146 OBJECTS BURIED WITH THE DEAD. 



Denmark, the breadth, taking the length at 100, varied from 

 71*8 to 857, or no less than 14 per cent* 



The care with which the dead were interred, and the 

 custom of burying implements with them, have been regarded 

 by some archaeologists as proving the existence of a belief 

 in the immortality of the soul, and in a material existence 

 after death. "That the ancient Briton," says Dr. Wilson,^ 

 " lived in the belief of a future state, and of some doctrine 

 of probation and of final retribution, is apparent from the 

 constant deposition beside the dead, not only of weapons, 

 implements, and personal ornaments, but also of vessels 

 which may be presumed to have contained food and drink. 

 That his ideas of a future state were rude and degraded, is 

 abundantly manifest from the same evidence." 



The objects buried with the dead are sometimes numerous, 

 and always instructive. In a large tumulus, near Everley, a 

 deposit of burnt bones was " surrounded by a circular wreath 

 of horns of the red-deer ;" whilst at a higher level, though 

 three feet from the summit, was the skeleton of a small dog, 

 the " attendant in the chase, and perhaps the victim in death," 

 of the hunter, whose exquisitely chipped arrow-heads, five in 

 number, were deposited with his ashes." J 



But it is very far from being "constantly" the case 

 that the dead were so well supplied with what we call the 

 necessaries of life ; indeed, it is quite the exception and not 

 the rule ; so that if we are to apply the evidence of the 

 tumuli in this manner, we must, I think, come to a con- 

 clusion exactly the reverse of that stated by Dr. Wilson. 

 Thus, out of more than 250 interments described by Sir K. 

 Colt Hoare in the first volume of his great work on Ancient 

 Wiltshire, only 18 had any implements of stone, only 31 of 

 bone, 67 of bronze, and 11 of iron; and while pottery was 



* Busk, Vogt's Lectures on Man, t 1. c. vol. i. p. 498. 

 p. 384. Archseologia, 43, p. 536. 



