes, down to a late period. In the century before our era, Posidonius describes those of South Gaul, in their feasts, as “taking up whole joints, like lions, biting off portions, and if any part proved too hard to be torn off by the teeth, they cut it with a small knife, which they had beside them in a sheath.” —Athenseus, lib. iv. c. 36. The knife, μαχαιριον, referred to by Posidonius, was probably of bronze; but at an earlier period, and by the ruder tribes, knives of flint would doubtless be those employed. Rough flakes and implements of this material, Worsaae tells us, are found in Denmark among heaps of the broken bones of animals, shells of oysters, &c, the remains, no doubt, of the feasts of the primitive Scandinavian people. —Athenaeum, Dec. 31, 1859.

page 417 note c Found at Brighthampton, Oxon. See Proceedings, vol. iv. p. 233.

page 419 note a If not at that end, it had probably been entered by raising the central cap-stone, which is much smaller than the two others, and appears to hare been broken at one side.

page 419 note b B. G. lib. vi. c. 19; Mela, lib. iii. c. 2.

page 420 note a Eawlinson's Herodotus, 1858, vol. iii. Essay 2, Ethnography of the European Scyths.

page 420 note b The passage in Herodotus (lib. iv. c. 71), though often quoted, deserves to be here given. After describing the rough embalmment of the body, and the savage cutting and maiming practised by the Scythians in token of mourning, the historian thus proceeds: “The body of the dead king is laid in the grave prepared for it, stretched upon a mattress; spears are fixed in the ground on either side of the corpse, and rafters stretched across above it to form a roof, which is covered with a thatching of osier twigs. In the open space around the body of the king, they bury one of his concubines, first killing her by strangling her, and also his cup-bearer, his cook, his groom, his lacquey, his messenger, some of his horses, firstlings of all his other possessions, and some golden cups, for they use neither silver nor brass. After this they set to work and raise a vast mound above the grave, all of them vying with each other, and seeking to make it as high as possible.”

page 420 note c Herod, lib. v. c. 5.

page 420 note d The human victims of the Gauls, from the observation of whose death-throes future events were predicted, were slaughtered by striking with a sword on the back, above the diaphragm. —Diodorus, lib. v. c. 31; Strabo, lib. iv. c. 4, s. 5.

page 420 note e Hoare, Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 87.

page 421 note a Archæologia, vol. xix. p 48; Ancient Wilts, vol. i. p. 163.

page 421 note b Crania Brit. No. 24, p. 3. Wilts Arch. & Nat. Hist. Mag. vol. iii. p. 172.